Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Waterparks New

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Hi.

And today we have crazy stories from the water park.

You think you're gonna get E. coli, you know, that's what you think you're gonna get.

Did anyone get that? Well, there was a— some kind of a pathogen.

There wasn't E. coli that was confirmed.

Yeah, yeah, but anything that could go wrong does go wrong in our crazy water park episode. Please enjoy. Hello. Hi, Josh.

How are you guys?

Good. We just noticed that on your little Zoom login You have a still from the claymation or stop-motion. I guess it's not claymation, but the stop-motion Christmas.

Yes, it's one of my favorite Christmas time movies. And clearly I'm behind on updating my profile picture.

Which one is it? Is it Rudolph?

No. So that's Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.

Ah, that's the one that got you. How do you feel about Rudolph? Is that in the running?

That one's good. A Year Without a Santa Claus. Oh, not a big Frosty the Snowman guy.

That's a pass for you. You like stop-motion?

I do, yes.

Yeah. And where do you live, Josh?

I currently live in Connecticut.

Oh, okay. This is our first call from the East Coast today. Yeah, that's exciting. Does your story take place on the East Coast?

It does. My story takes place at Lake Compounce Amusement Park.

Oh, well, really quick, were you close to New York or far from New York?

I'm pretty much like dead center.

Is ESPN around you?

Yes, actually, ESPN is in the same town as Lake Compounce.

Oh, okay, great. I just found my bearings.

That was good.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I was one time to bore you in New York, and we had to do a bunch of press, and then one of the things was like, get in the car at 6, and then I got in, we're going to ESPN, and I think it'll be in, in Times Square or whatever, Rockefeller Center.

Yep.

No, 3-hour car ride, we're going to Midstate Connecticut. You don't soon forget that. But what was this theme park that was the big summer destination? Was it just water park or was it everything?

So it's everything. It's actually the oldest continuously operating amusement park in the country. But yeah, it's really great. It's kind of a quaint place. It's right on a lake, and they have some really awesome roller coasters and amusement park rides. And then I actually worked in the water park, and that's where my story takes place.

Oh, okay, great. I do love how all of us feel so much love and affinity for whatever amusement park we grew up with.

Yeah.

So like, of course, if that were mine, I would know that it was the oldest. That would be my claim.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you like, oh, Cedar Point has the most roller coasters.

Yeah, Lake Compounce also has one of the best wooden roller coasters in the the world. And so I worked at Lake Compounce. My wife also worked at Lake Compounce at the same time, and she was the one that operated that ride.

Oh, okay, big responsibility.

So if you're ever in Connecticut, definitely try to go on Boulder Dash. That's the ride.

Oh, okay. I do love a wooden roller coaster. Yeah, that's my favorite. Okay, but alas, you were working there— what grade were you in?

So I had just finished my sophomore year of college. This was a summer job. I was a water park attendant. I was the guy on top of the water slide helping people go down the slide, making sure they get out okay, and sending the next batch. I had nowhere near the responsibility that the lifeguards had. I was just sending people down the slide.

You're in charge of the gap too. Yeah, I'd imagine.

Yeah, I'm making small talk with the guests. It was a lot of fun.

I hate to be a perv, but you're talking to chicks in bikinis and stuff. That's got to be fun. You're a young man.

Girlfriend operating the wooden roller coaster.

You still see the girls in bikinis even when you have a girlfriend.

It made me realize, replaying the story in my head, the water park is like such a vulnerable place for things to go wrong.

Oh yeah.

I know.

You're pretty much naked and things are going wrong.

Yes.

And so it adds this whole crazier element.

You're wet and naked.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-mm.

Mm-mm. And I'm just up there with like a whistle being like, okay, next.

Yeah.

It was a beautiful summer day and I was working what I think is probably the biggest and the most popular water park ride at Lake Compounce called Mammoth Falls. And it is a huge green tube. 6 people sit in a big yellow raft. The queue line for this ride can be like an hour, 2 hours long, especially on a busy day.

Whoa.

And when you enter this ride, you kind of walk down a path almost in the woods. And then there is a like 4 or 5 story tall tower of stairs. You climb all the way to the top to get to the top deck. And so that's where I am. And everything's going smooth. A family of 4 comes up. It's their turn to get to the raft. And I'm all alone up there, so I'm helping this family. Everything's normal. But then out of the corner of my eye, I notice a little bit of a commotion. And it was a woman and an 8-year-old girl kind of pushing their way up to the top of this deck. In the moment, I didn't really think much of it, and I usually didn't intervene when people were cutting the line unless people around them started to really make a stink about it. But no one was saying anything. They were kind of just letting this happen. So I just ignored it, was focusing on the family in front of me, getting them ready to go down the slide. Next thing I know, let's say their mother and daughter, they are jumping into the raft.

Oh, they have made their way to the top and now they are inserting themselves with this family of 4. And again, like, I wasn't really thinking much in that moment and there were 2 open seats. And I think if it was at capacity, I would have been like, please wait. But there were two open seats and they just jumped in and I thought maybe they were confused and they can join.

Now, to try to be really generous to them and make a good argument for them, do you think it's possible that they were operating under the protocol of like a ski chairlift where it's like if you're a single, you know, you can get in that singles line? They're like, well, we're not six, so clearly there's going to be a gap for two. Is that possible? Or they were just assholes?

Well, it's kind of part of the story.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Usually it's the stairs and then right at the top of the stairs where you enter the top deck, there is kind of a barrier that is set up so that people aren't just flooding this top deck. Because also at the top deck, there's a pretty large pool with about a foot of water, and that's where the raft goes. And then it just filters down the tube. So usually most of the people are all on the stairs. So we really didn't experience people kind of going past that until it was their turn.

Gotcha.

And so I am ready to send this group of 6 down the slide. And it was almost as like just as I let go of the raft, I get a better look at the mother and daughter, and they were completely covered in vomit.

Oh!

No!

As you really enter the tube, there's like a waterfall that kind of splashes you.

Yeah.

And I just remember seeing the vomit splashing off of them and filling the inner part of this raft.

Oh! Ew!

It was bad. And then they just— disappear into the darkness. They're on their way. And so I start panicking because my first thought is, oh my gosh, we're gonna have to close down this ride. And the line is long, and that's the worst thing to have to do to people is be like, you've waited all this time and now we're shutting down the ride. So I quickly go and grab the phone that is at the top of this deck to call down to the lifeguard. I don't know if this is a Universal thing, but at Lake Compounds, any kind of vomit situation, we called it a rainbow.

Oh, all right.

And so I called down to the lifeguard. I said, hey, we got a rainbow. I don't know what's about to come out of this slide, but we're gonna have to shut down the ride. I'm gonna close the queue line. I'm gonna call the manager.

What is protocol? Like, what happens when that's flagged?

Usually it's scooping it out. It kind of depends on the severity of the situation. Sometimes it's kind of a temporary pause, like, let's clean it up, make sure it's okay. I remember being told that the raft at the bottom was covered. So that raft had to get pulled. But yeah, we did end up shutting down the ride. But I'm on the phone talking to the lifeguard, and I'm kind of looking down. I'm away from the queue line, and I get a tap on the shoulder, and I turn around, and there is a large gentleman, shirtless, standing in front of me. He is covered in vomit.

What the fuck is going on? This is a horror movie.

Yes, he's very distressed. And then I see A few more people start to push their way up this staircase onto the top deck.

What?

With some amount of vomit all over them.

Oh, what is going on?

I'm panicking. Everyone looks horrified. And I asked the guy, like, what happened? What's going on? And all he said was, it came from up above.

Yes, it was booting over the side.

Oh, what happened was this little girl waiting, whether whether it was a heat-related thing or feeling sick, she pretty much made it to the top of the deck, felt sick, leaned over, threw up all over everyone below her.

Oh man. Oh my God, that surpasses— I've been pooped on by a bird on the Santa Monica Promenade. That's rough, but I can't imagine getting hit in the face with vomit from a bird.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

It helps that it was a little girl. If I gotta pick who I'm getting vomited on, I think that's my pick.

And I think for those Folks, it was either let me leave this line and go to the bathroom, or I'm coming to the top to try to wash myself off.

That would be my instincts. Like, I, I need to get in the water now. Was he really covered? Like, it sounds like it was a tremendous amount of puke.

He was covered. Oh, my first thought was maybe this girl threw up and it got on people next to her, but you know, he was covered.

It was a mess. And then of course he wants to jump in the water.

Yeah, so I have all these people, they're jumping into this little pool with foot of water, splashing himself. She's desperately trying to get it off.

It's chaos.

And my first response was to be like, you gotta get out, it's not safe, you're gonna fall in the slide. But they didn't care. They were like, I need to clear myself off.

Also, there was vomit in the water already, so it's like, uh, the top of the deck was a mess.

So I ended up having to clear the whole line, shut down the ride.

Oh my God, what a disaster.

Do you think people got free passes for that?

Circumstances like that, there would definitely be some sort of voucher that people can receive.

You would hope. Yeah, it kind of ruined the trip to the water park to get thrown up on. That's disgusting. What a wonderful mystery though. The first one's like, what's going on here? They're pushy.

We think something's wrong with them.

Yeah, they're bitchy. And then also, oh, they've puked, so they just want to get down before she pukes again. No, still not the right.

I'm surprised they didn't say like, hey, there's a situation.

Someone's puking from above. Yeah.

The mother and daughter when they got in.

That's what was strange to me too. It's not like they got at the top of the deck and they're like, hey, we're really sick, like we need help. I'm getting on this slide and I'm leaving. I'm going down.

Fuck decorum. Yeah.

Do you think they were the cause of it?

One of the guests said that they saw the girl throw up over the edge.

That—

oh, the girl who ran to the top.

It was not good. And the worst part is that ride is so fun because working in this water park, you had a rotation of rides you worked. And so once you were done with your like hour block of working on a ride, you go to the next one. And I would always hop on the raft with a family and like ride it down to go to the next one. Yeah, but that one had to shut down the ride. I had to get a bag of cat litter, go down the steps, clean up all the spots that had vomit on it and make my way to the next ride.

That slide was probably down for the day.

Yeah, it was.

We didn't get that back up and running.

Take a minute.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, grody.

I hate thinking about what goes on in these public environments.

And to Josh's first point, they were exposed, they were nude, so it was getting all over their skin. It wasn't like on their shirt that they could take off.

It's on their thighs, in their mouth maybe.

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah.

How long did you work there?

I was there for 2 summers.

Did you want to work there forever?

Nope, it was just a summer job.

Okay.

There are so many stories at this water park.

Were there poop incidents? Did people have unauthorized evacuations?

I never actually saw or dealt with that.

Oh, that's good.

That's encouraging, because that's E. coli, you know, that's an E. coli scare.

That's a mess. There would be a few times where that would happen in the pools. That's when you really have to drain the whole pool. But I never, like, dealt with that firsthand.

I went to a water park on the outskirts of Seattle, and I was wearing a pair of shorts that I had been wearing way too many summers. I was probably my 5th summer in these shorts. So they were with my friend Colleen. Yeah, they were really kind of thin, and we went down one of really tall, like 45-degree angle, really fast, you know, cross your legs type slides. Yeah, yeah. And dueling slides were next to each other and we go down and then we get into the water and then we come out of the water and we're getting the water out of our hair and then we just start walking. And then all of a sudden— and we walk for a minute and she goes, oh my God, my entire butt cheeks were out. It had ripped the whole back of my fucking shorts off. And again, I left all my clothes in the car. I didn't want to get a locker or anything, so I entered in just that swimsuit. So I had to walk through the park with my hands over my butt crack and go back out to the car. You should kind of walk behind me.

You're pretty self-conscious about your butt crack.

Yeah. Uh-huh. So if that happened to me, I can only imagine. I bet there's a ton of swimsuit disasters there.

Oh, all the time.

Oh, thanks for sharing.

Yeah. Thanks, Josh.

Of course. Do you mind if I bring my wife on to say hi?

Yeah, let's talk to her.

She's the one that got me into the podcast. She was a listener way before me.

Oh, she's wearing a robot.

Hi.

Yeah, I'm wearing the robot.

It looks so cute.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. We heard you worked the tallest, fastest wooden roller coaster.

That's right, I sure did.

Yeah, anything exciting happen there? I mean, people must have come back in all kinds of states of mind.

Oh, absolutely. We saw a lot of things on that roller coaster because that was the destination for the park. So you got a lot of people who would travel from across the country. We'd have roller coaster enthusiasts that would come to ride this particular wooden roller coaster. So it was cool. You got to see all different types of people. Some having really great days, some not so much because they were very scared.

Did you get promoted to that position? Like, that's like the best position you can have in the park.

No, that's the first one I had.

Wow, first and last.

I think I just got lucky. But it was fun because we were working there at the same time and we were dating, and so we sometimes would get lunch together or he'd wave at me.

Oh, and then you get PQs.

I like it. Well, it's nice meeting both of you.

Yes, likewise. Thank you guys so much having us.

Take care. Hi.

Hi. Hi.

Oh my gosh, so nice to meet you guys.

Abby, where are you?

So I am in Boston right now.

Okay, that feels right for you. Yeah, that would have been a top 3 guess for me. Really? Yeah, you look Irish to me. Are you Irish?

Definitely, yes.

Yeah, definitely very fucking Irish.

Yeah, plays into the story just the tiniest bit.

Oh, wonderful.

Okay, well, please take us through your water park experience.

Okay, so, well, so first I want to say I was born and raised in Wisconsin, so I really hope you guys get some story from Wisconsin Dells because It is the water park capital of the world, and sadly my story is not from there.

Oh, okay. Now we did just talk to someone from Wisconsin, but they had pooped their pants. That's why we talked to them.

That was different.

On a tubing trip. Did you ever go tubing in Wisconsin?

Not in Wisconsin, but lots of good water adventures there.

Okay, great.

Wisconsin is what I would have guessed.

Okay, well, you would be right.

It makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, you should have said that first.

I know, but I'm just so shy.

Yeah, she's so timid and afraid.

Yeah, I've noticed that about you.

Okay, so not in Wisconsin know this water park story.

Yes. So my story takes place in Bali.

Oh.

Summer of 2019, I just finished my freshman year of college. And so I got the opportunity to work in a lab in Singapore with a bunch of other university students. It was like the opportunity of a lifetime. So I was like, okay, if I'm going to be in Singapore all summer and being paid to be there, like I wanted to travel every single weekend.

Yeah.

And what kind of lab are we talking about?

It was antimicrobial resistance bacteria kind of lab. One of the places that we went to was Bali. I did a long weekend girls trip there, and it was as fun as you could like possibly imagine. Acai bowls every day, walking on the beach, surfing, hiking, all the amazing things you imagine about Bali. That's what that trip was.

Was it so hot though? I went one time, and I think it is in the top 3 prettiest places I've ever been in my life, but also it's the hottest place I've ever felt in my life.

Well, so since I'd been living in Singapore for a few months at that time and kind of like acclimated. It didn't feel too bad because Singapore is like 100 and 100 humidity every day. So yeah, it's brutal.

Yeah, I was on a cruise ship and when we got off the cruise ship to get on the little tender to go over to Bali, it was like walking into a blast furnace. It was just like, oh my God, this is overwhelming.

Yeah, that's about right. So the first day we went surfing, and this is important because I got sunburnt over like my entire backside. 50% of my body was completely sunburnt.

For the listener, Abby very fair-skinned, blonde hair.

In my defense, I did put on sunscreen, but I think I wasn't that good at surfing, so I did a lot more like tumbling than riding the waves, and I think that maybe contributed to the sunscreen coming off a bit too quickly. So then the day that the story takes place, we had a driver because that was cheaper than having like a taxi or anything, and he suggested this kind of like cool, slightly off-the-beaten-path little water place for us to go to. And so We drove through the rice paddies and these, like, pepper fields and stuff, and all of a sudden you are in the Indonesian jungle, and it's, like, so beautiful and green all around.

Yeah.

And there's this huge gorge that goes through, and the gorge is 2 to 3 stories high, the walls for most parts, and this black-gray stone. So it's this, like, super cool, shady vibe where, like, the vines are hanging down onto the rocks. And then they basically have it set up as this natural water park.

Like a flume? Like you're going through, like, carved out of volcanic rock?

Yeah, exactly. And there's like water flowing through there.

Made for Instagram.

Yes. Oh, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Unfortunately, I was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt because I was too sunburnt. So no good Instagram pics that day, but it was so fun nonetheless. Our guide was super nice and we were walking through and there's some places where the water's like ankle deep and you're kind of just hiking and there's some places where it's like chest deep. And so you're kind of like grabbing onto your friends, pulling them through the current and like climbing over the rocks. And some places where the water is like deep enough for you to climb up the rocks and like jump into the water and like cliff dive, kind of.

Oh, this is heaven.

It was heaven. And our guide was really encouraging us to be brave and jump and have a good time, so I really appreciated that. And then the other part that I thought was really cool was that the water inside the gorge was all fresh water. And having spent the whole summer in that Southeast Asia region, everything is like salt water. And being a Wisconsin girlie, I really like that fresh water feeling. It just feels nicer on my skin. I like it. It feels like at home for me. So I remember that being distinctly nice about being there.

Yeah, yeah. I'm a freshwater guy too. The fresh coast.

Yeah, I love it. So now we fast forward 6 years.

Oh.

And this Bali trip and the time at the natural water park are just kind of like a distant fond memory. And I think about the water park, oh, like that was like such a cool little adventure that we went on, whatever. But so it was 2025 and I was having really bad issues with pretty constant stomachaches. Like every single day I have a stomachache. I'm curled over. I feel so bad. I'm going to work pretending everything's fine, but it's really not. I feel horrible. And so I'm seeing my PCP. I'm seeing a GI doctor.

What's a PCP?

Primary care physician.

Oh, great.

So I'm seeing them. I'm doing so many blood tests. I even got a colonoscopy. So kind of crazy that I can relate to your colonoscopy stories at age 26.

Yeah.

But so we kind of did everything and eventually we're sort of like, like grasping for straws. And my GI doctor asked me if I'd ever been to Southeast Asia or Africa.

Oh.

I said I had been, but it was like 6 years ago, so probably irrelevant. And then she asked if I'd ever been in freshwater there. And now I think back to the water park.

No. No.

And it turns out I, for 6 years, had had microscopic parasitic worms in my system. Oh!

Also the irony that you were there doing antimicrobial work in Singapore.

This feels unfair. The microbes were like, "Oh, you wanna fuck with us?" Wait, what if the microbes actually got in from the lab?

It's so gross. They literally swim into your skin in the water.

Really?

Ew! Flesh-eating worms.

So wait, do they— Okay, I have a lot of questions, and you seem perfectly suited to answer them on a biological level. Do you think the people that live there and interact with that water all the time, are they all just infested with these worms, or do they somehow have some other microbe in their body that's keeping that that in check? What's going on with those folks?

Yeah, so I did some research on it, and there's at any given time like 200 million people in the world that actually have this. So it's super common, but it's not common for a tourist because you're not usually in that type of water. But like a lot of the young kids who are like bathing in that water or drinking from that water, like using that water for different things, they're getting this parasite. And there's an anti-parasitic drug to get rid of but for me personally, I didn't have the early signs that I had the parasite because the early signs are fatigue, rash, and really itchy skin. But I had a rash over 50% of my body from my sunburn. Oh, literally, it was so gross. All of my skin peeled off within a few weeks because it was so badly sunburnt. And so I was super, super itchy after I had gotten this sunburn. So I had kind of like rashes and I had really itchy skin, but it didn't really tip me off that it was something like that. I was like, "Well, obviously I'm just got a sunburn." Yeah.

This should be in the textbook for correlation versus causation.

Definitely. So I need to know about the treatment, but was your first thought was like, "Okay, all the girls on the trip, I need to call them and find out if they have this." Yeah, I was actually having like a college reunion with them a few weeks later, so it was kind of the perfect opening line conversation starter with them being like, "Just so you know, like I've had this parasite for 6 years." Oh my God. "If you think you might have it, talk to your doctor." Did anyone say they were having stomach issues?

Stomach issues or no?

No one else said that they ended up getting it, but I might have also been more susceptible, like, with the sunburn, because it really hurts your skin barrier. So probably wasn't as good with my defenses as they were at that time.

And what's the name of the actual parasite you had?

Oh, I'm gonna butcher the pronunciation, but it's like schistosomiasis, something like that.

Oh, shit, shit, some isis. Boom!

Exactly.

And what's the treatment?

There's pills you take, but it's very specific, the amount of pill you take too. So I had to go to the doctor and get weighed before I got prescribed the pills, and I had to take exactly 3.75 pills.

Wow.

And so like the pharmacist gave me 4 and I literally had to like chip off part of one of them and take the exact right amount for my body weight.

So how long did it take before you felt better? And then a really gross question, do you pass them? Are they in your stool? Can you see them?

Yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah. So I got better like pretty much immediately after you take the pills. It's like pretty much done within the next day or so, which is really nice. But yeah, you kind of like pass it through your stool. And the crazy thing is they can live in you for way longer than 6 years. Like, it could live in you for up to like 3 decades. What? Oh, I know, it's so crazy. So I think I was probably pooping some out over time, but they just keep reproducing and stuff like that, so I didn't really like know to look for them.

Okay, last question, just because I'm a little too into the microbiome. Did the treatment also kill off a lot of your good microbes, and did you have to repopulate? Was there collateral damage in this?

I didn't have to like do anything. I wasn't recommended to do anything, and you maybe want to know if you're like damaging your microbiome. Just be happy with the fix that you got.

Yeah, like don't worry about the water leak if the roof's on fire situation.

Yeah, get rid of these worms that entered through your skin.

As soon as you say worms, it takes it to another— I was preparing myself for a tapeworm story. Once you said 6 years later, I'm like, okay, she got some.

I thought you had Zika.

Oh no, thankfully no. Isn't that from mosquitoes?

I don't know, but it's in those areas.

Uh-huh.

Scary.

But you're now healthy as a horse, thankfully.

You know, knock on wood.

God, I'm trying to decide how I move forward having heard this story. How many other gals were with you in this excursion?

3 other girls.

So 25% chance. Yeah. And I'm trying to think if I would still do it.

Go there.

Yes, I want to see it. Sounds so fun. Was it so fun?

It was so fun. And honestly, it seems like based on the number of people that get it every year, you probably would get it.

Oh my God.

If you get a rash and you get itchy and it's not from a sunburn, yeah, then that's like a good tip to like go to your doctor. It's worth it. I think it's worth the risk, guys.

Please, no, no. Yeah, I recommend it too.

I'd like to be on record saying I do not recommend doing this.

Well, Abby, what a story.

I'm so glad you figured it out.

And I guess the Irishness did come to play in the sunburn.

Yeah.

How do you do with anesthetic? Any wild experiences?

Oh my gosh, it honestly is so bad. I've had issues with like a gum graft where it wasn't anesthetized enough, and post-colonoscopy, I like threw up everywhere. Oh no.

Wow.

So you can't— it's not good for you.

Yeah, it's not good.

But maybe you threw up because worms were in your body. We could start looking back and worms could be caused of everything.

Yeah, if you didn't file your taxes in 2022, could have been the worms.

It could have.

Exactly, exactly.

Oh wow.

Well, Abby, it's so delightful to meet you.

Thank you. Well, I really appreciate it. And I just want to give one quick shout out to my fiancé Ethan. He is the funniest, kindest, most handsome, amazing cat dad ever.

Oh, we love you.

And exactly one month from today, he is going to become my husband. Yay! I have to shout him out for that. Congratulations.

April showers bring May wedding.

Exactly.

That's what they say.

Well, congratulations, and we wish you a ton of luck on this union. And he sounds like a babe, and I'm happy for you.

Thank you so much.

All right, nice meeting you, Abby.

Bye-bye.

Hi.

Hi, Deidre.

Where are you in the country?

I'm near Lake Norman in North Carolina, Huntersville.

Okay, is that closer to Raleigh or to Charlotte?

Charlotte.

And do NASCAR people live on that lake?

I've heard NASCAR, basketball, country stars.

Oh Nice place to be. I follow a few NASCAR drivers and I see them on their cool boats on the lake, and I bet it's that lake.

Yeah, they have like helicopters on some of the houses around here, little planes. We just have an SUV.

Okay, well, that's all one needs. Okay, so you have a water park story.

It's taken me a lot of years to tell it. So 2013, we were on family vacation. My kids were 6 and 10. They are now 19 and 23. They begged us, can we go to a water park? It's not my husband and my favorite thing to do, but we thought, you know what, what the how bought tickets went. So we're about halfway through the day. It's time to go to the tallest, biggest, darkest water slide they have. And I want to talk about the version of myself at that point in 2013. This is very important. I'm thick now, but I was an extra, extra thick piece of bacon then. That's very important.

Okay.

Okay.

We climb up the 17,000 stairs, we get to the top. There's about 5 families in front one of us, and I get instant diarrhea. I look at my husband and I am like, I've got to go, I've got to go now. So I go down the stairs as fast as I can. I'm like prairie dog in the hallway. Please do not let me shit in this swimsuit. Will ruin the whole day. I get to the bathroom, we walk in and it is like a watery grave in there. They have not taken care of the floors.

No, it's disgusting.

It's crazy. So I'm carefully trying to get to the stall, but at that time, and you may remember this, really was in style, was these like foam wedge shoes that were kind of like flip-flops, which I wore. My husband is 6'5", I'm 5'7", kind of always trying to be a little taller. I have that on. I have a cover-up and a full-piece bathing suit. You guys, I get to the stall, I lock the door.

I'm like, God, you consider just pulling it to the side? Because what a panic. Like, I feel like having to get out of a one-piece versus just pull it to the side.

I actually had that thought, and I was like, if I get shit on myself, I will gag.

Yeah. Okay.

I can't do it.

Okay. You're sensitive to this whole—

Also, yeah, it does run the risk of it getting more places.

Yeah.

And you want to be clean. So took it off, sit down, like, thank God, did what I needed to do, right?

Really quick, I do need a little more detail, unfortunately. Do you think all the motion of the day? Did you drink some pool water? Had you eaten something dicey? Was it a flu? How do we explain this?

I think it was what I chose to eat mixed with an alcoholic beverage. It doesn't take me a lot. Okay, one drink, I'm done. So it's time to lean in. Now let's talk about the size, okay? I want to get a clean wipe, guys. I have a long torso, short arms, So I am now on my tiptoes, leaning forward, go to get a great wipe. You guys, when I do, I slip. I fall.

No.

Oh, oh, it gets worse.

Yeah. And you're bare naked.

Bare naked. Okay. But behind a stall.

Oh, there's nothing grosser to me in the world than a wet fucking bathroom floor. When you go to a public pool or a campground, it is the worst.

It is disgusting. So I'm on my knees in a prayer, but my legs are wide open. As the universe would have it? There is a woman walking on the other side of this stall who falls flat on her back—

no!

Her foot comes up underneath my stool and her toes go into my vagina.

No way! What the fuck?!

I swear to God.

Oh my god, what timing! She was barefoot in the bathroom.

Ah, she knows what she touched. Ugh! I know what she's touching. And we're in shock together.

Talk.

I'm getting up and I'm like, um, are you okay?

Yeah, are you okay?

We're just talking through the door. He leaves and I'm like, I don't even fucking know what just happened.

Yeah, I would go to the car if I were you. That'd be a wrap on the day for me. I just almost shit my suit, I fell on a wet floor, a stranger's toes went in my vagina. I mean, this is, this is impossible.

It is impossible. And so I do what I need to do. I clean up, I get my suit back on. I'm like, I'm not coming out of this stall. Like, I don't want to see her. I to be like far, far, far away from the bathroom. And all of a sudden I hear, ma'am, we're going to need you to come out. The other party and you need to fill out an incident report. And I was like, no, oh no, my God. I was like, I'm good. I don't need to follow. Yeah, for liability reasons, you need to fill out an incident report.

Oh, you got to be on record. A paper trail of this.

Out I come. I see the lady basically I just had sexual relations with.

Yeah.

Well, what kind of girl was she? What age was she?

In her 40s, I would guess.

Okay, a little older. Okay.

She had her whole crew there. I was solo. I have to tell my story. She has to tell her story. I finally get out of the bathroom. 30 minutes. My family is waiting for me. My husband is like, what the hell happened? He's like, you look traumatized. I was like, fucking think. I tell him. He dies laughing. But instead of comforting me, He said, oh my God, I hope she didn't have athlete's feet.

Sure, it crossed my mind as a guy. I didn't say it.

I'm already concerned about a possible yeast infection.

I was about to say UTI, right?

I had him swear to secrecy that day. Do not ever, ever tell this story. It took him about 3 years, and we were at like a cookout on July 4th, and he's all tipsy. Yeah, he's like, hey guys, Judy wants to tell you a water park story. That was in 2016, and it has been told so so many times. I hope the lady whose foot went in my vagina hears this and calls you.

What could be better? Like, we have one last caller and it's from Madison. It could be—

I mean, I hope—

fingers, toes crossed.

Please message me back. We started off on the wrong foot, I guess. Her and I, maybe we can have a nice little date or something.

That's insane.

I don't know how I would recover. Honest to God, the foot in the vagina to me is so secondary to being on the wet ground naked in a background.

She was on it.

Her feet were in that water.

Her feet were on it.

What are the chances? Hence the title When I wrote in, I was like, I was towed at a water park. But it's like, how does that happen? I have tried to figure out just how in the world the timing—

it might be a glitch in the sand.

It does.

It sounds like something possible, like a true glitch.

A true glitch.

Yeah, they happen sometimes.

CPU overheating.

Sorry, my dad.

I'll talk to them about this.

Your kids, were they aware of the story?

Not at that age, but as they got older, they did. And it's been repeated. I meet my daughter's adult friends and they're like, can you please tell the Water park story.

Well, they owe you. You didn't want to go to the water park, you went, and then you got footed.

I got towed.

Wow.

Oh wow, what a banger. That's fantastic. You know, we thought we were getting water park and it was unauthorized evacuation. Yeah, slip and fall. Tell us about a time you got a stranger's foot in your vagina.

It was the first time I'd ever had a foot in my vagina.

Wow, wow, wow.

What if you ended up really liking it and then it started becoming a kink?

Oh man, part 2, part 2. Yeah, exactly. Oh, well, it's a to meet you. Hey, great to meet you guys. Thanks for having me.

You're clearly a lot of fun. I'm happy for your kids. They got a clearly a very fun mom.

We like to have fun. My husband's not too bad either.

6'5", he's got no choice. You can't be a wallflower at 6'5". You gotta own it.

He owns it. Monica, your podcast, Beth's Dead, best thing ever. I just want to tell you that.

So happy you liked it.

It was the Beth thing ever. Thank you for listening. Send our love to your family. All right, bye. Great meeting you.

Great to meet you guys.

Hi.

Hi, is this Madison?

It is.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

How did you pick Madison?

It's an ode to a good friend, and I hope she appreciates it.

Where are you at?

I am in Massachusetts.

Great, that's our second one today.

Oh yeah, I wonder if it's the same water park. I wouldn't be surprised.

What was the name of this one.

This is called Water Wizz on Cape Cod.

No, no, that's new. This is novel. Okay, set the scene for us. What year is it? Walk us through it.

All right, the year is 2007, and I'm an awkward 15-year-old girl, which is really crucial to this story. So I was at Water Wizz near Cape Cod with my best friend and her family, and I was wearing this like cutesy bikini. And in the middle of the water park is this giant black enclosed slide. It's like at least 50 feet tall. It's known for giving notorious wedgies. And if you've ever seen the movie Grown Ups with Adam Sandler, then like you've seen it.

Okay, okay. And this one, you're in an entirely enclosed tube, right? And you're flying, turning, and then the fiberglass with the seams are cutting your back.

All of the above.

Are you on a mat?

Nope, straight body down. And there's always like teenage boys, you know, at the bottom looking to sneak a peek of someone's butt cheek because the wedgies are part of the ride.

Also, people are probably losing their tops occasionally.

Absolutely.

Also, some people just take them off in there.

Well, I know, maybe.

Okay, so I go plummeting down the slide and I get more than just the wedgie I bargained for. I get to the bottom and I immediately know something's wrong because I have this intense pain in the bottom area of my bathing suit and I can barely stand up.

Oh no. Okay, now really quick, is the pain in your butt or your vagina?

So that's the to be determined. So I go to the bathroom and there's like some blood.

Oh no. Monica's very sensitive to these vagina stories, like the woman who fell in the movie. I know, I think about it all the time.

Being 15 is really like a crucial part of this story. And I had no idea what was happening, just like this general throb. And I was like a very inexperienced 15-year-old girl at the time. So I laugh to my friend and tell her that I popped my cherry.

Okay, sure, sure.

And we're just like convinced, because when you're 15, you hear it can happen like riding a horse or like other things. So I was like, this is my experience. It happened on Pirate's Plunge. So I tell nobody except her. This is like our little secret that I popped my cherry on Pirate's Plunge at Water Wizz.

Really quick, Madison, does the bleeding stop, or did you have to put like a bird's nest of toilet paper in there? Where were we at with the bleeding?

I definitely put some toilet paper in there, but it's not like a heavy bleed.

Okay, at the time.

So I tell obviously no one, and days later I can tell that it's definitely my asshole that's hurting.

Oh boy, you popped a different cherry.

As a 15-year-old girl, I don't just go home and tell my mom like, oh, my butt hurts.

Never. I would never.

Exactly. Like, not something you do. So days go by, weeks go by, and I'm in excruciating pain. And in the meantime, I'm going to school, I'm dancing, I climbed the Statue of Liberty.

Oh, oh, wait a minute, how does one climb the Statue of Liberty?

You could, you used to be able to do that.

Yeah, there were stairs.

So I resorted at this point to only going to the bathroom at my own house because I would literally need to bite on my family's hand towels that were hanging next to the toilet because of how much pain I was in.

And would you bleed every time you had a movement?

Not really, probably like streaky, but like not like heavy. Finally, after like shitting myself, I decide I tell my mom that something is going on. It's the end of November at this point, and this had happened in middle of July.

Oh my—

you are a trooper. And also, we just need to be able to talk to our moms.

I know.

Since giving birth, I would say this topped it. Imagine the feeling of like acid pee on an open wound. No, absolutely horrible pain. Anyways, My mom ends up bringing me to like my family pediatrician and I at this point won't let anybody like touch me or like do like an internal or external exam. So they tell my mom that it's like most likely a hemorrhoid. And after several more weeks of no relief from like this over-the-counter hemorrhoid cream that they kept saying, "Oh, it's gonna take time." And I'm like, "Well, don't you think slowly over time it should be like getting better?" So at this point my mom's like sick of hearing that my pain is like a 10 outta 10 and it doesn't help that I'm the middle child who's kind of like has the reputation for being the dramatic one, always looking for a little attention. Like, my mom's like, what do you mean it's a 10 out of 10? If that's serious, then we're gonna go to Boston Children's Hospital. So I'm like, okay, we do, we get the referral, we go. And during the first visit in Boston, I met with this really amazing doctor who— I would say this was non-consensual, but definitely being a minor, my mom knew what was going down.

He told me he was gonna just take a look, but instead he stuck several fingers up my asshole to determine the size of the hole he would be working with.

Okay.

So he determined that I had tore about 80% of my tissue from, like, an anal fissure and had exposed nerve endings.

No!

No, no, no, no!

They had only seen one injury like this before, and it was someone someone who actually fell off the back of a jet ski and like had like the water pressure like blown into their butthole, basically.

We interviewed someone that that happened to. Yeah, yeah.

So I was like the number 2 situation for one this bad.

Oh, and what did they do? Do they have to put stitches in there somehow?

Yes, but a week later started what ended up being 3 surgeries to like have to go in and repair all this damage.

Whoa.

As a result, I had to be on a no food diet because they had to prevent me from like evacuating to help with the repair process. I literally was a zoo animal with like a sign on the door that said, "Do not feed." Oh my God. I was on a rice chip only diet. It was awful.

For how long?

I believe like 3 weeks.

We're getting into Christmas now.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, we're past Christmas. We're starting second semester of high school where I don't return back for second semester. And that's kind of where this story goes.

This is so severe.

Did the doctor theorize on how the water ripped the inside of your ass, or the fabric hadn't gotten up there or anything?

No, it was definitely water pressure damage. It really was not wedgie-induced.

Yeah, you never think that you could get that kind of pressure from a water slide.

Wow.

Okay.

I never returned back after Christmas break for second semester, and my sister, who is 2 years older than me at my same high school, returns back to school, and she was told by my parents that she was, like, sworn to secrecy, that she couldn't tell anybody what was going on to protect my privacy.

Yeah.

So I don't remember exactly what she would tell people, but she was clearly my sister. And I don't know if it was that she told people, "I don't know what's going on," or, "I can't tell what's going on," but, like, it was obviously sketchy. But it turned into, like, she's in Boston getting help for something.

Oh, like psychological?

Oh Jesus, like you were at a rest facility.

A bit.

So then I finally returned back to school 3 weeks later. I'm down 20 pounds from this liquid-only diet and have to now deal with this rumor that the reason I've been out of school is because I was at treatment for an eating disorder.

Oh yeah, now it looks obvious. Yeah.

Wow.

Are you like, I'd rather it be that?

That's exactly what I was gonna say. The sad part is like the fragility of this situation that it was just easier to go along with that than for anybody to know where I really was for the past 3 weeks.

Wow.

How's everything now rectally? We're good?

Great. We've done like childbirth. We've done other things. We've used it. You know, it's working.

And you don't have PTSD when you're doing a number 2?

I don't now, but I would say for a while it was hard to trust.

Yes. Yeah.

There was no stool softener that would make it soft enough, you know, in the beginning. Oh boy.

Wow.

That was a doozy.

Before we are done, I need to tell you that I am not a lifelong armchair-y. Okay? And a few months ago, my friend Lindsay, who's here with me right now to babysit my 2-year-old while I could come into this fort for 10 minutes, she's here watching him. She, a few months ago, was like, "I need you to listen to this podcast because I've been listening to it for the past 5 years in every single episode." time I listen to it, I need you to go on there and tell the story of your asshole. In the past 4 months, I've listened to 80 episodes. Like, I've become—

whoa—

strongly addicted. Okay, and then a week ago, you post this prompt. What is the chance?

We call that Sim if you listen to the show.

I know. I became a fan just in time. She could not be more proud that this has come full circle.

Oh, oh, I'm so delighted. Nice meeting you.

Nice meeting you.

Bye guys, take care.

Wow, I'm kind of shocked in this litigious country we live in that they exist.

Yeah, I'm almost happy. It feels like they couldn't even exist here, but yet they do.

Yet they do.

Yeah, some of these huge places, they figure out how to navigate all the liabilities.

You sign away favor.

I bet when you buy the ticket it's like, if your asshole tears, don't come knocking.

Don't come running to me.

That's your asshole's fault, not ours. Oh, blood.

I hate when there's— okay, I just really don't like when there's random blood.

Should we do a blood prompt?

No, I'm good. Accidental blood stories.

Tell us about a time there was blood in your toilet. Horrifying. All right, love you.

Do you want to sing a tune or something?

We don't have a theme song.

Oh.

Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of Aunt Jerry's, we'll get some suggestions. On the Fly Rhyme Dish. On the Fly Rhyme Dish. Enjoy.