Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card XIII

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Mike Padman.

Michael.

Today we have Wild Card number 13. Oh wow, unlucky number 13.

A baker's dozen, if you will.

A baker's D. Yeah, if you, if you prefer. Please enjoy Wild Card.

Hard times come and go, good times take them slow.

My life, I had them both. I remember one thing, you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining.

Hello. How are you? Hello.

I noticed you have some indoor flora and that's really lovely. Tell me about that.

Thank you. This is my money tree. It's doing really well.

Yeah, very well. They don't get that big.

Tell me about a money tree.

Oh God, I don't really know anything about it other than its name and that it's ridiculously easy to take care of. And then my spider plant, questionable, not doing so well.

You have a spider plant and a money tree. You only want flora that has a kind of different name.

Yes.

Maybe you should get a rubber tree too.

I actually have one.

No, you don't.

I do.

My dad gave it to me.

Oh my goodness. Is it mature enough for you to harvest rubber from it?

No, I'm definitely allergic too. So it sits in a jar in my window. It's happy. I'm not going to touch it.

Yeah, I just saw they do it. They just scrape a little tiny bit of the bark off and then they hang this little device at the end and then it just— rubber pours out. It's so cool.

Yeah, it is really cool.

Where are you at?

I am in New Brunswick, Canada.

Oh, wonderful. We love our Canadian listeners.

Thank you.

Okay, so you have a wild card story.

I do. I have a really weird, kind of embarrassing story for you guys.

Wonderful.

Favorite.

To set the scene, this was about 6 years go. I was pretty heavily pregnant at the time with my first. I was about 8 months pregnant, almost ready to pop, and intimacy at that point, kind of hard to come by. So I wanted to surprise my boyfriend when he got home from work, and I kind of tried to set the scene, dim some lights, lit some candles, put on some music, put on something that made me feel a little bit sexy. He gets home from work and he's pretty excited, and I'm pretty excited, and then, you know, all the foreplay stuff happens, the usual, and then we're getting intimate on the couch because my Center of gravity is off a little. I need something to hold on to, lean over. The bedroom's just not doing it for me anymore.

Okay though, but the couch is already a little too small for a bunch of activity for two adults.

It worked perfectly. I mean, you just lean over the arm of the couch, right? He's behind me. It just worked out.

Okay, great.

So I'm leaning over the side of the couch and I hear him go, oh my God, oh my God. And I'm thinking, yeah, I'm doing great. He's having a great time.

I'm so hot.

Everything's awesome. I had my eyes closed, just like totally feeling the moment. And then I realize while my eyes are closed that I see this light in front of my eyes. Oh, so I'm thinking, oh shit, somebody came into the room because at the time we were living in his mom's basement apartment. Oh, oh, okay.

Okay.

So we had the music on loud enough that somebody could have come in and we wouldn't have known it, right?

Yeah. Plus you're in the heat of the moment. You're distracted.

Exactly.

Worst nightmare. I was terrified somebody had come in. So I opened my eyes and I realized, no, the light's not on, but there's a light right in front of my face. It took me a couple seconds and he's not moving anymore. I'm wondering what's going on. And then I realized I had leaned over the candle and my hair was up in flames.

Oh my goodness, you were ablaze. Yeah. Oh my God, it was so bright that you noticed.

A human torch.

Oh no, I'm shocked you didn't smell it instantly.

I am too, especially with like, you know, you're pregnant, your sense of smell is just so heightened, right? But that That part definitely comes into play. So I hopped off and I'm slapping myself in the side of the face repeatedly trying to get this fire out. And I look over at my boyfriend and he's standing there just like naked and afraid, staring at me.

Oh God. It's like, do something.

Why are you not helping me? I think he was in shock, honestly. So I get the fire out and then my response to stressful situations is to just laugh. It's got me in trouble before. Sis, sis, sis, sis. At funerals all the time. It's embarrassing.

Sure, sure.

It's a great place for a laugh. I've had 'em.

Right? Like, it's so awkward. So anyway, I'm like naked as the day I was born, 8 months pregnant, hands on my knees, just gasping for air, just laughing. I couldn't stop laughing. And this man's probably questioning all his life choices, being like, why am I having a baby with this girl? What the fuck's going on? She's crazy. And that's when the smell hit me. Uh, so just to preface, I am a nurse. I work in the operating room. I've smelled burnt flesh. I've smelled necrotic bowel, the worst kind of infection you can imagine. Ooh.

But hold on, pause. Just hear those words. Fill in the blank. Necrotic bowel.

Yeah, not good.

That's got to be the worst place to have necrosis.

It's nasty.

Do you have anything you put below your nose?

Sometimes we use Mastisol. We'll just kind of dab it onto our masks. It smells like a tree. Like, it smells really like a pine tree almost. It smells really good. But I mean, during pregnancy, I couldn't use that, so I just had to suffer.

And you're stuck to the smell. You can't distance yourself from it.

Oh, yeah. And it stays with you. You take that home.

Okay, so we're back in the downstairs basement.

So once the smell hits me, I, you know, at 8 months pregnant was dealing with a lot of nausea. It didn't agree with me. And on top of all the smells that I've ever smelled in my career, that one in that moment has to take the cake of the worst thing I've ever smelled in my life. I did not handle it well.

More than necrotic bowel.

It was the perfect storm of everything.

Probably very heightened and exacerbated by your pregnancy, right? Probably smelt differently to you then than it would today.

Exactly. And I mean, it's like right there, it's on my face. It's not going anywhere. I can't get away from it.

Phew.

So I started gagging and gagging and gagging and I couldn't stop.

Oh.

And then I realized, okay, I'm getting to the point where something's gonna come up. So I ran to the bathroom, slammed the bathroom door, hit the floor, make it just in time to throw up into the toilet. And then after a few minutes of that, I hear a gentle knock on the door and my boyfriend go, Sarah, are you okay?

Fufufufufufu. No.

Yeah. No, I'm not okay. I'm not okay. I just had the worst thing happen to me.

I have a strange hunch you're not okay. I saw that you were on fire and then now I hear you're throwing up violently. But I have a hunch. Are you not okay?

Oh, definitely not okay. I ended up hopping into the shower, shampooed my hair probably 5 or 6 times, had a good cry about the fact that a big chunk of my hair was missing.

Oh no.

And you're already feeling your prettiest.

And you have beautiful hair, by the way.

Thankfully, it's really long and thick, so it hid really well. I didn't have to go to my hairdresser and explain that to her. I ended up leaving the bathroom and going over to him, and he stepped up in that moment after the fact and comforted me a little bit. And I was thinking, okay, this is it. Like, he's not going to touch me again until after this baby pops out. Our intimacy is done for months. And then he goes, I'm glad that you're okay. So do you want to finish what we started?

Okay, great. And I'm glad that was a plus for you because I'm like, I'm sure he's going to ask if he can finish.

Well, I said no. I went and took a nap.

Sure.

That was a big adventure.

But you were relieved to hear he was still very interested. Yes, this is what we try to tell everyone as our PSA announcements. Like, you're worried about how your bangs look, you think you have one dot of cellulite somewhere. Like, the things you're obsessing about— we still want to fuck if you're on fire and reek and just threw up. Like, you don't need to worry about us.

Yeah, after two kids, I've come to realize that he doesn't care.

Yeah, nothing can really stand in the way.

Yep.

So you've had more than one now? That was number one?

Yeah, that was number one, and just about 5 months ago we had our second.

Oh, congratulations!

Thank you so much.

Well, I'm really glad you didn't lose your whole mane.

Oof, that would have been tough.

I would have been devastated.

So you got it out by just patting it, right?

Like, it would have been nice if you would have thrown me a glass of water, a blanket over my head, or something, but no, I was on my own, so I just beat myself up a little.

Oh man.

Oh, Sarah, what a funny, clumsy, and really scary scenario. Yeah, because hair goes up quick, right? You could lose your whole hair.

That is scary.

Yeah, I learned that day. Sure does.

Oh no, guys. Cautionary tale.

Other PSA: candles. They're very dangerous. People underestimate. They smell good, they're pretty, but boy, they bring down a lot of houses.

You got to be careful if you're going to be a candle owner.

Definitely gave me a healthy dose of paranoia.

They set a grandma on fire on Thanksgiving that we know about.

Sure did. Thank you for calling and also for being a nurse and helping everyone. We love our nurses.

Oh, thank you. I'm so touched.

Do you get foreign body up there in Canada? Foreign object in body?

Oh, yeah.

Craziest item you've seen?

I haven't been lucky enough to scrub in on one of those yet. Craziest I've heard of is probably an apple or a remote.

Yeah, we've heard apples had an apple and it's always, I fell.

No, you didn't.

It's so sad. They think that's convincing.

Nothing's plausible, but that's the most plausible.

Well, no, it's not.

No, I know it's not plausible, but in their mind, what other option?

Maybe just say, put it up there.

I like having fun, I guess.

If you're coming into the operating room to get an apple taken out of your ass, I mean, you just got to admit how you got it.

Exactly.

Exactly. I'm with you.

All right, Sarah. Well, enjoy your summer.

Thank you so much, you guys as well. I appreciate it.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Fire stories, cautionary tales, sex gone wrong.

Always have a fire extinguisher when you have sex.

I used to have a fire extinguisher in my room.

Why don't you pop one under your bed?

Well, I can't based on my bed frame.

I know. I don't like the fancy bed frames. Don't give you that gap. That's a useful bit of storage.

It is. I don't really need storage, but it would be good to hide a fire extinguisher and a baseball bat and a shotgun. Yeah, I'm good on that. Okay. Emergency bottle that can fit in the nightstand. Okay.

Hi. Hi. Your name is Shema?

Is that an Irish name? What is that?

No, it's from North Africa. I'm from Algeria.

Okay, beautiful. So it is a Moorish origin.

It means like very beautiful, to simplify it.

We love that.

It's accurate.

Yes.

Thank you, guys.

So are you French?

Yes, I'm French. I'm from Paris. Oh.

Wow. And do you live there currently?

Yes.

Are you going to host Monica for dinner next week?

Yeah, I'm going to be in Paris in a couple of weeks.

For what event?

Just play.

Ooh.

You're going to enjoy it because the weather is going to be super nice next week.

Oh!

I know you're a fashion mogul, so you're going to love it.

Oh my God. Coming from a Parisian.

Yeah, I went from fashionista to fashion mogul.

Oh, love that.

Why do you speak English so well?

It's related to my story, but I used to work in fashion.

Oh, you're spraying.

Oh, I gotta go.

I'm so excited.

What if you stood up and went straight to LAX and flew to Paris today? Okay, so you have a wild card story. We have no clue what it is. We have photos, but we haven't looked at them. So please tell us.

To give you a bit of context, it was in 2007. I was 19 years old and a fashion student. So in Paris, in a fashion school, and our homework were mainly sewing close. It was late at night. I was swinging, and like a lot of people swing, I had the head pins in my mouth.

Oh no.

At some point, I don't remember, it was really late, I coughed or sneezed, I don't know, but I swallowed it.

You swallowed a bunch of pins?

Yeah, one.

Oh, one pin.

Oh no. Fuck no. That's horrible. Now, is it a safety pin or just one of the pins that's just straight with the little thing on the top?

Not the safety pin, this one, the dangerous one.

That looks like a sewing needle, probably.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, but just with a flat head. So I ran straight to my mom's room to wake her up and told her like, I just swallowed the pin. And she said, okay, let's go to the ER. To understand my mom is a doctor and like few weeks earlier she told me, "Yeah, you should stop doing that because it's quite dangerous." Yeah. So she takes me to the ER. We arrive, uh, we meet the night shift doctor there. So I got a bunch of exam and especially a radiography to have an image of where it could be the pin. After that, the doctor comes and she says, "Okay, we need to go there and you need to undress completely because I think the pin is on your body. You didn't swallow it." What? So I start to strip and she checks everything. She said, yeah, it's not in your digestive system. I don't see it. It's near the boob, so it must be there. And I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure I felt it, but I listen. Okay. And she finds nothing. She tells me, okay, you go home, eat some bread. If it's somewhere, it will just pass through.

Optimistic. I mean, this doesn't seem like it might pass through.

We go home. On the ride back, I tell my mom, that's weird because when I breathe, I can feel it.

Oh.

Uh, so I go home, I eat bread, I go to bed. Next morning I wake up, I go to the kitchen, I find my mom. I can see she didn't sleep at all. And, uh, she called a, a friend of her that is a surgeon and he came for breakfast after his night shift. The dude asked me like 2 questions. He looked at my mom and said, it's in the lungs.

Oh no.

So my mom, like her eyes light up and she was like, eh. Dress up, let's go to the ER.

Oh my God.

So we went back to the ER and fortunately or unfortunately for the doctor, the same doctor was there and my mom got so pissed at her. She was screaming, you didn't believe her. It's probably in her lung. She could have collapsed. So they take other exam and it's in the lungs. So I didn't swallow it. I inhaled it.

Oh, holy shit.

But what now?

I was admitted for surgery. So I spent 3 days in the hospital. They had to do a bronchoscopy. What was funny is that every nurse that were taking me from a room to another were all asking me, "Hey, why are you here?" And I was explaining and they were all laughing their ass off, like, what the fuck? And the Indians, they took it out.

They go in with a scope through your airway into your lung. Okay, so they don't have to open up your skin or anything.

Exactly. But everything went well. They gave me back the pin. It was already rotting, actually. I still have it somewhere in my house.

Oh my God, you could have gotten I mean, sepsis, a million things could have gone wrong, but definitely sepsis, rusting.

In the picture, you can see the pin. I was actually very lucky because I swallowed it on the right side, the flat side at the bottom.

And why is that lucky?

Because if it was the opposite, I think I would have popped my lung.

Oh, here it is.

Oh, really?

Oh. We're bad at looking at these, by the way.

I thought it was gonna be on the computer, so it was bigger. I didn't know it would be like—

No, we're just not good at like understanding.

I'm a terrible radiologist because we did foreign objects in body last week, which this is a foreign object in body, but not, not anally.

Not rectum.

Rectally, anally.

That's how I titled my story, actually. Foreign object in body, not in bed.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I can't believe it didn't puncture anything.

No, I got really lucky because I stayed like, like for maybe 48 hours before they did surgery on me. And then after 2 days, it was okay. I didn't need antibiotics.

Wow. Really?

And then I went back to school. And so like everyone knew.

Oh.

When I arrived, I remember in my sewing class, the teacher was Japanese with a real big Japanese accent, not speaking very good French. And he saw me and he just said, "You stupid." And that's it.

Oh my God. A lot of fun cultural stuff going on.

Wow.

Yeah.

If you called a student stupid in this country, there'd be like, you'd go see the dean. There'd be a walkout.

Uh, you'd be surprised in France.

Yeah. Yeah. Fashion is expensive on a lot of levels.

Oh yeah.

I could imagine maybe that's a common thing in the sewing world.

They tell us at the beginning, like, yeah, you have something to put the pin there, but like everyone puts it in the mouth. It's easier, like, to have it. And sometimes I could have like 10 pins in my mouth, which is stupid. I don't do it anymore.

I do it with screws when I'm doing like wall anchors. I'll put all 4, or if I'm hammering stuff, I'll put all the nails in my mouth.

Maybe not anymore.

Yeah.

Be careful.

Yeah.

I'll just make sure I breathe through my nose Wow.

Eek.

Oh my Lord.

Well, I'm really glad you're okay.

Yeah.

And Shaima, do you listen to the show?

Yes.

In France? When did you discover it?

Actually, it's a shout out to one of my best friends. She introduced me to the show. We do love poop stories, so it's our favorite.

Good, good, good.

I actually listen to mostly American podcasts. You're on top of my list. I listen to you guys every week. So now I put a face on the voices I listen to. Oh, that's lovely. That's so nice.

Yeah, we're flattered.

Very.

All right, well, say hi to Monica for me when you see her in Paris.

Oh yeah, I hope so.

Well, this was lovely.

Thank you guys. Thank you for, uh, welcoming me in the show. And can I give a final shout out? Yes, yes, it's to my coworker Maria because she likes the show and she's also listening to it. She's from Spain actually.

Oh my God, so you have like a fan base in Europe.

I love this.

Well, thank you, Shema.

Thank you so much, guys. Enjoy your day.

Take care. Bye. I'm so charmed by the French accent.

I just love— because they're so cool there. They're listening to us. It's really exciting.

Look at the camera. It looks like a magic trick, kind of, right? So there's this—

wait, what? I'm not noticing. Look at the camera?

No, I'm sorry, look at the screen. Oh, and then look at this. And this is a— it's a magic trick. Oh, well, it wasn't a good magic trick, but here's the magic magic trick.

Oh, okay.

Right, it looks like it just changed to green. Wait, no, that wasn't a good magic trick, but here comes a good magic trick. Okay, what?

Uh-oh.

Did you feel it? Um, I think that's a really good magic.

Okay, do it again. That one was better. It's a really good magic trick.

I mean, so good at magic.

Yeah, and you don't even like magic.

Now I do. You.

All it required was you, like, being able to do it, being able to do one trick.

Is that a shocker to you? I don't like anything I can't do.

That's crazy.

If I can't do it, it's for idiots. But if I can do it, it's for kings.

Cool people.

That's for kings and heroes. Yeah, that's a good magic trick.

Okay, well, for the listener—

oh, that's—

I want to say that was really—

people saw the trick. It's just twisting the nickety-nickety so fast that on the camera it does look like— watch one more I'm the cutest little boy ever made. Watch me jump, watch me play. I'm the cutest little boy ever made. Watch me jump, watch me play.

Hello. Hey guys, how are you?

Oh, Alex, I'm so envious of the denseness of your hair. You have plumage.

Thank you, I grew it myself.

You probably take it for granted.

Yeah, I think so. I have a lot of optionality when I want to cut my hair. They complain though.

Yeah, you could go long. Everything's on the table for you. You could even have a shaved head. I bet you would look great.

I've done that before. I used to cut my hair in college and I made a lot of mistakes, so I ended up having to shave it off. Clean slate. Yeah.

And how do you look with a shaved head? Pretty good.

I don't know. You have to ask my wife.

Okay. I will. Yeah. Look at you trying not to brag.

I know. He's, he's humble and handsome.

Yeah.

And then you're a skier.

Yes.

Good job, Monica.

I finally did it.

See, doesn't it feel fun?

It's all right.

You see why I do it?

It's all right. I wish I hadn't done it.

Ah, but you're a cross-country skier. Gear?

These are actually old vintage Alpine skis from like the '40s.

Oh, back before you had rear bindings and people would do that weird pirouetting thing?

Even before that, where skiing was actually just used for transportation and not for pleasure or leisure.

That sounds miserable actually, because you're just like trekking, trekking, trekking. You got to get somewhere.

You're like in the Finnish military at that point.

Yeah, exactly.

Where are you at, Alex?

I am in my home in Morrison, Colorado.

Okay, great. We would hope it was an alpine location with the ski thing.

I'm originally from Ottawa, Canada, which is not mountainous. I moved here 13 years ago strategically to pursue a life of skiing.

Yeah.

Well, my life was skiing and actually there's a lot of this story is based around one of those experiences.

Oh, wonderful.

Wonderful.

Okay. And you're liking Colorado. Did you marry an American?

Married a Coloradan and we met in college in Big Sky State, Montana.

Oh, nice.

Big Sky. Great skiing.

Yeah. So the mountains have always been calling.

Yeah.

And it's a good place, right? If you gotta pick an American state and you're from Canada, that's a pretty good transition.

100%. I first visited Colorado when I was 14 and it was one of those things. I went home and my mom's like, how was it? I'm like, I'm gonna move there. I'm gonna live there one day. And it was one of those like pat on the head. That's really cute, honey. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought, you know what? Somehow immigration, who knows, we'll make it.

You did it. Yeah.

Okay.

So you have a wild card story. Please tell us.

Yes. So this story is being pulled from the archives, which took place 26 years ago. And I'll preface this with the fact that it's not a tremendously fun story, but it's a two-generation story of fate with a healthy dose of stimulation theory.

We love it.

Stimulation?

Stimulation.

Oh, stimulation theory. I was like, I'm unaware of stimulation theory.

Stimulation.

But I could easily make it period.

Sim story.

Yeah, sim. So this takes place in November of 2000. In a small town called Kaprun in Austria, and there's a ski glacier there called Kitzsteinhorn. But I was a sophomore at a ski racing academy in Vermont, and this is kind of where the simulation starts. My mom went to that school and was in the first graduating class in 1976.

In Vermont or Austria?

In Vermont. And I was the first second-generation student to attend that school. But for context, both of our graduating classes were 6 or less.

Oh my God. Oh wow.

There's about 60 kids in school-ish. So this isn't a massive legacy high school where several generations attend. This school was regimented. We skied December through April nearly every day between racing and training. And in the falls, we would play varsity soccer against other schools in Vermont. But predominantly, we would spend August or October in very scheduled heavy dryland and weight training sessions in preparation for the ski season.

Can I ask how you had enough students to assemble a soccer team? You needed quite a few players for that.

Everybody Right.

60 is enough.

But through all the grades, right? His grade was only 6.

I know, but it's all the grades.

Yeah. Freshmen played on the same team as seniors. It was a collective. We weren't the strongest, but it was one of those requisites we had to play. But we do dryland training for the fall months. And I only tell you this to paint the picture on how regimented things were. And scheduling was a huge focus. Once the dryland season was over, end of October, we would search for snow. And being in the East Coast, we'd usually find ourselves in Europe. Europe in late October, early November, and then here in Colorado end of November for training and some early season races and stuff.

I gotta ask a personal question, and it's probably shame-inducing, but your parents have to have money, right? This sounds hugely expensive to have your kid in the school.

It's expensive. We had a lot of help from my grandparents.

Oh, nice.

That's nice.

Very fortunate. So in 2000, our snow search took us to Austria, this little town of Kaprun. Our plan was to be there for 2 weeks before making it back to the US and then out to the Rockies. Now, Kaprun is a small town in the Salzburg province of the Austrian Alps. It's hugely quintessential with overpowering smell of cow shit. Oh, but it had a ton of classic wooden structures, wooden shutters, all of those things. So very picturesque. But we were gonna be there for 12 days, training 10 of those days. Given we were a bunch of high schoolers, some more unhinged and unpredictable than others, we were on that tight schedule that I was talking about. So they kept tabs on all of us, but our daily schedule would be consistent. You know, we wake up at 7:30, we go for a quick jog or warmup, we'd have breakfast, and then we'd grab all our gear. Here, pile into some vans and go to the bottom of the mountain to catch the 9:00 AM funicular train, which took us up to the base of the ski area. And for those that don't know what a funicular is, it's a really steep train that goes through a cutout tunnel into the mountain to the base of the glacier.

So we're 2.5 miles in a tunnel before opening up and being at the base where all the lodges are. So we followed this schedule for the first 4 days. It was intended for us to follow that the 5th day, November 11th, It's our last day of training before our first day off. This is when, you know, disaster struck. Thinking back, using my high school memory, we had lost power at the hotel, which reset all the clocks in the hotel. So if you remember, no cell phones, no alarm clocks to maintain that schedule. So our coaches woke us up early and we deviated from that schedule. But for us, I mean, it felt like a normal day. We woke up, warm up, ate, bands, and base of the mountain. And we got there for the first train, which is at 8:00. We reached the base of the glacier and it was a beautiful day. There were no clouds, bright blue sky. For those that are ski enthusiasts, fresh groomed trails. I mean, this thing was like ready for us and it felt like we were the only ones there. It was predominantly serviced by T-bars. So we were expected to be on those T-bars.

T-bars. As soon as we had all of our gear on and our coaches would go up and start setting the courses and the training for the day.

We should probably explain a T-bar because I don't think people who haven't skied understand what that is.

It's a lift that, I mean, honestly it looks like an upside-down T and it goes behind your butt and the cable just pulls you up.

It's like being on a tow rope, but you don't have to go under the door. You're now leaning on this bracket.

And the thing with T-bars is, you know, if you've been on them, sometimes you fall or it gets caught in your clothes, and if that happens, you fall and you get dragged up the mountain until the T-bar stops by the operator. You can reset. So my friend and I were on the T-bar, probably on our second or third warmup run, and this is around 9 o'clock, and this is when the T-bar stopped abruptly. And again, we thought someone had fallen, but 10 minutes had gone by, which started to feel a little bit too long. So we started commenting on how, you know, the lifty probably needs to go get a shot of schnapps or whatever it was and bring some levity to the fact that we haven't had hadn't moved in a while. But this is when our coaches started skiing down to every single occupied T-bar, asking everyone to grab their stuff and head to the base. This is when we turned around and got off, and we saw a large black plume of smoke in the air coming from the train area with flames shooting out of the building.

What?

Oh my God.

The black smoke was such a contrast passed through the blue sky and the air began to smell like burned plastics. The 9 o'clock train was the one that we were scheduled to be on that day. It had malfunctioned in the tunnel, causing the two trains to emergency stop inside the tunnel and sparking a fire that engulfed both trains and the entire tunnel.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

An emergency exit door at the top of the tunnel had been left open, so the wind tunnel effect fueled the flames, putting everything and everyone in the tunnel in an uncontrollable inferno.

Whoa. Holy shit.

There were 161 people trapped who died that day.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

12 people ended up escaping. In the last train, they broke a window and escaped down below the fire and the smoke. Smoke towards the base of the train. At this point in our lives, there were no cell phones, especially for high school kids. We had no way of checking in with or contacting our parents in live time. And given the time difference between Austria and Eastern US, our parents woke up to breaking world news of a train that had caught fire at the glacier we were at, killing every passenger.

Can you imagine being a parent here? I mean, Oh my God.

Also, only 12 out of 172 people. That's wild.

Oh, it took us several hours to evacuate the ski area, which was done using one large tram that wasn't in service for the last year. So we did one tram at a time. You know, they wanted to make sure the cables were healthy enough so they didn't overload these trams. So it took us a long time. And while we waited, this is when we started to see body bags being pulled from the top of the train station. Medical helicopters doing the rounds consistently, and it was loud and it was chaotic, which was a polarizing experience to the environment that we were in, right? It's beautiful, and now you have this chaos. One of my classmates was covered in black ash because while we were skiing, he was tending to a broken boot and he was sitting on a bench facing the sliding doors to the tunnel when the initial burst of smoke and flames came up into the tunnel. He ended up being fine and unscathed, but he reminded me of— remember the boy in the original Mary Poppins that stuck his face into the cannon?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man.

So it kind of looked like that, blasted by soot. From what I'm told, our parents called the school in a frenzy, as parents would, and they were told they thought we were okay.

Ugh.

And it wasn't before we got back to the hotel that we were able to call our parents and do the wellness check and let them know that we were fine. And to your point earlier, Monica, you know, as a parent now, I have two girls, 7, 11. I can't even imagine the type of terror fight anxiety or worry that our parents felt while they waited for a call.

Yeah, it is a true nightmare.

I hate to bring levity to it, but I will say, when you finally called your parents, that would have been an ideal time to also unload some secret you had.

Sure.

Like, I made it. Also, I'm the one who crashed the car in the garage and I didn't say anything. Anything you would have said, they wouldn't have given a shit about at that point.

I think I might have been 15 years old. I didn't have that forethought, but if I could go back in time, I likely would have confessed to some things.

Did you think about it a lot after?

Yeah, I mean, I think about it often. We've got lots of tunnels here in Colorado, and in tunnels now these days still, it's one of those things where I'm always looking for the exit doors, and it's just one of those traumas that have stayed.

There was a funicular accident in Austria recently again, right?

I hadn't heard that, but that would be really unfortunate because we were there a few summers ago, by the way.

We were in that area, and then we also took one up to a little town called Hallstatt. Ashstead, and there's a big funicular. And yeah, every time you're on them, you're like, I guess this works. You know, you're at like a 45-degree angle.

Yeah. And you're sardined, and it's just a straight shot down a mountain.

You're like, oh no, but the brakes will deploy, blah blah blah. It's always a little hairy, those things.

Certainly. So whatever had happened that night before, whatever had prompted our coaches to wake us up earlier and we start the day earlier— I mean, we were scheduled to be on that train. That's a slice fate, but here's where the simulation comes back. So in June of 1975, during my mom's junior year at the same school, she was returning to the East Coast from a ski training camp at Mount Hood with the US ski team. Her flight from Portland had mechanical issues and was delayed. She was intended to go from Portland to Chicago, Chicago JFK, and then up to Montreal where my grandparents would pick her up. But because of that delay, she missed that connecting flight in Chicago by minutes. The plane was still there, but the doors were shut, kind of thing. That flight from Chicago to JFK ended up hitting a massive microburst in the final approach, and the plane crashed, killing the passengers on that.

Stop it.

That is impossible.

Oh my—

you're knocking.

Yeah, knock on wood for sure.

That is crazy.

Yeah, my mom reminded me of that story when I told her I was going to come on and speak with you both. Like, do you remember that whole plane thing? That was when I was at that school too. And I was like, you know what, if anyone's going to appreciate create the simulation, it's these two.

So I'm gonna bring it up. You two are the luckiest people alive.

Obvious thought is you're not gonna now send one of your kids to that school, are you? Like, how many times do you guys need to like dodge?

Okay, well, I'm gonna knock on wood, but they'd be okay. But you would be causing some other—

Yeah, you might be sentencing some people to tragedy.

Yeah.

Wow, that is wild.

Wild.

Wild card lived up to its name. Wild card.

Yeah.

Have you been back there?

Not to that glacier, no, but I've been back to Austria before. I love Austria. It's such a beautiful country.

You feel like you're in a storybook the whole time.

For sure. Both my girls ski now, and they're starting to do their thing with that. And my goal is to get them over to the Alps at some point, or the Dolomites, and have them skiing there. And just for them to see it— I know that my youngest will say, oh, it looks like the town from Frozen.

They tell people in Hallstatt that the town of Arendelle Arendelle was modeled after it.

Oh, was it?

It wasn't, but they say that. That's like the lore there, but it's actually not true. But yes, it does look very much like Arendelle from Frozen. Did the skiing stay fun for you? It sounds so regimented. I'm wondering, was it fun throughout all that? It must have been because you stuck with it.

I love the sport. So actually, I skied through high school and then took 2 years off and skied full-time. And then I went to college in Montana where I met my skied in college. It was a great sport. Very fortunate to have experienced everything that I did. And if my kids want to, that's great. But it's one of those things where I, I just want it to be fun for them. I want the story years from now to be, well, we just skied. That's just kind of what we did. And I do want them to be better than their spouses. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's fair. And that's a healthy bar. You can hit that target just fine.

Yeah.

Wow.

Oh, well, it's lovely meeting you, Alex.

So nice to meet you. That's a really crazy story.

Likewise. It's okay. My wife is here as well.

Yes. Bring her in.

I want to see her, the thickness of her hair. Let's see what these kids got.

She's got a good head too. My wife Lauren, so she introduced me to Armchair. She is a day one listener. I remember the first episode we listened to was your first meeting with Michael Pollan. It was fascinating. And I became hooked ever since. So you're our road trip buddies, our long commute buddies, weekends up to the mountains buddies. So we're with you guys all the time.

Hello.

This is a small-ass closet.

Yeah.

Let's get— I want to—

I want to get a good look at you. Yeah, great hair, everybody.

Thank you.

And great teeth in this photo.

And overalls.

And when did you start skiing?

Well, I skied when I was 14 and then started snowboarding a couple years later. And it was crazy that he dated a snowboarder because everyone's like, it's very incestuous, they all date each other. But then I broke the mold and now I'm skiing again because we have kids and it sucks.

I switched 2 years ago from snowboarding after 40 years of it, back to skiing. It's so much easier.

It is.

Sorry, Alex.

Not to be great, just like you're not fucking unstrapping and strapping back in. You can be on flat ground, you don't care.

Yeah, it hurts a lot less and it's easier on our aging bodies.

Yeah. Well, it's so nice to meet you guys.

Meet both of you.

Yeah, you as well. This has been so fun. Thanks for sharing the time. And Dax, your chair looks a lot more comfortable than I pictured.

People get worried because it's not a proper Lazy Boy, but it's plenty comfortable.

Mine's only okay, if I'm being honest. Okay, I could add a little cushion back here, you know. Yeah, a little cush.

All right, y'all, we'll have a great summer up there. I hope it's a beautiful one for you.

Thank you so much. Thank you as well. Thank you.

Okay, take care.

Okay, well, that was wild.

Love you. That was wild and Cardi.

Do you want to sing a tune or something?

We know 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 going to ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the Fly Rhyme Dish, On the Fly Rhyme Dish.

Enjoy!