The Listener Stories of 2025

Well here we are at the end of 2025. It’s been a crazy year in a lot of different ways.

And it’s a tradition here for the What Was That Like podcast for the last episode of the year to be a collection of all of this year’s Listener Stories.

For every main episode of the podcast, we end it with a story sent in by a listener. It can be something happy, sad, funny – just about anything – as long as it’s something interesting that happened to you. We limit these to around 5-10 minutes, and all you have to do is record it on your phone and email it to me at Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com

So what we have here in this final episode of 2025 is over 3 hours of those listener stories from this past year. Keep in mind that some of these stories deal with sensitive topics such as suicide or other things that could be triggering for some listeners. Feel free to fast forward to the next story if you need to.

And now, here are the Listener Stories of 2025.

Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):

Well here we are at the end of 2025. It’s been a crazy year in a lot of different ways.

And it’s a tradition here for the What Was That Like podcast for the last episode of the year to be a collection of all of this year’s Listener Stories.

For every main episode of the podcast, we end it with a story sent in by a listener. It can be something happy, sad, funny – just about anything – as long as it’s something interesting that happened to you. We limit these to around 5-10 minutes, and all you have to do is record it on your phone and email it to me at Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com

So what we have here in this final episode of 2025 is over 3 hours of those listener stories from this past year. Keep in mind that some of these stories deal with sensitive topics such as suicide or other things that could be triggering for some listeners. Feel free to fast forward to the next story if you need to.

And now, here are the Listener Stories of 2025.

(Episode 202)
Angela
Hello, Scott. I would like to share one of many stories that I have about raising my daughter with a developmental disability and autism. My daughter, Hannah, has autism, and she was enrolled in a very intense program to help her with her autism. It required Lots of people helping us, many hours. It was quite intense, it was hard, but we saw her meet her own true potential. She had quite high needs in her autism – she still is, but she’s doing really well. When she was younger, she needed to be taught everything because she really – and I hate to say this, it sounds really mean – had no skills. So, one thing that we had to teach her was getting in and out of vehicles, opening doors, closing doors. Everything that we do needed to be taught, and we taught it in very, very small steps. Very, small steps were taught to her with lots of encouragement along the way and giving her lots of breaks as needed.

She was able to go to school and the bus would come and pick her up at our house. The bus wouldn’t come onto our driveway. It would stop at the end of the driveway. We had to teach Hannah how to open the door, how to close the door, how to walk down the steps, how to walk down the driveway, how to get into the bus, and that was just that. Then, in the school, they had to teach her how to do all those things in reverse and get into the school. That’s a whole other story I tell you – it’s a good one as well, but this story is about getting into the bus. So we had taught her the steps bit by bit with lots of people helping. She had done really well.

Then, one morning, I thought, “You know what? I think that I don’t need to walk alongside her to get into the bus today. I think that she has earned the right to try it by herself because we had done the work, she knew how to do it. So I’m just going to stay in the house. I’m going to watch her get into the bus by herself.” I’m a woman and it’s quite obvious. I decided to stay in my pajamas and they weren’t, like, really pretty pajamas. They were kind of comfy pajamas. So I stayed in my pajamas, watching through the window, thinking this is going to be just a real moment, watching her get on the bus. I’m probably going to cry. It’s going to be so meaningful. So I said, “Goodbye, Hannah.” She opens the door, walks out, closes the door, walks down the steps. I’m so proud.

But then, on the driveway, there’s a pile of dirt that we had sitting there because we were doing some landscaping. Hannah was obsessed with sand and dirt. She would sit with sand or dirt and she would pile it for hours. She would pile and pat. That was just her thing. We don’t know why she loved it so much. We can guess, but we don’t really know. So, she didn’t pay any attention to the bus that was waiting, she went right to that pile of dirt, and she sat down on the driveway and started piling dirt.

So, let’s remember, I’m in my pajamas, which aren’t pretty pajamas. I’m not wearing any undergarments that would sort of make me feel like I could just rush outside, but maybe it’s a dress or something. So I’m like, “Oh dear. Okay.” So I’m knocking on the window trying to get her to take notice, but she’s autistic. The window being knocked on doesn’t make any difference to her. There are teenagers on the bus and there are young kids on the bus. There’s a show going on. So what do I do? I go to the closet. I’m in front of my husband’s oversized jacket that he has for hockey and I’m about to go outside. All of a sudden, I see one of the teenagers coaching her from the window and she’s looking at him. He’s pointing to the door, she gets up from her obsessive dirt pile, and she goes into the bus. I didn’t have to go out in my pajamas and hockey jacket.

The next morning, I was ready. There was no pajama, window-watching moment. I was going to go out with her. She did go directly to that dirt pile because she’s autistic and that’s what she would want to do again. So we just did a little bit of reteaching and she got into the bus. From there on, she knew how to get on the bus.

Scott
You heard Angela mention that Hannah getting off the bus is a whole other story. Well, I don’t know about you, but I wanted to hear that one too. So I asked Angela to tell that story as well.

Angela
This is the sequel to my short story, about my daughter with autism and a developmental disability that we had to teach to get on the bus. This part two is how we taught her to get off the bus. My daughter with her autism was very much prompt dependent. That means that people will prompt her to do things like, “Come over here, close the door, let’s get some water.” To be dependent on a prompt means that the person with autism and who is prompt dependent will soon learn not to do things on their own, and they will wait until the person who’s their caregiver prompts them to do so. My daughter, Hannah, was extremely prompt-dependent. It was very frustrating. Once we knew that, we had to work with that. We knew that. We had to not help her so much but, instead, we had to help her learn how to do things on her own. So the story of getting off of the bus goes like this.

Hannah would ride the bus to her school and she would sit in the same spot every time, and everyone allowed that. It was no problem. It was near the front of the bus. When the bus stopped, she would wait in her seat and all the kids would get off the bus. Some of the kids who were really good with her wanted to be her friend and wanted to help her, would say to her, “Okay, Hannah, it’s time to get off the bus.” Then, Hannah would get up and off the bus and go into the school. Then, one day, we realized that when the kids, for whatever reason, don’t say, “Hey, Hannah, time to get off the bus”, Hannah would just sit there and she wouldn’t get off of the bus until somebody would say, “Okay, Hannah, let’s get off of the bus.” Now that’s really not a problem if it happens once or twice, but the problem is that she’s learned that she doesn’t get up and get off of the bus unless someone asks her to.

We want her to be as independent as possible, so we came up with a plan through our autism program and we implemented this plan. The best part of the story is that we had such collaboration. We had our resource teacher, we had our educational assistants, and we had the bus driver. We had everyone working together. There were no control issues. There was just collaboration, and collaboration is what made her soar. We were all on the same team. So what we did is the bus driver finished their route, came back to the school, parked in front of the school, and we taught Hannah bit by bit, without prompts, how to get off of the bus. We lessened the EA’s help with every step and soon she could do it on her own without the EA’s help. Remember, there were no kids on the bus because the bus driver came back after the route, so she tried it with an empty bus.

Then the next step was, can she do this with kids on the bus? So what we had to do– or not we. I wasn’t involved in that, but the school staff talked to the children and said, “Hey, you know what? Thank you for caring about Hannah and wanting to be her friend, but we’re going to ask you not to talk to her when you get off of the bus, but you can talk to her later. Here are some other things that you can do to be her friend but, for now, she needs to learn how to get off the bus by herself.” And the kids understood. That was no problem. And I tell you, the first time that she got off the bus by herself with the kids, there was a huge celebration. We were all so happy. To this day, that story brings tears to my eyes. Number one, people cared. And number two, there was such collaboration on such a seemingly simple task of standing up and getting off of the bus, and we’re really grateful for all those people in the past. Thanks for listening.

(Episode 203)
Jackie
My name is Jackie. I live here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I’m 41 years old and this situation happened about nine years ago. It was just a normal day. I was going for a massage and had never been to this clinic before. Thought I’d give it a try. It had just opened up. It was a massage chain where you do, like, subscriptions. As someone who suffers from chronic pain, it’s always been something that I have to do regularly as I have quite a few flare-ups monthly, and this is just a way that I can deal with.

I got to the clinic and the appointment was with this man and I’m very open to that. I don’t care as long as the therapist is good and they’ve got the right strength and can work out the knots and kinks in my neck. That’s all I really need. But I remember feeling very frustrated because the appointment was supposed to start, obviously, right on the hour and he was running about 10-15 minutes late. As a new client and as somebody who is concerned about cutting into my treatment time, I was maybe a little bit spicy that it was a little unprofessional, but it’s okay. I understand. I’m a very forgiving person. So, when he came out to apologize and start the appointment, I didn’t think anything of it.

As I walked into the room, he had advised me to get undressed but lay on my back. If you get massages often enough, generally, you’d start on your stomach. I thought maybe it was because he was running late, so I did what he asked and I laid on my back. Shortly after the appointment started, I noticed that the sheet was beginning to get looser and looser up to the point where I thought, “He can see my breasts.” I was quite aware that I felt very exposed and felt that it was odd, but I didn’t think much of it until he started to sort of make his way down my chest.  As that happened, I remember feeling kind of just like being frozen in time, being stunned, but then also questioning if I was overreacting. I had this moment of, “This can’t be happening. I’m the one that’s probably overthinking this.”

I adjusted the sheet and he sort of maybe was aware that I kind of was on to what was happening. Then, a little bit later, it started happening again. The appointment didn’t last long because he had already been running late and I was relieved. As I got dressed and he came back into the room, he was very adamant that this wasn’t his ideal situation and that I should come back the next day to the other clinic he works at for another massage. He was very adamant that I come back, and I remember thinking, “There’s no way I’m ever coming back to see him or come back to this place again.” So, I think I made an excuse and just said, “I’m sorry, I’m traveling.” I wasn’t being honest. I just wanted to get out of there.

As I left, he took his hand, tucked the tag into my dress, and then kind of grazed down my back. I just thought that was the weirdest, most intimate gesture, and that was so creepy. So I left and I went over to the coffee shop across the street. I remember seeing two police officers and thinking I should say something, but then thought, “That’s crazy. You can’t just do that. Why would I go up to these random police officers and catch them super off guard?” Just honestly called my now husband – but my fiance at the time – and told him what happened and went on with life. I didn’t think much of it.

Maybe about three months later, I got an email from the clinic asking for a Google review. I don’t know on this particular day why I chose to do this, but I did write a review and I was just very honest about how uncomfortable the appointment made me, and that I just thought it was really odd. Not even an hour later, I was getting a phone call from the owner of the clinic – her name was Rhonda – and she proceeded to tell me that’s not how they operate, that she was very upset to hear that I had this experience, but rest assured, they would deal with it. Could I delete my review? I remember feeling really hesitant and quite actually emboldened that someone would ask me to do that. But then I felt guilty and I started to feel like I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s business. That’s not my intention. Maybe I will delete it.

She’d also offered me to come back with a different therapist, of course, for a complimentary massage, and I did. I accepted that appointment and it was fine. It was an okay experience. Massage was fine. Regular standard run in the middle massage. I did end up deleting that review, which is something, now looking back, I really quite regret about.

I have to say two years after that incident – at this point, I was married – I saw an article on Facebook about a local man who was being charged with many different accounts of assault of women out of a massage clinic here in Calgary, and it was a gentleman named Greg. He was the perpetrator and the person who had done my massage that day. I remember being shocked. I remember telling my husband, “This is the same guy that massaged me that time” and just honestly stopped in my tracks around, “I don’t know what to do. Should I also report it?” So I called the local police, and they were really helpful and very kind. They asked me to come in to provide a statement, which I did, and they were so supportive.

At this point, the charges had already been filed. There’s not much my story could do unless there were additional charges. My situation was one of the least severe, but they wanted to take my statement anyway, which I really appreciated. I felt very seen and very heard. They told me that this was what he would do, that my situation is generally how it would start. They were actually surprised that he was so bold with the sheet and the massaging of my chest, that usually that happened a few appointments in. But nonetheless, the reason why he was trying to get me back was probably to take it a step further.

Unfortunately, Greg was charged with these accounts, but his sentencing was only house arrest, which really bothered the police officers. They were really frustrated with all the evidence because there were so many people who came forward and wished they would have known sooner or later. But he got house arrest, moved out of the city, lost his massage therapy license – his RMT, we call it here – and that was that. Unfortunately, the clinic did know of what was going on. At the time that they had contacted me, he had been terminated. However, they were aware. So what really frustrated me was the fact that they asked me to delete my Google review, knowing full well that what I was saying was true. It really frustrated me that that happened.

Looking back, I think it’s just one of those age-old scenarios to trust your gut. I felt uncomfortable in the situation. I should have said something immediately. I should have dealt with it immediately and I really wish that I wouldn’t have deleted that review because maybe it could have helped somebody, but I am really glad that I came forward and still reported the incident. I’m just very upset that our justice system here in Calgary at the time gave him such a lenient sentence. I think he’s a predator and will go on to try to do things like this in the future because he obviously has a lot of issues and, hopefully, he’s gotten help or treatment for it. But with such a light sentence, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a danger to society in the future. But that’s my story and, hopefully, it helps somebody if you ever feel in the situation again. Thanks for listening.

(Episode 204)

December 9th, 2023 started out like any normal Saturday for my family. We all had various plans. The weather was mild and it was overall just a nice morning. It was getting close to Christmas, so I had ordered some Christmas cards from Walgreens. My husband had work at the post office, and my oldest was headed to Greenville, Kentucky with his girlfriend for a go kart race. My plan for the day was to pick up the Christmas cards, go to a Red Cross blood drive, and then drop my youngest off at a sleepover. He begged me to let him stay home while I ran my errands and then took him, but I just didn’t want to leave him home all alone.

We left the house around 11 a.m. and headed to Walgreens. We chatted a little bit on the way while listening to the radio. As we pulled into the parking lot to pick up the Christmas cards, a weather update came over the radio. They said that the forecast called for some storms in the afternoon. They said there was a chance for heavy rain, some wind, and that they couldn’t rule out an isolated tornado. My son asked, “Mom, what’s an isolated tornado?” I told him it was really nothing to worry about, just a random small tornado that could come up in a field or something, but they didn’t last long and wouldn’t really cause any damage. Boy was I wrong. We picked up the cards and talked about how good they turned out as we drove to Charlotte, Tennessee for the blood drive.

Anytime we go to Charlotte which is about a 45-minute drive with light traffic, we make sure to stop at Sweet Charlotte, a cute little soda shop, for lunch. After I donated my pint of blood, we headed there. As we were finishing our lunch, I got an alert that a tornado was spotted in Indian Mound, heading in the direction of Clarksville where we live.

My husband is a mail courier and I knew he’d likely be delivering mail in packages, so I called him to give the heads up to be careful and to find somewhere safe to take cover if needed. I was shocked when he answered the phone and he told me that the tornado was there and they were running for the storm shelter inside the post office. I thought, surely, it wasn’t actually hitting the post office. He said he had to go and then he called me back. Trying not to panic and scare my son, I offered to stop at the little country market down the street from where we were. It wasn’t even raining where we were. So I thought it best to hang tight for a few minutes and make sure the weather cleared.

Then I got a text from my oldest, the one who had gone to the go kart race in Greenville. Greenville is about an hour from home in the opposite direction – almost two hours from where I was at the time. His text said, “Mom, they’re saying there are funnel clouds over the arena. We are hiding under the bleachers.” At this point, panic set in. I quickly got myself and my youngest in the car and we headed toward home. I called my oldest and he said they were okay for the moment, just hiding under the bleachers and he’d keep me updated.

Then I called my husband to check on him. It kept going to voicemail. My youngest got scared and thought we’d get hit by the tornado, so I kept trying to keep him calm and stay calm myself. I called my sister and she tried to help me to call my husband. Neither of us could get through. Finally, about 20 minutes later, I got a text from my oldest that they were getting the “all clear” at where he was and that he was okay. It was a huge relief.

Still, about 30 minutes from home, I kept trying to call my husband. Still nothing. I kept calling and kept going to voicemail. I called my sister in tears, begging her to tell me he was okay. She said that he’s likely fine and that the cell towers are probably just jammed, which made some sense. She stayed on the phone with me as I got a bit closer to Clarksville. The sky seemed to clear up a bit, which helped to calm my son.

As we got into Clarksville, I tried to call my husband again. Still nothing. I was on the phone with my sister as emergency vehicles went flying past me in the direction of home and the post office. Side note, we live less than five minutes from the post office. So I was heading towards both. I tried to call my husband again, and again, it went to voicemail. My sister tried to reassure me that the cell towers were probably just knocked down. Then it hit me that I was still on the phone with her and I was only about eight minutes away at that point. She and I both started crying. I got to the light before the light at the post office. My light was at the top of the hill and the post office was at the bottom, so you could see it. I could see emergency vehicles everywhere. I told my sister I had to go, and then I lost it. I was so scared that I had just lost my husband. Reminding myself that my son was in the car, I tried to wipe my tears away, and I said, “Let’s go home and make sure the dogs are okay.”

I didn’t even think about how our neighborhood had fared. As I went to pull into the neighborhood, there were emergency vehicles all over. We couldn’t get to our house. Panic returned for both my son and I. We couldn’t get home because of all the vehicles blocking the streets and power lines and trees down. That’s when I decided to carefully turn around and take one of the unblocked back streets back towards the post office. There was a back entrance to the Sonic on that street and the intersection for the post office was just diagonal from there. I pulled into the Sonic and I parked my car. I told my son to stay there and that I would be right back. I wasn’t thinking quite straight, but I told him I was going to walk across to the post office and get dad and I’d be back.

As I started to open the door, my phone chimed. It was a text from my husband. He said, “I’m okay. Post office hit. My truck is damaged, but I am okay. Calls not going through. Love you.” At that moment, I could finally breathe. I slowly made it back into our neighborhood, half of which was destroyed but, by the grace of God, our street and our house was safe. We didn’t have power, but we didn’t care. We spent the next days helping folks in our neighborhood who lost their homes in the unexpected EF-3 tornado that hit Clarksville on December 9th. I’ll never forget how scared I was, nor how lucky I am, to have my husband and my kids safe at home with me.

(Episode 205)

Hi Scott. This story is for anyone who shares an understanding of the pressure of a potluck when casseroles and dips are on the line. Imagine being known for a specific dish that you receive compliments on every time you bring it to the office. It’s like a dopamine hit. You’re proud. You’ve stayed up all night following your recipe, making sure you don’t alter your ingredients just so it tastes exactly the same each and every time. It’s like going for a medal that you’re never going to win. Just the sounds of people saying yum and asking for your recipe after they’ve taken a scoop is like giving the ultimate present to your loved one on their birthday. You gleam with delight, seeing the joy in their eyes. You know the way to their heart is through their stomach. Everyone has waited for this day during the work week. People are casually strolling past the break room, nonchalantly picking at snacks before it’s even lunchtime. But what if someone signed up to bring your signature dish? Do you still make the same thing? Do you go with something else? Do you just buy something from the store? What do you do now?

My story takes place many years ago when I was working in an office where we would have the occasional potluck. The same people would bring the same thing in over and over again. These co-workers were quite serious about their dishes. When that sign-up sheet hit the first desk, you better believe everyone was ready with their pens to put their names and signature creations down. There are two types of people in the office – those who love to cook and bring a meal and those who want nothing to do with cooking. They’re the ones that bring the soda, or the cookies, or the plates and utensils from the grocery store.

I was the girl who would rather bring something store-bought. I had dogs at the time and I never wanted to take a chance of being that person who was talked about if a hair was found, kind of like the fellow in another department whose wife would make cookies for him to bring in. This was the same person who would talk about their cat who liked to sit on the warm silverware after it was done in the dishwasher. Legend has it that if you broke a cookie apart and held it up to the light, you could see the remnants of their cat along with the chocolate chips.

This particular potluck, my best friend decided to create some office shenanigans and bring a dish that another woman was notorious for bringing in – strawberry pretzel salad. She was quite aware of the severity of what she was doing. I remember her telling me she was going to shake things up a bit. My jaw hit my desk when she gave me the signup sheet and I saw her name with that delicious sweet treat next to it. I was a little scared to hand it off to the next person. I knew what was coming. When that sign-up sheet made its way around to the next row, the gasps and whispers that ensued were riveting. It was on. From that moment, this was no longer a potluck. This was now Crock Pot Wars. I’ll never remember what the original maker of that strawberry pretzel salad brought in its place that time, but what I can tell you is my best friend never made it again.

(Episode 206)

Hi Scott, my name is Heather and I thought I would just tell you a little story about my return from my recent trip to Portugal. I was there on a riverboat cruise with my sister-in-law. It was lovely. We were in Lisbon for a couple of days, and then we got on a riverboat and toured up the Douro River and stopped at a couple of places, including Porto, which is where they make some very delicious wine.

On the way back, we had to fly to Toronto. I actually live in Ottawa, Canada. So we had to fly to Toronto, and, we had to lay over there for about an hour and a half. So I called my husband and I let him know that I would be back in Ottawa at 7.20. “Our flight was on time. So meet me there.” He said fine. Everything was good. That was the end of the conversation. When we landed in Ottawa, we were waiting on the tarmac. We were waiting for everybody to get off the plane and that’s not the quickest process sometimes, and we were actually at the back of the plane.

My phone kept ringing, and it was a private number, and I don’t generally answer those. My husband and I have a company, and I thought it was probably just a work-related call. I was still on vacation in my mind because I wasn’t off the plane yet, so I didn’t answer, but it kept calling so I thought I better answer the phone. So I answered the phone and the person calling asked me my name and asked me if I was Heather. I said, yes, I was. And he said, “Oh, this is officer so-and-so from the Ottawa police. Are you at the Ottawa airport?” And I said, “Yes, I am. What did my husband do?” And he said, “Oh, he didn’t do anything. He actually fell down and hit his head and we think he’s actually having a stroke. So I just wanted to let you know that he is currently in the ambulance waiting to be taken to the hospital, but we just wanted to make sure that we reached you so that you knew what was going on. Your car is here.”

Needless to say, I raced off the airplane as quickly as I could with all the people in front of me and I ran outside. Sure enough, I didn’t get to see my husband because he was already loaded into the ambulance. What had actually happened was he was waiting in the car for me, and I guess he figured he wanted to have a cigarette. Because he doesn’t smoke in my car,  he got out, he started to have his cigarette, and I guess he felt dizzy, so he went to go back into the car, but he fell down and hit his head. The security guard was like– I can’t even tell you how lucky he was that he was where he was at the time when this happened, like short of being in a hospital already. I don’t think there’s any place he could have been that would have been more ideal.

The security guard saw him fall down and hit his head and he came out to make sure that he was okay and quickly realized he was not. So he called the ambulance and he called the police. Or perhaps the police were already there because it was an airport, I’m not really sure. But the good thing was that the EMTs were able to review the video of him falling down and they were able to kind of make an assessment that it was probably a stroke just by what they saw. I guess they saw that his right side had given out and that was why he fell. So they were able to get him into the ambulance and off to the hospital within 24 hours, 15-20 minutes of actually falling down, which was amazing. So the hospital’s probably about 15 minutes away, so he got care very quickly.

What ended up happening was that he had a totally blocked carotid artery in his neck, full of blood clots. They were able to take that out and put in a stent and it took a few days, but he is recovering and now he’s actually in a rehab hospital. So what was that like? That was very shocking and I don’t ever want to go through it again, and I’m just hoping that he makes a full recovery.

The good thing is that I can tell by having conversations with him that he is actually still himself. He’s a roofer, so one of his favorite words is the F-bomb, and he was saying that at the hospital. So the night that this happened, I actually took my car, went to get my daughter, and then we went to the hospital together. My daughter’s 24, so I needed her support. So we went to the hospital and we were standing with my husband and he was completely out of it because he was still stroking out, as they call it, which is never a nice thing to see. But we heard the doctors talking and they were saying that he wasn’t responsive and he was mumbling, but he wasn’t saying any words. And then, all of a sudden, he drops an F-bomb really loud and my doctor goes, “Oh, there’s a word.” And it’s his favorite word. So the doctor asked me, “He said– is that normal for him to say that word?” And I said, “Yep, if any words going to come out, that’s probably the one we’re going to hear first.” So he said, “Oh, that’s good to know because a lot of times, people, when they have a stroke, depending on what part of the brain is damaged, it can affect their personality. So, clearly, his personality wasn’t affected because he still knew that he’d like to say the F-bomb.”

I hope everybody listens to this and realizes that my husband was 53 years old. Yes, he was a smoker and no, he didn’t eat very well, but he was pretty much physically active. This can really happen to anybody at any time and it was not a nice experience. So hopefully anybody listening to this, please quit smoking.

(Episode 207)
My name is Brittany, and I live in Arizona. I am 30 years old. This happened last December. At the time, I was 29. I had just left my ex-fiancé of six years. We kind of grew apart, so we broke up and, immediately, I was ready to get back out into the dating world. I had no idea how scary the dating world is in this day and age. I feel like, at this point of being 30, it’s really just trying to look through, like, the clearance rack of men and finding the best deal because all the good ones are either married or don’t want to be in a relationship, I guess.

So I was on Facebook dating and doing my little swipey thing, left and right, and I came across this one guy and I thought he was cute, so I swiped right. We started messaging and something that I really liked about him that drew me to him was that he was a homeowner. He had a good job. I also have my own house and have a good job, so I was running into a lot of the type of people that want to kind of use me for that. So I was like, “Oh, okay, well, this guy is a little bit different than all of the other ones that I’m coming across.”

We’re talking and, I don’t know, I just kind of have this weird gut feeling in my stomach that told me that something just wasn’t right. Well, I went against my better judgment and decided to go and hang out with him. I should have known from the start that this was a sign. I did not want him to come to my house. I’m very much like the “Oh, come to my house” kind of person. I don’t like being out of my element but I decided to go to his house. I don’t know what made me do it, but I did. I think I was just so desperate to find love at the time.

So I ended up going to this guy’s house and I sent my location to my best friend and told her, “Hey, I’m going to this guy’s house. He only lived like five minutes away from me and it was in the same neighborhood as my best friend.” The fact that I decided to send my location to her, which I had never done previously or felt the need to was a sign, which, by the way, I do every time now that I end up meeting somebody off of the internet. So, I went to his house and I got inside, and everything was pretty, pretty good. He’s not a catfish or anything. So I went inside and we’re just kind of hanging out, listening to music, he’s smoking a lot of weed, which I don’t smoke. I don’t have an issue with it, but I just don’t smoke it. And he’s drinking a lot. He offers me a drink and I’m like, “No, thank you. I don’t want to drink at some random guy’s house that I’ve never met before.”

He offered me water and I was like, “Oh, sure.” And he got up and he’s in the kitchen for at least 2-3 minutes getting my water, which I was like, “Why is it taking him so long?” It’s just weird. So when he brought back the water, I decided to not drink it because I didn’t know if he had put something in it or not. I didn’t want to chance it, so I never drank that water.

A couple hours go by and, by this point, he’s very drunk and he’s starting to slur his words and you know all that stuff. He starts kissing me and I guess I’m too nice. I should have told him to stop, but I didn’t. So, he’s kissing me and stuff, and he eventually starts trying to put his hand down my pants, and I tell him, “No, I don’t want you to do that.” He starts trying to just pull my pants down, and he just was like, “I really just want to see” and I was like, “No, thank you. I don’t want to do that.” I had to tell this guy at least 20 times, no exaggeration, to please stop, that I didn’t want him to touch me or pull my pants down or anything like that, but he just kept trying. We’d just be in the middle of a conversation and he would just really quickly try to pull my pants down.

So, I’m at this point like, “Okay, I need to leave,” but he’s so erratic that I’m afraid to be like, “I’m leaving” and just get up and leave. I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t know how he would react. So, I decided to kind of ride it out and just be very aware and kind of hint at, “Oh, it’s getting late. I’m getting tired. I need to leave.” Well, I kind of started telling him, “Oh, it’s getting kind of late, I’m probably going to leave here soon.” I don’t want him to think that I’m leaving for any reason other than the fact that I’m just tired and it’s late, because I just felt like he would be offended and maybe he would try to hurt me or something.

So, we’re kind of just hanging out there, still listening to music, and he asks me, “Are you a girl that’s always scared of everything?” I’m like, “What do you mean?” And he’s like, “I don’t know. Just scared of stuff, murder and stuff like that.” And I’m like, “I mean, yeah, of course. I don’t feel like there’s very many people who aren’t.” And we were in a pitch-black room with just the TV on. And he was like, “Will you see that dark corner over there?” And I was like, “Yes.” And he was like, “Don’t go over there.” I was like, “Okay, why?” And he was like, “Cause that’s where I’m gonna kill you.” And I was like, “That’s not funny. Don’t joke about that.” And he’s like dying laughing like he’s drunk off his mind and he just thinks it’s the funniest thing that ever that he just said.

So I’m like, “Okay, that’s so weird. I’m probably gonna go soon. Just getting kind of late.” And he pulls his pants down, just lays on top of me, and is like kissing me. I literally had to push him off with all my force. He was like, “Well, can you please just spend the night? Can you please spend the night?” And I was like, “No, I don’t want to.” He’s like, “Please, I’m not going to have sex with you.” And I was like, “Oh, well, good. Cause I don’t want to.” And he was like, “Well, I wouldn’t rape you. If I did, it would be an accident.” And I was like, oh my God, so scared. Just my adrenaline is going and I just feel like it’s not safe to leave because I didn’t know how he was gonna react.

Finally, maybe 20 minutes later, I’m like, “Alright, I think it’s probably time for me to go. I’m very tired.” And he was like, “Okay, fine.” So I got up and grabbed my purse and I was getting ready to walk out. He had this, like, 75-pound pit bull mix. It was a sweet dog but he– I don’t remember what the dog’s name was. For the sake of the story, I’m just gonna call him Bear. He looked at his dog, Bear, and he went, “Bear, kill her so I can have her.” And I gave him the craziest look ever. I’m like walking out the door as he’s saying that, and he’s like, “I’m just kidding, I’m just kidding. Alright, Bear, say bye to her, cause we’ll probably never see her again.” And I’m thinking to myself, “Wow, you fucking think?”

So, I made it out of there safely and I never talked to him again. That was a very traumatic experience for me. So, dating has been pretty scary and I’m pretty nervous to hang out with anybody ever since then and public places are a definite must. If there is something in my gut that just doesn’t feel right, I just stop immediately because my gut is telling me something for a reason.

(Episode 208)

My story begins in 1977 on Jimbaran Beach in Bali. My then husband and I were traveling on a year-long ticket around the world. We left from Vancouver, Canada and went to Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, and then Indonesia. I grew up in New Zealand and spent my childhood swimming in the ocean, so I was a very confident swimmer. On this day, we went down to the beach for an early morning swim. There were a few people there but, at that time, there were no hotels or resorts, so it was very quiet.

We swam out into some fairly small surf and, after a while, we decided to swim in but found we couldn’t make any headway. We weren’t worried, but when I glanced toward the beach, I saw a man waving his arms in the air. We continued swimming but, without getting any closer to shore, I decided to wave to him and saw him run into the surf. He swam out to us and tried to help us, but when we clearly couldn’t, he swam back in and came back out with a surfboard. He put me on the board and pedaled me back with my husband holding onto the back.

When we were safely ashore, he told us that many tourists had drowned there, so he would come down and watch to make sure no one would get caught in the riptide. We were so thankful for his help and amazed that he was able to swim back in to get his board while we floundered. We sat for a while and contemplated how close we had come to being swept out into the Indian Ocean. It was mind numbing.

My next lesson came in 2001 on a beach in Kauai in Hawaii. A friend had offered for me to come and stay for a month – a fantastic invitation I couldn’t turn down. The first morning I was there, we got up early to watch the sunrise and go for a swim. I hadn’t been in the ocean for a few years but I was mindful of its power. I sat and watched the surf to see the pattern of the waves. Since it was quite big surf, I decided to stay close to shore in the first break as there was a pretty deep trough between the breakers. No sooner was I out there, I realized I couldn’t body surf in. The surf was pounding down on me and I couldn’t keep my head up out of the water. I looked over to a few surfers and saw one youngster looking at me. When I came up for air again, he was still looking, probably recognizing that I needed help. I waved my hand and, in a minute or two, he was beside me. He put me on his surfboard and I rode it into the beach. This young surfer – he looked to be around 10 – ran back into the water with his friends while I was still gasping for breath. I watched him and his friends for a few minutes, remembering my last brush was near drowning.

I still love swimming in the ocean and take every opportunity to be in and on the water, but I also have a healthy respect for its power and unpredictability. I owe my life twice to the kindness and vigilance of young surfers, worlds apart.

(Episode 209)

For my 21st birthday, I decided that I wanted to stay with some friends up at my company’s cabin, which is in Truckee. It’s like a cabin from about 1980-ish, a little outdated cabin. I had my friends over there – about 3-4 of my friends – and then one of my coworkers, who is one of my friends, invited a couple of her friends from Nevada. So, her friends from Nevada came over. All of my friends are there too. I ended up going to sleep with my boyfriend.

We woke up the next morning. I walked out into the living room and I noticed that one of the mirrors that was hanging up in the living room was gone, but it was replaced with another mirror. So I walked over to the people that were staying there, and I asked them why the mirror was gone, and they said they had something to tell me. So, turns out, my coworker’s friend from Nevada brought his gun with him and, while they were drunk, they decided to play with the gun. He took his gun that he didn’t think was loaded and he shot it at the wall. Turns out there was a bullet in the chamber and he shot through the wall, missing a water heater by about three inches, causing there to be four holes in the wall, going straight through one wall that passed the water heater, went through the other wall, and then through the other wall, popped out of the exterior on the other side. So I ended up spending the rest of my vacation patching these holes that this man did.

I don’t know how my boyfriend and I didn’t wake up when the gunshot went off, but I’m just so grateful that nobody was hurt because there were people on the pouch that were sitting right in front of him that could have been shot. I had best friends that were sleeping in the loft upstairs. I could have been shot. It was just a horrible situation – the worst way to end the birthday weekend. I know now to not ever bring them around for anything anymore. It’s really eye-opening how things could change in an instant.

(Episode 210)
My name is Julie. I lost my vision as an adult. I’m now legally blind. I can see a little bit, but it’s like looking through straws. I use a white cane to feel what’s in front of me. I want to explain what it can be like when people ignore the fact that I have a white cane, or even worse, I’ve had people jump over the cane, kick the cane out of the way, push me out of the way, and you need to imagine not being able to see these people until they are right in front of your face. They just appear there, sometimes in midair. It’s terrifying. They go on with their day as if nothing’s happened, but I can’t. I’m left shaking and doubting my ability to get around safely.

I lived in France for over a decade. This was very lucky for me because the medical care there is really good and I got two years of really good therapy. This ranged from how to use a white cane to sitting in a circle surrounded by speakers to learn how to decipher the sounds around me. This was unlucky because people in France are a lot more self-centered, which made it very difficult for me as a person with a disability. To be clear, the majority of people, no matter what country, are good. They’re caring and they have situational awareness. Unfortunately, I can’t usually see the good people. When I do see people move out of the way for me, I thank them. That’s really important to me. Usually, though, it’s when I’m with somebody that they say “Later.” Wow, I can’t believe how everybody just parted when they saw you coming and then I feel kind of bad that I wasn’t able to thank these people for being so nice to me.

If I hear a child ask one of their parents, what is that or I see them staring at the cane, I’ll stop and explain it to them. I’ll show them how it works and I’ll even let them try it if they want to. This allows them to start conversations with their friends and family. Hopefully, people will understand more about what it’s like to have a white cane. I’ve even had parents ask me questions. I really enjoy being able to teach people about that. I try to leave the house at least once a day. I know that I need to get fresh air. I’m a real people person, so I need to see other people, but I also know that at least one person is going to make things really difficult for me. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a lot of people. But, when you see how it affects my day, it makes it really hard for me to force myself to leave the house again the next day.

I want to tell you about what happened to me the other day. It’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me so far, but I’m still having trouble dealing with it. I went to my local department store. It’s the only one that I can walk to because I’m obviously not allowed to drive. While I was standing in line to pay and not moving, I felt someone pressing up against me on my right side. I started saying, no, but the woman was persistent. She pushed past me, tripped hard over my cane, broke it in half, and then fell on the floor. I looked at her and I said, “What’s wrong with you?” And she screamed at me and said, “I’m just trying to pass!” And so I said, “Is this how you treat disabled people? Is this your first day being a human being?” I don’t think that I can say what she said to me, but it was basically, “F you!” as loud as she could.

The store was packed and everyone was just staring. I stood there shaking with my mouth open. I didn’t know what to do. If someone had forced themselves onto a person with perfect vision and then poked their eyes out, that would be considered assault. But here, I’m told it’s just bad luck and bad manners when it happens to someone like me. I was so shaken up that I had a panic attack. Thankfully, two very nice ladies came over right away and they helped me. But this is still running through my head now, over and over and I’m trying to figure out, “What can I do to avoid a situation like this? What could I have done differently?” I have no idea how to keep myself safe. I don’t know how to handle these situations any differently and I have no legal recourse. Something similar happened to a blind man in France and they put the video on the news and tried to help find the guy. Here in Canada, I was told that there’s nothing that I can do.

So here I am, sitting at home, wondering, “Should I go out? Can I go out? And am I going to be safe if I go out again today?” And this is what it’s like to be legally blind.

(Episode 211)

I’m 68 years old. I don’t feel old but, I guess, when I was born, there were only 48 states in the United States. Hawaii and Alaska didn’t come around till 1959 but my point is seat belts in cars didn’t become mandatory till 1968. I was 11 years old at that time. My dad had a Ford Country Squire station wagon. All nine of us kids would be piled in there – most of us in the back cargo area. Whenever he wanted to quiet things down in the car, he would tap the brakes and we would all lunge forward and bump our heads, I guess, and that would quiet everybody down. But this experience has to do with my cousin, John.

Now, Aunt Jane was driving her station wagon and she was going down the highway, and she was speeding. She says she remembers even being concerned, looking out for police that she wouldn’t be stopped for speeding. My cousin John was in the back seat of the station wagon. He was only three or four years old. Of course, no car seat, no seat belts. He decided he was going to try opening the door, which he did. My aunt said she just heard the car door open and closed, looked back and, going down the road 70 miles an hour, her son, John, was out of the car. Well, she panicked. She pulled over to the side of the road and went back, expecting to find the worst, and here’s my cousin, John, at three or four years old, running after her down the side of the road saying, “Mom, don’t leave me! Mom, don’t leave me!”

Well, she scooped him up, took him to the hospital, and the doctor said, “Well, he’s got a couple of scrapes, but no broken bones. You might as well just take him home.” So, I guess when you’re three or four, your bones are a little bit more flexible, you bounce a little bit better than you do when you get older. We often relate that story about my cousin John. I guess it might have rattled his thyroid because he grew up to be six foot six inches tall. But, other than that, he’s normal.

(Episode 212)

This is Christen, and this is the story of my first time giving birth. Actually, I was born at home, and I think that really influenced my ideas about what I wanted my giving birth experience to be like. So when I was pregnant, I was planning for a home birth. My parents drove out to Denver, where we lived and they were going to be there for the birth of my baby and a little bit after to meet their newest grandchild. So, the day that I was in labor, my mom and dad were there. My mom was making me food and rubbing my back. It was just really nice to have my mom there.

We were in touch with the midwife a little bit throughout the day but, every time we talked to her, she said, “Oh, it sounds like textbook early labor.” Later in the day, my water broke. That was one of the indications of calling the midwife to say, “Come now.” So we did. And so she said, okay, she was on her way. Then, after they hung up, my mom told my husband, “You need to call her back. I am seeing something when Christen has a contraction.” So we called her back and she told my husband to put her on speakerphone. I think the concern was that what my mom was seeing was the umbilical cord, but I still could hear her even though the phone was on normal level. I heard her say Christen needs to push really hard for her next contraction.

So the next contraction came and a foot came out. So, the midwife said hang up and call 911. So we hung up and called 911. They were on their way. We called the midwife back, and she stayed on the phone with my husband the whole rest of her drive over, and she got there and immediately put the Doppler in my belly, which is what hears the baby’s heart rate, and the baby’s heart rate was fine, which is a really good sign that the baby was not in stress, distress.

Then, about a minute or two later, the paramedics got there and, ultimately, I ended up having to climb off the bed with the foot sticking out of my body, get a robe on, and get on the gurney. They wheeled me to the ambulance. We took an ambulance ride to the hospital. My husband followed quickly behind. Once we got to the hospital, I was wheeled to the operating room and the doctor said, “I think she’s going to deliver this baby breech, but I just need to check the positioning first,” which was the most painful thing up until that point I had experienced. That’s when they discover that the baby was not only breech, but sunny side up, and then the other leg was externally rotated and bent, kind of like the tree pose from yoga. So he said to me, “We’re putting you under and we’re getting this baby out now.” Finally, they put a thing over my face and I finally went out.

I don’t remember that really, but the next thing I knew I woke up and my husband was holding this squishy little thing and said, “You have a baby girl. We had kept the sex of the baby a surprise.” I was pretty altered from the anesthesia and then the drugs, because I had an emergency C section. So obviously, I had drugs in my body. So meeting my baby in the first couple of days was all kind of a haze, which I don’t particularly love, but I have a safe, healthy baby who is now four and a half. And then, three years later, I did get my home birth experience. I had a successful VBAC with my son – which stands for Vaginal Birth After Cesarean – and successfully delivered a baby at home. So that’s it! My first home birth turned into an emergency C section of a breech baby who is now still just a little spitfire, amazing spirit, and my son is a mischievous little guy. Thanks for listening!

(Episode 213)

I grew up in a small country town in California outside of the Bay Area called Rio Vista. Rio Vista is the kind of town where everyone knows everybody in the town. Lineage runs strong. I went to a high school where seeing goats, lambs, cows, and pigs was the norm. My high school had no more than 400 students. Even though some of us didn’t talk to each other, we were all close-knit. I never saw anyone I didn’t know.

I was a cheerleader at the school. In every football season, one of the students from my high school would walk around the quad with a box of pomegranates. I never really spoke to him but, of course, I knew of him because he was in the same grade as my sister and because of our school being so small, I was in the same class as his younger brother.

Since the third grade, actually, this day was like any other. I got up at 6.30 AM to get ready for school. Left at 7.45 as my school was only 10 minutes away. School started at 8.10, but I like to get there a little bit early to talk to my friends. My first period class was PE and the gym that was held for PE was right by the AG building. Right behind the EC building was an empty field. A lot of kids would cross through this field in order to get onto the high school campus.

I arrived at the gym with my older sister who happened to be in the same class, and our attention was grabbed by the bright red and white lights coming from the EC building. We decided to move a little closer so we could see what was going on, but we weren’t able to see much in the first period. Bell had rung, so we had to go about our day. I don’t necessarily remember what period it was but, eventually, the announcement was made to our school that one of the students had passed away. Turns out it was the kid who had always passed out the pomegranates during lunchtime. My school held a memorial for him and it was a really dark time for my school while we mourned him. He was a very smart, kind, and giving young man, and he was missed dearly.

(Episode 214)

I live in the UK and I live in a place called the Forest of Dean, which is just basically in the middle of the woods. Beautiful rural area and not much to do really, apart from just exploring the woods’ mess boat. You’re just a dream when you are a little kid. Absolutely amazing just being out in nature.

So back in the 1970s, I was maybe 5 or 6, and my big sister was a couple of years older than me. We scraped for an adventure, just muck about, play in the ferns, make a camp. So we just called the neighbors, got our friends – three of our friends from the neighbor’s house around the same age, maybe a little bit older. I said, “What should we do today? I know! Let’s go and play on the dump!” The dump is just a place where all the locals used to go and just basically dump all their garden rubbish, shower of bottles just because, back in those days, there were no sort of laws against it. So yeah, great. Let’s have a nice day mucking about on the dump.

So I was there picking up a few bottles, making a few little sort of camps and whatever, looked over and my big sister was with the neighbor’s kids and all crowded around what we thought were some plants or some trees, or wasn’t sure. So I just went over and my big sister goes, “Oh look, we’ve just found all these peas and these pea pods. They taste delicious. Why don’t you try some?” I wasn’t sure. I got one in this tiny little pod and ate a little bit and thought, “Oh, that’s really tasty, really sweet.” So I had a few more, and my sister and her friends, they were all digging into these little peas. Really sweet, really delicious. Anyway, that was that. Then we just started to think, well, we better get home now because it was a Sunday and school in the morning.

So we went back home, getting ready for bed, and our dad said to us, “What have you been up to today, dump girls?” I said, “Oh, just playing on the dump. Made a few camps in the ferns, whatever. And we found these delicious peas in little pea pods on the dump.” My dad thought, well that’s a bit strange because it’s not really the time of year when we’ve got peas growing. It’s a bit strange. So he said, “Can you show me where these peas were? Let’s just go and check what you were eating. You shouldn’t really be eating things that are on the dump.” So, pajamas. Dad took us out on the dump. “There you go, dad. That’s what we’ve been eating. Look really delicious peas. My dad’s face dropped like a stone and then he realized what it was. The neighbors earlier on that week had cut down a laburnum tree and Laburnum trees have got extremely poisonous little pods, very attractive to little kids. We thought they were peas and we’d been eating them, very poisonous.

Back in those days, there were no mobile phones, nothing like that. So, mum and dad just had to basically bundle us in the car, and then we thought, “Mom, Dad, our neighbor’s kids, we were all eating them.” So they had to go knock on the neighbor’s door, get the three kids from the neighbors, and then we had about a 15-mile drive to get into the hospital. I mean, mum and dad must have been absolutely terrified. We didn’t really know what was going on. We thought it was a bit funny. We just basically got halfway to the hospital, and then dad realized that he was nearly out of petrol, so we had to stop at the garage, fill it with petrol. Dad and Mom at the time were probably thinking, Oh my God, our two children are about to die of poisoning, and also the neighbor’s kids are going to all die of poisoning from these really bad laburnum seeds.

Anyway, he made it to the hospital. I remember waiting in the casualty and one by one the nurses came in to get us. So it was me, my sister, two girls, and one boy – the neighbors. So my sister went in first. I remember seeing the nurse. She had little white ankle wellies on and took her in. She was gone for about five minutes. She came back out, they called m,e and I went. I noticed a nurse with her little white wellies on, and asked me to get up on the table, lie on my side. I was thinking, oh yeah, this isn’t so bad. I’m not sure what they did to my sister, but she looked okay when she came out. Lay on the side. Then, all of a sudden, the nurse was there with a big funnel like my dad used to put petrol in the car with. I was thinking, “Oh my God, what are they going to do? They’re not going to put petrol in me to get rid of these poisonous seeds, are they? So they got this funnel, a big tube.

I was lying on my side on this bed, and they just ran this big 1.5 centimeter or 2 centimeter wide pipe down my throat into my stomach, scraping all the way down, put the funnel in the end, got a bucket or a jug, poured all this salty water down the funnel, straight into my stomach, and I obviously then threw up everywhere, lying down on my side with my long hair in my face. So my long hair was all covered in laburnum seeds. Anyway, that was that. Went back.

Then, the other girls, they had their turn, and then the last one to go in was the boy from our neighbors. We all were in the waiting room waiting for him, and all we could hear was him screaming at the top of his lungs, screaming his little heart out. He was the oldest boy, and he didn’t take it as well as the girls. So that was that. That was the end of that adventure. My dad sadly passed away, but when I talk about it to my mum and say, oh, that was a funny story, she said, “That was not a funny story. Don’t ever do anything like that again.”

Every time I see a laburnum tree – now they’re beautiful trees – I just always think of that story on the day that me and my sister and all of my neighbor’s children nearly died because, apparently, you only need to eat about 10 of those seeds to be fatal. Anyway, thank you, Scott, for your podcast. Absolutely love it. It keeps me company on my walks and can’t wait till the next episode. Bye.

(Episode 215)

On February 2nd, 2019, I was on my way home from work when I was hit by a driver attempting to overtake at around 11:30 PM. He came into the oncoming lane in front of me, and we both braked hard before impact. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was really seeing what I thought I was. I remember thinking, “Are they really in my lane?” I remember everything except the sound of the impact. When the car hit me, I could feel myself flying through the air and I’m pretty sure I was flipping. Being nighttime, I couldn’t see anything and had no idea where I was or where I was going to land. I remember worrying about landing on my neck and breaking it because a friend of mine broke her neck several years back in an incident not related to motorcycles. I also briefly wondered if it was the last thing I would ever see.

I was thrown clear of the car and landed on the grass on the side of the road. I landed mostly on my back, but I think I must have landed slightly left because my left elbow and knee had some minor issues afterward. My crutch felt a little on the numb side. Not even thinking, I got up immediately and saw the car slowly driving away. I thought it was a hit-and-run. I turned around and saw the license plate on the road, and thought that it would be helpful if this really was a hit and run. I took my helmet and gloves and put them down next to my bike. I realized my helmet camera was missing. I looked around on the road, but I couldn’t see it amongst the debris and thought maybe it was under my bike, which was laying in the gutter on its side, pointing in the opposite direction to where I’d been traveling. The engine had cut out, but the headlight was still on because the ignition was on.

A number of people stopped and came over to me. A woman asked if I wanted some water and went to hand me a drink bottle, but I said I probably shouldn’t have any. My thoughts were that if I didn’t know how injured I was, I shouldn’t have any food or water in case I needed surgery. It was a strange feeling. I could think about some things but, at the same time, I felt confused and a bit cloudy and I wasn’t really sure what to do.

A man got on his phone and called an ambulance, and another man talked to me. I don’t really remember what he said, but I got confused and thought he was the one who hit me and asked what he was doing on the wrong side of the road. His response made me think that he wasn’t actually the driver. I was walking around near my bike and people kept telling me that I should sit down. After a while, I began to feel very lightheaded – I didn’t know why and it worried me a bit.

I yelled next to my bike and decided to call my mother. I figured it would be better for her to hear about this from me rather than a paramedic or a policeman because she was already going to panic, but if I spoke to her, then she could at least have some kind of relief. For some reason, the call cut off on the first try. So, I rang back and I said that I was okay, but I just had a head-on with a car. I told her what road I was on, but it’s a long road, so I began looking around trying to find something that would make it easier for me to explain where I was and one of the people in the area gave me the name of an intersecting street. I wasn’t very far from home when this happened, approximately five kilometers. I’ve been looking forward to getting home and having a nice bowl of cookies and cream, ice cream after work, which I didn’t get.

I explained to my mother that I thought the driver had taken off. I heard someone behind me say, “No, I didn’t.” I turned to see a tall man who looked to be in his late twenties to early thirties, and I asked him what he was doing on the wrong side of the road. He said, “I don’t know. I thought there was another lane.” At some point, I thought I’d better turn the ignition off, but it was on the right-hand side of the bike, which was where it was laying. It was down on the right hand side, so that meant that I had to get down onto the ground. Because everything was mangled, I had a hard time finding it, but probably also because I was still in a confused state, but I managed to find it and turn the bike off, and then I would just put the keys back in my pocket as I usually would when I’d finished a ride. It was just as well because the key to my other motorcycle was also on that set.

A police car was on scene very quickly, and two male officers whose names I don’t recall came over to me. Both myself and the driver of the car were given breath tests, but neither of us had been drinking. He appeared to be pretty shaken up too. Although he did something he shouldn’t have, I figured that he was probably feeling pretty ordinary about it. So I actually gave him a hug because, despite what he did, I did feel a little bit sorry for him as well. When the ambulance got there, two paramedics, a man and a woman came to me. We talked for a bit. Before heading over to the ambulance, I thought I could feel blood around my crutch, so I checked, but there was nothing there. The male paramedic checked the area in the ambulance and there didn’t seem to be anything major going on.

I found out later that I had been thrown crutch-first into the bike’s fuel tank, which I had left a rather large dent in, and that’s what the issue had been. The paramedic mentioned that he was happy that I was wearing proper gear. I had an armored Kevlar hoodie, Kevlar jeans, knee pads, gloves, helmet, and my work shoes on. The shoes have carbon fiber in the toes and weren’t damaged in the accident, which is just as well because, sometimes, they can actually cut off your toes if they get crushed. Most of the time, I wear proper motorcycle boots. There was also the added bonus of them saying, “Staying on my feet.” Sometimes, in crashes, you will get shoes flying off people’s feet. I’m glad that didn’t happen to me.

My helmet had a few insignificant scrapes, and the visor had popped off. I replaced the helmet because, even if you can’t see any damage on the outside, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any internally. So your best bet is to just replace the helmet. I told the paramedic about the lightheadedness I had, and he explained that adrenaline can do that. When my blood pressure was checked, I was told that it was good, so they weren’t too worried about internal bleeding. I had pain, but it was never horrendous, so I didn’t take any painkillers at all. My reasoning was that they were better left there for someone who really needed them, and I didn’t feel as though I did. I was sitting in the back on a seat in the ambulance.

When my mother and brother arrived at the scene and my mother came into the ambulance through the side door, she was very teary and wide-eyed. I waved at her and I said, “How are you going?” She told me later that she wanted to strangle me. I was taken to a hospital that was further from the closest, because the closest was Werribee Hospital and they don’t really do trauma. So I was taken away to Footscray and it was still only about a 20-minute trip, so it wasn’t bad.

The police and the paramedics said that I’ve been extremely lucky. Normally, head-on collisions between bikes and cars don’t end very well. This happened in a 60 kilometer zone – 37 miles an hour for the Americans – so the impact speed is doubled in a head-on. There’s only a couple of seconds worth of time to brake. I’m not exactly sure how fast either of us were going when we hit, but it was likely at least an 80-kilometer-an-hour impact.

Once I was at the hospital and that collar was put on me – and wow, those things are uncomfortable – it made me feel extra sorry for a friend of mine who’d had to wear one for six weeks when she broke her neck. It was just precautionary though because, even though I hadn’t had pain in my neck and I could still move, sometimes, you can do damage to yourself without knowing about it. My crutch, hip, and knee were sore. The latter two felt very stiff after a while because you’re not allowed to move much once they get you into the hospital. I was admitted pretty quickly, and this was the first time in my life that I’d actually been in hospital for myself, and I was 29. Most uncomfortable thing besides the neck collar was having to use a bedpan.

The nurses were really nice, and one in particular had a great sense of humor. At one point, when she came to check on me and asked me how I was going, I said, “Yep, good.” And I asked her how she was, and she said, “Yeah, better than you. I’m up here and you are down there.” And I said, “Well, that happens to me anyway because I’m 5’ 1”. Eventually, I had scans and X-rays and was lucky enough to be put in a room with only one other person. I didn’t sleep much there. Too much going on, and being in a strange place makes it hard to sleep anyway. I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink in case I needed surgery, but I did hear nurses talking to one another, and they said that the chances of that were nil even. So I had to wait for clearance

My mother and brother stayed until the early hours of the morning, but I was happy for them to go home. It wasn’t serious and there wasn’t any need for them to sit around for hours. The next day, I had visits from four of my biker friends, which I really appreciated. Late in the afternoon, I was told that I didn’t have any organ damage and I didn’t break any bones. I was also told that if I could walk, I could go home. I was pretty happy about that, but getting off of the bed for the first time was more of a struggle than I was anticipating it to be. The muscles surrounding my hips got very stiff and sore, so when I went to stand up, I almost fell back down. I could walk, but it was slow going. It was a lot of bruising around my crotch from hitting the tank. Walking and moving in general was not the most fun thing in the world for the next few weeks. My hospital stay was only about 17 to 18 hours, and getting into and out of the car was not very much fun.

We got home and I remembered that my bedroom was upstairs. I figured out how to navigate the stairs without it being too terrible. I just didn’t feel like sleeping downstairs on the couch. I wanted my own bed, especially after being in a hospital bed. I was interested to check the camera footage. While I hadn’t been able to find the camera, a policeman had found it on the bonnet of the car that hit me. It was basically undamaged and still works to this day. I was worried about the quality of the footage because it’s not a camera that is designed for night use, but it shows well enough what happened.

Two days after the accident, we went to see my bike. It was at a towing yard and had been laying on its right side in the back of a wrecked ute. It was pretty confronting to see that, but more confronting was when they brought the car that hit me into the building. The car and the bike had been taken to the same tow yard, and they brought the car in, and the front of it was all completely caved in, and that gave me one hell of a surprise.

I posted about the incident on a Facebook page for my area, my local town. Not too long after that, two different news stations were calling me asking for interviews. So, not long after that, I did those interviews and they were on Channel Seven and Channel Nine news. I started riding again just 17 days after the crash because I’d had two bikes at the time. It would’ve been sooner but I was waiting for a new battery for the other bike and it was an older bike, so it took a bit longer to come in.

The first time I rode was to go to a doctor’s appointment, which was about an hour away from me. As I pulled out onto the road and started riding down the road, I just had a big smile creep up on my face because I love riding, always have. So I was glad that it was able to end that way for me. I replaced the other bike with one that was in a different state to me, and it took two days to ride it back. It was a fair way away. The first day, I rode over 300Ks, and then the second day it was over 730, and both those days were somewhere around 37 degrees Celsius – way too hot.

I continue to ride to this day and I actually ride more now than I did before. I saw it as I didn’t want something that I loved to be taken away from me because of fear. I didn’t let that happen. I’ve had so many fun experiences and great memories. So, I’m very happy with my decision to continue riding. Thank you all for listening.

(Episode 216)
Kiona
Hey Scott. This is the story where I, Kiona, had to give my son, Kairo, the Heimlich maneuver when he was–

Kairo
I’m right here.

Kiona
Yes. When he was just 3.5 years old.

Kairo
I thought I was 4.

Kiona
You were almost 4.

Kairo
I thought I was like 4.5.

Kiona
You were 3.5 because I was pregnant with her sister, Katana at the time. So Kairo, I’m going to start by telling the story and then I want you to tell me what it made you feel like when it was happening. Okay? For me, as your mom, I saw you playing on the bunk bed and you had a magnet. I remember taking the magnets earlier in the day, but you and Kavina snuck one magnet because you just wanted to keep playing with it. I didn’t know that you still had it. I was just cleaning your room and then I saw you playing around up on the top bunk, and then I was getting ready to leave the room.

Then, I looked at you and you’re, like, trying to cough. You’re pounding on your chest and stuff, and I’m like, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” I just heard (imitate gagging sound). That’s all I heard. So when I look at you, I freak out because you’re on the top bunk. As a mom, kids always put stuff in their mouths, right? So, usually a couple pats on the back is enough. But, at that moment, I did the few pats on the back, and it wasn’t working. And then I did it again and it wasn’t working, and I did it again and it wasn’t working, and I started getting scared. I knew that I had to act quickly because you were starting to turn purple and your neck was starting to get really veiny, which was showing me that you weren’t breathing. So what I did was at that point, while I was 7 months pregnant with your sister, I just picked you up off the ground and I started trying to give you the Heimlich maneuver.

In my mom brain, I was like, “Oh my gosh, he’s going to throw up all over the floor if I do this, and we’re on carpet.” So what I do is I run into our bedroom instead of your bedroom and go into our master bathroom.

Kairo
I remember that.

Kiona
You remember that. And then I’m, like, running past your grandma, running past your older sister, and running past your dad.

Kairo
And I remember you were just screaming, “Kairo’s choking!”

Kiona
Yes, I was screaming, “Kairo’s choking! Kairo’s choking!” I tried to do the Heimlich again. I did it twice and it didn’t work, and I was really scared. Then, when we were finally in the bathroom, we were above the bathtub and I changed the way I did it. I did the Heimlich, and then I also turned you upside down and patted your back hard that way. Do you remember that? I did that a few times. That is when the magnet finally came out. I didn’t know it was a magnet until it came out of your mouth. I’m going to cuss really quick because I remember saying, “It was a fucking magnet!” Do you remember hearing me say that? Yeah. And you were like, “Whoa, mom cussed.” I remember, right when it was about to come out of your mouth, your dad started calling 911 but, by the time they said, “Do you need us to send someone?”, it just came out of your mouth, and he was like, “No, the magnet just came out. It’s fine.” And guess how long all of that took? Three minutes.

Kairo
For me, it felt like 50 million years.

Kiona
Me too. It felt like a really long time for me too. So tell me how it felt for you. At what point did you realize that you were actually choking?

Kairo
When the magnet fell into my mouth, and then I was just trying to take it out with my tongue, I was like, “Where is it?” And then I started to cough and I was like, “Oh no, I’m choking.”

Kiona
How did it fall in your mouth?

Kairo
I was just going like this while I was laying down. Then, it slipped out of my hands.

Kiona
You were playing with it in the air above your face when you were laying down?

Kairo
Mmhmm. And then it just slipped out of my hands and it fell down my throat.

Kiona
What did it feel like to you when you were choking?

Kairo
It just felt really scary and I just felt like I was going to die. It just felt super weird.

Kiona
You felt like you were going to die?

Kairo
Yes.

Kiona
Tell me more about what that means.

Kairo
I could feel like my face turned to a different color, and then I was just super scared and I didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t really move my arms because all my bands were focused on my neck.

Kiona
You felt like you were just getting a lot of pressure in your neck or something?

Kairo
Mmhmm.

Kiona
Do you remember what it felt like when mommy was giving you the Heimlich, when I was squeezing you really tight?

Kairo
It just felt pulsing on my belly and then I could kind of feel it coming up. So when you did the other technique, I knew it would come out.

Kiona
You did? Was there any point when you were worried about whether or not it was going to work?

Kairo
It was at the first one.

Kiona
You knew that it was going to? How did you feel once the magnet came out?

Kairo
I was just relieved and I was going to– I don’t know if I did, but I felt like I was going to cry.

Kiona
Yeah, I felt like I was going to cry. You started crying when it came out a little bit. I was in so much shock that I couldn’t cry. I was, like, hesitant to put you down to sleep that night because I was like, “Oh my gosh, is he going to be okay? Did you have enough oxygen going to your brain during that time that we were doing the Heimlich” because you couldn’t breathe and it was obvious you couldn’t breathe. I remember getting a text from Papa, my dad, and he said, “Hey, what happened?” I told him what happened and I just started crying. I was crying and crying. I felt like such a horrible mom but, truly, I just did my best.

Kairo
You were. You actually saved my life.

Kiona
Yeah, I did. I’m happy I did because I love you and you’re so smart and kind and brave, and you’re really good at video games.

Kairo
Why don’t you want me to play them that often?

Kiona
Because you have to have a limitation, of course. But I love you. Thanks for sharing your story with me.

Kairo
You are welcome.

Kiona
Bye-bye. Mwah! One thing that I wish I knew before doing the Heimlich on Kairo was that, when you’re doing the Heimlich on a small child, you should actually kneel behind them while their feet are still on the ground because it makes the force of the Heimlich more useful rather than picking them up and trying to provide that force when they’re kind of ragdolls in your arms. So if any of you listeners need to do the Heimlich on a small child, I would just keep that in mind. All right. Thanks for listening!

(Episode 217)

What I do for work is I run a women’s clothing boutique. We’re very specialized in the customer service that we provide. Being an associate that’s a little bit more engaged, maybe in the experience with the customer, I seem to come in contact with very unusual people. I just wanted to tell you about this insane story of something that happened to me while I was on shift. On this particular day, I was opening my store at this location. We didn’t get payroll allocation that allowed us to have double coverage in the morning, so I was working my morning shift alone. The next person was scheduled to come in at, I think it was 12.30, and we opened at 10. So I’m alone.

We weren’t super busy or anything but at one point in the morning, a gentleman had come in. When I greeted him and asked him if there was anything that had him perusing them all, he said that he was doing some shopping for his nieces. He said that one of them had a birthday coming up and he just wanted to pick something up for her, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s so nice.” I said, “Well, did you have anything in mind?” We started walking around the store together and I was giving him some ideas. We were just kind of bouncing off each other really. This man was very conversational, very nice. He was a little bit older, not like elderly or anything, maybe his early fifties, late forties, kind of give dad vibes. I don’t know.

Once I had shown him a couple of these things, I asked him, “Do you want some time to do a little bit of browsing and take a look instead of me just showing you things?” And he was like, “Oh yeah, that sounds good. I’ll do a walkthrough.” I’m like, “Great, my name’s Vicki. Anything you need, I’d be happy to help you.” So I kind of break away from him.

Another woman had come in, so I went to chat with her and she’s dress shopping. I’m up in the front of the store, like, really going through some dress options with her, and I have my head up. I’m kind of making sure that, if this man needs anything, I’m also available for him. I saw that he was casually passing by the register, so when I could, I said over to him, “Oh, are you all set? Are you waiting on me?” And he was like, “Oh no, I’m still making some decisions.” I’m like, “Okay, not a problem. Don’t be afraid to let me know when you’re ready if I’m not over there.” And I go back to helping this woman with the dress.

Well, while I’m kind of helping her, he says, “Hey, I just got this phone call. I need to take it outside. I’ll be back. I left something up at the register.” I’m like, “Okay. So no problem at all.” I wrap up the situation with the lady with the dress. We walk over to the register. She’s ready to check out, so I take her over to the main register. There was something on the counter, so I said, “Oh, let me bring you over here.” I take her to the other register and I’m kind of thinking like, “What is that?” I’m the only person that’s been here today. I didn’t notice it. It was some kind of substance that was on the countertop.

I finished checking her out. She leaves. I’m back by myself, so I decide to investigate whatever the heck this is. That’s by register one. I go over to the register, I see it’s all on the counter and it kind of looks like, maybe cup sweat or something like the condensation from the cup. It’s really very spread out and I’m kind of investigating and I see that it’s kind of on the side of the, like, receipt printer and I notice it’s up on the computer a little bit and I’m like, “What is this?” I have no idea what this could be. I’m like, racking my brains and the phone rings. So I picked up the phone. I do my little greet. No one’s on the other end.

While I’m going through the greet, “Hi, thank you for calling, blah, blah, blah. How can I help you?” I noticed that whatever was on the counter and the register was also on the phone, and I had pressed it up against my face, obviously, because I’m answering the phone and I kind of pull the phone away when nobody’s answering. I’m like, “Hello?” And that’s when I smell it. Scott, it was semen. It was ejaculation on the phone. Scott, I cannot make this up. No one was on the other end.

To this day, I am convinced that this man was the one that made the phone call and he knew what he did to me. And all of a sudden, like, 5,000 people are coming into the store. I’m trying to navigate the fact that there’s, like, a very serious sanitary issue going on. I’m trying to call my loss prevention manager, my district leaders, out of the business. I have to call the police. I’ve been sexually assaulted. The police come, they’re like, “Oh, yep, you need to go to the hospital. You need to get tested.” This is not the first sexual thing that’s happened to me at work, but definitely one of the most memorable, and I feel like people just don’t ever consider the dark side of working retail. People do the most diabolical things. You just would never believe it. I just found it very disgusting.

I don’t know any other way to put it, and I laugh, not because it’s funny. It’s like a nervous laughter. It’s like, what the heck else are you supposed to do? And you know that they never even caught the guy. Scott, they never even caught the guy. This guy is still possibly running around ejaculating on registers on poor, innocent victims. Like, please– I don’t know. I’m going to manifest that I will never run into something like that again.

(Episode 219)

Years ago, my children were students in a Waldorf-based charter school. Some of you might be wondering what that is. Waldorf is an educational philosophy that’s very holistic and gentle. It incorporates a lot of things like nature, music, and art. It does not include mainstream academic things like homework, grades, or even detention. They had a playground that included the woods to play in, trees to climb, rope swings, gardens, even chickens. It was very idyllic. I should stop here to add that my second child, Maggie, was and still is incredibly determined, strong-willed even. She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to bulldoze her way into getting it.

When Maggie was in first grade, her older sister, Izzy, was in fourth grade. Izzy and her classmates had formed a sort of storytelling club where they made books complete with illustrations and stories. They would work on these stories during recess, and Maggie wanted in. Unfortunately for her, the fourth graders had a rule that only fourth graders could be in the club. Most kids would find a way to handle this disappointment in a more appropriate way, but we’re talking about Maggie here. She wanted in that club, and she was not taking no for an answer.

So what did Maggie do? Well, she gathered her fellow first graders and rallied them towards her cause. This is an injustice and they were not going to allow the fourth graders to exclude others. No way. So Maggie laid out her plan, acting as a sort of general to the first graders, and they all readily agreed to join in the plan. They were eager to fight injustice. They started by rounding up weapons that they could, including rocks, sticks, even forks from their lunches. Once they were properly armed, they launched a surprise attack on the fourth graders charging at them like a scene straight from Gettysburg. They attacked the unsuspecting older kids until the skirmish was ended by the teachers and the first graders won.

The club was disbanded, but not without cost. The entire first grade, every single student earned a loss of recess for a week, and they had to do chores in lieu of recess time. I would like to remind you here that this is at a school that does not believe in punitive measures. So, when the school called to tell me what happened, I was mortified. I was embarrassed that my child had caused the entire class to be punished and that each of the other students’ parents had to be notified of what happened. But then, the more I thought about it, I came to feel some pride. My daughter saw what she perceived to be an injustice, and she rallied her peers to help her fight this injustice. When she was punished for it, she bravely accepted her fate and was proud of her courage, her conviction, and her leadership all shown at such a young age.

Maggie is now 16 years old. She’s a straight-A student now in a school that assigns grades, takes AP classes, is extremely talented in art and music, and was recently accepted into a highly competitive high school program that aligns with her future goals, and she is still incredibly headstrong.

(Episode 220)

Hey Scott. This is Art again, 68-year-old from DeBerry, Florida. This time, I’ve got a What Was That Like personal experience. My dad, he was an amazing carpenter, wood carver, plumber, electrician. He could weld anything, even did quite a bit of artwork, welding, old mining equipment, and metal into pieces of art. He built the home we lived in as a teenager. I asked him if he could buy me a motorcycle. He said, “Hey, why don’t we just build one?” And so he got a Briggs and Stratton five horsepower motor, welded up a frame, got a couple of tires, wheels out at the industrial supply, fixed up clutch and brake cables, a twist grip throttle, and off I rode on my own homemade motorcycle. But the interesting thing was he also was an amazing mechanic.

He was used by this one millionaire to maintain some mining property that was sitting idle. He knew my dad could fix anything there and could also do the annual maintenance to make sure the mill and equipment were ready to run if he wanted to start that back up again. So as a young teenager, I’m helping my dad and he was draining some big water lines. We were in Idaho near the Canadian border. If you look at the latitude lines, we were further north in the most northern tip of Maine. So it got pretty cold up there in the Rocky Mountains where this mine was. So, for the water lines, they would bury them about five feet deep so that they wouldn’t freeze in the wintertime, and then they would put a 55-gallon drum down in the ground around certain valves where you could then go down and open and close the water lines to create the necessary flow.

I’m about 12 or 13 years old. I’m helping my dad flush all these water lines from these big water tanks on the mill property, and this one valve didn’t want to turn. My dad was a big guy. I was 12 or 13, still skinny. So, I could get down inside that 55-gallon drum down to the waterline valve that was buried five feet below the surface. He said, “Well, I can’t get down there to disassemble that valve.” The nuts on it wouldn’t turn, so he said, “Just use some of the solvent down there to loosen up the nuts so we can actually disassemble a valve and repair that valve, which was seized.” So, he said that when you get down there, make sure that if you start feeling a little dizzy, you come back up because those solvent fumes might be overwhelming. So he put me to work there.

I went down, started working on that, and I wasn’t going to be a sissy, I wasn’t going to come out because I was feeling a little dizzy. I just kept working on that valve and my dad was off doing something else. But as anyone knows, if you work in a confined space with solvent, the oxygen is displaced. The halt solvent is heavier than oxygen, so I lost consciousness. So I’m down there and I could have easily died because there was no oxygen in the bottom of this thing, and I had completely passed out. So my dad comes back, sees me down there, pulls me out – I’m unconscious at that time – and I had one of those near death experiences.

It’s interesting because you start to slowly regain consciousness, and I looked in the distance, I saw a round light, and I felt like I was in– this is just exactly how I could describe it. I felt like I was inside a beer bottle, a long neck beer bottle, and I was, like, flowing with a current. There’s little waves and going back and forth, and I see my dad’s face at the end of that light. So I started swimming towards the light, and then, as I poured out of the mouth of the beer bottle, I regained consciousness and my dad was like, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” He kept me conscious again. Then the next thing he said, “Well, when we get home, let’s not tell your mother about this.” And we never did.

It was about 20 years later, I finally told my mom and she was like, “I never heard that story before.” But that was my dear death experience. My dad– the way he did everything, built anything, could fix anything– I guess I got some of his DNA because I eventually became a bachelor in Science and mechanical engineering, and I was engineering manager where we designed laser-based industrial machinery here, did a lot of big complex job, but I take my hat off to my dad for saving my life and for teaching me all those mechanical things.

(Episode 221)
I am recording this to tell you the story about when my son tried to commit suicide by hanging himself. This was a few years ago during the whole COVID pandemic, but everything started before that already. He was always a very emotional child, went through an identity crisis like a lot of young teenagers do. At first, he was dealing with depression and anxiety. Then he believed that he was gay, which was not a problem for us at all. We never gave him any kind of indication that we were upset or anything in that nature. From there, it went to him believing he may be non-binary also, no problem at all. It ended up turning back to him being heterosexual. So he went through this entire, “I’m trying to find myself.” With that, his emotional health just went down the hill. He was very depressed. He was very anxious. He was very emotional at all times. My then husband, his father could not deal with that very well. He’s a very typical military guy that believes, “Okay, if something’s tough, you just suck it up and you keep going.” This type of attitude just did not work for our son. So there was a lot of back and forth and them two getting into arguments and me trying to kind of be the buffer in between.

My ex-husband traveled a lot, so he was on and off when he was at home. The arguments would be worse because he just couldn’t understand our son’s need for compassion. So our son was in therapy at the time, it was virtual therapy. I remember, one day, after therapy, his therapist called me and she said, “We have to lock up all of the medication in the house because he has expressed that he has a wish of committing suicide and he had a plan by taking a lot of medication that we had in the house.” So I immediately found a lock, locked everything up. My husband at the time got very upset. He thought it was just him trying to act out. So we got into a big fight, which then caused our son to be really upset because he felt like he was the reason for us fighting and it was just this big blow up.

I ended up calling my therapist as well who encouraged me to take him to Sheppard Pratt right away, which is a psychiatric clinic here in the Baltimore area. So I did take him there. He spent a few days in the clinic, was eventually released, and then it was all right for, I want to say, about six months, maybe a little bit less. That first round had happened during summer breaks, so he didn’t miss any school then. But fast forward to the big incident, school had started again. My ex-husband was traveling and I had an argument with our son about something that I don’t even remember. It was nothing big. It was, I don’t know, maybe about cleaning his room or something.

He went upstairs and he was in his room and, all of a sudden, I heard a really loud bang and then just silence. At first, I was waiting and I kind of listened to hear if I heard anything else, but I heard nothing. So, I went upstairs and opened his door and he was sitting motionless on his bed. I asked him what he just did, if he was throwing something or what just happened, and he wouldn’t respond to me. Then, I asked again, “Please tell me what just happened.” And he wouldn’t respond to me. Then, I looked past him and I saw that his curtain rod was ripped out of the wall. My first thought was, “Did you do this?” Thinking that he was angry and had pulled it out of the wall. At that moment, it hit me because I saw a string that he had pulled out of his sweater, out of his hoodie, wrapped around that curtain rod. That’s when I realized he had tried to hang himself. Thank God, that rod came out of the wall rather than him actually succeeding in hanging himself on this curtain rod.

I started shaking. I didn’t even know what to do at that moment. I hugged him. I talked to him and he begged me not to take him back to the clinic and I really didn’t know what to do. My husband or ex-husband was in Italy at the time. I was by myself and I just heard him begging me not to take him back to the hospital. So I told him we would sleep on it. I called every resource that I could reach and everybody told me that I’m going to have to take him back to the clinic. This was just too serious. So I did take him back to the clinic the next morning, basically had to drag him to the car. He was kicking and screaming, and I felt like the worst mom. But I knew he needed that help and I was just not equipped to help him alone.

When we got to the hospital, the doctor that was in the office to admit people – he was actually the same one that admitted him the first time – he did not want to admit him, so I had to beg him to admit our son because I was afraid to take him back home. He just said that he doesn’t want kids to think that anytime they act out, they get to go to the hospital. So here I was sitting with a child that already didn’t want to come, being told by the doctor, “Why are you trying to admit him?” Thankfully, I stood my ground and I had him admitted feeling absolutely horrible because now my son saw that I was the one making him stay. But this time he stayed, I want to say about 10 days this time around. In that time, they were able to adjust his medication, put him on a new medication, and since then, thank goodness he has been doing much better. It was the right medication that I put him on. We have him on the right dosage now.

He is like a different child. This is definitely something I will never forget. And anytime he is in any way even just the slightest bit depressed or upset, I still worry to this day that something could happen. I think that will be in me for the rest of my days, but I’m just so thankful that I stood my ground and had him admitted to the hospital and that he was willing to work on himself and that we made it through it and are doing so much better now. For anybody else going through this, I can only recommend looking for help. Even if the first resource says they can’t help you or it just doesn’t feel right, keep reaching out to others. Reach out to other parents that you may know that went through something similar. Listen to your gut.

(Episode 222)

My story takes place on September 3rd, 1993. I know the exact date because I still have the ticket for this event. I had just turned 14. In the last two years prior, I had become very into acting. My obsession was to become a TV actress. I wanted to be on TV shows. I had found out that you could go see live TV tapings by writing to this company for tickets, so I had been to a few. I’d been able to talk my mom into driving us out to all these TV tapings, so I was kind of obsessed with doing that.

My cousin had heard about me going to some TV shows and she wanted to go see her favorite show, “Mad About You”. Mad About You had a very successful first season. It was about to start the second season. So she wrote for tickets and she got six tickets. She got it for her best friend, Julie, and for me, and then her parents and our grandma, who also loved the show. We drove out there. We were all from Orange County and the Inland Empire of Southern California, so it wasn’t a long drive. It’s less than an hour drive.

We got there and we parked in what I believe was the wrong parking lot because we were parked next to some very fancy cars and we were in a minivan. I said to my uncle at the time, “I don’t think this is the right parking lot,” but he just waved it off and said, “Well, we’re just going to park here.” I’m like, okay. So we parked there and we proceeded to try and find the sound stage.

Now, my cousin Erin – her name was Erin – she had fractured her leg, maybe two weeks prior, jumping on a trampoline. So she was in a cast and with crutches and she was hobbling along and she was so excited. She’s looking for this building where we’re supposed to go, and she sees the number of this building. Only I know it’s not a sound stage. It’s an office building. It’s got a metal staircase going up, but she’s insisting that’s where we’re going. So she led us to this middle staircase and she started climbing up the metal staircase with her crutches, and it made a loud noise. It’s kind of banging. We got to the top of the stairs and I said, “Erin, this is not a sound stage. I know this.” I see, on the door, a sign that says something about a table read. I know, because I’m an actress, that a table read is something that the actors and crew do on a show. When it’s a new script, they get together and they have a table read. And I said, “Erin, this is not where we need to be.”

As we’re arguing about it, a man comes out of one of the offices in the building, and he’s looking at us, three young girls, and he’s very confused. We said, “Well, we’re here for Mad About You. We’re here to see Mad About You.” And he’s like, “Oh, okay.” So he very graciously directs us to where we’re supposed to go. So we go down the stairs again and we find the grownups and we find our way to the sound stage and we enter with the rest of the audience.

Now, if you’ve never been to a TV taping, a sound stage– it’s a humongous building. Inside, you walk in at stage level, and that’s where the floor is, where all the sets are set up. Like the Mad About You apartment, the rifts restaurant, their bedroom set and any other set that they need is built right there on the floor. Then the audience sits up the stairs on this higher level, and the seats are set up in kind of, like, bleacher type sets where every set of chairs is up another level. So you can go up to the highest part and be further away from the sound stage, or you could be at the front row and be right above about five feet above the sound stage.

So we are sitting kind of in the middle and we’re watching and we’re looking at all the people down on the floor. There’s the camera people and the tech people and makeup artists. There might be writers down there, there might be producers, and of course the actors are there, maybe special guests. There’s just a lot of people down there. I’m looking and I’m so excited. I kind of want to get this covered because I want to be on a TV show.

But as we’re looking down there, I noticed a familiar face and I pointed, I looked at this face and I said, “Erin, it’s him. It’s the guy who had pointed us toward the sound stage. It’s the guy from the office building.” He sees us and his eyes kind of go wide and he comes over to the audience seating and he asks to talk on the microphone. There’s a warm up guy, a comedian, who usually talks to the audience in between and tells jokes or gives trivia or things like that. So he asks if he could use the microphone, and he comes up and he proceeds to tell the story about three young girls who interrupted his work just a few minutes ago – turns out he is one the writer of the episode and one of the main writers of Mad About You – and we were kind of embarrassed, but kind of laughing because he was being jokey with us. He was not upset, he was just teasing us.

But he came up and wanted to get our story, like, “What was going on?” And my cousin, being as bold and outspoken as she is, the first thing she said into the mic was, “Can Helen Hunt sign my cast?” Because that was her main goal. It was her goal to get Helen Hunt to sign her cast. Not 10 minutes later, word had gotten to Ms. Helen Hunt and she came up – I don’t know – where the pen came from. She proceeded to sign Erin’s cast.

I was standing next to her and I said, “I’m her cousin. Can you please sign my ticket?” And she did. She was very gracious. So I had the autograph of one of the most popular actresses on television. I was so excited. We were thrilled because Erin had her goal and she succeeded. So flash forward about an hour or so, these tapings can take anywhere from, like, two and a half to sometimes six hours. I was at one that was six hours long. It can take a long time. But we were able to move to the front row because a lot of people had left already and we were in the front row. And not five feet from us down on the floor in the director’s chair was Paul Reiser, the other star of Mad About You. He’s sitting there and he’s wearing a baseball cap. We wave at him and he waves at us.

Then, my cousin, Erin, of course, never to miss an opportunity, yells to him, “Will you sign my cast?” And he said, and I’ll never forget the words. “Sure. Hobble on over here.” So she hobbles. Me and her friend, Julie, follow behind and we go over to him where he comes up to the seating area and he signs her cast and then he signs my ticket. And we were in absolute heaven because we got both the stars’ autographs and we had just had so much fun and just a little adventure. It’s kind of like a teenager adventure.

I never did become a professional actor. I did some background work and I do theater in my spare time. I still think maybe, someday, when I’m older and retired, I could go back to doing it. But ironically, 10 years after we saw this taping, I would go to work for the company that provided the tickets and I would become an audience page or an usher, and I worked on shows such as “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “Will & Grace”. Those were my two main shows and I was one of the ushers that helped the audience to their seats, took them to the restroom and stuff like that. So I kind of came full circle after seeing all the TV tapings. Then I ended up working for the company for a little while, and that was exciting. So thank you for letting me share this. I always love thinking of the story. It’s one of my favorite memories, and I really love your podcast. I love hearing everyone’s stories. So keep it up. Can’t wait to hear more.

(Episode 223)

Hey everyone, I’m Kristen and I’m here to tell you about the time I really needed a restroom and there weren’t any to be found. In college, I worked 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM most Saturdays. My boyfriend that regularly slept until noon insisted on going out for a late dinner and a movie every week. I didn’t have time for a nap this Saturday, so I drank a stupid amount of Diet Coke in order to make it through the day. It was after midnight when we left the movie theater and got back to his house. His parents were very strict and I was not allowed to be in the house that hour even to use the restroom. No problem. My dorm is only a 55-minute drive away.

I was about 20 minutes towards home when I realized that I didn’t have my phone. I got off the expressway, parked at the curb, and searched the entire car. I could not find the phone anywhere, so I drove back to my boyfriend’s house. I parked at the doctor’s office across the street where I always parked. I walked to the entire parking lot. I sculpted around my boyfriend’s yard. I retraced my steps across the busy four lane road. Nothing. Resigned, I opened my car door so I could just sit there and cry. Then I saw a glint. My little Motorola flip phone was stuck in the crevice between the bottom and back of that plush Oldsmobile seat.

I hit the road again and drove like hell. I got halfway home and came upon standstill traffic on the expressway at 2:00 AM. There was no warning. Even though six lanes went down to one lane for construction and the next exit was miles away, the traffic jam was so bad that I had to park my car and turn the ignition off. That’s when the wave of pee panic hit me. I was driving on a sunken expressway in Metro Detroit. This meant that I couldn’t just run and hide in some bushes for cover. There was not a bush, a bramble, or even a shrubbery to be seen. I sat squirming in my seat trying to figure out what to do. That’s when I saw it – my mom’s vintage Tupperware cake carrier.

I casually got out of the car and acted like I was just putting my basket of clean laundry in the back seat. This way, I was able to discreetly put the cake carrier and a blanket in the front passenger seat. I took my position and started to feel relieved. That relief was short-lived because I saw a car creeping up on my left side.

It was a car full of frat boys that had just celebrated last call. Their windows were down and their music was cranked. They looked over at me and started whistling and yelling, “Hey.” If my bladder wasn’t empty at that point, it emptied immediately because they quite literally scared the piss out of me. I tried to pretend like they weren’t there while I composed myself and pulled my pants back up. I closed the cake carrier up, secured it, and triple checked it to make sure it wouldn’t come open while I was going 80 on the freeway.

I finally made it back to campus after 3:00 AM. Then, I encountered another problem. It was so late. The campus night watch was on duty. That meant I’d have to show a person my ID and interact with them while carrying a basket of laundry and a cake carrier full of my own urine. I was totally frazzled. Without much thought, I scurried to the courtyard, took the lid off of the cake carrier and threw the pee into the bushes. Somehow, I didn’t make a mess. I popped the lid back on, put the carrier on top of my laundry basket, and discreetly entered my dorm. I’m glad I disposed of the evidence because the Colombo of Night Watch employees was on duty. This guy wouldn’t just let you flash your student ID and go to your dorm. He would have to physically handle the ID and scrutinize your photo against your face while making awkward conversation. Of course, this time he had to ask me about the cake carrier.

I hurriedly explained that I had made a cake for my boyfriend’s birthday and then made a beeline to the elevator. I crawled into bed as soon as I got to my room and crashed the next day. My half-sister called and yelled at me about how she needed my mom’s cake carrier for something. I had washed and sanitized it, so I told her I’d bring it back later that day. I never told anyone what I had used it for. When my mom died, I couldn’t find the cake carrier. I’m fairly certain that my half sister took it and never returned it. I like to think she’s getting her “just desserts” by transporting her cakes in an emergency bed pan. Ha-ha. Thank you for laughing along with me. And remember, any pan can be a bedpan if you believe in yourself.

(Episode 224)

My name’s Lara, and I’m a listener from Australia. I would love to share my story about how I was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease called Erythropoietic protoporphyria or EPP for short, which is much easier to say. On the day I am recording this, it’s the 18th of May and its Global Porphyria Day, which I feel is very fitting to tell my story.

Growing up in Australia, I spent my days in the hot sun, hiking, canoeing, sailing, fishing, exploring the natural world, and really enjoying my outdoor life. I even had a dream of becoming an outdoor educator. Back in 2022, I first met my boyfriend, who is an outdoor tour guide, and we had our first date on a boat fishing for barramundi, as you do in the top end of Australia. After the long day of fishing, I noticed slight tingling in my hands and my face, but I didn’t think much of it until a few months later when we traveled to Tasmania to meet his family. This trip to Tasmania was booked for the height of the summer, and we spent the day traveling and sitting on a beach and getting to know his family.

A day later, I ended up in hospital with what I can only describe as a burning feeling from the inside. I had no idea what was happening. It felt like electric shocks through my actual blood vessels. I could feel my veins pulsating with what could only be described as fire, but from the outside there was nothing you could tell about me. I didn’t have a red face. There was no swelling. It was invisible. I just looked like I was having a mental breakdown, which is really not a good look when you’re trying to impress your partner’s family.

After a week of this pain, which didn’t ease with any medication, including morphine, I hallucinated through the pain. I finally managed to sleep after a week, and we continued our travels cautiously, not knowing what had set it off. When we finished our holiday, we’d go back to our hometown in the top end of Australia and I started to book myself in to see my local dermatology team. Every dermatology appointment for the next year had at least six doctors in the room questioning me. No one could figure out what was going on. I didn’t have another reaction that year, even though I was spending time in the sun. It wasn’t until the following year when we went back to Tasmania again to see my partner’s family.

We went sailing on a beautiful yacht through the Rene National Park. I ended up again having this huge reaction. I spent, again, another five days in pain with no relief. Only cold water and ice could soothe the pain again, this burning sensation from the inside. On the fifth day, I got a phone call from my dermatology doctor who diagnosed me with EPP. It was an emotional moment and so full of fear as I was on the phone to them and they were explaining that this disease is very rare, it affects one in 75,000 people. There’s no cure. It’s not life threatening, but it’s life changing and it’s photosensitivity to the sunlight. So in the process that creates my red blood cells, there’s a step that’s missing.  In some magical way, you can function your whole life and it just showed up for me, which I still don’t understand.

I was so scared after this diagnosis. I remember sitting in the place we were in, down in Tazzi, looking out the window and realizing that even the reflection off the neighboring roof would affect me. I spent the next few years petrified of sunlight. I stopped all of my outdoor activities. I stopped hanging out with friends. I stopped seeing the sunsets on my local beaches. It really impacted my planning for the future and I realized that my dream of an outdoor educator would have to change.

My beautiful boyfriend was by my side and he helped me plan our next big trip, which was seven weeks in a bus touring New Zealand. This was very scary as the sunlight in New Zealand is quite harsh, but with planning and with advice from my doctor, we did it. I woke up every morning and found a lake or ocean to swim in my bikini, which was a big deal because, obviously, having a sun sensitivity, it’s not advised, but I thought I needed to do this for my own mental health.

This year, we are planning a trip around Australia and this is huge. I want to tell everyone that has a rare disease, no matter what it is – it doesn’t need to be porphyria – you are so important to be here. You are making an impact on this world, even if it’s from your bedroom, and to not be scared of hearing a diagnosis, but then knowing that it’s still your life and you can still do what you want to do. I have had to change my career pathway to suit because being an outdoor educator means being out in the sun 24/7, and that’s not something my body can do right now. But if you’re hearing this message, you’re not alone. I would love to share this message, especially to people with EPP as there’s no one in my hometown that has it. I haven’t met a single person and I sometimes feel alone. Thanks for listening to my story, and I love how these podcasts can bring us together. Thank you.

(Episode 225)

Here’s my story. I was living in Scottsdale, Arizona, and this would’ve been about 2008. A friend of mine asked me to drive her to the airport pretty early, so I did that. When I got back to my apartment, I decided, “You know what? I could probably get a little more sleep since it was so early in the morning before I had to go to work.” I worked in sales and, every morning, at 9:00 AM, the sales team had a morning meeting and work was really close to where I live. On a good day, it was about a 5-minute drive and, on a bad day, it was about seven minutes. So, I always left at about 8:50. I was always on time. I’m always punctual really for just about everything.

The next thing I know, I’m being awakened by a call from a friend who was asking me where the hell I was since it was 9 and I wasn’t there. So I hopped out of bed. I figured I just overslept, which is very unusual for me. I hopped in the shower, I got ready, and I drove over to work as fast as I could. I didn’t really stop to evaluate how I was feeling. I was just trying to hustle to get to work. Now if you miss the morning meeting, you weren’t given any sales leads for that day unless there were extra. I remember being pretty pissed because it was September 30th – it was the last day of the month. I needed to get to a certain bonus level, which now looked like I wasn’t going to make it, so I was kind of bummed.

I went into the employee lounge, I sat down and, at that point, I realized I was feeling a little bit off. I remember one of my friends walking in and asking me, “JK, are you all right?” That’s what they called me. “JK, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Later on, she told me that I really didn’t answer her. I just kind of looked at her in a daze. At that point I decided to lie down on the couch and maybe rest a little bit. The next thing I know, I wake up, I’m on a gurney, I’m being wheeled out of the building. My friends told me I had a seizure. The paramedics put me into the ambulance and off I went to the hospital. I have no family history. I have no medical conditions that would necessarily lead to a seizure. That’s when I found out that 80% of people who have seizures will never know the reason why. unless you hit your head or have a bad accident, something obvious or otherwise, you may never know why.

They did an MRI, They did an EEG, which is where they attach all those wires to your head and they didn’t find anything. They released me a few hours later with an appointment to see a neurologist in Arizona. They suspend your license for three months when you have a seizure, so I ended up heavily relying on my friends. Of course, there weren’t any Ubers back then. I got home. It was really weird because I found my apartment pretty messed up. There was a huge dent in the door to my bedroom and I found blood on the corner of my bed and on the shower curtain, and I’m like, “What the hell happened here?” It looked like a small crime scene.

I ended up having about a total of 8 seizures over the next 2 years, and most of them happened at work. I would wake up in the arms of my friends on the floor. They all took very good care of me. I was grateful for that. I always told them, “Just hold me steady whenever that happens, but whatever you do, don’t call the ambulance because there’s nothing they can do anyway. And the ride to the hospital and the ambulance cost about $800, which is something I learned the hard way.” It was funny, they all ended up calling me Twitch just for fun, which I appreciated. It was just like I said, for fun.

At this point, no one knew why I was having seizures, even the neurologist. Everyone speculated it was largely emotionally driven. I was going through a divorce at the time and it was pretty brutal. So one of my last seizures happened the week after my license was reinstated. And by this time, I’m on medication trying to see which ones work. The doctor and I thought we found the right one as it had been a while since my last seizure.

I was driving home from work in a new car. I almost always drove with the sunroof open but, that day, it was raining, so the sunroof was closed. I was first in line waiting at a red light, about to cross a major six lane road, and it was about 5:00 PM so it was pretty busy. Again, the next thing I knew, I was waking up in an ambulance and I remember saying out loud, “No, not again.” I was told I was in a car accident. Apparently while waiting at the red light, I had a seizure and gunned it across the intersection on that red light. My car ricocheted off the back of another car on the other side of the intersection. So, thankfully, there was no contact with any car in the intersection itself. It’s kind of a miracle. I bounced off that car right into a light pole. The car was totaled and the light itself at the top of the pole sort of wiggled, I was told, and then dropped down onto the top of my car. So I just thank God that the sunroof was closed. Otherwise, the outcome of this may have been a lot different.

So I’m lying in bed at the hospital and an officer walks in and proceeds to issue me a ticket for failing to control my vehicle. I said, “Well, no shit. I couldn’t control my vehicle. I had a seizure.” He wouldn’t budge though. So he actually gave me the ticket. I was determined to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible because my sales team was having a quarterly award party at a local casino. I was getting an award and I couldn’t not be there. So I walked out of the hospital two hours later, got in a cab, and I went to the party. Everyone was like, “How are you even here?” I said, “As usual, there’s nothing they can do.”

Ironically, after about another year, I got a $1,600 bill from the city to repair the light – talk about insult to injury. So now it’s 15 years later. I haven’t had a seizure since we found the right medication. After about two years, I’m no longer considered an epileptic. Looking back, I can say that I’m so grateful for my friends and even more grateful that I didn’t hurt anyone in that accident or any time at all for that matter. I’m sure that’s something that would’ve required years of therapy to get over, had that happened. Now looking back, when people asked me how I survived that accident, I simply replied with one sentence, “Simply Divine Intervention and Mercedes-Benz.”

(Episode 226)

In 2001, my boyfriend’s best friend was getting married and my boyfriend was the best man. We lived in Manhattan. The wedding was scheduled on a Saturday night at a venue about 90 minutes from where we lived. Luckily, my mom lived about 15 minutes away from the venue, and we planned to stay there for the weekend with her. We made a plan that, on Friday, the day before the wedding, my boyfriend would take everything we needed for the wedding and drive to my mom’s house in our car. He needed to be there a day early to help with the wedding plans and rehearsal dinner because I couldn’t take the day off of work that Friday. My plan was to take the Long Island Railroad to my mom’s house on Saturday morning, along with our cat, and we would meet up at the wedding venue Saturday night.

Saturday morning, I woke up early, put our cat in the cat carrier, and took the subway to Penn Station to catch the train to Long Island. Just as I was leaving our apartment, I noticed a pair of pajama pants I forgot to pack and threw them into my bag. The train ride is about 1 hour and 20 minutes, which I had taken many times. I boarded the train to Penn, switched trains to Jamaica without incident. It was Saturday morning and the train was pretty empty, so I was able to get a seat for my cat and for me.

About three stops away from my final destination, completely out of nowhere, I felt that gurgling, churning, crampy feeling in my stomach that we’ve all experienced as our body is warning us that something bad is about to happen. The feeling went away pretty quickly, and I thought I would easily make it another 15 minutes to my final destination. However, about two minutes later, the cramping and gurgling ramped up, but now it was a hundred times worse. At this point, I started using LAMA’s breathing and positioning myself horizontally across the seats to stop the inevitable, but it was too late.

Just as we pulled into the Cold Spring Harbor Station, which is one stop before my final destination, there was an explosion into my low-rise boot cut jeans. I immediately grabbed my bag, the cat, and ran off the train as soon as the doors opened. I have since learned that there is usually one bathroom on the train, but there definitely was not one located in my train car, and there was no way I would’ve found it in time. No one else got off the train at that station and it was completely empty.

I stood on the train platform trying to gather my thoughts. I knew I needed to get these poopy pants off ASAP, but didn’t know what to do, and my cat was going crazy in the carrier meowing. When I remembered that I had pajama pants that I threw in my bag just before I left my apartment, I was so happy, and as luck would have it, I also had a half full packet of dried out wet wipes in my bag. I ran down under the train trestle and thankfully I’m really small, so I was able to fit standing up. I peeled off the poopy jeans, threw them under the trestle. Cleaned up using the dried out wet wipes and put the pajama pants on.

Once I was changed, I pulled out my flip phone to call my mom, who was waiting for me at the final destination, but got very worried when I didn’t get off the train. I then had the privilege of telling her that her adult daughter pooped her pants on the train and was standing under the trestle with her cat in pajama pants. We then faced another challenge. She had no idea where Cold Spring Harbor train station was or how to get there, and I also had no idea where I was. This was before smartphones and GPS. So, the only way to get somewhere was to get directions or to use a map. I told my mom that I would call my dad, who was kind of like the Vasco da Gama of the tri-state area and basically could navigate anywhere. Unfortunately, my dad had no idea where the station was. As an aside, he happened to be walking into a movie theater with my brother who was out of state and had to walk outside of the theater because he was laughing so hard about what happened to me.

My next idea was to call 411 – remember that? – to get a phone number for a taxi to pick me up. I called the taxi company and, for reasons I still don’t understand, they told me that taxis do not do train pickups on weekends in Cold Spring Harbor. I thought they were joking, but they really would not pick me up. My only option at that point was to wait for the next train to arrive, which I learned would not be for another hour. It was early spring and pretty cold outside, and I was not dressed appropriately. Plus, I was feeling pretty gross because I just pooped in my pants.

As I was about to walk up to the train platform and wait for the next train, a cab pulled into the station. The driver needed to use the payphone. I ran over and begged him to take me to the station where my mom was waiting. He refused at first, but he finally relented. He asked me why I was there in the first place, and I lied and told him that my cat got sick on the train. He put a blanket down in the backseat under my cat’s carrier just in case.

I met my mom. She took me to her house. I showered, got dressed for the wedding and never told anyone. I’ve since moved out of New York and haven’t taken a train in years. I now have two teenage children and wherever we’re flying somewhere, I always bring an extra pair of underwear for all of us in our carry-on just in case.

(Episode 230)

The story that I’m going to tell today happened when I was in my young twenties and working downtown. I was in the restaurant business. I was a manager, so I would leave the restaurant pretty late at night. I left pretty late one night. I drove to our local Walmart in town and bought some windshield wiper fluid to refill my car – this was probably around 11.30 PM – and I filled up my car with fluid in the Walmart parking lot. So the Walmart was in a neighboring town– it took me probably about 15 minutes to get from that Walmart back to my downtown apartment that I had at the time.

I pretty quickly realized that evening, when I left that parking lot, that someone was following me. Being that I was so young, I kind of went into high alert but, thankfully, my instincts kicked in and I stopped near my apartment, but not right at my apartment. I parked my car and then something told me, “It’s just not right.” So I started to slowly drive away. When I got to the next alley that was open beyond one of the buildings, there was a car sitting there waiting with its lights turned off, and a man was starting to get outside of the car. He was waiting for me to get out of my car and totally freaked me out. I sped off. Thankfully, the police station was right around the corner, so I drove straight there. I called my boyfriend at the time, told him what happened, and it was a pretty scary situation. But ultimately, it ended up just fine. So I’d like to share my message just to remind young women to be vigilant in the late evenings and when you’re all alone. Thank you so much for letting me tell my story.

(Episode 231)

I grew up in Central Arizona, became a Christian, adopted my dad’s conservative political views, and joined the Navy. After high school, I eventually moved to the suburbs of Washington DC and worked for the Navy as a contractor, then as a federal civilian. My bubble was intact and all was well. In 2016, my friend group expanded and I heard about experiences that were far different than mine. I started reading different authors, listening to people I hadn’t before, and asking questions I had never dared. The truths I was learning clashed with the stories foundational to my identities. I started asking about the history that was not taught in school. Why didn’t black service members get the GI Bill after returning from the World Wars? How is a black family supposed to build generational wealth when redlining is legal?

I learned the United States was populated with between 5 and 15 million indigenous people. I now question the integrity of the origin story I grew up with. As I read about all the broken treaties, I was told we were founded on Christian principles that didn’t align with the slaughter of millions. The disparities between black and white maternal death rates, infant mortality, and preterm birth rates dumbfounded me. The questions continued. I had been taught to love my neighbor and stand up for the oppressed, that all of our laws were just, and if you just pull hard enough on those bootstraps, the American dream is yours. I’d always believed that the United States had moved beyond race being a factor in the lives of its citizens, but I had recently learned that was not the case. I questioned, how can this country move forward if we don’t embrace the truth? I was tired of being lied to in support of a myth.

On Monday, May 25th, 2020, just like everyone else in the country, I rewatched and rewatched the clip of George Floyd being martyred. Constraining my horror to social media comments was not going to be possible. The following Sunday, May 31st, I completed my first of 101 weeks of walking every street in the alley in Washington DC while wearing a large sandwich board sign that read Black and Brown Lives Matter. I was out to be an encouragement to those that the project resonated with and have conversations with anyone who wanted to talk. The following day, I would post reflection pictures and a GPS map of the walk. Most passersby assumed I was just a middle-aged white guy out trying to earn liberal brownie points. While the physical characteristics may have been true, the interior was not. I was a straight ticket conservative from 1988 through 2016, a Navy veteran, an evangelical Christian, and someone who followed the rules. I had spent nearly half a century despising liberals and became despised by conservatives. The moment I slipped on the sign – I had never protested anything and was scared of climbing out of my car to start the walk – I planned for the worst and hoped for the best. Spare glasses, phone, keys, and ID in the car, and my belt could be used as a tourniquet if needed.

I learned no group is a monolith. I encouraged and angered all kinds of folks – black, white, brown, rich, poor. Everyone took a position about what I was doing, and I walked at the speed of conversation. Raymond Coates saw me walking down his alley and invited me into his backyard for a break and a chat. He had spent time in the infamous Lorton prison in Virginia and was well-versed in history.

After nearly five hours of eating lunch, sitting through a rain shower, and discussing seemingly every topic we could, I headed out to finish today’s walk, walking up a dead alley. A woman walking the other way said, “Hello, Mr. Officer,” because there’s no way a white man carrying that sign through my neighborhood is not a cop. A pair of neighbors were sure I was CIA, but they were kind enough to give me a baggie of fresh figs for the road. Buddy Harrison had spent time in prison and became a close friend. He was proud of the free food pantry he had installed and kept full, located in the field across from his house and the boxing gym. He ran to help the neighborhood youth stay off the streets. Sadly, he was gunned down on his front porch a couple streets over.

A woman started our conversation by leaning out her window with the question, “Are you packing?” To which I needed her to explain what she meant at first, and I said, “No.” I didn’t carry any weapons as I knew it would compromise the open-hearted vulnerability I carried as my defense – perhaps, naive, but I had a sense that I was protected in potentially other ways. The most credible threat was from a black man who didn’t like my smile nor my sign. He threatened multiple times to send the largest dog that I had ever seen to attack me if I continued down his block as he restrained his dog. I tried twice to appeal, but the threat remained, and I turned around. The day before my final walk, I returned and completed the 50 foot segment of road I had missed as a result of this interaction. And for the record, yeah, I was nervous walking through a predominantly black neighborhood.

A white guy, a few years older than me, wearing a Navy ball cap, carrying most of his possessions on his back, asked for a couple of dollars. I was out of cash by that time in the day, but tried to learn more about his story. Over a 15 minute conversation, he oscillated between begging for money and pulling out his empty hand to make a pistol and threatening to shoot me in the head. Soon enough, the neighbors pulled out their cell phones to record the spectacle of these two middle aged white guys, one wearing this large yellow sign and the other screaming into his face, threatening to shoot him with an imaginary gun and calling him a white blue eye devil. For the record, we’re both white and both have blue eyes.

When we parted, I wiped the spill from my face. An app tracked my steps to ensure I covered every street and alley. After 4 million steps, the distance from Washington DC to Las Vegas in a straight line with the longest daily walk being 28.6 miles. After 1300 conversations and Raymond being the longest, five pairs of shoes, and remarkably no parking tickets or thankfully muggings, I finished the walk on the now removed Black Lives Matter Plaza in front of the White House.

Additional lessons learned. Reflective white crosswalk paint is slick in the rain and water freezes on it before it does on the blacktop. During a long walk, porta-potties at construction sites are a legitimate lifesaver. Wearing a sandwich board on windy days sucks. White people don’t have the language to talk about racism and inequality. Splitting the district into black, white, and diverse neighborhoods, the data was stark. In black neighborhoods, I averaged 28 conversations a day. In diverse communities, there were 15 and in white neighborhoods, I averaged only four conversations per day, and this was in progressive DC. I can only imagine what this metric would look like elsewhere walking through the neighborhoods.

It was evident where redlining had previously occurred as indicated by the level of infrastructure in the built environment. I witnessed the beautiful homes, which indicated great wealth and the creative beauty of the impoverished community. A 30-something white guy asked if I could regularly walk his wealthy neighborhood as he had witnessed his white neighbors yell at black runners as they ran through the streets. For folks that look like me, this conversation feels like a chore. For others, it’s a matter of survival. I traded Myth for Truth and learned a great deal about Washington, DC, its people, myself, and the journey ahead for this country to fulfill the promises of the documents and the ideals that we hold dear.

One guy chased me down and said, I figured you’d lost a bet, or crazy or very committed, and he wanted clarity. I assured him there were no wagers involved. However, I think the truth is a mix of the others. I don’t have it all figured out. Biases remain. I keep learning, stumbling, getting it wrong, and needing others to speak into my life. I sat on porches with those who had marched during the civil rights movement and glad they were sitting this one out and enjoying lemonade. Their turn of marching is long over and the baton passed to a new generation. I discovered the bend of the moral arc of the universe towards justice will not happen on its own, but rather bent by the effort of regular people stepping up to take their turn, pulling and heaving it into place.

(Episode 232)

My name is Kelly, and this is my story of going back to my childhood home. My older sister and I now live in Pennsylvania, but grew up in a small, remote, mountainous town in northern California during the 1970s. We grew up on a small ranch, about four acres, with pastures that we cleared for our cattle, a horse, dog, and cats, and sometimes we even had other farm animals like donkeys and mules. My mother always had a large vegetable garden and she liked to can those vegetables also. My stepfather even built her a greenhouse so we could have more vegetables, and he even built a bridge that went over the creek on our property. As kids, we worked like crazy maintaining these fields, the animals, the gardens, and the house. We always had fresh meat or fresher canned vegetables.

A few years ago, my sister and I went out to California to meet up with our family out there. They no longer live in that part of town, and we thought it would be fun to see the old homestead and relive memories of our childhood. We piled into the car with our cameras at the ready and drove up to our old house. I did say that we were from California, but I didn’t say that we were from a certain part of Northern California known for a certain illegal crop.

Once we drove up to the house still with our cameras, we were met by two very large guard dogs. We could see that there was now a privacy fence all around the property that was about 10 feet tall. The people that were living in the house, they were actually friendly and welcoming and wanted us to come in. We were a little nervous at this point because we could see that all the fields were overgrown. Mom’s garden was overgrown, the greenhouse was overgrown, and our four acres was overgrown. All of these plants had to have been about 10 to 12 feet tall. We were nice, but we felt like we should leave as soon as we could because we did have our cameras in our hands. We backed away politely and got out of there.

And that is my story of how upset I was at going back to my childhood home because we worked so hard and now it’s all gone.

(Episode 233)

The question was, what makes you weird? My answer is that I collect golf balls every single day. It’s the ultimate adult Easter egg hunt. We live on a private golf course, but the land near it is public because school’s back up to it. Every day, I walk 2.5 mile outer course to collect golf balls, and I usually hit the jackpot. Most days, I find about 15 balls on average, but my most for a day is 30. If you’re thinking that I find balls just laying on a golf green type surface, think again. Only about 1 out of 10 is an easy find. I walk through tall grass and weeds to find them, and most of my walk is spent looking down. I’ve learned to shuffle my feet so that I know what a golf ball feels like underneath my shoes, and I know that a golf ball hidden in grass looks blue, not white. It’s a really fun hobby. I put them in the fanny pack as I go, and the more I find the happier I am.

I did it for a long time, came home and threw them in a 5 gallon bucket, and then I realized that I could actually organize them, which would make me much happier. And when I realized how many I had, I thought maybe this could actually be profitable as well. So I had about 3-5 gallon buckets and this took me a while. I sorted by brand and type. I realized, at this point, that golfers do certain things with their balls to keep them from getting mixed up with their playing partner’s balls. They have special balls, special markings, etc. So I’ve seen some fun things. Balls with hamburgers and hot dogs. Monogram balls. Balls with college logos. Balls with band followings like Dave Matthews band has a fire dancer, the Grateful Dead Stealie, or they just make three dots in a certain color, or they mark through the type of ball that it is, which really irritates me because I have to clean that with alcohol so that I can later sort it.

Someone asks me if there has ever been a ball so cool or unusual that I couldn’t get rid of it. Well, I’m really not a sentimental person. I’ll pretty much sell anything if it’ll bring money, but my dad used to play this course too as he also lived in this neighborhood, and I had been collecting these buckets of balls for a long time before I decided to sort them. My dad had passed away about a year at this time. So when I first jumped them out and was going through them, I definitely wasn’t expecting anything sentimental. I was just learning my way and seeing these different types of balls and figuring it out. But I did come upon one that felt sort of odd, and I figured that I just got a scuffed up ball that would end up going in the trash – nobody wants those – but no. It happened to be my dad’s golf ball. Like I said, I just put them in a fanny pack and emptied them into the 5 gallon bucket. At the time, I never looked at him, so I didn’t know this was in there. But my dad was a military guy so, as was his nature, he had his own special system. Apparently, this was to take white out to every single golf ball, wait for it to dry, and then mark his initials, which was of course cheaper, more efficient, and just as neat as a monogram machine, if you could see his handwriting.

I was beside myself, of course, I FaceTimed my brother, showed it to him, and we both cried, and this is the only ball I have ever kept and definitely my most awesome find to date. Who knew that golf ball was out there waiting for me? I now sort golf balls every day when I get home from my walk. This is my weird, fun, relaxing hobby. I get sun, podcast time, alone time, exercise, and of course, I also now sell these balls on Facebook marketplace. I have repeat customers and I make enough fun money through each summer that I definitely consider it well worth it. That’s what makes me weird. And thanks for listening.

(Episode 234)
David
A few days before New Year’s Eve, 2020 to 2021, I came home from work kind of late around 10.30. It was a frigid winter night. It was very quiet out. Late as in late December. Our apartment is in a single floor ranch style apartment complex at the far end of our side of apartments. As I walked past the first apartment, I heard the voices of the man and woman who lived there, and it pierced the silence I was enjoying in a totally disturbing way. It was loud enough that I could hear it through the walls and very clearly. While I can’t remember the words I heard, the anger in his voice and the distress in hers, whatever was said, the way it was said made the hair on my neck stand up at attention. I’d never formally met them, but they were cordial enough. They had two beautiful little girls, aged 6 and 9. In the warm weather, they played outside and I always said hi whenever we walked by. They were friendly people, but this was 2020 going into 2021. As far as I could tell, the husband was unemployed because of the pandemic. Their car broke down, so we’d see the wife coming back from or going to the bus stop.

You could hear the tension between them. I was alarmed by this exchange and I overheard.

Once in our apartment, I told my wife and asked, “What should I do? Should I call the police?” They were African Americans and it was problematic at best. This was still close to the Black Lives Matter movement and recently a black man had been shot and killed in his own garage going into his house. There were a lot of car break-ins in the neighborhood and someone had called in a suspicious man in that neighborhood. Should I knock and see if they were okay? Obviously, that was a dangerous path to take for me, an older white man, being as I am to make during this argument that essentially was none of my business. So we decided to do nothing because there were no good options.

I went to bed. While I was concerned, we thought it would resolve itself on its own. Now, on New Year’s Eve, there was the excited cacophony of fireworks in the neighborhood but, by the end of the cold and drizzly day of New Year’s Day, it was cold again and quiet. So, it was surprising at around 11 PM to hear three loud pops that, as people always say, sounded like fireworks. I had a disturbing feeling. Suddenly and moments later, there were cop cars everywhere, including directly in front of our apartment. I immediately knew what happened. As the activity was at their apartment, I opened the door to peek outside and a cop with his gun drawn yelled, “Get back inside and shut your door, sir!” The next hour was a series of sirens in the squad. Cars outside our window had its lights going and were there idling for at least an hour, if not 2 or 3. I was in shock because my intuitions have been correct, but I still don’t know the extent of what happened.

At that point, my wife was on her iPhone scrolling the neighborhood page and eventually learned that there had been a heated argument. The husband had his gun, but the wife ran out of the apartment and escaped with no injury. She wasn’t able to grab the 2 girls, however. There was no time. So, the husband shot the two girls and then himself. The first police that arrived first grabbed the girls and put them into his cruiser and rushed them to the hospital instead of waiting for an ambulance. The girls were beyond saving, having died one shot, but I admired the officer for his quick thinking and acting.

This was a horrible start to the year 2021 with January 6th days away. I had a deep sense of guilt, even though my Facebook friends agreed there was nothing I could have done. The cold, miserable days that followed brought me little peace. There was a crime scene tape up and some toys on their patio. There’s a memorial for the girls who were buried together. There was no funeral for their father. I couldn’t go to the service. It was just barely post COVID. But mostly, I knew that I’d just be this older white dude nobody knew just standing there just sobbing and bawling over it.

After a thorough cleaning, the apartment was rented out to this family we call the Hillbillies. I eventually stopped parking on that side of the apartment and started parking on the other side further away, but not a constant reminder. I couldn’t walk past that apartment for about a year without thinking of them and getting sad. In the years since we stopped celebrating New Year’s Day, like the one just passed in 2025 – I wrote this back in January – they are solemn reminder and I doubt my feelings of guilt will ever go away. So now you have it, and I think I almost made it through without crying, but I might do so now.

(Episode 235)

It all started when I was born and kept my parents up for weeks. They told me I had a case of crying like some babies do, but the main thing that helped me relax wasn’t the special formula. It was Elton John’s Tiny Dancer song. As time went on, I began to have signs of autism like stimming, rocking, flapping, but every doctor we saw would dismiss us saying I was just quirky. I eventually got diagnosed, but it wasn’t until later in life by 19 years old. Meanwhile, school was hard for me at the school I grew up in. They will pull me in with every kid who is going through the same problem into a different classroom to accommodate us better, mostly for math or reading.

I did the best I could. I took Ritalin. I sat at the front of the class and even stayed inside from recess sometimes just to repeat a test. But the biggest problem nobody knew about was that I had difficulty seeing. I had glasses, but they would last only maybe a year, maybe six months, and then my vision was just bad. We knew we always needed classes, but the problem is that I squinted a lot and constantly saw too many lights. It just so happens we decided to move to another city and my eye light doctor noticed I had cataracts. I need surgery on both of my eyes. I was a little nervous about having someone cut open my eyeballs, but thank God for anesthesia.

Let me tell you though, I stood at a patch of grass a few days later with my new clear vision. It wasn’t just a blur or green anymore. I can see every single little piece of grass laying in their own directions and against each other, below each other. It was beautiful. You never know you’re going to take advantage on a daily basis. Just wow. Also, my grades got so much better in school now. I’m learning in a different regular classroom. My surgery’s not going to stop there though.

I started to get stomach problems in high school. At times, I couldn’t eat more saltines and apple juice. Now that I think about it, it could have been my anxiety too. I was afraid of throwing up the entire time. I was taken to a doctor who eventually took on my gallbladder. It was like night and day. I could eat McDonald’s again like a teenager should. Simultaneously, in high school, my period was just terrible. I mean, periods are always terrible but mine was just, like, disappear for six months, maybe disappear a week, maybe so light underneath the pad, maybe so heavy. I was like, “Should I go to the hospital?”

Years later while working at Chick-fil-A, I sat down in the middle of the floor because my head felt so lightheaded and dizzy, so they sent me home. I went to the doctor and the only thing he could decipher is that my thyroid is out of range. That gland mine was working way too hard, so they called it Grave’s disease. The same doctor that moved my gallbladder ended up taking my sixth thyroid too, which is kind of cool. To be honest, I’m still figuring out my health to this day. I’ve been prescribed medications for various things and sometimes it’s hard to know when I’m really sick or not.

Before I go to work, I’ll get, like, an upset stomach, diarrhea, whatever, and I’ll just have to go in anyway because it’s most likely my IBS acting up again, not food poisoning or anything. Before I tell people I have had five surgeries before and counting as a young adult, they just give me a look of pity. Instead, I just shrug off my shoulders and quote Epictetus, “It’s just a scratch and, at the end of the day, it’s how you react that matters most.”

(Episode 236)

I just wanted to tell you the story of the time that I decided to help a stranger. A little bit of backstory. I was raised by immigrant parents, and I’m a first generation American, so my siblings and I grew up having to interpret and translate everything for them. At really young ages, I saw the struggles of navigating in a country that is not their own and that doesn’t always particularly want them here. So growing up, I always had a really soft spot for immigrants, especially if they didn’t know how to speak English clearly.

This probably happened when I was around 18. I was walking towards my bus stop after a long day at school, and I heard this man yelling at the bus stop at someone who I couldn’t clearly see. As I got closer, I noticed that the person he was yelling at was not fighting back or saying anything. In fact, she was sitting on the bench waiting for her bus, trying to look away or look down as this guy was yelling at her at the top of his lungs saying horrible, racist things that I won’t repeat here, but some of the things he was saying was, “Why are you not saying anything? Is it because you don’t speak English? Is it because you’re stupid?” When I heard that, I immediately locked into the situation and I quickly recognized that the woman that he was yelling at was Hispanic like myself, and I immediately got enraged. Not only that, but she was actually an older woman. She could have easily been my grandmother.

I don’t really know what came over me then and there, but this feeling of injustice just took over and I just started yelling at him. I told him to get away from her. I told him to keep walking, and I told him to stop being racist. I didn’t touch him, but I kind of got him out of the way, and I sat next to her. I looked her straight in the eye and I told her to not engage with him. I told her to make conversation with me, and I asked her where she was from. Just as I suspected, she was from the same country as my parents.

As we were making small talk, the man continued to yell, and this time he was yelling at both her and I. I got up and I told him to get away from her and to leave us alone and again, to stop being racist. I just kept yelling at him until he finally gave in and walked away. I sat down again and I continued talking to her and I asked if she was okay. I could tell she was scared, but also that she was very thankful for me. I stayed with her until her bus came. I got her on the bus and I made sure she was fine. I did offer to go with her to whatever bus stop she was going to make sure she felt okay, but I didn’t end up having to do that. She did thank me a lot and we parted ways.

Honestly, I would’ve done that for any immigrant, whether they did or didn’t speak my native language. But the point of the story is that I will always try to defend people, especially if they are of a vulnerable kind like most people who have recently arrived from other countries for a better opportunity here, because I just can’t imagine how scary it must feel to be in a country where you don’t know your way around and have to learn a completely new language that takes years to master and feel confident enough to defend yourself in everyday life situations.

Thank you, Scott, for the kindness you always display on the show. I hope you know how many people’s lives you impact and also how you make my day every time I see a new episode pop up.

(Episode 237)

When my son, Zach was in first grade, he had this little female friend that I’m going to call S. They were super sweet together. They played with each other. They followed each other around. I think there was a little bit of a crash going on, but it was so sweet, innocent, definitely nothing concerning.

Well, one day, when I was in line at the school pickup, his teacher brought Zach to the car and opened the door for him. While he’s getting settled in and buckling himself up, she leans in to whisper to me. She says, “I’ve been having issues with Zach today. I caught him running his hand up S’s thigh. I asked him to stop, but every time I would turn around, I would catch him again running his little hand up her thigh, and he was getting pretty high up there.” At this point, I’m blushing and she proceeds to say, “Sometimes, children see mom and dad do things and they want to emulate them. If you could talk to him, I would really appreciate it so we could discourage it from happening.” At this point, I am mortified. She thinks that Zach has picked this up from watching my husband and I– oh my God, I could not get away from there fast enough.

Cut to later that night when we finally all settled down to have done homework, I pulled Zach aside and I started the conversation carefully. “Zach, I heard today that you kept being asked to stop touching S’s leg. I wanted to talk to you about it.” Suddenly, Zach beams and he starts telling me that S has really, really soft pants and they feel so good, and she was showing them to him. I was a little confused by it, but I went ahead and let him know that it’s impolite to get into somebody’s personal space and it’s a better idea not to pet our friends.

The next day, I’m at school and I happen to run into S’s mom. I don’t know if she knows about what happened yesterday, but I brace myself in case the conversation comes up and she starts talking to me about how she had gotten herself and S a bunch of new clothing and how S was really excited about them. It turns out she had gotten S LuLaRoe leggings, which are advertised as being buttery soft. So in fact, Zach was just innocently feeling the softness of the leggings, not realizing that where he was touching was an inappropriate place. Thanks to those damned leggings though, now his first grade teacher probably thinks that my husband can’t keep his hands off of me and he’s feeling me up around Zach.

(Episode 238)

On the surface, my story does seem simple and perhaps not noteworthy. However, the impact this encounter had on me left a lasting impression. I work with plants for corporate clients and this job takes me out and about within my community. As I am out in the public, I get to chat with people regularly, and it generally is positive interactions with other plant lovers. Conversations usually revolve around plant care and maintenance and only last for a few minutes at most.

This last spring, I was working outdoors for a local restaurant chain, planting their spring pots. It was one of those early warmish spring days with a spring rain threatening to start any minute. I had AirPods on, listening to a podcast. When I saw a woman watching me, I will admit, my initial reaction was to not make eye contact, hoping she would continue on and not want to talk. I lingered a little longer at the pod I was working on, thinking she would see I was busy and move along. When she didn’t leave and was very obviously watching me, I decided to get it over with and make it a quick and passing pleasantry.

As I remember the encounter now, I removed an AirPod to say hi, as I hustled past her trying to look like I was on a mission, she said something about the plantings looking beautiful and how much they lifted her spirits. I, of course, thanked her and said some appreciative words, but I could tell by her body language and aura that she wanted to talk more. In that split second, I recall the story I had recently heard about how when we help strangers, whether it be cash or food to a panhandler, maybe holding the door for a stranger, smiling, asking your server how they’re doing, just being kind in journal, that in those moments, you’re helping an angel. Something about that story just stuck with me. And now that I tried to remember where that even came from, I don’t even know – maybe I just made it up. Anyways, in that split second, something told me to stop, just stop and give her my full attention. It was so clear that, in that moment, she needed somebody to talk to. She was elderly. And in that conversation, I learned that she was a widow and that she had a daughter who was a doctor that lived out of the area, but that her daughter was worried about her.

That day when I was talking to her, it had been her first time in three weeks that she had the energy to even leave her house. She had been battling an illness for about a month. Up until that illness, she was always extremely active and being sick had not only left her physically drained, but very clearly emotionally. She had decided that day, even though she felt like she had no energy, that she was going to go to her favorite restaurant and get a green smoothie. We chatted about her family, my family, plants, how important physical activity is as we age, the weather, we pretty much covered it all. I really have no idea how long we talked, but it was lovely.

Nearing the end of our conversation, I felt her move closer to me physically, and she just started sobbing quietly. At first, I really didn’t know what to do. Then, she told me that me stopping to talk to her meant more than I would ever know. Even though I was covered in dirt, I instinctively hugged her. I told her that I was so happy to have met her and loved our conversation. Then just like that, she went on her way. I turned back to my plants and after a second, I realized I didn’t even know her name and maybe I should get her name, maybe even her phone number. We just really connected despite our 40-plus year difference. I turned to look out in the direction she had walked and nothing, nobody anywhere. I watched for car tail lights on all the cars in the parking lot, nothing. So, I don’t know, maybe she was an angel. All I know is that encounter gave me so much hope and love for my fellow humans.

It was a wonderful reminder to just stop and see the beauty in it, everybody around us, and to never ever be too busy to stop and have a moment with a stranger because, as much as she recognized that she needed that day, I obviously needed her too.

(Episode 239)

Let me start with a little backstory. My family’s always been very outdoorsy. When I was growing up, we had a tradition every– around Halloween, every year, we’d head up to the Adirondack Mountains and we’d go backpacking and we’d meet up with another 20 or 30 people. It was called the Halloween Hike. While we were up there, we would hold strange pumpkin ceremonies and sing pumpkin carols. It was a lot of fun. So did that as a kid.

When I started a family, I wanted my kids to experience that as well. I went on the hike when I was pregnant, no problem. Then, when my son was 5 months old, we went on the hike again. We didn’t really feel up to backpacking and tent camping with a five month old, so we found that the Adirondack Mountain Club had little cabins, very rustic cabins, that you could rent. We did that for a year, had bunk beds and it worked out really well. So, that was a go the next year.

My son was 17 months old. My dad and I decided, “Hey, we want to get out there even earlier.” So just the two of us went out on Friday and we were going to hike up Friday night with my son. So we drove out in the afternoon. We got to the trailhead. He was hiking all the gear, although we didn’t have a tent, we didn’t have sleeping bags. It was just our clothes and some food. I had my son on my back, and we headed out.

It was pretty cold, but not too bad. It’s probably a 3-5 mile hike. I don’t remember exactly how far but, at some point, it started snowing. This is not good. My son did not like that. He didn’t like the snow coming down his face and it was getting on his favorite stuffed animal, Mr. Levy – he was called. Every now and then, he would throw Mr. Levy in a fit of rage and Mr. Levy would fall on the muddy trail and yeah, that wasn’t great. It wasn’t terrible. We were trying to keep him happy. We were singing songs, hiking on the trail.

Right around sunset, we finally made it up to the cabin – same cabin we’ve been at last year – but this time, my dad went to enter the code that the Adirondack Mountain Club had given him to get into the cabin. There was, like, a lock with a combination – kind of lock of some sort – and it didn’t open. Now it’s sunset, it’s snowing – there’s probably a couple inches on the ground. My son is crying and I’m like, “Where are we going to sleep?” Because no tent, no sleeping bags. My toddler was not in a good moment.

Luckily, my dad had remembered there were some more cabins up a little further on the trail, so we kept going and we found it was a bigger cabin and there were people in it and they were inside, so we talked to them. It turns out when they had reached the cabin, it also wouldn’t open with the code, but luckily one of them had a screwdriver and they had managed to somehow pry it off or break it open somehow. So, they loaned us that screwdriver.

We headed back to our cabins. It’s fully dark now. We managed to break into our cabin and give them back their screwdriver. So it was basically a happy ending. I mean, clearly, someone screwed up the codes because there’s a lot of people trying to get into cabins that weekend and they were locked. But the rest of the family joined us the next day and we had a grand old time. Unfortunately, the Halloween hike tradition is now no more. The people running it– my dad’s now in his eighties and so, yeah, they just got to where they couldn’t really do it anymore, but I have decades of wonderful memories to think back on.

Scott
And – that’s a wrap for 2025.

I hope this was a good year for you. For me, it brought some big changes personally, and overall in the long run these changes are good.

I’ve got lots of great new What Was That Like stories in the pipeline, and I’m looking forward to an amazing 2026.

Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.

Stay safe, and I’ll see you next year!