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Welcome to Armchair Anonymous.
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I m Dax Shepard, I m joined by Monica Padman.
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Hi, this was fun.
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This was for you.
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My old stomping grounds.
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This one specifically was for you.
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It s crazy mall stories.
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I love the mall.
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Boy, one of these had me laughing.
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A little tiny thing got carried away.
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Someone lost control of a little tiny thing and there s nothing that s funnier than that to me.
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This is so fun.
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Oh, it was a really good one.
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And some bonkers ones too.
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Now let me see if you can, I m just looking to see if you can listen to this one.
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Yeah, this is fine.
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There s blood.
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Yeah, there s some blood.
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And there s some poop.
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And there s some poopy.
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And there s some theft.
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Please enjoy Mall Stories.
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Hi!
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How are you guys?
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Oh, good.
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And you?
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I m very well.
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Thank you for joining me at my work in the supply closet.
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Wait, okay.
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You re at work in a supply closet.
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Does the supply closet always have this very light ocean spray green blanket?
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No, I got the directions and I put up these lovely sound barriers.
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So I have this blanket and behind me, there is a water heater, which while I was waiting, I heard it tinkle a few times.
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So I was like, well, that s just great.
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Hopefully it s not going to be doing that throughout the recording.
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I hope it does.
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I want a co-worker to walk in and go what in the fuck are you doing?
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She helped me put the blankets up this morning, so it s been a very productive day at work Where are you at in the country?
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I live in Raleigh, North Carolina
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Wonderful.
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Okay.
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So you have a crazy mall story.
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I do.
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So I saw this prompt and I was like, wow, I had honestly forgotten about this story, but here we are.
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This prompt brought me back to the late nineties.
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I m sorry.
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Actually it was the early nineties.
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Early nineties.
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Prime mall time.
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I was going to say that about late nineties.
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Guess what?
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It was pretty good in the eighties too.
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It was good up until like five years ago.
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Oh, no.
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In Michigan, like 20 years ago.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Sorry.
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Sorry.
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That s okay.
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Sidebar.
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So I was 17 and I worked at a mall in the suburbs of D.C.
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in Virginia.
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It was a very, very high end mall.
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The anchor stores were Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy s.
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When Macy s was actually a thing, it had a bunch of luxury fashion brand stores.
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There was a Ritz Carlton.
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Well, there still is a Ritz Carlton attached to the mall so that people could.
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exit from the hotel into the mall and do their shopping.
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So, I mean, the clientele was very, very affluent.
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There was Middle Eastern royalty, and there were actors, sometimes musicians, that were on tour that would stay at the Ritz.
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This is a dream, Michelle, and you were in high school?
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I was 17, and oh my gosh, did I ever feel so sophisticated?
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I was working in a card store, so it wasn t like I was working at the Versace, but it still made me feel very worldly and sophisticated.
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Yes, of course.
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For the most part, it wasn t very busy.
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I mean, I went up there one night to visit a friend and see if we could hang out after her shift.
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I walk into the store and the manager s son and her are standing behind the counter smoking a bowl.
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Oh, wow.
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In the store.
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Very lax.
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All this to say, the mall that I worked at, it was not really busy at night and
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I think if I worked at the mall across the street, this probably wouldn t have happened.
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It was a weeknight and I was working with a girl who was 16 and I took my customer service duties very seriously.
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This guy comes up to the counter and he asks for some help to pick out some gift wrap.
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So I follow him over to the gift wrap wall and the gift wrap is not really in plain sight of the cash register.
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It s about 10 feet away.
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So we get over to the gift wrap and he looks down, he sees my boots.
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And he says, oh gosh, I really like your boots.
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And now these boots were everything to me when I was 17.
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They were suede.
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They had this fringe that encircled the top.
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They were amazing.
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I wore them into the ground.
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They were my absolute favorite boots of all time.
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So anyway, this guy, he looks at my boots and he s like, wow, I love your boots.
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And I m 17.
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So I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, I love them too.
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They re great.
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And I kind of popped my hip out and tilted my knee in and I kind of swiveled my heel out.
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So he d get a really good look at my boot.
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Were you in a pant or a skirt?
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I was in pants.
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Okay.
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He s looking at it and he says, can I see them?
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I was like, okay.
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So I took off my boot.
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I handed it to him and I m thinking maybe he s got a girlfriend and he really likes these boots and he wants to go and see if he can find a pair.
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He s holding my boot and he s kind of turning it over in his hands.
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He puts his hand into it and he says, these don t really offer much arch support.
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And I m just like, yeah, okay.
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This was the early nineties.
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Sweat wicking technology wasn t really a thing yet.
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So I m sure that his hand in there was probably met with all sorts of
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swampy, sweaty mess.
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It was gross, I m sure.
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It all happened really quickly, but also it took long enough that my coworker decided to come and find me because we had been over at the gift wrap wall long enough for her to be, I guess, concerned.
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Or maybe she saw immediately that this guy was a creep.
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But she comes around the corner and I hear this gasp and she exclaims my name because he is crouched down on the ground and he has every single finger interlaced with the toes of my right foot.
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Wait, hold on a second.
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You didn t feel this happening.
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It took your coworker to alert you to this.
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He was feeling the inside of the boot and the arch support.
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And then all of a sudden he finds his hands down to your feet.
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He somehow talked me out of my sock.
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Okay, great.
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So there were some steps between feeling the inside of the boot.
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But was he standing upright holding the boot or was he down by your foot looking at the boot?
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He was standing up and then he eventually made it down to my foot where, if I remember correctly, he actually took my sock off.
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Yeah.
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And so he ended up with his fingers in between every single one of my toes on my right foot.
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Oh boy.
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And he briskly stands up and walks out of the store.
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And my coworker is just looking at me like, what in the actual fuck?
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And I am just kind of like customer service.
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I really don t know how it happened.
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Is it fair to say you had like the freeze response?
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Was it that you frozen, you were nervous or you just literally didn t even really notice what was going on?
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I was aware that he was asking me to take off my sock.
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And I was kind of like, well, this is weird, but it was crazy.
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How old was this person?
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He was probably late 20s, maybe early 30s.
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When you re 17, everybody who s over 20 looks old.
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What would be the worst age for you, Monica, to hear?
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I was expecting like 53.
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53.
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Okay.
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That felt really bad.
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For whatever reasons, there s stratas in this.
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Because if it was like another 17 year old boy.
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Yeah, that s hot.
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I would argue 53, you can t make it that long in this game.
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No, I think you can.
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You think you can?
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Yeah, there s a lot of older creeps out there.
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Listen, if you come across a naive 17 year old like me, he probably totally could have been older than that.
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What s the worst age for you? 40.
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Interesting.
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I guess because I m on 50s backdoor and I know I m not as sexual as I was 10 years ago.
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So I feel like I would be more dangerous at 40.
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You have to wonder how many young women s feet he held.
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Because he had, obviously, a well-rehearsed approach and technique.
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And you re starting with some flattery, like, oh, I love those boots.
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Right.
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Oh, great.
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Me too.
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It s a whole system.
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It was weird.
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You would think that somebody who s going to try to pull something like that would go to a shoe store.
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Maybe they re a little more on top of it, on the feet fetish.
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Is this too dangerous for us to explore the hierarchy of fearful interaction of this nature?
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Yeah.
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I do feel like this is the lowest harm rate.
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Like, let s just say a deranged lunatic at 7-Eleven was going to touch a body part of mine and I got to pick?
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Yeah.
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Foot.
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I go, yeah, if this guy s got to touch something, I ll let him touch my foot.
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I agree, actually.
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So it s like the preferred body part
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Yeah, because I would not want them to touch my hands too intimate.
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Yes.
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And germs.
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And face.
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Definitely not face.
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Belly.
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Definitely not like private parts.
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Right, or lower back.
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Even knee feels a little too... Inside of the knee, backside of the knee.
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No, that s way too intimate.
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I d prefer to have my foot touched than to see a flasher.
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Oh.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, we just go through all of them.
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I feel like this is maybe the only one we can laugh about.
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I mean, it s still because it s a stranger.
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Yeah, the guy s deranged.
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He s obviously deranged, but if I was in a relationship with someone and they had a feet fetish, I m into it.
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It doesn t creep me out unless that person s fetish is so strong that they re doing what this person s doing, like going to malls and touching strangers  feet.
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Underage students.
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Yeah, that s bad.
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For the rest of the shift, my coworker made fun of me relentlessly.
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We never really talked about it again because she was 16, I was 17.
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It was something that I realized now that I haven t really talked with anybody about it.
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I was talking with a friend of mine.
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I sent her a text.
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I was like, hey, do you remember the time that I got my foot fingered at the mall?
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And she said, no.
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What?
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You know, I don t think I really told many people because I recognized that it was kind of skeevy on some levels and I didn t really want to be like, yeah, no, I m the girl that took my sock off.
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Right.
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You felt shame.
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Yeah.
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You re answering my question.
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I was wondering if you didn t talk about it because on some level you felt like, how did I let myself get to a point where my sock was off?
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Like I participated.
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Exactly.
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This is classic victim 101 where if I d gone to mall security, they would have been like, well, why would you do that?
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Yeah.
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Exactly, also early 90s, absolutely.
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What do you expect when you wear boots that nice?
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Your fault.
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You were asking for it with the fringe.
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The fringe is an imitation.
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Oh, the fringe is like really, you might as well be topless.
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Oh man.
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That was one of my weird law stories, but I can laugh about it now.
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Do you catch anyone stealing from this place?
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Not the kind of products that thieves are drawn to, stationery and wrapping paper.
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I think that s a misnomer.
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You do?
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Oh, you re right.
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They like to steal random.
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There s a lot of female kleptomaniacs.
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Yes.
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Yeah, maybe even more than that.
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I always want to call them narcoleptics.
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They go nighty-night.
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They re sleepies.
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Yeah, sleepies.
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There was an employee that actually stole, and we found out that he was stealing a bunch of expensive figurines.
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He was giving himself credit on his credit card with a charge machine.
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Wow.
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That makes sense, as long as you re getting money out of it.
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But just to be stealing and have a gorgeous set of stationery.
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Precious moments.
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Right.
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This seems a little bizarre.
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Oh, well, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing that story with us.
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Thank you.
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Hope you have a great day at work.
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Yeah, there s that.
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I ll try.
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All right.
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Well, have a great rest of your day.
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Nice meeting you, Michelle.
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Nice meeting you guys, too.
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Bye bye.
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I used to love that kind of store.
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Hallmark.
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The stationery.
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I would walk by and go like, what the fuck is that thing doing in here?
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Like, who s buying paper?
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What?
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It was a great place to get gifts.
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No, A.J.
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Voights was or whatever it was called.
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A.J.
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Novelty Shop.
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Oh, like where you get the wet willies.
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Spencer s.
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Spencer s.
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Yeah, Spencer s Gifts.
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Oh, my God.
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Yeah, that s the difference between boys went to Spencer s to get gifts and girls went to Hallmark.
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Yeah, they re like dildos.
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Yeah, there s sexy stuff in there.
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Yeah.
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Oh, my God.
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Here s Jacob or Jay.
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Speaking of feet, I need a pedicure.
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SPEAKER_01
Hmm.
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Hi.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, hello.
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SPEAKER_01
Hi.
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Is it Jay or Jacob?
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SPEAKER_00
My full name s Jacob, but you can call me Jay.
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Okay.
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I m going to call you Jay.
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I like that.
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Where are you, Jay?
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I m in Denver, Colorado.
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I m from San Diego originally, and that s where this mall story takes place.
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Do you have an expert shirt on?
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SPEAKER_00
I do.
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It s my Monica Monsoon shirt.
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Oh, how great.
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It was given to me by my wife who s also named Monica.
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I love that for all of us.
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She wants to come meet you guys in a little bit.
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SPEAKER_00
Of course.
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And you re in what I presume is your basement where you do music.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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I have a drum set behind me.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s a pretty big room, but I have all this sound buffering already.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, we love that.
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I was like stressing all morning.
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SPEAKER_00
So hopefully it sounds okay.
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You sound glorious.
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It s really good to meet you both.
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You were my two favorite people that I ve never met.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, thank you.
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SPEAKER_04
Okay.
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So take us back to San Diego and what year, and also give us a loose description of mall culture in San Diego, because for Monica and I think what s unique is outdoor probably is the norm.
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Aren t there a lot of malls in California where there s no roof?
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That s kind of actually how this one is.
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So it s a mall called Horton Plaza and essentially it s like a five-story mall with like a canyon that goes down the middle.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh wow.
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You can see all of the stores on one side and look all the way down to the first floor when you re on the other side.
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But one thing about it is it s absolutely super confusing.
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So like you can like take a staircase from like the second floor and get to the fourth floor.
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It s like an MC Escher drawing.
1
100%.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like the end of Labyrinth, trying to find David Bowie up in there.
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SPEAKER_00
Even like the parking lot s a double helix.
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SPEAKER_00
So if you get in the wrong area, you just get lost.
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SPEAKER_00
So I was probably 13 or 14.
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SPEAKER_00
So like eighth or ninth grade.
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SPEAKER_00
So this would have been in 2003.
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SPEAKER_01
All right, great.
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SPEAKER_00
So this was at the peak of malls when people were starting to trust buying things from the internet, but it was like, everything was in there.
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SPEAKER_00
You have all the food shops and the game stores and.
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Go there for anything you need type place.
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SPEAKER_04
God, I miss it.
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SPEAKER_00
It was really fun.
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SPEAKER_00
I went with my dad just to do some shopping and we basically went to go hit up the stores that I knew.
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SPEAKER_00
It was like the GameStop and it was Hot Topic at the time.
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So I m walking around with my dad.
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SPEAKER_00
We do some shopping and then we decided to stop for lunch.
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SPEAKER_00
They have all these options, but my favorite place was Mongolian barbecue, where you like fill up your bowl with meat and veggies and then they stack a bunch of noodles on it and then make it on that circular grill with a bunch of like big chopsticks, you know?
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, yum.
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SPEAKER_01
Industrial chopsticks.
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SPEAKER_00
I was of age where I could crush the whole thing.
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SPEAKER_00
So I ate the entire meal and then right afterwards, I got a feeling in my gut.
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SPEAKER_00
Immediate.
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SPEAKER_00
Immediate.
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I used to get this thing.
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It was like one in one out where I d like put a meal in my body and then I d instantly have to go to the bathroom.
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SPEAKER_04
Wow.
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SPEAKER_00
So I look at my dad and I m like, I gotta go to the bathroom.
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And he s like, okay, I see ya.
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SPEAKER_00
So we start like looking for a bathroom in this mall and we re stopping at stores and they re like, we don t have a bathroom.
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SPEAKER_00
Other stores are like, it s employees only.
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SPEAKER_00
And I m starting to really feel it.
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SPEAKER_01
Jay, I don t want to be critical of you guys, but of course there s no toilets in the stores.
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SPEAKER_01
We know this, this was a total waste of time.
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SPEAKER_04
But it was such a confusing mall, they couldn t find the regular bathroom, so they re panicking.
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SPEAKER_00
No one knew where the bathroom was.
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SPEAKER_00
But that s fair.
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SPEAKER_01
But you just know that Hot Topics is not gonna let you take a dump in there.
1
SPEAKER_04
They should have said the bathroom is around the corner.
1
SPEAKER_01
Imagine going into Foot Locker and being like, where s your bathroom?
1
SPEAKER_01
They d be like, are you fucking high?
1
SPEAKER_01
Have you ever been to a Foot Locker?
1
SPEAKER_00
Buy a fucking hat and get out.
1
SPEAKER_00
No one could even tell us where one was.
1
SPEAKER_00
So we finally find a security guard and he s like, there s a bathroom down there at the far end.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we re like, okay, sweet.
1
SPEAKER_00
We re trucking it to get there.
1
SPEAKER_00
I see the bathroom.
1
SPEAKER_00
I go to open it and it s just deadbolted.
1
SPEAKER_04
Oh, this is a nightmare.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, this is getting kind of bad.
1
SPEAKER_00
And my dad looks at me and he goes, there s a bathroom in Northstrom.
1
SPEAKER_00
Can you make it?
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, yes.
1
SPEAKER_00
And internally, I m like, I fucking hope I can make it.
1
SPEAKER_04
Internally, you re like, maybe.
1
SPEAKER_04
God.
1
SPEAKER_04
Also, your dad knew there was one in Nordstrom the whole time.
1
SPEAKER_01
Come on, dad.
1
SPEAKER_01
Go straight to Nordstrom s.
1
SPEAKER_00
At least some of the stores have bathrooms in them.
1
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, you know, a trek across the entire mall to get there.
1
SPEAKER_00
My dad runs ahead and, like, opens the door so I don t have to, like, open the door for myself.
1
SPEAKER_00
Poor dad.
1
SPEAKER_00
We instantly get into the women s shoe section, and we were on a level that was just all women s clothing and stuff.
1
SPEAKER_00
So it s like my dad, who s like a 6 6 dude, and me, an 8th grader, running through this section.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m slowing down my pace, you know, starting to like squeeze the butt cheeks.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I get probably 20 feet from the bathroom and just start running and lose it.
1
SPEAKER_01
As you take off running.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh boy.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it was going to happen.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was like, as I was opening the door, it just started leaking everywhere.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was wearing khaki shorts and like the tall white socks that were cool at the time.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it was just like all down everywhere, almost into my shoes.
1
SPEAKER_00
I made it into the stall and I m sitting there just awkward as fuck with acne and shit and I m like, where do I begin?
1
SPEAKER_00
What do I do?
1
SPEAKER_00
There s a single ply toilet paper that just doesn t clean anything.
1
SPEAKER_00
My dad just opens the door and he goes,
1
SPEAKER_00
Are you good?
1
SPEAKER_00
I just go, no.
1
SPEAKER_00
So he leaves and I m just cleaning up everything.
1
SPEAKER_00
I throw away my underwear.
1
SPEAKER_00
I throw away the socks.
1
SPEAKER_00
I threw basically everything away.
1
SPEAKER_00
Then this other dude comes in and it s a single stall and two urinals, that type of bathroom.
1
SPEAKER_00
This old guy is just standing outside of the urinal waiting for me to be finished.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m just sitting there smudging shit around, getting cleaned up as best as I can.
1
SPEAKER_00
So my dad finally shows up and basically acts as like bouncer.
1
SPEAKER_00
We got an issue, go use the bathroom on another floor.
1
SPEAKER_04
He s like, do you know how many bathrooms there are in this mall?
1
SPEAKER_04
None.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Just one on every floor of Northland.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s five of them.
1
SPEAKER_00
Go find your own.
1
SPEAKER_00
So over the top of the bathroom stall just comes a pair of Tommy Bahamas bathing trunks that are like green with orange and pink, you know, flora on it.
1
SPEAKER_00
It has like the netting in it, which like at the time was not cool.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I throw them on and throw my poopy khaki shorts into the bag that the bathing suit came in, like a paper bag from Nordstrom s.
1
SPEAKER_00
Do the walk of shame back through the women s shoe section.
1
SPEAKER_00
A kid goes into the bathroom and comes out wearing something different.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I m just mortified.
1
SPEAKER_01
Does anyone know where the pool is?
1
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
He should have bought you a towel too to sling over your shoulder.
1
SPEAKER_00
I thought there was a top floor jacuzzi up here somewhere.
1
SPEAKER_00
So we finally make it out of there to the car.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t know what to say.
1
SPEAKER_00
And my dad just leans over and he goes,
1
SPEAKER_00
Don t worry, it happens to the best of us.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then he proceeded to just tell me a story about when he shit his pants in public to make me feel better.
1
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, that s when I pooped my pants in Nordstrom.
1
SPEAKER_01
So sweet.
1
SPEAKER_01
It does make me wonder why we don t ever see people actively pooping their pants.
1
SPEAKER_01
Cause we all have these stories.
1
SPEAKER_01
We talked to tons of arm cherries who have done it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Why haven t I ever been looking at an eighth grade boy and just see shit dribbling down his legs?
1
SPEAKER_01
as he sprints through a shoe section.
1
SPEAKER_00
I have an 11-year-old stepson, and I can tell you, I ve seen that look in his eyes before.
1
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s always been at home, luckily.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, have you ever seen someone dealing with shit actively in their pants?
1
SPEAKER_04
Well, one time, were we together when we were on an elevator and there was someone in front of us who definitely had soiled their pants?
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve seen a couple people, and I sent you some photos once from Rite Aid, back when it was on the corner.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was behind a woman who had
2
SPEAKER_00
totally shitter yoga pants.
2
SPEAKER_00
But there were no lumps, so I couldn t decide if it had been washed and it stained.
2
SPEAKER_03
That must have contained it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a good outfit to have.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, I m going to be on the lookout for more shit on people s legs and shoes and stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
I just feel like it s shocking we don t see it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And Jay, you really scratched an itch I ve had.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was just lamenting to Monica a couple days ago.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like, we have not had a poop prompt in way too long.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s time.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and so I love that this one snuck in or snuck out.
2
SPEAKER_03
I m just happy to be here.
2
SPEAKER_03
If you need other poop stories, I m sure we can find some.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m sure we ll talk to you again.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s meet the wife, Monica.
2
SPEAKER_03
Monica, other Monica.
2
SPEAKER_00
Monica 1.0.
2
SPEAKER_00
She s probably old.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, you guys may be the same age.
2
SPEAKER_04
I have wanted to be the significant other that comes in at the end of the story so bad.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, you have a big, big leg up that you re Monica.
2
SPEAKER_04
I m so excited to meet you guys.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, us too.
2
SPEAKER_00
What year were you born?
2
1990.
2
SPEAKER_04
Three years younger.
2
SPEAKER_04
So you re 1.0.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m 1.0.
2
SPEAKER_04
We re just babies over here.
2
SPEAKER_04
I was hoping I would have the mall story, because I used to work at Limited, too, but Jay s sort of beat mine.
2
SPEAKER_04
I loved Limited, too.
2
SPEAKER_04
What year did you work there?
2
SPEAKER_04
It was in high school.
2
SPEAKER_04
2008 minus three years.
2
SPEAKER_04
Okay, 2005.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay, 2005 to 08.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you were in there a lot in that period?
2
SPEAKER_04
No, I was late 90s, early 2000s.
2
SPEAKER_04
99 to 04.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, by the time I worked there, I kind of aged out of dressing there, unfortunately.
2
SPEAKER_00
And Limited s brother s store was Structure?
2
SPEAKER_00
Or am I confusing what structures sister store was?
2
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, I think it s express.
2
SPEAKER_00
Did you say anything bonkers while you worked there?
2
SPEAKER_04
Well, I was telling Jay, I was like, I didn t think about this until this prompt came up.
2
SPEAKER_04
We did have someone who pooped in the dressing room and they were definitely sitting.
2
SPEAKER_04
Cause the poop was shaped like this and they asked me to clean it up.
2
SPEAKER_04
And I m like, I make $10 an hour.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
My cousins worked at Gap and it was a pretty regular occurrence that someone would sheepishly come in, they would take an outfit off the rack, they d go in and they would change into it and come out and pay for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
They would have their old clothes wadded up in the bag.
2
SPEAKER_01
No!
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this happened weekly at the 12X mall.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh my god!
2
SPEAKER_01
God, so you re just a dime a dozen, Jay.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s kind of what happened to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
What if we found out there was a broad study and like 5% of the clothes sold in the Nordstroms was just people dealing with having shit themselves?
2
SPEAKER_04
It s that Auntie Annie s and it s a barrow that really gets you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, let s be honest, I think it s more that Korean barbecue is not the safest bet there.
2
SPEAKER_00
Jay and Monica, it s so nice to meet you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Nice to meet you both.
2
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, our pleasure.
2
SPEAKER_01
Have a good rest of your day.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, take care.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re getting itchy, aren t you?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I want to go.
2
SPEAKER_00
But you want to go back in time and go.
2
SPEAKER_01
I do.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I want to do the impossible.
2
SPEAKER_01
The Yankee Candle Store.
2
SPEAKER_00
Candles.
2
SPEAKER_01
I loved it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s get in the car and drive all the way up to the mall to get some candles.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s wrong with that?
2
SPEAKER_00
You re so judgmental.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m just so male.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, Bath and Body Works?
2
SPEAKER_00
There we go.
2
SPEAKER_01
You liked it?
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I didn t like it, but I get it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Did you have to buy any of your girlfriend s stuff?
2
SPEAKER_00
I bought a few of those packages for Christmas for moms and girlfriends and stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s just like the flower shop for dudes on Valentine s Day where I walk in and I m like, what s a thing my mom would like?
2
SPEAKER_01
Moonlight Path was my scent.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you ever go in there and take a sniff on it and get nostalgic?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, I haven t seen a Bath and Body Works in a while.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because, you know, a few years back I ordered my high school cologne.
2
SPEAKER_01
You did.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and it sits in my medicine cabinet and then every once in a while I just smell it and it takes me back.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s nice.
2
SPEAKER_01
I should do that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Fahrenheit.
2
SPEAKER_00
By Dior.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I thought you were mispronouncing pheromones.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
2
SPEAKER_00
Fahrenheit was the title of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was by Dior.
2
SPEAKER_01
Dior?
2
SPEAKER_01
That s advanced.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, my dad wore Obsession for Men by Calvin Klein.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think all dads wore that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that was common.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was into Ralph Lauren Blue because this popular girl had it and she smelled so good.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so then I got it.
2
SPEAKER_01
It didn t smell as good on me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s what s funny is however she would have smelled would have been good.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s probably how you re supposed to smell because she s popular.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s true.
2
SPEAKER_00
Michael Jordan had his own cologne.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was mine.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, really?
2
SPEAKER_00
What did it smell like?
2
SPEAKER_00
What were the scents?
2
SPEAKER_00
What was it called?
2
SPEAKER_00
Michael Jordan cologne.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
2
SPEAKER_00
Hi!
2
SPEAKER_00
We were just talking about popular colognes and perfumes from our youth.
2
SPEAKER_02
What s your favorite?
2
SPEAKER_00
We just found out cute Wobby Wob was wearing Michael Jordan s signature cologne, which is super adorable, being in Chicago and all.
2
SPEAKER_00
But you seem to still be in your youth, so you re not yet nostalgic.
2
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I m 28, so you could say that, but I feel like I ve lived many lifetimes already.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, and you re 10 years out from high school, so you could be reflecting back.
2
SPEAKER_00
Did you have a fragrance you wore?
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t think I had a go-to when I was young.
2
SPEAKER_02
I remember we used to go to Montana when I was younger, and there was a store called Rue 21.
2
SPEAKER_02
They had signature fragrances, so I remember one of those.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I actually had a hit of it recently, and I was like, where is that from?
2
SPEAKER_00
Nothing makes you more nostalgic than a fragrance.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where did you grow up that Montana was a regular vacation destination?
2
SPEAKER_02
I am in Alberta, Canada.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you would be coming South.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s about four hours away.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
So tell us about mall culture in Canada.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I live in Calgary and then Edmonton, which is three hours away.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s West Edmonton mall.
2
SPEAKER_02
And that s a super popular mall.
2
SPEAKER_02
And last year, I spent a semester in Edmonton.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was surprised to see the number of malls that they have, considering that West Edmonton Mall is their main attraction.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, so there s been an explosion of malls since?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, they re not small malls.
2
SPEAKER_02
They re all dramatic, big malls.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
2
SPEAKER_02
I definitely spent a lot of time at the mall when I was young.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t even want to know how much money I spent just on jeans.
2
SPEAKER_02
What was your store?
2
SPEAKER_02
When I was younger, jeans were definitely like American Eagle.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
2
SPEAKER_00
Classic.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so where and when does this mall story take place?
2
SPEAKER_02
Ironically, there s a lot of like Sim things in this story.
2
SPEAKER_02
We love Sim.
2
SPEAKER_02
So this story happened in 2018, and it actually happened in May.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re on the anniversary.
2
SPEAKER_02
We re celebrating the anniversary together.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh my god, congrats.
2
SPEAKER_02
Of this story.
2
SPEAKER_00
Six year anniversary.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it happened here in Calgary.
2
SPEAKER_02
So we don t have like a lot of malls, but it was one of the bigger ones.
2
SPEAKER_02
A little bit of backstory.
2
SPEAKER_02
My dad, who s kind of the main character in this story, is estranged now from everybody.
2
SPEAKER_02
He is a pretty volatile addict with some mental health issues, and that plays into the story a little bit.
2
SPEAKER_02
At the time, within a year, my parents had split.
2
SPEAKER_02
So my mom and my sister were living elsewhere, and I was living at my dad s house.
2
SPEAKER_02
My dad was out a lot.
2
SPEAKER_02
He was dating, keeping himself busy.
2
SPEAKER_02
And he was in a relationship at the time.
2
SPEAKER_02
I had never met this woman.
2
SPEAKER_02
Don t know her name.
2
SPEAKER_02
Don t want to know her name.
2
SPEAKER_02
Just minding my own business.
2
SPEAKER_00
Did you stay with him while you were going to college or something?
2
SPEAKER_00
This was six years ago.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was still living at home while I was in university and my mom left and took my sister and didn t tell me.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I was just left at home.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s really intense.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I was basically his babysitter, for lack of a better word.
2
SPEAKER_02
On this particular day, he was home.
2
SPEAKER_02
And second SIM thing, me and my friend, who s now my roommate, we were actually planning to start a podcast of our own.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
Inspired by what?
2
SPEAKER_00
What were you listening to then?
2
SPEAKER_00
Anna Faris or something?
2
SPEAKER_01
Us?
2
SPEAKER_00
No way.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, us.
2
SPEAKER_00
Us.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
It sounded like you were fishing.
2
SPEAKER_00
This story feels too long ago for us to play a role in it.
2
SPEAKER_02
But we had just started.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, a couple months in.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I m listening to you guys and I m going to her and I m having all these conversations and I m like, oh, this is my jam because I am a literary theory major.
2
SPEAKER_02
Ooh.
2
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_02
I had just graduated.
2
SPEAKER_02
I just got my BA at the time.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m like, okay, we re going to start a podcast.
2
SPEAKER_02
We had a name picked out.
2
SPEAKER_02
We re ready to go buy the equipment.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m about to walk out the door and my dad is like, I want to buy you a grad ring right now.
2
SPEAKER_02
What s a grad ring?
2
SPEAKER_00
Graduation ring for having just graduated college.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, a piece of jewelry.
2
SPEAKER_00
Jewelry.
2
SPEAKER_02
OK, OK.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And he had never mentioned this to me before.
2
SPEAKER_02
Never knew that this was a thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
But he s probably an impulsive guy.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you re used to this.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I m like, okay, well, I don t know what else he s going to get up to.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I guess we re going to the mall.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I call my friend and I m like, okay, change of plans.
2
SPEAKER_02
We ll pick you up.
2
SPEAKER_02
We re going to the mall.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then on our way home, we can go and pick up the microphones.
2
SPEAKER_02
I never ended up happening.
2
SPEAKER_02
We have not purchased the microphone completely.
2
SPEAKER_02
So this is the SIM part.
2
SPEAKER_02
The story made it to a podcast.
2
SPEAKER_02
So we ve come full circle.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is like a life altering story.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t even know how it threw absolutely everything out the window, but it did.
2
SPEAKER_00
We might ve been calling into your show today.
2
SPEAKER_02
We re going to the mall and he drives us and he parks in the underground parkade.
2
SPEAKER_02
We end up shopping and the mall is about to close so it s like 30 minutes to closing and we got to make our way back to the parkade.
2
SPEAKER_02
And we re on the second floor so we walk to the elevator and we re waiting at the elevator.
2
SPEAKER_02
Me, my friend Kayleen, and my dad.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s two other women who are also there waiting for the elevator.
2
SPEAKER_02
Now the three of us are relatively tall, especially me, like six feet.
2
SPEAKER_02
These ladies are pretty petite.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so they go into the elevator first and then the three of us follow them in and both of them push the buttons on the elevator.
3
SPEAKER_02
So there s an older woman and she pushes P2 and the younger woman pushes P1.
3
SPEAKER_00
Quick question, are they together?
3
SPEAKER_02
They re not together.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_02
So the younger one pushes P1, which is the level that we re going to get off on.
3
SPEAKER_02
We don t end up having to push it.
3
SPEAKER_02
So we get down to P1.
3
SPEAKER_02
This younger woman walks out of the elevator.
3
SPEAKER_02
When you exit, it s like a lobby.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so she goes towards the doors that are on the left.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then we walk in a line, so it s my friend, then myself, then my dad, and we all walk out to the right-hand side.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you walk out these automatic doors, and then you have a couple steps down to be level with the parkade floor.
3
SPEAKER_02
So we re chit-chatting as we re walking, then all of a sudden, I get this yank on my sweater from behind, and I m like, what the hell?
3
SPEAKER_02
And so I m like, I don t know if my dad s trying to roughhouse me.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I like go to turn around and I see him just standing there frozen and the woman is standing at the top of the stairs.
3
SPEAKER_02
So then he starts kind of stammering.
3
SPEAKER_02
He s like, why did you do that?
3
SPEAKER_02
What the fuck is wrong with you?
3
SPEAKER_02
And I m like, what just happened?
3
SPEAKER_02
And he turns around and he faces me and he goes, she just fucking stabbed me.
3
SPEAKER_02
What?
3
SPEAKER_01
What?
3
SPEAKER_01
Wait, what?
3
SPEAKER_01
What?
3
SPEAKER_00
And he was yelling, why the fuck did you do that to her, not you, obviously.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
The little gal who had gone to the left.
3
SPEAKER_01
And she was young.
3
SPEAKER_00
Came and stabbed your dad quickly and then ran up the stairs?
3
SPEAKER_02
I think she was on the stairs the whole time.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, oh, oh.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so like as he s walking down the stairs, because she s small and he s tall.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like the level difference.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, just the two little stairs.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, he kind of like touches his neck and looks at his hands.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I see the squirting out of his neck of the blood.
3
SPEAKER_02
No.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she s still there.
3
SPEAKER_02
She s staring.
3
SPEAKER_02
She s just standing there completely unfazed.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he s starting to get hysterical.
3
SPEAKER_02
I was like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
3
SPEAKER_02
Why would you do that?
3
SPEAKER_02
You just stabbed me.
3
SPEAKER_02
What the hell?
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, my God.
3
SPEAKER_02
So he holds his neck.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then I turn around to look at my friend.
3
SPEAKER_02
She looks shocked.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then I start feeling more shocked.
3
SPEAKER_02
So we re all hysterical at this point.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can you see the weapon or object?
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, she s standing with her arms down.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I think it was like a pocket knife.
3
SPEAKER_02
It wasn t anything huge.
3
SPEAKER_02
She just turns around and walks away.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, what?
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then my dad gets really angry and he was like, you re not getting away with this.
3
SPEAKER_02
Come back here.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he starts running after her.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
He chases her back into the lobby.
3
SPEAKER_02
They go down the stairs into the lower parkade.
3
SPEAKER_02
And we re like, Dad, stop.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like, he s bleeding everywhere.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I m trying to call the cops, but I just keep hitting, like, call Dad on my phone because I don t know what I m doing.
3
SPEAKER_02
We get down to the lower parkade and we re in the lobby and the woman runs out into the parkade.
3
SPEAKER_02
And finally, my dad stops.
3
SPEAKER_02
We end up seeing the older woman who was in the elevator with us.
3
SPEAKER_02
And we re like, get out of the parkade.
3
SPEAKER_02
There s a stabber on the mad woman.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
So she comes back in with us.
3
SPEAKER_02
We go up to the original floor and I m finally able to call 9-1-1 and they arrive pretty quickly, within a couple minutes.
3
SPEAKER_02
The ambulance takes a little bit longer to show up for us and I think there s like at least two or three cop cars who show up and one of them goes down into the lower one.
3
SPEAKER_02
They take off on their bikes and they end up catching her down in the lower parquet.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, the bike cops have been living for this moment because they re so dorky.
3
SPEAKER_00
They ve relegated to bicycles in a mall and they don t get any action.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they finally got to tear off on their bicycles.
3
SPEAKER_00
Big day.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I think, too, when they came up to say they got her, the cop had like dust on his knees.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so my dad s like, did she fall down?
3
SPEAKER_02
And he s like, a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_02
They kind of like tackled her.
3
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
3
SPEAKER_00
All that adrenaline after pedaling those bikes.
3
SPEAKER_01
What if really he just fell off his bike?
3
SPEAKER_00
That could have happened too.
3
SPEAKER_00
First time in a high-speed bike race.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s like, no, I tackled her.
3
SPEAKER_00
From really high up.
3
SPEAKER_01
Definitely wasn t that I just fell.
3
SPEAKER_02
So at this point, my dad s fine aside from actively bleeding.
3
SPEAKER_02
I take his phone and I m like, I got to start calling people and telling them to meet us at the hospital.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he forbids me from calling my sister or my mom.
3
SPEAKER_02
And they re the only two people that I want to call.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to call his bar buddies or anything.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, but I did.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, okay.
3
SPEAKER_02
I call his friends and I call my grandma and I m like, okay, everybody meet us at the hospital.
3
SPEAKER_02
The ambulance shows up.
3
SPEAKER_02
My dad s about to leave.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he s like, one more thing.
3
SPEAKER_02
You got to call my girlfriend.
3
SPEAKER_02
So.
3
SPEAKER_02
I call and I m like, hi, I m your boyfriend s daughter.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he just got stabbed in the neck.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he would like you to come and meet us at the hospital.
3
SPEAKER_02
See you soon.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, God.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
Nice to meet you.
3
SPEAKER_02
Luckily, she was a lovely lady and we re still friends to this day.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, that s nice.
3
SPEAKER_00
Good.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
So then he gets taken off in the ambulance.
3
SPEAKER_02
Me and my friend drive his car to the hospital.
3
SPEAKER_02
My dad s in the ER.
3
SPEAKER_02
He didn t end up needing any surgery, but the knife just nicked his jugular.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow, wow, wow.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then at this point is when we get a full update from the cops and
3
SPEAKER_02
The reason that they were there so quickly is because he wasn t the first victim.
3
SPEAKER_02
He was number three.
3
SPEAKER_02
Number three of a stabbing spree and second location.
3
SPEAKER_02
What?
3
SPEAKER_02
What the fuck?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, this is comforting because it s always a guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m almost relieved that there s finally a woman out there stabbing people.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she was tiny.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Although she may be tiny but mighty.
3
SPEAKER_01
And she was aloof.
3
SPEAKER_02
Something was obviously wrong with her.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can you describe more things about her?
3
SPEAKER_02
Only two things that I remember in the elevator.
3
SPEAKER_02
She was in sandals and she looked a little dirty and something tie-dye.
3
SPEAKER_00
So hippie vibes almost.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, her history come to find out after is like 10 years long of other assaults and violent things.
3
SPEAKER_01
Whoa.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she s just found not criminally responsible because she s not mentally well, but we don t have the resources to actually provide proper housing and care and support.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, oh, sounds like schizophrenic where she thinks she s fighting for her life, like paranoia.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
what actually happened she s at a plaza across the street at like a vietnamese restaurant i don t know the actual backstory of how it all happened but she stabbed i think a waitress first jesus and then walked out into the parking lot stabbed some guy
3
SPEAKER_02
She s ballsy too.
3
SPEAKER_02
So then she walks across the street to the department store of the mall, somehow comes upstairs, walks through the mall and to our elevator.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then, like I said, she pushed P1.
3
SPEAKER_02
I don t know where she was going.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it wasn t like she had necessarily targeted your dad initially.
3
SPEAKER_02
Totally random.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I mean, all in all, afterwards, we re like, that was best case now.
3
SPEAKER_02
Had she stabbed myself, my friend or the other older little woman, I don t think we would have made it.
3
SPEAKER_02
We ve all got tiny necks.
3
SPEAKER_02
He s got a big neck.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s so true.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, my God.
3
SPEAKER_01
Talk about wrong place, wrong time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I feel a little bit vindicated because my first reaction is like, if I m your dad and I get stabbed by her, yeah, I m going after her right away.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m going to kick her in the back as she s running because she s holding a weapon.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m going to kick her in the back and knock her down.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I m going to stand on her wrist that she s holding the knife and her back neck.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the cops get there.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no, no, no.
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause she ll die if you stand on her.
3
SPEAKER_01
She s so small.
3
SPEAKER_00
First person who dealt with this had done that.
3
SPEAKER_00
They would have saved two more stabbing victims.
3
SPEAKER_01
You think if you just stood on her wrist like that d be enough?
3
SPEAKER_00
No, I d stand on her body too.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
She deserves that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you just lay on her body?
3
SPEAKER_00
No, I don t want to.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just want my shoes to touch her.
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, you could say like, well, you re nuts to go after somebody, but you could also prevent two more people.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s true.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s true.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now there s one more twist to this story.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
3
SPEAKER_00
Your dad had been fucking her for a month.
3
SPEAKER_02
I did at first, I did at first think it was a scorned girlfriend.
3
SPEAKER_00
The new girlfriend that she hadn t met.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
My dad, when we re in the ER, he starts talking about what the experience was like and what it felt like.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he said, originally, it just felt like a really hard punch in the neck.
3
SPEAKER_02
So he didn t realize immediately.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s why he was like, what the fuck did you do?
3
SPEAKER_02
Why did you do that?
3
SPEAKER_02
And then he stopped and looked at me and was like, I ve been stabbed.
3
SPEAKER_02
So the reason he knew is because 50 years ago,
3
SPEAKER_02
My grandmother lived alone with my dad when he was really young in an apartment.
3
SPEAKER_02
And in the middle of the night one night, somebody broke into her apartment.
3
SPEAKER_02
She woke up, not while this person was there.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she was like, I m all wet.
3
SPEAKER_02
And she gets out of bed and she looks down and she s been laying in a pool of her own blood.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
3
SPEAKER_02
Luckily, she had a neighbor who was a cop.
3
SPEAKER_02
So she goes to the neighbor and is like, I need help.
3
SPEAKER_02
And
3
SPEAKER_00
He jumped on his bike.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sorry, not a good time for a joke.
3
SPEAKER_02
Someone had broken in.
3
SPEAKER_02
They never caught who did it, but they had cut her neck open.
3
SPEAKER_00
No fucking way!
3
SPEAKER_00
No wonder your dad s struggling.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s really traumatic for a little boy.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can t be a single mom.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And she gets her throat slapped.
4
SPEAKER_00
and you walk out of it with no problems.
4
SPEAKER_01
Honestly, I d never heard him talk about seeing anything.
4
SPEAKER_01
I d heard the story from her and I think she asked the cop to take care of my son and get him out of here.
4
SPEAKER_01
And she ended up needing reparative surgery because hers was much more severe.
4
SPEAKER_01
But she described it as having air flowing through her neck.
4
SPEAKER_01
So when my dad, like I said, he felt the punch and then he just felt air.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he was like, that is how I knew.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s what clued him in.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s hereditary.
4
SPEAKER_00
You gotta wear a neck guard.
4
SPEAKER_03
I need you to be careful.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, I mean, truly the odds of two family members both getting stabbed in the neck in a lifetime, they might be the only mother son.
4
SPEAKER_03
Knock on wood, the wood I like.
4
SPEAKER_00
But how?
4
SPEAKER_00
Who s going to?
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
OK, just knock on wood.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s impossible.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_03
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_03
That s really traumatic.
4
SPEAKER_03
What happened with the lady?
4
SPEAKER_03
Did she go to jail?
4
SPEAKER_01
No, they arrested her and held her for the minimum amount of days.
4
SPEAKER_01
But again, not criminally responsible.
4
SPEAKER_01
So put her back to her group home, I think.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it s not the most comforting thought.
4
SPEAKER_00
Mental illnesses aside, if you re committing assault because of the mental illness, you ve still got to be away.
4
SPEAKER_03
A hundred percent.
4
SPEAKER_03
You re dangerous.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, I understand the concept, but you can t try them for first degree because it s not premeditated.
4
SPEAKER_00
It does not meet the requirement of first degree.
4
SPEAKER_00
I get all that.
4
SPEAKER_00
But there has to be still some lengthy sentencing for non premeditated.
4
SPEAKER_03
The whole point is to protect the masses.
4
SPEAKER_03
And that s not doing that.
4
SPEAKER_03
This person has a problem.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s just not enough resources.
4
SPEAKER_01
Edmonton holds all of the NCR not criminal responsible beds for all of Alberta and all of northern Canada.
4
SPEAKER_01
So they just don t even have the capacity to keep everybody.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oof.
4
SPEAKER_00
If I had a single wish of this whole story is that your father had been super Canadian about it and said, like, oh, it appears you ve stabbed my neck.
4
SPEAKER_01
Sorry, I got in your way.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, sorry.
4
SPEAKER_03
What a story.
4
SPEAKER_00
A very Detroit reaction.
4
SPEAKER_03
Well, a very human one.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Jessica, thanks for telling us that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that was wild.
4
SPEAKER_03
Of course.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was so lovely to meet you guys.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m so excited to have this opportunity.
4
SPEAKER_03
I m really sorry the podcast never got up and running.
4
SPEAKER_03
All you were trying to do is make a podcast.
4
SPEAKER_03
But I got on one, so it s okay.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, sort of.
4
SPEAKER_01
I admire you both so much, like your honesty and your humor and everything.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I said to myself, I hope that you guys are doing this in five to ten years because
4
SPEAKER_01
I m very hesitant about pursuing my ambitions, but the idea of potentially making it to the attic to be an expert is like a big incentive.
4
SPEAKER_00
You must do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
That d be Sim on top of Sim on top of Sim.
4
SPEAKER_00
I would.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we live for the Sim.
4
SPEAKER_01
Thank you, Ashok.
4
SPEAKER_00
All right, Jessica, so nice meeting you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Take care.
4
SPEAKER_03
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_00
Randomly getting stabbed in the neck.
4
SPEAKER_03
Geez, by a little old lady.
4
SPEAKER_03
I mean, a little young lady.
4
SPEAKER_00
A little young lady, a little mighty.
4
SPEAKER_03
Little Monica.
4
SPEAKER_03
You might do that to somebody.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Let s call it what it is.
4
SPEAKER_00
A Monica type.
4
SPEAKER_00
What if they came full circle and the woman that was stabbed at the Vietnamese restaurant had just served a young boy, Jay, some tainted noodles.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he was like independently out shitting his pants.
4
SPEAKER_03
I would love that.
4
SPEAKER_02
Hello.
4
SPEAKER_02
Hi.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re like in a proper sound booth.
4
SPEAKER_02
I work at an art college and so they have a sound booth.
4
SPEAKER_02
Students have been leaving so I was able to sneak in here.
4
SPEAKER_00
I just dig this environment.
4
SPEAKER_00
I want to sit in that room kinda.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s really warm.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
4
SPEAKER_02
Maybe 90 degrees.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh boy.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Where at in the world?
4
SPEAKER_02
In the Boston area.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we re going to use a code name for you.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I was hoping that you could come up with a name.
4
SPEAKER_02
What do you think?
4
SPEAKER_00
Jade.
4
SPEAKER_02
Jade, I like that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can you live with Jade?
4
SPEAKER_03
I absolutely can.
4
SPEAKER_00
All right.
4
SPEAKER_00
You look like a Jade I knew from high school.
4
SPEAKER_03
Same!
4
SPEAKER_00
No!
4
SPEAKER_03
I m serious.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_00
Did you meet her at the mall?
4
SPEAKER_03
Yes!
4
SPEAKER_00
So Jade, where and when does this story take place?
4
SPEAKER_02
So it takes place north of Boston.
4
SPEAKER_02
It is 2003.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I was in like my mid-teens, thin plucked eyebrows, low cut jeans.
4
SPEAKER_02
Like it was tech Monica.
4
SPEAKER_03
Oh, I know it.
4
SPEAKER_03
I know it well.
4
SPEAKER_00
You were 16 in 03?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I was probably 15.
4
SPEAKER_02
The story is when I was 15.
4
SPEAKER_00
What kind of mall?
4
SPEAKER_00
Big mall, small mall, fancy mall, shitty mall.
4
SPEAKER_02
mid-level mall, there was a gap.
4
SPEAKER_02
Abercrombie wouldn t go into it, but there was a Hollister, a Victoria s Secret, and Macy s and Sears.
4
SPEAKER_02
Classic.
4
SPEAKER_00
JC Penney s?
4
SPEAKER_00
No.
4
SPEAKER_02
They had Sears.
4
SPEAKER_00
Sears and Roebuck.
4
SPEAKER_00
Great, trusted brand.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_02
So what happened?
4
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I was sort of the teenager that wasn t really cool.
4
SPEAKER_02
I was a little quirky.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I really wanted to work at the mall because working at a mall is like every
4
SPEAKER_02
teenager s dream.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I had jobs in the past.
4
SPEAKER_02
I was a babysitter and I worked at an ice cream shop at the mall.
4
SPEAKER_02
It was fairly new at the time.
4
SPEAKER_02
That was the cool place.
4
SPEAKER_02
Like we used to go as kids and just walk around in circles and circles.
4
SPEAKER_02
So getting a job there was amazing.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because I wasn t super cool, I was really boring.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I almost was like to the point that it was annoying.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ended up getting a job, not at Hollister or Aeropostale, which were super cool at the time.
4
SPEAKER_02
I worked at a greeting card store.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hold on a second.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re the second person we ve talked to that worked at a greeting card store, which is hysterical.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you are pointing out that I think those shops and the malls were like casting.
4
SPEAKER_00
There was definitely a mandate, like hire cute girls because girls are coming in and they want to see something aspirational.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like they re definitely casting those.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to be seeing a lot of cute boys.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re not going to be running through looking for stationery.
4
SPEAKER_02
If they did, it was for their girlfriend for Valentine s day.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it was a fun job.
4
SPEAKER_02
We weren t busy because it s a car shop and the only time we were busy was during holidays and it was like four days before the holidays and then the store was completely empty.
4
SPEAKER_02
I actually got two of my best friends from high school jobs there.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it was a really good time because we were always working and we were in high school so the night and weekend shifts were for us.
4
SPEAKER_02
So like we were always there, always together.
4
SPEAKER_02
Closing, we made friends with some of the employees in like the stores.
4
SPEAKER_02
in the circle that our store was in.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it was this really cool place.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so I was 15.
4
SPEAKER_02
There was no responsibilities.
4
SPEAKER_02
Things started to go downhill at this job when they made me a key holder.
4
SPEAKER_02
Oh, fuck.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ve been there.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
So there s power in it, Monica, and you know.
4
SPEAKER_02
I do.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because I was 15, and I think that this could also be sort of a warning.
4
SPEAKER_02
Don t give a 15-year-old responsibility of an entire store.
4
SPEAKER_02
OK.
4
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
The key holder is responsible for opening and closing the store?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I was sort of in charge of the shift and then I had to cash out at the end of the night, count the money, deposit the money, close the shop.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I had a key to the store.
4
SPEAKER_02
Basically I was the person in charge.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is so comical.
4
SPEAKER_00
It does remind me where I m from because we live in LA and young
4
SPEAKER_00
kids don t work.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s a huge workforce here and you just don t see young kids running places.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I ll go back to Detroit and go into a gas station at 2 a.m.
4
SPEAKER_00
and there s a 14 or 15 year old child running the gas station.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so that s this.
4
SPEAKER_00
A 15 year old shouldn t be counting the till.
4
SPEAKER_00
Or maybe they should.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not actually saying that.
4
SPEAKER_00
I just think it s funny.
4
SPEAKER_03
But it is a lot of responsibility.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s a lot of responsibility and I didn t really know what responsibility meant.
4
SPEAKER_02
I was kind of sheltered.
4
SPEAKER_02
I didn t have that experience in the world yet, but because
4
SPEAKER_02
It was a slightly small store.
4
SPEAKER_02
I was working shifts with my friends.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it was like me and either one or both of them on the shift because nobody else wanted to work the nights and weekends.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it was us.
4
SPEAKER_02
They were like, okay, these kids want to work.
4
SPEAKER_02
She seems the most responsible.
4
SPEAKER_02
So we re just going to let her be in charge.
4
SPEAKER_02
So this store also sells candy and trinkets and all of these small things.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it s not just greeting cards.
4
SPEAKER_02
I had been working there for a little while and at the beginning started taking greeting cards every once in a while and there was a candy kiosk and I was like, Swedish fish, sour ropes.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
It starts small.
4
SPEAKER_02
Really small.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so that was sort of how it started.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, of course.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then it evolved, and it really evolved in a way that I m still horrified by, and I can t believe I get, like, knots in my stomach when I think about it.
4
SPEAKER_02
But our backroom, sort of for context, and this adds to my decision-making process, was so messy.
4
SPEAKER_02
So they had collectible dolls, and I can t remember what they were called.
4
SPEAKER_02
Precious moment.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yes, yes.
4
SPEAKER_02
In addition to a couple of the other ones where it looks like wooden carvings with wings and stuff.
4
SPEAKER_02
They had those, but when we put them on display, the boxes were just tossed in the back room.
4
SPEAKER_02
So there was a whole section that was just piles of boxes on the ground.
4
SPEAKER_02
Like there was no organization to it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I will say you are culpable and responsible for your theft, but there s a chapter in a Gladwell book about this, or maybe it s for economics about
4
SPEAKER_00
Cleaning the graffiti lowers crime all around because you know you re being watched, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
There s like subliminal signals you receive.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the management is not taking care of their business at all.
4
SPEAKER_00
The place is a fucking mess.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re letting 15 year olds run.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re subtly receiving that the culture of this place is that no one gives a fuck.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, that s really true.
4
SPEAKER_02
If there s piles of boxes, they re not going to notice that a few trinkets go
5
SPEAKER_01
missing.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I start taking things that are bigger than a card or candy, and it s the collectible items, the trinkets, the things that say mom and dad and brother and stuffed animals and like, it s excessive.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s like music boxes and jewelry holders.
5
SPEAKER_01
and display things, and it s constant.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like a disease I can t stop doing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, this is fascinating.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so every single holiday, whether it was a birthday, Christmas, or St.
5
SPEAKER_01
Patrick s Day, I would give my whole family gifts from this store that I just stole.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so they were like, you re so generous.
5
SPEAKER_01
This is amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
My mom is really sentimental.
5
SPEAKER_01
So she loves them.
5
SPEAKER_01
They all say these wonderful phrases.
5
SPEAKER_01
They still have them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
Taunting you.
5
SPEAKER_00
This could be like a Todd Solondanz movie or some really artful director movie.
5
SPEAKER_00
Happiness.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I m taking stuff left and right.
5
SPEAKER_01
My friends who work there also do it, but not to the level that I did.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was like, I m in charge.
5
SPEAKER_01
I can do whatever I want.
5
SPEAKER_01
They would take a piece here or there.
5
SPEAKER_01
But we would also have friends into the store, whether it s like boyfriends or good friends or people from other stores, like visitors, that we would sort of let them take stuff from restaurants.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_02
I have a question because you gave a lot of these things away as presents, but did you also return them at different locations?
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, were you getting high off the ceiling or were you doing it to give presents?
5
SPEAKER_01
I was trying to give presents.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s Mother s Day.
5
SPEAKER_01
I need a gift.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s readily available right here.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it happens to be free.
5
SPEAKER_02
Right.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_02
So it wasn t like you just in your closet at home had so much stuff that you had taken because you wanted to take because that s a big narcolepsy slash kleptomania thing where it s just the taking.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is reminding me of another armchair anonymous we had where somehow a kid got like a code for shoes to order and he gave it to people and people were like a thousand pairs of shoes.
5
SPEAKER_00
These things get out of control quickly.
5
SPEAKER_00
The notion that all your friends are coming by to steal shit dude is fucking hysterical.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think there was no responsibility understanding.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was just completely out of my head.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that wasn t where it ended.
5
SPEAKER_01
And Dax, you mentioned returning it at other places.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I never did that because I had a limit, but I eventually started making fake returns.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think something that s important, I don t know what the consequences were.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was 15.
5
SPEAKER_01
I didn t understand what was happening.
5
SPEAKER_01
The backroom was a mess.
5
SPEAKER_01
We had fake cameras.
5
SPEAKER_01
Nobody had ever been in to check on me and my 15 year old friends when we were working there.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like there was no oversight.
5
SPEAKER_01
Nobody distinctly said, don t take these.
5
SPEAKER_00
Listen, you re talking to the wrong guy.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you think I m going to be judging your morals right now, this is all about being 15.
5
SPEAKER_00
Motor on.
5
SPEAKER_00
Don t even worry about that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Cash registers were not advanced.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was not computerized.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was a handwritten returns.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so what I would do is I would do a fake return.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you didn t have the receipt, you had to fill out a special form.
5
SPEAKER_01
At the time, I didn t know that you were supposed to use people s driver s license.
5
SPEAKER_01
So like if you did a return without a receipt, I would take your driver s license information and then you would get the cash back.
5
SPEAKER_01
I would fill out the form.
5
SPEAKER_01
without the driver s license information, I would take an item from the shelf, mush it up a little bit and put it in a different spot to make it look kind of real.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I was also using names of boys that I went to high school with.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know why I was using these boys who were in my class.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was the name of all of the people that returned stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because I also thought it was funny that they were returning stuffed animals of like Disney and Hello Kitty figurines.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re living in your own little world.
5
SPEAKER_00
A lot s happening.
5
SPEAKER_00
I really, really, of all the things I ve ever heard that I think Monica, this could have happened to you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I feel like this is the 100%.
5
SPEAKER_00
It could have gotten out of hand quick for me as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
My friends knew that this was happening because sometimes if I were by myself, it wouldn t be a big deal.
5
SPEAKER_01
But if my friends were there, we would return enough to get money.
5
SPEAKER_01
We would buy food from like a pizza shop.
5
SPEAKER_01
It would be like.
5
SPEAKER_01
A feast of mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, and we would just eat it behind the counter.
5
SPEAKER_01
We weren t doing this to make a profit, but we would also buy pot from the guy that worked at the sunglass kiosk out front.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then we would all just leave our stores.
5
SPEAKER_01
smoke behind.
5
SPEAKER_01
This should be a TV show.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s what I m saying.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s like a really funny movie here.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so it was, I guess, a little exhilarating at that point.
5
SPEAKER_01
So like, because I wasn t cool, maybe this made me edgy and cool in a way.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was sort of living off of that.
5
SPEAKER_01
We did that for a while.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I would say longer than I probably should have.
5
SPEAKER_01
One of my shifts happened to be during inventory.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the district manager was there.
5
SPEAKER_01
There were a ton of people counting items.
5
SPEAKER_01
They were cleaning up the messy back room.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I go in for the shift and I say hi to everybody.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, just acting like nothing s wrong.
5
SPEAKER_00
Are you nervous or you re like, they re never going to discover this?
5
SPEAKER_00
They don t know what the fuck s happening here.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think I was nervous because I knew I was doing something wrong.
5
SPEAKER_01
But to me, how I had done it was foolproof.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
They could have never discovered.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, I did it the right way.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I made the stupid mistake of
5
SPEAKER_01
Everybody was in the back room counting, and I was like, I m still gonna do a fake return.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh!
5
SPEAKER_01
Ballsy!
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes, yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was just stupid.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, but also Ballsy.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really quick, you always read the headline of things or you hear about the headline of things.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like someone will go like, yeah, they were having a affair.
5
SPEAKER_00
They were having sex on the bed of the thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, well, I promise you it didn t start there.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like it s just these little baby steps.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then these steps are little baby steps, all these little baby steps.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you end up at a place where it is a shocking, I m committing the crime while they re there.
5
SPEAKER_01
So there was a big Hello Kitty doll directly in view of the cash register.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I had been working there enough that I knew the codes and whatnot.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I quickly did a fake return for that Hello Kitty doll.
5
SPEAKER_01
I didn t move it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I didn t touch it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I just did the return, pocketed the cash, and that was it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then the manager came out and she just happened to look at the receipts and she was like, well, what happened?
5
SPEAKER_01
Did somebody do a return?
5
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, yep.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was really fast.
5
SPEAKER_01
They came in and they returned it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I just made up the worst excuse.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like if I ever heard what I had said, it was just nonsense.
5
SPEAKER_01
My shift goes and then the next day they re still doing inventory.
5
SPEAKER_01
I have another shift and I go in and within minutes they re like, Jade,
5
SPEAKER_01
Your mom s on the phone.
5
SPEAKER_01
You can take it in the back room.
5
SPEAKER_01
No worries. 
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I was like, okay, I ll go talk to my mom.
5
SPEAKER_00
This place is just your clubhouse.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not your job.
5
SPEAKER_02
I d be so scared if I was at my mom s calling.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m also naive and gullible.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I just walk around in life with no clue.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I go in the back and the phone s off the hook and there is somebody on the phone for me, but it s the loss prevention guy from this company who was there to talk with me.
5
SPEAKER_01
And next to the phone was a stack
5
SPEAKER_01
of all of the fake returns that I had done.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I sat on the phone with him for an hour and we had to go through every single one.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it was like, did you make this fake return?
5
SPEAKER_01
I had to explain who the person was.
5
SPEAKER_01
which was like all of the boys from high school.
5
SPEAKER_01
I explained that they didn t exist.
5
SPEAKER_01
They weren t real.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was just using fake names.
5
SPEAKER_00
You were being honest.
5
SPEAKER_00
You came clean immediately.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m a bad liar.
5
SPEAKER_01
There was no way I would have been able to ever continue this route.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we went through all of them.
5
SPEAKER_01
And at some point, one of the slips, I was like, this isn t my handwriting.
5
SPEAKER_01
This wasn t me, but it was a fake return.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it turned out that it was my assistant manager.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so they then caught him doing a number of things.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my God.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was immediately fired, obviously.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I really just remember like running across the hall to the TJ Maxx.
5
SPEAKER_01
I went into the bathroom and I called my two friends who
5
SPEAKER_01
worked there and I told them the story.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was panicked.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was like, if you go in, you re going to get in trouble and you re going to get fired.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they re like, well, we re just never going back to work.
5
SPEAKER_01
So they just never showed up for another shift.
5
SPEAKER_01
The entire store was fired.
5
SPEAKER_00
Page one rewrite.
5
SPEAKER_00
They should have shut the store down.
5
SPEAKER_02
The crime ring.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, it was enormous.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s metastasized.
5
SPEAKER_00
You got to cut out the whole organ.
5
SPEAKER_00
Did they give you a grand total?
5
SPEAKER_00
Cause the other thing I think would be shocking is like in your mind, you probably thought you had sold $600, but I bet it was like 1300.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was like four or $5,000.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow!
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow!
5
SPEAKER_00
And just you and all these other people were doing it too.
5
SPEAKER_02
At a card shop, they are not making enough money for this.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, they were not making enough to pay for what the employees were taking out of the place every night.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
Using it like an ATM.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m kind of hung up on that the manager lied to you that it was your mom on the phone.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really?
5
SPEAKER_02
Kind of.
5
SPEAKER_02
That s so passive aggressive.
5
SPEAKER_02
The manager should have said like, hey, we need to talk to you about what s been going on.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe they were afraid that she would run out the front of the store and just fucking split.
5
SPEAKER_00
Were you able to never tell your mom why you were no longer working there?
5
SPEAKER_01
A hundred percent.
5
SPEAKER_00
They never called her.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, again, there s no due diligence at this fucking place.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, minimally it s nice enough.
5
SPEAKER_00
They didn t press charges, but then they didn t even call your parents.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I don t want to say they deserved it, but I feel like they deserved it a little bit.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I had a punishment.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so basically because I was so young and because essentially it kind of was their fault because I should not have been in a leadership position to begin with.
5
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t even old enough to drive a car.
5
SPEAKER_01
So.
6
SPEAKER_02
They basically were like, okay, we re not going to tell your parents.
6
SPEAKER_02
We re not going to get the police involved.
6
SPEAKER_02
We re not going to press charges.
6
SPEAKER_02
As long as you pay the money back over time, that s totally fine.
6
SPEAKER_02
And so I had every intention of paying the money back.
6
SPEAKER_02
I was going to do it.
6
SPEAKER_02
And so I went and I brought $100 cashier s check.
6
SPEAKER_02
Like a few weeks later, I had made money.
6
SPEAKER_02
I had gotten another job in the same mall.
6
SPEAKER_02
I ended up having like four or five other jobs in that mall.
6
SPEAKER_00
Did you steal from all of those as well?
6
SPEAKER_02
I haven t stolen at all since then.
6
SPEAKER_02
That was like the one and only rebellion.
6
SPEAKER_02
You had to get it out of your system.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, good.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m glad you didn t because you got a taste for it.
6
SPEAKER_02
So I brought in a hundred dollar cashier s check and it didn t seem very serious.
6
SPEAKER_02
The woman.
6
SPEAKER_02
who took the money and was like, Hey, I m really sorry this happened to you.
6
SPEAKER_02
I ll see you soon.
6
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
I was surprised you don t keep stealing.
6
SPEAKER_02
Cause it went really well for you.
6
SPEAKER_00
They didn t want the money back.
6
SPEAKER_02
Probably the same reason I started stealing was the reason I stopped giving them money back.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then like, because I knew it was wrong and it was scary and I
6
SPEAKER_02
felt really guilty and I ve been haunted because eventually that store and the whole company went bankrupt and I was like, it s my fault.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, their management is their fault.
6
SPEAKER_03
They do not have a good system in place.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s the thing is they cut a corner.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re like, we only want to pay $4 an hour instead of bringing an adult in there with some experience.
6
SPEAKER_03
It s probably illegal to have a kid as a key holder.
6
SPEAKER_03
I mean, that s probably why they couldn t really do much about it.
6
SPEAKER_03
And so then they were just like, just pay it back.
6
SPEAKER_03
And they can t really track it because they were doing something.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, they all left and they went to another store and figured out it was happening at that store, too.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, everyone was overwhelmed with how unsalvageable this whole place was.
6
SPEAKER_02
I still have never told my parents.
6
SPEAKER_02
If they found out like I m in my late 30s, I would still die.
6
SPEAKER_02
I would be so horrified if they ever found out.
6
SPEAKER_00
They might like it.
6
SPEAKER_02
No.
6
SPEAKER_00
OK, they wouldn t.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, you know.
6
SPEAKER_03
They still have them displayed as these sweet, sweet gifts.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, mom s still wearing the mom walker.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, Jade, a delight meeting you.
6
SPEAKER_00
That story was wonderful.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
God, did that amuse me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much for telling us that.
6
SPEAKER_02
Take care.
6
SPEAKER_02
Bye.
6
SPEAKER_02
Bye.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s so funny how out of control it just got.
6
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I get it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, all right.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was great.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was wonderful.
6
SPEAKER_03
Malls, everyone go shopping today.
6
SPEAKER_00
It does make me really want to go to the mall hearing these stories.
6
SPEAKER_03
And even though you hate shopping.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, quickly, my brother, he worked at a toy store and he closed.
6
SPEAKER_00
You would pull a gate down like a garage door, but it was a grid.
6
SPEAKER_00
And next to the toy store he worked at was a record shop.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so the toy store, I ve already told you this, they sold train track for hobby trains.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was flexible track and he would tape.
6
SPEAKER_00
bunch of masking tape around the end and he would put it through the grate and everything that was in like the discounted tape bin, he would just grab tape after tape and he d steal like a dozen, 20 tapes.
6
SPEAKER_03
Really smart.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can t resist.
6
SPEAKER_00
No one s there.
6
SPEAKER_00
No one s looking.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re like, let s be naughty.
6
SPEAKER_00
I hate to encourage people to steal.
6
SPEAKER_03
No, we re not encouraging people to steal.
6
SPEAKER_03
You might take down a business.
6
SPEAKER_00
So just be careful.
6
SPEAKER_00
All right.
6
SPEAKER_00
Love you.
6
SPEAKER_03
Love you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Do you wanna sing a tune or something?
6
SPEAKER_01
We don t have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go.
6
SPEAKER_01
We re gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of farm cherries, we ll get some suggestions on the fly, right?