what was that like

Have you ever had a really big vision of doing something, and then the way it turned out was actually very different from what you had planned? I think this is almost universal for us as humans. Think back to when you were a teenager. You probably had some ideas about becoming an adult and what that would look like. What kind of career you might have, or not. Finding a partner if you wanted one. Thinking about being a parent, or not having kids at all. A lot of young people have this vision of how they think their life is going to play out. And at that age, we don’t really have enough experience to know that those things almost never actually play out exactly as you expect them to. I mean, just by listening to the guests that I talk to here on the podcast, we know that things happen that we never would have imagined – and life can take a completely different path. My guest today is Mae. In high school, she had her life planned out. She had already met and was in love with her life partner, and they were going to get married as soon as they could, and they were going to have children, and live happily ever after. That’s not what happened. This episode has a content warning for domestic abuse and graphic sexual violence, because the fairy tale life Mae had planned gradually turned into a nightmare. Until she finally decided that she’d had enough. Mae Resources: Crisis Center brochure (Castle Rock, CO): https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Crisis-Center-Brochure.pdf Domestic violence safety planning: https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Domestic-Violence-Safety-Planning.pdf How does domestic violence affect kids? https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/How-Does-Domestic-Violence-Affect-Kids.pdf Keeping your children safe: https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Keeping-Your-Children-Safe.pdf The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1.800.799.7233 National Resource Center for Domestic Violence: 1.844.762.8483 Local in Colorado: Rose Andom Center: 720.337.4400 Local in Colorado: Porch Light: 720.853.8850 Local in Colorado: Gateway Domestic Violence Services: 303.343.1851 Location in Colorado: SafeHouse Denver: 303.318.9989 If you’d like to contact Mae: email: [email protected] Mae’s website: https://MaeScottOfficial.com Mae’s book, An Embarrassment of Pandas: Exposing an Abusive Family and a Flawed System, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Embarrassment-Pandas-Exposing-Abusive-Family/dp/B0G548WTHP Her FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577182454783 Her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maescottofficial/ Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/257 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. 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Thinking about being a parent, or not having kids at all.  A lot of young people have this vision of how they think their life is going to play out. And at that age, we don’t really have enough experience to know that those things almost never actually play out exactly as you expect them to. I mean, just by listening to the guests that I talk to here on the podcast, we know that things happen that we never would have imagined – and life can take a completely different path. My guest today is Mae. In high school, she had her life planned out. She had already met and was in love with her life partner, and they were going to get married as soon as they could, and they were going to have children, and live happily ever after. That’s not what happened. This episode has a content warning for domestic abuse and graphic sexual violence, because the fairy tale life Mae had planned gradually turned into a nightmare. Until she finally decided that she’d had enough. Scott What do you think when you hear someone use the phrase high school sweethearts?  Mae Now, I cringe a little bit when I hear high school sweethearts, and I ll admit there s still a piece of me that thinks, Oh, that is so sweet. It s very romanticized, and we still have these ideas, these fantasies of happily ever after. Scott Yeah. And of course, that s when you guys met. What attracted you to your ex-husband first?  Mae It s a little bit embarrassing, and I ve come to terms with all of this over the years in therapy. I think truly what attracted me to him at first was how attracted he was to me. I was a very skinny, awkward teenager who was very insecure, and there was somebody who was paying me a great deal of attention, and it was very flattering, and it felt good. I didn t realize as a teenager that what was happening was love bombing and this very over-the-top almost addiction to somebody. I didn t have the language for that. I didn t know any of those things. But I think the initial attraction was honestly just that he liked me a lot.  Scott Yeah. As a teenager, you don t really think about– I mean, you probably never even heard the term love bombing at that point, right?  Mae Correct.  Scott And he just went all in right off the bat.  Mae Yes, and it felt nice to be showered with attention like that, to have notes left in my locker, and to have him waiting outside of my classes to walk me to another class, to be calling a lot. We didn t have text messaging back then, but we had some AOL Instant Messenger to be getting those messages and to have him invite me out to lunch every day and to show up at my house as a surprise. But, in hindsight, that was strange. We had known each other for a few days when he first told me he loved me and all of that felt really good. Scott I mean, that was in high school, but even as an adult, I think people would find it hard to distinguish “Wow, this is really true love” versus somebody being just manipulative  Mae Yeah, and I think your body is just flooded with hormones at the beginning of any kind of relationship. It is very difficult to determine what is just lust and attraction and excitement compared to some of the more logical things. And of course, as we get older, I think we pay more attention to logic and think, Hey, I might think this person is fantastic, but how can I love somebody when really I don t even know them? I don t know this person s middle name or favorite color. I don t know anything about them, really. I think a lot of it too is we love the idea of what this might be, and we create these scenarios in our head of, Oh, this is it. This is my Prince Charming, and this is my happily ever after, and it s going to go exactly as I imagine it s going to go when none of that really is based on the facts or even who this person is. And that s unfair to that other person, and I have admitted that before. It was not fair of me to dive right in with him back then because, same on my part, I didn t know him, and I was just kind of blindsided in what I thought was a good way by all of these nice things and I got sucked into it. Scott And that was in high school. Did you also go to the same college?  Mae We did, yes.  Scott Okay. And you guys just jumped right into life pretty quickly.  Mae Yep. From the time we were 15, 16 years old, he would talk about how if we were 18, he would want to get married, that he was just ready to start this very adult life together, and would ask me questions like, Well, what s the point of waiting if we know we love each other, if we know we re going to be together? We know we re going to get married. We know we re going to have kids. Why would we wait? What is the point of waiting? And I have found myself, not just with him, but with other people, when they bring up their point of view, I am very curious about it, and I really take it into consideration and I thought, He makes a good point. Why would we wait? Who cares if everything he s saying is right? And it kind of overrides my own logic. As an adult, I really have to keep myself in check with stuff like that even now. I really subscribed to everything that he was saying and people around us were envious, and that felt kind of nice too. All of our friends and thinking like, Oh, I have to go to this party and try to make small talk, and, I don t want to do that, and we re over there just thinking like, “We did it right and we lucked out, and people want to be like us. Scott Looking back on it now, do you think he was really in love with you then?  Mae That is a great question. I don t know. I think there were a lot of things that he liked about me that were very appealing from a young age. We were in a couple of classes together in high school. He did not like to do homework or schoolwork but I did, and he would copy all of my answers. He benefited from my hard work as a teenager, and I think he probably liked that a lot. I was a bit of a bookworm, didn t have a ton of friends or other things going on, and so I was able to provide him a lot of attention from the beginning, and I think he liked that. Maybe he was trying to mold me into this person that he wanted me to be in the way that I think I was probably doing the same to him in some form or fashion and, again, that just was not fair to either one of us. But I think we genuinely did care about each other at some point along this journey. I know that I loved him.  Scott Okay, so you got married. Were you still in college when you got married?  Mae Yes. We had one semester left of college when we got married.  Scott And how old were you when your first child was born?  Mae I was 23. So we graduated from college and both went to graduate school, and he wanted to have kids. I mean, again, even when we were teenagers, he would talk about wanting to have kids. I have a sister who had a baby, and she was actually pregnant at our wedding. I used to want to buy things. This was going to be my first niece or nephew. I was so excited about it, and he would get angry with me back then and say, Why are you spending all of this time and energy on this other child when we could have a baby? We could be building our family. That s where your energy should go. And when we started graduate school, we did a little bit of the math to say we shouldn t have a baby until we re done with graduate school. As soon as my second year of graduate school started, I got pregnant and I finished classes, and our oldest was born about a week later after graduation. Scott How involved was he as a father?  Mae At the beginning, not at all. I mean, he was present. Right? He was there for the birth of his child, all of those things, and he immediately went to work, which really was okay. What was really hard for me was I m a first-time parent, I have this new baby, and the expectation was that, just about every single workday, I would come meet him with the baby for lunch. That was very hard. I know it maybe doesn t sound like it, but trying to get the baby ready, and we re in the middle of, like, blowouts, spit up, sleep deprivation, and get myself ready all the time. I wasn t able to like rest at all because I had to drive across town and go sit at a restaurant with him and his family because they all worked together, and kind of put on this face of, Oh, so happy, not tired at all, and then drive back and the baby– oh man, she was a screamer in the car. It was so stressful.  Then, when he would come home, the expectation was that I pivot my attention to him and he really struggled with No, I need to feed the baby or whatever I was doing with the baby. If I went and met him for lunch, you better believe that he would hold the baby all through lunch, really like flaunting, because we re in public and this is what is being seen. And going over the top with things like gifts for the baby and for Christmas– I mean, he built her a bed that was like a castle with a slide, but it was all for show, and he d post it on the internet and on Facebook, so it would appear that he was involved. He would show up at– as she got older and as we had more kids, he would show up at sporting events and make his public persona a very involved father.  At home, when I tell people that I did everything, I cannot stress or emphasize that enough not just for myself, not just for our children, but for him. I mean, from meal planning to grocery shopping to cooking to all of the dishes all of the time, all of the cleaning, all of the laundry, all of the outside yard work. If it snowed, I was the one shoveling. I would schedule all payments for our bills. I did absolutely everything for him and myself and the kids and the pets.  Scott It sounds like everything he had to do was go to work. Hey, look, I m a provider. Right? Is that the mentality? Was that how he was brought up? Is his family like that?  Mae That was the mentality. His dad is an attorney and he then was an attorney, and his two brothers were attorneys, and they all ended up working together. Their mom is like their paralegal admin support person very, very enmeshed family that when I first kind of joined, I thought, This is so cool. They re so close. They just spend so much time together. Me not seeing clearly the boundary issues that were prevalent there. You re absolutely right, though. That was kind of the deal, and we talked about it of, Hey, you go out and you provide for us.   I was really more than happy and willing to do all of the other stuff. I m thinking, I will work hard inside this home, for our family, and you work hard outside of the home for our family. What I came to learn is he was physically leaving the house. He rarely worked. He had a couch in his office where he would often just go take naps. He would go golf during the day and not in a way of building your clientele or networking. He would just go golf. He would go play hockey in the middle of the day, go work out in the middle of the day. He was rarely working, and he would just take partnership draws from the firm and pay himself, even though he wasn t billing those hours to clients. Not only that, he kept us in very high amounts of debt, of unsecured credit card debt, and I would ask questions about it, and I would just be told that the firm owes him hundreds of thousands of dollars. He s going to take care of it. He ll pay off all the credit card debt as soon as they get even with the law firm. I never knew what I was talking about when it came to money. I was able to see all of the accounts and see just how awful it was. I mean, every bill we had to pay came from our checking account. He would have to go take money from the law firm so that then we could pay a bill, whether it was rent or eventually a mortgage. “Robbing Peter to pay Paul” is what he was doing. I would ask if I could please work, and any time that came up, I mean– I m sure you could believe the things that were said to me, but just how selfish I was. Like, what would that do to our children if I went to work, and how could I even fathom this? The part that used to make me so upset about those conversations is he would say to me things like, Hey, when we got married and had kids, you agreed, you said you wanted to stay home with the kids. And I agree. “Yes, that is what I said, and that s what I m doing, and you agreed to provide for our family and be able to pay the bills, right? And we can t do that. So I m holding up my end of the bargain in my eyes, and you re not.”  The other part that was really hard for me that made me really start questioning things at an early stage, but I kind of just put it on the back burner, was this understanding from him that I wasn t allowed to change or grow or be any different, right? I said when I was maybe 18 years old that I wanted to stay home and raise kids. And now, in my mid-20s, it has to be the same. I still have to want the same things.  Scott It s interesting that– as with any narcissist, it always comes back to him and how he appears to everyone else, and you having to get a job, that s not going to look good on him as he s supposed to be the big provider. Do you remember the first time he put his hands on you in anger?  Mae I do, and it wasn t actually something that really raised concern for me because, at this point, we had been married about 10 years at this point, and I had gotten used to a lot of his kind of manipulative behavior, and I excused so much of it, and I blamed myself for really all of it. The first time he ever put his hands on me in a physical sense– we had been at a neighbor s house, and we had been drinking, and we came home yelling at each other. The kids were already in bed, and he was saying really mean, nasty things, and I was just going to stay downstairs in our house, not go upstairs and go to bed, and it was a big deal to him that married couples sleep together in the same bed every night. So, he tried to drag me up the stairs to go to bed.  I decided to go limp because I didn t know– I mean, he was physically stronger than I was and I didn t want things to escalate more, so I thought, I m just going to sit here. I m not going to go upstairs with you and I m not going to make this any easier for you to try to bring me upstairs. When that happened, he had his hands around my arms, so I had bruises on my arms. And as he s dragging me up the stairs, I don t know if he lost his grip or if he just got tired of it like I don t really know but he dropped me and my chin hit our stairs, and I had a– it was a small bruise, but it was one of those really deep ones. I actually took photos of that when it happened. It started to trickle in a little bit of I don t know what I m going to do with these photos, but somewhere in my brain, I was thinking, This isn t right and I might need this. But at the same time, I thought, You know what? We were drinking. I m sure I said not-nice things. I probably provoked him. We re just going to water under the bridge. I used to have an incredibly avoidant personality, so I wasn t going to bring it up again. It was just going to be like, “We re going to move on.” Scott You had mentioned that you have a scar or a bruise that s apparently permanent. Mae When we went to criminal trial, there were three nights that his charges stemmed from, and one of them was called the Pindustry incident, and that was the name of a local bar where everything kind of started. That night, he was in a terrible mood. Things escalated. There were physical altercations in the alley behind the bar and the grocery store that were over there. I believe he broke my ribs that night. I was not allowed to get medical attention. That was just about five years ago, and I still get pain in the exact spot where it happened. I was pushed up against this brick wall and he had his forearm across my throat. I grabbed some dirt that was nearby and threw it at him just to try to get away, and he took all the dirt and he was shoving it in my mouth and up my nose and in my hair, and it was so awful.  He finally, after a couple hours, agreed that we could go home and I remember feeling such relief. Okay, we just are going to go home. This will be a forced time to calm down because we had to have an Uber.” The plan that night– nobody drove that night. It was all going to be having a night out with friends for a birthday and then taking an Uber home. The Uber ride was horrible. He was making a lot of threats while we were waiting for the Uber that I had to have sex with him in the back of the Uber, and if I didn t, I would be sorry. I remember thinking, I m pretty sure you re not allowed to do that in an Uber, but I didn t know if he had made arrangements. I didn t know what he was capable of.  So he was forcing my hands on him in the Uber. When we got home, again, I just thought, Okay, we re home now. It s going to be fine. It s going to be fine. It escalated astronomically that night even when we were at home. He raped me on our couch and it was very violent. I mean, it was, like, hair grabbing and forcing himself inside my mouth. With that, it was anal penetration. It was horrific. I ended up running out of our back door and jumping the fence into the neighbor s yard, and I m completely nude. At this point, it’s maybe 1 in the morning or something I don t even know exactly what time it was and I m thinking, like, I have to go back because the kids are there and I don t know what he is going to do. So I went back.  Again, I was kind of hoping Okay, we had a little bit of a break. We had some time. I could not have been more wrong. Again, I came back to the house and he physically brought me upstairs. We had a walk-in closet. For the next about two hours, I was on my back in the closet. I had made the mistake somewhere along the line of telling him that my chest really hurt. I was on my back and he had me straddled and, for hours, he just continued to hit and poke the spot on my chest.  Then, on my left thigh, with his right hand, he just was hitting my legs, and I had bruises in the shape of his hand. One of them was just so profound and so deep that it is– we had an expert witness at the criminal trial explain that these really deep bruises, it basically is a scar. I mean, it s gotten smaller over the years. Like I said, it s been almost five years now, and it s still there. It just looks kind of more like a skin discoloring now more than a bruise. But I mean, it was very clear his hand in print and I had photos of all of that as well that were submitted into evidence in the trial. Sometimes I still get a little sad really because I like to run for physical activity. On hard runs when I am using my lungs a lot, it hurts still where my ribs were injured and it just is sad to me that I have these permanent physical reminders and pain too in addition to all of the emotional things from him, and for him to this day to sit there and say he never did anything– Scott That s just incredible. It s unbelievable that someone could be like that. Was that incident any kind of a wake-up call for you that, Wow, I need to get out of here and take the kids and never see him again ?  Mae A little bit. At that point, we had been in marriage counseling for about a year. The morning after it happened, when we woke up, I mean, he just had this look of– he looked like he was mortified. He had his hands palms up and he was like, I am so sorry. He was like, These hands are not for hurting you, but it wouldn t have happened if you hadn t been flirting with your friends while we were out.” Scott Back to you… Mae Mm-hmm. It was always turned back around to whatever I did. There was never any genuine apology. So, of course, although he s saying it ll never happen again and he is agreeing to finally get himself some counseling– at this point, he is saying basically he ll do whatever I want, whatever it takes, that this will never happen again. But the irony maybe of it is, of course, he didn t get counseling. He didn t do any of the things.  I gave this to the district attorney, but they didn t use it in the trial. Right after that happened, the day after it happened, I went to the library and I checked out “Forgiving What You Can t Forget”, “Inside the Minds of Angry Men, Why Does He Do That?” Like, all of these things. Even after that, I m taking it upon myself to fix this and make it okay. At this point too, the threats had gotten more significant. While this was absolutely the most violent he had ever been with me before, over the years leading up to that since we had started marriage counseling, the threats of me never seeing my kids again, that if I dared to leave him– again, I m a stay-at-home mom and he s an attorney with a family of attorneys, and I was terrified. So I really didn t think that leaving him was an option no matter what.  Scott Yeah, you were trapped. Yeah, that thing with, Look what you made me do. It seems like that s just a pattern with a lot of domestic abuse. He was finally arrested after you guys had attended a wedding. What happened that night?  Mae This would ve been almost a year or more than a year after the Pindustry night. We were at a wedding for his friend. I didn t even really know anybody at this wedding, and it was at a town only, like, 30 minutes south of us, but we decided to make it a little bit of a getaway and an overnight. There was a young man at the wedding. I was at this point maybe 37 and this person was 24 and he just was flirting with me unabashedly. His grandma came over and intervened at one point and said I m sorry. He s had too much to drink. He just really likes you, whatever.” And my ex was upset at that.  Also a very common pattern in our marriage was this sexual control and coercion, and he wanted to have sex that night after the wedding. It had been one of those days. It was a weekend, yes, and our kids are all in competitive sports. The day had started at 6 AM taking kids to sports, driving everybody everywhere, and then driving down to this wedding, going to the wedding. Now the wedding s over, and it s midnight, and he wants to have sex, and I just said, I just am so tired. I can t. I just don t want to, really. Also, when you re being jealous and angry, that s not attractive to me at all.”  We were in this little cabin that had a bedroom where we were, and then his good friends were in the loft upstairs, but it was open and it was, like, paper walls anyway. So, we were fighting in the bedroom about having sex, and they heard us fighting, and they actually called out, and they were like, Hey, is everything okay down there? And I said, Yep. It s just who he is. This is just him being himself. This was not new to me at all.  I had learned to kind of play possum when he got upset because nothing helped at all, and I didn t ever want to make things worse or be accused of making things worse. He would threaten to video tape me a lot during arguments and the same thing. So I just learned my safest thing to do is just pretend I m sleeping, and that s what I did that night, and that made him very angry. I mean, it always made him angry but, again, I felt like I was damned no matter what I did, so this just felt a little bit safer for me. So, I was pretending to sleep and he was kind of hitting me, but not super aggressively. Come on, wake up. Wake up. Wake up. This is not time to go to sleep. This is time to have sex. This is time for you to prove to me that you love me. That was a big pattern as well.  I just was ignoring him and his MO– all of these nights that we talked about, the first thing he would always do was take my phone from me. He was, like, rooting around trying to find my phone, and I don t think he could find it. He d been drinking, so he was not getting a reaction out of me, so he just kind of kept hitting me and smacking me, and finally he said he was going to leave.  So when he left, I was texting his parents because they were with our kids. And I m like, Hey, he s intoxicated. He was hitting me. I don t know where he s going, but please just keep the kids safe. Because at this point, there had been so many threats about the kids over the last year and a half or something, and I didn t know, again, what he was capable of. They said, We ll reach out to him and we ve got the kids. We ll keep them safe.   So I just stayed in bed and, of course, he came back. Same thing, I just kind of pretended to be asleep, but I had left my phone out after. That was my mistake. He came in, he took my phone, and he s yelling at me, he s hitting me more, and I m just not responding to him. So he pulled me out of the bed and was trying to physically force me to be up, and I wasn t doing it. I wasn t allowing that, so he pulled me out of the bed, and he was sticking his fingers everywhere in my anus, in my vagina, like everywhere and just trying to maybe get a reaction out of me. I don t even really know.  I kind of crawled back into the bed, and he started sticking his fingers down my throat and you can see because the police came and took photos there are just these perfect marks on the roof of my mouth like crescent shapes from his fingernails, and I can taste blood. I m still not responding at all, so he sticks his fingers up my nose and pulls me into a sitting position and smashes his hand on my face, and I thought it broke my nose. I opened my eyes and there s just blood. While he had been very violent in the past, he had never made me bleed before, ever. It hurts so much. It s so sensitive all the cartilage in there and I m seeing all this blood.  He had my iPhone in his pocket, but he didn t take my Apple Watch off my wrist he normally did that too. So, I pushed the SOS button on the Apple Watch and it connected, and he s standing there and he s Really? This is what you re doing? You re really going to call the police? And the call connected, and I was able to tell them that there was a dispute and give them where we were. When he realized that the call connected, he left. When my phone was far away from my watch, the call disconnected. They called back and he answered the phone. I will tell you, in criminal trial, for at least 45 minutes, I was questioned by the defense. Their questions were, “How did I know he had my phone?” And I was like, Well, yeah, I saw him put it in his pocket. But how did you know he had your phone? And I m like, Well, because the police told me when they apprehended him that my phone was with him. Okay, but how did you know? And I m thinking, “He answered the 911 call. I don t understand.”  Scott Yeah. Where is that going? I don t understand that.  Mae Well, because one of his charges was about taking my phone– it s like a false imprisonment charge. He took my keys and my phone, but it was just so ludicrous. I m like, “Because he answered the call.” Right? And it s funny because, in my head, when I would tell people what happened, I was like on a spy show and I m hitting the button on my watch and I m like, Hello, 911, we have a domestic disturbance. This is where it is. Well, if you listen to the 911 audio, I am just, like, hysterical. It s funny how our brains do things to protect us, but hearing the audio really broke my heart for me and how scared I was.  911 Operator 911. What s the address of the emergency? Mae We have a domestic dispute.  911 Operator What s the address?  Mae I don t know. I m at a Jellystone in Larkspur.  911 Operator Okay. Has it been physical?  Mae I m sorry, I don t know.  911 Operator That’s okay. Do you have a campsite number?  Mae I think it s like 195. 911 Operator Okay. And again, has it been physical at all?  Mae Yes. Mae He also was an avid hunter and had his concealed carry permit, and he had his gun with him that night. He always had his gun. And with the escalation, I thought that was really why I called the police. The blood scared me, but I thought, This is it. He s really going to kill me tonight. Tonight is the night that it happens. Scott He just sounds completely psychotic and just blinded by rage. Okay, so the cops showed up to where you were, but he was gone. Right?  Mae Correct.  Scott How did they find him?  Mae I actually don t know the details of how they found him. I think, because I had talked to his parents, again, I used our friend s phone to call his parents, and I think they saw and recognized how severe this was and it did not look good, and I think they were trying to find him as well. It sounds like his dad found him in a grocery store parking lot. I don t know if his dad maybe told the police, Hey, this is where he is. I really don t, even to this day, know the details of that, but they did come and arrest him. One of the things that they showed in trial was that he s talking to the officer and he says to the officer, I need to figure out how to spin this because I m an attorney and I know this doesn t look good for me. And like you said, I mean, completely kind of just, blinded by rage but also– when I hear things like that, I m like, “There was a lot of logic still happening.” I went to the hospital with the police. I did full sexual assault exam. They had their special cameras to document everything, and they wanted to medically make sure everything was okay, like, with my nose. I didn t have my cell phone, so I had to call somebody to come pick me up, so I called my parents, and that was horrible because I didn t want them to know.  Scott How much did they know already about how it was going? Mae That s a really good question. They knew things were not great. They knew we were in marriage counseling. I had told my mom a couple times that I felt like one of us was not going to make it out of the marriage alive and I never really went into detail. I just said, “It s so bad. And she didn t press me. I think she was trying to let me talk about it as I felt comfortable, but so much of my goal was to protect him still. I didn t even tell our marriage therapist or my individual therapist how bad things were. After that Pindustry night, we had a counseling session two days later with the marriage counselor, and he was like, You can t tell her. You cannot tell her what happened. I could get in trouble. So I was very protective of him also because, no matter what, this is the father of my children too, right? And that was really confusing for me. And so people knew– because I m also not a very good liar, and so people could kind of tell that I wasn t very happy, I wasn t doing great. But I would also minimize and be like, “We have kids, it s hard, it s stressful. You guys get it. Life. It s just a lot. It s a phase. And so my parents didn t know very much.  I m very close with my parents and I think, for a long time, and maybe even still to this day, that they felt like they should have done more, they should have known, and I have tried to absolve them of all of that.  Scott Of course, yeah. As a parent, we re supposed to protect our kids, but you kind of made that decision for them by not telling them really all the bad stuff that was happening.  Mae Exactly.  Scott What was he charged with that night?  Mae From that night, he was charged with a sex assault crime for sticking his fingers in me, and there was the false imprisonment with the phone and the keys, and a physical assault charge for the injury to the nose and hitting me. But the majority of his charges came from that Pindustry night. So ultimately, five felonies and four misdemeanors. That s what he was charged with.  Scott One of the charges was child abuse. How did that happen?  Mae That was from the third night. It was a New Year s Eve incident from 2021 into 2022. We had COVID at our house, and so we were all just home and it was just us. My daughter and then my ex were the ones who were positive in that go-round of it, and he just was miserable that day because I m sure he didn t physically feel well, but there was a lot of feeling sorry for himself too, that he had COVID and it s New Year s and this is such a bummer. The kids were bummed as well because we would usually see friends and that kind of thing. We just stayed home and it was fine. It really was fine.  I got our youngest in bed and he was asleep, and then the bigger kids and I decided to watch the ball drop, and it s midnight. My oldest said to her brother just something kind of typical sibling of Ugh, I can t believe mom let you stay up until midnight. When I was your age, she wouldn t have let me stay up until midnight. Their dad heard that and just went off on her about, “She s so disrespectful. She can t talk to her brother that way. She s not his parent. This is so out of line.” He had very big reactions to a lot of things, and this was one of them, and she was so hurt and so upset, and she ran up to her room. I went up to check on her, and he came in and still was just in a complete rage. I mean, he was not drinking that night because people often ask if it was all surrounding alcohol or, and it was not. He wasn t drinking, and he just is screaming at her about just being a terrible person. So, I was like, Enough. Come on. Go to bed. You got COVID. It s after midnight now. We re all just going to go to bed. And he just would not stop.  So, what I would typically do when he would get really upset is I would call his parents for help. They were always my first call. They knew. They knew everything. They knew what was going on. So I took out my phone, and I called his mom. When he saw what I was doing, he tackled me for the phone. It did connect and she heard something and she said, after the fact, she thought we were just calling to say Happy New Year and that it was, like, all the noise of Ah, New Year s! She had no idea that this was–  So he wrestled me for the phone, and we kind of fell on our daughter s bed and then on the floor. I m clutching this phone like it is my lifeline, to my chest. Again, I m on my back and he s on top of me.  Our daughter, who was about 14 at the time, came and jumped on his back and was like, Get off my mom. Get off. Stop it. He just moved in a way that threw her backwards and off of him, and she hit her head and she blacked out, and he didn t stop. Even with our child now maybe concussed or something, he did not stop.  He finally got the phone, and he picked up this plastic cup of water that was there, and he threw it on the ground. The cup a plastic cup shattered. That was like how hard he threw it. Her room was always kind of like her sanctuary I think, for a lot of kids, it is and now, her bed is messed up because like he threw me on the bed. Her carpet is soaking wet. Her head hurts. All of these things. They were able to charge him with child abuse from that night, but she was the only protected party on the protection order because the boys– one of them was sleeping and the other one was just kind of in the doorway and didn t physically get hurt.  Scott So he got arrested. At that point, what did you actually want to have happened? Did you just want him to go away, be in prison and be done or just get a divorce?  Mae I think, the night he was arrested, I really just wanted it to stop. I wasn t thinking beyond any of that. I certainly wasn t thinking that he was going to prison. It s funny you say that because I had a counseling session, like, three days maybe after he was arrested, and it was with our marriage counselor. We had switched– we had a male marriage counselor now, and I m telling him what happened, and he was like, He s going away for a long time. I just started bawling and I was like, What? No. There s no way. My friend was over, so I went downstairs because it was a telehealth session and I just fell into her arms, and I was like, They say he s going to go away for a long time. And she was like, Yeah, I think he is. And then I was like, That s not what I wanted. I wanted him genuinely–” and this sounds, I know, so naive and hopeful. “I just wanted him to be a better person. I wanted to still be married and have this life together that I thought we were going to have. I just wanted him to get better.” Scott It goes to court. First of all, he s an attorney. Did he represent himself?  Mae No, he did not. He did a lot of municipal law for little towns around us. The district attorney had told me who my ex s defense counsel was, and he was like, They went with the best of the best. Unsurprisingly, they got, like, the best defense attorney that money can buy.  Scott All right. Now, in court, one of the things that they brought up in defending him was the color of your underwear that came into play and this blew me away. What did they say?  Mae Yeah, I was testifying and the defense attorney asked me what color my underwear was the night of his arrest, and I said it was red. And she asked further, “Was it like a matching set of bra and panties?” And I said yes. She asked if it was lingerie, and I said no, because it really wasn t. It was just a red bra and underwear. She asked me, “Doesn t a red bra and underwear indicate consent?” And the district attorney jumped up and objected, and it was overruled, or it was sustained. His objection was sustained. I didn t have to answer that question. It came up again later in her questioning I mean, that was the overt questioning and the DA again, he said, “I want it on record for the court if this is the way the questioning is going, that red indicates consent and you can t then charge somebody with a crime if the victim is wearing red. Our judge, I thought, was phenomenal, and she really kept control over everything and, kind of, I think, at that point, the attorneys approached the bench or something, but it was ludicrous, and I imagine that the jury agreed with that. The district attorney had told me at some point during the trial, it s not a good look when the defense is attacking a victim and blaming a victim. The jury typically doesn t like that.  Scott They re trying to defend behavior that s indefensible, and to bring up something like “You were really giving consent by what you were wearing,” I mean, that had to be kind of a positive sign for the district attorney because it seems like they re just grasping at straws. They re trying anything even as silly as that to try to defend him. He was found guilty. Did they offer him any plea deals before that?  Mae Yes. So throughout the process, the district attorney I felt was phenomenal, and he would include me in a lot of the process because he was saying that I was the one most affected. Right? So when they would talk about plea deals, he would call me and say, This is kind of what we re thinking. What do you think? We don t want to minimize any of your experience. There were a few plea deals that were offered and, for all of them, he would have had to plead guilty to at least one of the felonies. We felt like what had happened was felony level, right? I mean, obviously that s how the charges were, but that he needed to plead guilty either to the felony sexual assault or the felony physical assault charges because one of his charges from the Pindustry night was a strangulation charge they were very serious things. I said I want him to plead guilty to the misdemeanor child abuse charge because I want for the kids, for their experience to also be validated in all of this. I think the best offer on the table at one point was the felony, sexual assault, and the misdemeanor child abuse. Plead guilty, probably no jail time, but there is some judicial discretion in there, and maybe three months in county jail, and every plea deal he would just say, “No, he didn t do anything. No, no. no.” And I would imagine– I have really no idea, I m not an attorney, but based on just logic, I would imagine that his attorneys were telling him to take the plea.  Scott It seems like it s a conflict from him thinking logically, Yes, I can take the deal and be done with this pretty quickly, but his ego overrode that. Mae Yeah, and his image. There s no exact science to disbarment. He didn t know if he d be disbarred but he could have been disbarred, and admitting that he did something– what could that do to him and maybe his entire family and their firm? I don t know how much pressure maybe he had from his family to do things one way or another. But yeah, it was a hill he was going to die on, that he did not do anything.  Scott So he went to trial and, obviously, found guilty. What was his sentence?  Mae He was sentenced to 12 years to life, and the reason it s an indeterminate life sentence is, in order to be eligible for parole when you have sex crimes and domestic violence charges, at least where I am I m in Colorado offenders have to work programs for both of those. There s a sex offender program and then a domestic violence offender program. Scott While he s in prison.  Mae Correct. And the first part of both of those things is admitting what you did writing letters to the people that you hurt and taking accountability, and he won t do those things because he says he didn t do anything. So that piece of it that makes it that he might not ever be eligible for parole if he doesn t work the programs. The other part of it is and the district attorney told me things are ever-changing, but the way that the current climate is that, if he s eligible in 12 years or whatever it is, and we go to the parole board and say, “Really, I don t even have to have a reason, but I don t feel safe with him being released, they are taking that heavily into consideration. My kids all wrote victim impact statements that were read at sentencing and if they were to say, We don t feel safe, or, We don t feel comfortable, whatever it is, and, “My ex was a very punitive person. I was punished constantly in the marriage when I filed for divorce.” And it was obvious to me.  He s just trying to punish me, and I don t feel like I m that kind of person. I don t feel like I m very vengeful or out for blood about any of this. I think it s all just very honest that he has shown that he is very unpredictable, and he has a lot of access to things. He had a lot of guns, and he did have to turn them over to his brother. He has access to these things. He, in my opinion, likely feels like he has nothing left to lose. That s very scary for me and the kids. We hear about people killing their spouses, significant others, ex’es. I mean, I hear about it multiple times a week, and those are only the ones that I feel like are making the news. It s a very scary thing, so we ll see kind of how things play out. But yeah, it s 12 years to life.  Scott And it s to your advantage, of course, that he s still kind of holding out that, I didn t do anything, and he s not going to do those programs and write the letters or have any kind of remorse or anything. But a life sentence because he can t– well, he s just being who he is.  Mae Yeah.  Scott Yeah. Your kids are now 18, 14, and 9. How are they handling this? And do you think they ll ever want to have any kind of relationship with their father?  Mae We keep that door open, and we do talk about it. I mean, they were all in counseling, and it s now more, as needed. We did family counseling. It is something that I still discuss because, like I said at the end of the day, that s always their dad and I was never trying to erase him or replace him. I just needed him to be, like, a safe person for them to be around or to have a relationship with. So, at this point, they have decided they don t want contact. The oldest is still on the protection order, and she could always ask to be removed if she wanted to. One of the things that I have tried to communicate very clearly with the kids and part of why it comes up again is because I want them to really know this is I will never be upset with them if they choose to have a relationship with their father, ever. It doesn t hurt me. It doesn t make me insecure in my relationship with them. These two things are separate. I have a relationship with my father and I love my dad, and I don t want to take that away from them if that is something that they want. And I imagine as they go through different ages and stages, it might come up for them in different ways. I don t know my oldest is graduating and going to college if she s going to even bring him up. Might she say, “He s deceased?” I don t know. She might say he s in prison. She might say he s not around. I don t know what that s going to look like. I just need them to know and I remind them too that none of this was their fault, ever. These were his actions and all of those things. But they ve come a long way.  It was so hard. I mean, there were months of them crawling into bed with me every night crying and not going to school. My youngest had a very real fear that, actually, my ex-in-laws were going to kidnap him. He didn t want to go on school field trips. He didn t want to ever– if I walked outside to get the mail, he would have a panic attack. He s like Oh, no, did they get my mom too? It was really hard for a long time, but they have come so far. I mean, we all have, but they re incredible  Scott You have written a book about this, and the book goes into a lot more detail about the idea of how the system failed you and the betrayal of your in-laws, because there was a long time that you trusted them. So people can get all that. The book is called “An Embarrassment of Pandas: Exposing an Abusive Family and a Flawed System.” Where did that title come from?  Mae A group of pandas is called an embarrassment. Just about every group of animal has a name. When we were married in that nuclear family, pandas were a big part of our family. We actually went with my in-laws to the San Diego Zoo to see the pandas. My kids loved pandas. It was the youngest. We didn t find out the gender. They called him a panda. They just were a prevalent animal. When all of this happened– and I ll clarify too for listeners, the criminal justice system actually didn t fail me, which is maybe surprising because a lot of people are failed by the criminal justice system. It was the civil courts and the divorce courts that very much was the issue with that and the betrayal from my in-laws because, like I mentioned, I called them always. There was a reason I had never called the police until the night that I did.  I called them. They came over. They intervened. They talked him down. They were slipping me cash, trying to help me get in a position where maybe I could leave him. I mean, they knew everything. They were keeping an eye on him at work to make sure he was working. When I called the police, they just said, Nope, I ve never heard any of this. What? She s making it all up. She brainwashed her children into saying that, that they saw and heard these things. None of this is true. That hurt more than anything that my ex ever did because I knew who he was. But for some reason, I was thinking that he was like an anomaly, whereas really that s what that whole family is. Right? They are all very narcissistic, very enmeshed, very abusive, very delusional in their perception of reality in all of this. So I felt like their behavior during this was very embarrassing, and I just felt like pandas were important to us. Like, a group of pandas is already called an embarrassment, and so the title just seemed very fitting. Scott It gets people s attention for sure as well. All right. Well, people can contact you through your website, maescottofficial.com, or by email. We re going to have links to all of those things as well as your socials in the episode notes. What s your reason for wanting to get your story out there?  Mae There were a couple reasons. The first most motivating one to me was, when I was going through all of this, I felt so alone. You asked earlier about support. I have incredible family and friends. I have so much support, and I am eternally grateful, and I wouldn t be where I am today if I didn t have all of them that is for sure and I still felt so alone. I felt like nobody had ever gone through this before, and if they had, they certainly weren t talking about it because there s a lot of shame in those things too. I wanted to help people feel seen, that, “Hey, you re not alone. Even though my story is not your story, there are those common threads and elements that come with toxic relationships or unhealthy things and betrayals and navigating court systems.” So that was my initial motivation to help other people that maybe were in the same boat as me.  And then the second part I mean, I know I said I m not out for vengeance, and I m not I wanted people to know what he and his family did because they are still hiding behind this image of we re perfect. But it s like, “No.” And you know what? If you don t want somebody to talk about these things, maybe you shouldn t do those things. But I have been very transparent and honest about– my part in any and all of it, of even saying from a young age, Hey, that wasn t fair of me to get in a relationship with someone that I didn t really know, that I just wanted to mold into this person that I wanted him to be. That s not fair for me. I called him names. That wasn t fair. That wasn t right. I can point out all of my part in this and take accountability, and I do that in the book.” And for them to say that they were just perfect and this perfect image, I m like, No, I m sorry, you guys are going to be exposed a little bit about your part in this, because I just feel like they should. And that, to me, was kind of gratifying also because they don t get to just deflect more and point fingers when the truth is that they need to look inside themselves.  Scott It s all out there, yeah. Is there any part of this that you want to talk about that I haven t brought up?  Mae I don t think so. I mean, we could probably do a whole other episode on family court, but that s not no offense almost not as interesting. Right? It s kind of boring. Kind of crazy things, but not as interesting.  Scott Yeah. But do you go over that in the book too?  Mae Yeah.  Scott Okay. Yes. All right. Mae, you are an amazing woman. Thanks for sharing your story.  Mae Thank you so much for this platform to do that too. And I thank all of your listeners too. I mean, you have a phenomenal podcast. I had no idea how deep it all went until we were kind of connected by Bill, and I was looking– there are some wild stories on here. So yeah, thank you for bringing that to light. Scott If you or someone you know is in a situation of domestic violence or abuse, you’re not alone and you don’t have to be stuck there. Mae passed along a LOT of resources designed specifically to help people in that kind of situation.  A few are specific to Colorado since that’s where she lives, but most of them offer help to just about anyone. Links to all of those things, as well as Mae’s email address for anyone who would like to contact her directly, are in the episode notes at WhatWasThatLike.com/257. When Mae sent me her story, part of what was included was her brief bio. This is what it says: I’m Mae Scott, and I’m just me.  I am a hard-working, dedicated mother of three vibrant humans.  I am a social worker by trade.  I am a survivor by circumstance.  I am an advocate, writer, speaker, and supporter by choice.  I was trapped in an abusive marriage and controlling family for nearly 19 years, and I am now a free woman.  Everyone deserves freedom.  Everyone deserves peace.  Well said, Mae.  And I want to say thanks to my friend Bill Mitchell. He’s the host of the When Dating Hurts podcast, and he has conversations with survivors of domestic abuse all the time. Mae told her story on his show, and he then said she should contact me about being a guest on What Was That Like. Bill’s a great guy, and an amazing advocate. To find his show, just search for When Dating Hurts on any podcast app. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.  And now it’s Listener Story time! We end every main episode with a story that was sent in by a listener. These are about 5-10 minutes long, and it’s just something interesting that happened to you. And we’d love to hear YOUR story. Just record it on your phone and email it to me – [email protected].  This listener talks about a scary incident with her baby. Stay safe, and we’ll see you next time. (Listener Story) My story takes place about two years ago when my daughter was six months old. My husband and I are first-time parents, so we re navigating all the firsts together, and thankfully, most of those are really happy, exciting, and sweet. However, this one night was really scary. We were co-sleeping up until this point, so she, my daughter, was new to her crib. However, she was doing great, and we chose to keep the crib in our room. This one night, I woke up to gurgling and, before my brain even comprehended what was happening, I was already standing up, reaching in to grab my daughter from her crib, and she was choking on her vomit I don t know for how long which was probably the scariest moment because you think of the worst. Is she inhaling this? For how long has she been struggling?  So I flipped her over and she threw up four more times projectile vomited. I didn t know a little body could hold that much liquid. The whole time this was happening, I heard no crying. There was no breath in between, and so I m like What is going on? because she has never thrown up before. She wasn t even a drooly baby. I mean, no acid reflux, no problems. Truly a perfect baby.  I just ran her into the bathroom and cleaned her up and was looking at her. When she was finally done throwing up, she did cry, and it was music to my ears that she was breathing. She looked okay. I checked her stomach and her chest and everything looked fine. Her lips looked healthy. They weren t blue or anything, thankfully. But I did rush her right away to the– we have a children s emergency care here, which was wonderful, and so we went there. Maybe I was overreacting, but we had to wait in the waiting room for a long time, and I was so anxious the whole time. Thankfully, though, my baby was acting fine, as if nothing had ever happened, and I m over here growing white hairs like crazy.  So they finally take us back, and they say there s absolutely nothing wrong with her, and she s fine. Obviously, I was so relieved to hear that, but it was just so out of character for her that I was worried that maybe something more could be wrong. They said it s probably just acid reflux. I took her home and I didn t sleep for the next two nights, but she has never thrown up again since, and I m so incredibly grateful for all this time I ve got with her.  She s so smart. She knows her planets, and she can count, and she knows her alphabet, and she s talking up a storm. I m just really thankful we chose to keep her crib in her room because I can t imagine the alternative of what could have happened if she wasn t and I didn t hear her. Hold your babies close. Thank you for listening.

Every other Tuesday, we grab a past question from the Facebook group, then Meredith and Scott answer it and read some of the answers given by other listeners. The question for this episode: What s an animal you d love as a pet even if it s unrealistic? Links for this episode: The Earth Species Project – decoding the language of other animals: https://earthspecies.org/ The Magic To-Do List: https://goblin.tools/ToDo emeals: https://emeals.com/ Financial Peace University: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/money/financial-peace Meredith’s podcast is The Curious Introvert: https://MeredithForReal.com Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT

Today’s episode deals with a controversial question: Should a person be legally allowed to get medical assistance to end their own life? And keep in mind, this usually pertains to someone who is terminally ill, and who is also mentally and emotionally stable enough to make that decision on their own. Here in the US, most states still do not allow it. But Medical Assistance in Dying is legal in all of Canada. That’s where Courtney lives. Courtney told this amazing story on the podcast about four years ago. It’s the story of her mother’s decision, and it’s both wonderful and heartbreaking. And stick around after, because I was able to record a chat with Courtney to get an update on what’s happened since we last spoke. Courtney and her mom Holding the sign outside the hospital window for mom to see Courtney and her husband on their wedding day Courtney with her brothers Courtney with her daughter Courtney s dad with his new ride If you’d like to contact Courtney: [email protected] Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/256 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT Episode transcript (download transcript PDF): Today’s episode deals with a controversial question: Should a person be legally allowed to get medical assistance to end their own life? And keep in mind, this usually pertains to someone who is terminally ill, and who is also mentally and emotionally stable enough to make that decision on their own. Here in the US, most states still do not allow it. But Medical Assistance in Dying is legal in all of Canada. That’s where Courtney lives. Courtney told this amazing story on the podcast about four years ago. It’s the story of her mother’s decision, and it’s both wonderful and heartbreaking. Probably want to have some tissues handy. And stick around after, because I was able to record a chat with Courtney to get an update on what’s happened since we last spoke. Scott What s one word you would use to describe your mom? Courtney I don t think it would be possible to do one word. When I think of her, I just think of a hard-working farmer s daughter who just did absolutely everything for her family, for myself, and for my brother. She always put us first every single time and she always put herself last. Scott Tell us who was in your immediate family. You mentioned brothers. Who else is in the family? Courtney There s me I m 36 and then my brother he s 34. My mom met my stepdad when he and I were probably, like, three and five years old. They had my youngest brother, who is 24. Scott How old was your mom when she was diagnosed with cancer? Courtney She was, like, a month before her 60th birthday. So, she was 59. I remember it was September of 2019, and her birthday is in October. She phoned me and said, “I just want to let you know that I had gone to the doctor. They found a lump in my breast. They re sending me for tests. It could be nothing. It could be something. No need to panic. I just want to keep you in the loop and discuss this with you.” So, I said, “Okay. There s nothing I can do about this now. Let s wait to see the test results before we really get worked up about, maybe, something that s potentially not an issue.” So, it came back and it was obviously breast cancer. She was going to start chemotherapy the day after her 60th birthday. My brothers and I said, “We need to do something really special not just because of this but because it’s going to be her 60th birthday. We need to really, like, do something great.” So, for her 60th birthday, we got my entire extended family my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins and all of us rented this big room. I was at a restaurant. We had a really nice dinner. We got her and my stepdad a hotel downtown where I live, overlooking the water with a balcony. One of my good friends is a photographer. So, as a surprise, I got him to meet us down there before dinner to take a family photo because I don t know why I did that we didn t have one. We had a family photo from when I was, maybe, 13 or something but she was a mom, she took the pictures, so she wasn t in them. We were all dressed up and it was super fun. So, I just really wanted that memory. Maybe, in my mind, too, I thought, “Who knows what s gonna happen?” Selfishly, I really wanted that family photo. So, we did that and it was wonderful. The picture is blown up in the house it s huge, it s gorgeous and I m really thankful that we did that. Scott My mom s the same way. She loves when we don t do it often enough when all the kids and everybody gets together for a family photo. That s like the best thing for her. Courtney Oh, yeah. It s the best thing. The funny thing is that my brothers and I always made fun of her because every photo she would take was blurry it didn t matter what it was. It could have been a race car going by or a flower in the garden. It was always blurry, so we always teased her about that. It was quite funny. Scott I m guessing that you organized that restaurant dinner? Did that have anything to do with the fact that you re the firstborn? Courtney Yeah, pretty much. I m the oldest and the boys are boys they just do what they re asked of basically but we know we were all on board. We sort of threw around some ideas and one of them booked the hotel and we all split everything. But yeah, for sure. It was mostly my idea, but they were definitely on board and super helpful. Scott That evening has to be just such a great memory for all of you. Courtney It was so nice. We have photos and selfies. My mom just looked so happy, I remember, because she was starting chemo the next day. There are some types of chemotherapy where you don t lose your hair. They had said that she would lose her hair in this type of chemo. She always really liked PINK, the musician the girl, PINK. She always had this shaved side or whatever. So, she said, “Wait till you see my hair for the dinner.” I said, “What are you going to do?” She said, “I m not telling.” She had this new outfit. She showed up and had a little bit of makeup on. She d gone to the hairdresser s. She had shaved the sides of her hair off, so the top was really long and she had, like, French braided back. It was really gorgeous and it really, really suited her. She felt so cool and she looked really cool. She was super happy. So, we have those pictures. She got color in her face and she really loved that time together. Scott We ll have that family picture on the website for this episode then so that people can see that. She started treatment the next day… Courtney She did. She started chemo the next day. I mean, it wasn t easy. She was pretty sick, but not really as bad as I thought if I remember correctly. She was sick and she didn t have a lot of energy, but she was a trooper. I think it was only four weeks later when she lost her hair. So, that was, like, a big change for her. I remember ordering her these, like, little stylish beanies. She really loved camo, so it was, like, this little camo beanie specifically for people who have lost their hair to chemotherapy. So, you can wear them in the summer it s not like a winter toque or something. I remember sending her a bunch of those and she really liked that. She did chemo and she did radiation on the breast, and that all seemed good. Then, once chemo was complete, she had breast surgery in March of 2020. She did really well. I think my brothers and stepdad were there while I was stuck at work that day. Yeah, she did pretty good. I mean, as soon as she got home, it was basically March of 2020. COVID hit right at that same point. So, pretty soon after that, we had to be super careful because of how sick she was. We had to protect her regardless it was a lot with COVID. Scott So, her immunity, obviously, was already compromised in some ways. Then, March of 2020 was when it all started. Did she continue treatment after that? Courtney She did, I think, a little. In April, she was sort of feeling off-balance, a little disoriented, and things like that. So, she went for a checkup or something of the sort anyways and they found that, at that point, she had a brain tumor. So, she had brain cancer at this point when we were, like, very hopeful with the breast cancer. I mean, not to downplay it, but my family doctor reassured me and said, “Nobody wants to have cancer but if you re going to get it, breast cancer’s the one to get. It s highly treatable. Chances are you going to be fine.” Then, when my stepdad called and told us, I just couldn t believe it. Like, I don t really want to admit it. Like, who s going to come back after brain cancer? So that was really scary. Scott What a surprise. I mean, it almost seems like they re unrelated. Courtney Definitely. As far as I know, they were. So, in April of 2020, she had to have brain surgery weeks after COVID had just started, and that aspect alone was really scary. My mom and my stepdad did absolutely everything. They were never apart. They were together. I say “my stepdad”, but he s my dad. They were together for 30 years and they just had, like, a love that I ve never seen. So, it was heartbreaking because he had to drive her to the hospital and drop her off at the front door for her to walk in and have brain surgery. It was terrible. My brothers and I were at home and we were helpless. We couldn t go. What do you do? You just do the dishes, cut the grass, and get your groceries. It just feels really gross to not be involved in some way. Scott You have to feel like you re helping somehow, but all you could do is sit and wait for somebody to tell you what the developments are. Courtney For sure. And because the hospitals were so chaotic at that point, we found ourselves really relying on her to phone us and update us, which was just another layer, right? The nurses and such would call my dad and give them updates, but we were relying on her to text her or phone that she just had brain surgery. I remember when she FaceTimed me that night and she looked great. She was like, “Well, I have a little bit of a headache” and I laughed so hard. I said, “Yeah, you think?” So, she made a bit of a joke about it but, again, she did great. She had to spend, I think, a week in there and I just felt so sorry that I couldn t be there. She said, “Well, I actually like it. With the brain surgery, I don’t want loud noises. I just want calm. I don t want my phone. I don t want to watch a show. I just want to sit here and be quiet. If everyone was allowed in here, it would honestly just be way too much.” I thought, “Okay, good. Great.” So that honestly made me feel much better. Scott She sounds like a really resilient person. Courtney Oh my god. Just yes. Going back, it was that surgery that made us feel how helpless we were. I live in Ontario, Canada, and this is in Kingston, actually. The hospital is KJH and it s right by Lake Ontario. I wanted her to, like, feel our support and our love, so I made this huge 3’ by 3’ sign. On a white sign in massive black letters, we wrote, “We love you.” Me, my partner, my daughter who was 3 or so at the time and my brother and his now wife went down, stood on the helipad, and held this sign. She was seven stories up, so I called and said, “Look out your window!” and she did. She could see us and it just felt so good. So, we were on the phone with her at the same time. It s like, “Can you see it?” She said, “I can see it.” I could hear her telling the nurses, like, “Come see this. Come look! These are my kids!” It was really great. She took a picture of us from the seventh floor and sent it to us later, and we look like little ants, but it was really nice. That was one of the photos that I sent to you. That s my brother he s on the phone talking to her and I was hugging him. When I look at that picture every day of my life, I just think that this is the most raw and the most real photo I ve ever been a part of in my life. Scott In what way? Can you elaborate on that? Courtney I mean, when I just look at it, I just feel all the love that we had for her at that moment and, like, how good it felt to show her that we were there. I was hugging my brother so tight and I was loving him. At the same time, the hug is because I feel so sad for him. It s just a raw photo. Scott That s a real photo. A lot of times, in family photos or snapshots, you smile for the camera and don t really even think about it, but you were really in the moment there… Courtney Yeah, my sister-in-law took that and I m just so grateful. It s a wonderful memory of “We couldn t be there in the hospital” but it was really great. She was so happy and just felt so good that we had done that, and that makes us feel good. Scott Yeah. At the time when that picture was taken, even though she wasn t in the picture, you knew she was feeling happy at that moment. Courtney Absolutely, yeah. She probably spent another week there at the hospital and then came home. Her life was full of appointments, checkups, this and that, so she was pretty busy. In June of 2020, she did radiation on her brain for the spot in which they did the surgery. It seemed to go well. In September of 2020, she started chemo again. This time, she did the pill form last time, she had to go to the hospital and get hooked up to the IV. So, she did that and she probably didn t, like, feel the best but, by October, she was feeling really good. Her hair was coming back. She liked it. It was really curly. She said, “All I want to do is to be able to go outside and have enough energy to cut the grass and go back to that hard work. I want to go cut the grass.” So, she did it. She accomplished her goal. She got out there. She cut the grass. Dad sent a picture of her just smiling and being so proud of herself, and we were really proud of her too. It seemed really good. I don t know how one has brain cancer and, then, can continue on this life totally healed and be great. To us, she was doing it and we were all in the clear. I mean, it was still a road, but we had sort of thought that we were over that hump. Scott Did you and your brothers live nearby? Were you all local to each other? Courtney Somewhat. I mean, we re only 30 minutes away, Scott So, that s not bad then. Courtney No. We could easily go home and we did. Sometimes, we stood at the window. After her first brain surgery, she got into the hospital and went home. My dad propped her up in front of the window and opened the window a little bit it was COVID so we were careful. We stood in the driveway, talked to her, dropped off some food, and whatnot. I mean, that was really hard. You just want to be able to hug that person, but you have to look at them through a window. Scott Yeah. When they re most desperately in need of a hug, it must be really difficult for a lot of people during that time. Courtney Right. So in our family, we re so close. We went home every Christmas even as adults. Most people pop into their parents house and have dinner. We went home every Christmas, spent the night on Christmas Eve, had drinks, played board games, laughed our heads off, spent the night, and we all woke up Christmas morning. I mean, even after I had my daughter, we take her to my mom s house and we d all do it together. So, December 2020 was the first Christmas that we spent apart because she was so susceptible, and it s COVID. My youngest brother is a paramedic, so he s out there doing his thing who knows what he s doing. My brother works on a job site. I was working at a university here with just the highest COVID rates. So, it really was best to stay away. So, that was an experience to not be together for Christmas. Again, we were really hopeful and she was getting her energy back. In the spring, it was my grandma s birthday, so she would come to that and not in a wheelchair or anything like that she was good. She walked around. There are pictures of her and my grandma. We had cake and the whole thing. So, we really were thinking that we were coming to the safe zone. It felt like things were going back to normal. Scott Did she feel that way too? Like, “I m glad I ve beaten this.”? Courtney Yeah, I don t think we said cancer free, but that was definitely what we were thinking. All of our tests were great. Everything was great. Everything was coming back. She was doing all the right things. Like I said, she had energy and there was color in her face and all those things. So. in June of 2021, she was feeling I don t remember how she was feeling honestly. I think she was just feeling unstable and that sort of thing, so she went and had an MRI. Actually, one of my cousins is the MRI technician there. So, she did the MRI and she looked at my mom and said, “You need to go down to the hospital and just to have a conversation with the doctor.” She looked at her and said, “Why?” She said like, “Just go have a conversation with the doctor.” Obviously, if everything were fine, she would have gone home and there would be no reason for her to send her to the hospital other than something bad. I remember my mom telling me that she just looked at my cousin and she said, “I m going to die, aren t I?” She said, “Just go. Just go down there.” So, she did. Again, my dad dropped her off at the front door and they found that the brain tumors were back. Yeah, the brain tumors were back. So, in June of 2021, she had a second emergency brain surgery, and that was really tough. That time was really scary I mean, not that the other times weren t. Due to COVID restrictions, at that point, they would let my dad or one person go in and see her it didn t matter who. It could have been one of my brothers. It could have been myself. It could have been my dad. But, whoever that person was couldn t change. So, if I had gone on day one, no one else would be allowed in except myself. We wanted her and my dad to be together. So, he went in. I remember just having just such a bad day, and I just wanted to see her, and I wanted to just be near her. I remember going to the hospital and thinking, like, “I was so slick. I was going to just be super cool about it. Knowing the rules and knowing that my dad was the one on the list, I was just gonna fake it and try to pull one over.” So, I went in and I said, “Hi, I m just here to see my mom.” They said, “Okay, great. What s your name?” I said, “Courtney. Okay, let me just call up.” So, they called up and I was like, “Oh, well, that was easy.” The nurse on the other end of the line must have said like, “Oh, well, her dad was already here, so whatever.” Obviously, I was found out. Scott You didn’t pull off that caper… Courtney I didn t. I tried my damnedest but it didn t work. I remember she said, “I m really sorry you can t go up” and blah, blah, blah. It wasn t her fault. I just, like, hated that girl so much. I walked outside and phoned whatever nurse was upstairs on the floor, and begged her. I said, “Please. I will wear 20 masks. I will stand in the hallway. I don t care. Please let me come.” She said, “No, you can t.” I remember just sitting out front of the hospital in the evening and sobbing. I just cried. I felt so helpless. Again, what could I do? I just drove home. Scott I m sure that nurse felt your pain as well because she probably has to tell other people the same thing. Courtney Yeah. So while she was there, amidst the brain cancer, it had gone everywhere it was in her skin, her lungs, breast, brain, and lymph nodes. It was just everywhere and it wasn t going to be stopped, so that was really hard to come to terms with that was in June. I remember, in July, one of my best friends who I ve known since I was little and I have daughters the same age, and they just love each other. So, we ve been friends for over 30 years. Anyways, we went to her cottage for the night just us and the girls. The girls had gone to bed. We were sitting by the fire and having a glass of wine, and she s a nurse at that hospital. Obviously, it was COVID and she was having a really hard time. She was stressed out and all these things. I don t know what provoked me to say I felt like such a shitty friend something like “Oh, you re feeling down? Let s really get into it. What s the worst thing that you ve ever had to do?” She said to me that it s not the floor that she works on that s not her specialty but there was a doctor who needed help with a medically assisted death. I looked at her and said, “Is that even legal?” She was like, “Yeah, it is. I didn t know what to expect. I wasn t prepared that you just needed me to be there for whatever reason. I just went in and stood at the back of the room.” I remember her explaining her experience to me and she said that it was just this man and his wife. She said, “I just kept looking at his pajamas and thinking, ‘How do you just wake up in the morning, pick out these pajamas, drive yourself to the hospital, pass away, and these are the pajamas you want to wear.’ I don t know why that stuck out in her mind, and that really stuck with me about this man and the pajamas.” I said, “What was the wife doing?” She said, “They were obviously just saying ‘I love you’ and that sort of thing.” She sort of described the process vaguely. I said, “Were you upset?” She said, “I was bawling behind my mask, but I was trying to be professional. I had no idea what to expect. This was just thrown at me. I m trying not to cry, but it was a lot.” I thought, ‘Wow, yeah. That is a lot. No wonder you re stressed out about work.” I mean, my first response to her was, “Is that even legal?” So, that was sort of the first time I have ever heard of something like that. Scott What she was talking about is this program in Canada called it s abbreviated MAID Medically Assisted In Dying. So you ve never heard about that before? Courtney No, I guess not until she had, sort of, said so. I mean, I guess I maybe had some sort of idea that it was a thing, but I didn t think it was legal in Canada, and I certainly never heard of anyone else doing something like that. Scott When you were talking about this, did it immediately come to your mind that “This is what my mom should do”? Courtney No, God, not once. I was just listening to her story and thinking, like, “Wow, what a shitty day at work. That s heavy.” Not once did that cross my mind at all. That was all her experience. That s as far as it went in my brain sympathy for her and her having to be there. It was August 3 it was a Tuesday. My stepdad said, “I want to talk to you guys. I m going to FaceTime you at whatever time.” So, my stepdad FaceTimed me and both of my brothers. You can tell that my mom was not around. Because she, sort of, lost a bit of mobility and couldn t text and hold the phone, he would always text back for her or hold the phone while she talked to us sometimes. You could just you could tell she wasn t around and that he really had something to share with us. He said, “There are two things that I want to tell you. Your mom has decided that she wants to do a medically assisted death. Also, she would like for you guys to be there.” We were all just silent. I didn t say another word during that whole conversation. I have no idea what my brother said, honestly, but I do remember one of them saying, “Is that even legal?” Obviously, he said it was. One of us said, “What do you mean? When?” He said, “It could be as soon as a week from now. She has to be assessed. There has to be a COVID test. There has to be a place for her a spot for her at the hospital. So I don t really know. But this is the plan.” I have no idea what else was said, but I just hung up the phone. I ve never felt a feeling like that before. I was sobbing. It was like my body was in pain like my skin was irritating me, being on my body. It s the weirdest thing to explain, but you just wanted to, like, get your own skin off. It was hurting and there was nothing you could do. It was just horrible. I remember I gave it a little while and phoned her that night. I FaceTimed her and she was upset. I know that she was very comfortable with her decision but, I know, especially as a mom, how hard it would be to tell your kids that you got to leave them. I fully understand why she made that choice. I fully support her. I m even happy that she got to that she got to make that choice. My doctor said, “Cancer has controlled your mom s life for two years and she finally gets to be the one in control.” I felt happy for her that she didn t get to make that choice. The next day was Tuesday. The doctors had to come in this case, anyways to the house and do, sort of, a mental assessment. They want to make sure that you re of clear mind, you re making this decision on your own, no one s forcing you, and this is what you want. They tell you all the rules and what to expect. After you have all the information, you have to be the one to fully consent, so she did obviously. They gave her a COVID test because it s COVID. She had to be negative in order to go into the hospital which, I guess, doesn t make much sense. Anyways, she did the COVID test and she passed she was negative. So, the day after was Thursday, August 5. She was going to go to palliative care at the hospital closest to where we lived. She had to go by ambulance. She was having a lot of difficulties walking and getting in and out of the car, or up and down the stairs, and out of the house, so it was the smartest decision to have her go by ambulance it was the safest. My brother, being a pair of medic, called the coworkers who he really respected and told them the situation. I remember it was their day off and they still put on their uniform, got the ambulance, brought it to our house, picked up my mom, and to support my brother. I thought that was just so kind. Scott For sure. That s typical of the brotherhood of EMTs and paramedics. Courtney Right. I agree. It was really sweet. She was transported to the hospital. She had a palliative care room and it was a really nice room it was big, it was spacious. There s like a connecting room off of it with a TV and a pullout couch so that your family members can stay there with you. It s not just like a hospital bed and some creaky chair beside it. They really put a lot of thought into it. Between two rooms, there s a connecting kitchen, so you can make tea or meals or whatever it is that you need. They were really great. Scott It sounds more like a homey environment in a hospital room. Courtney For sure. The little connecting room had its own bathroom and a shower, so my dad could have a shower and his own place to sleep. Yeah, it was good. So, we showed up there on Thursday and we spent the whole day together. That morning, I remember not saying anything. My daughter was 4 at that time. I had to somehow explain this to her because I wanted to take her to the hospital the day before to see my mom and to see grandma. She was the only grandchild. She still is the only grandchild. So, she s just everything to her. I remember having to tell her. She was so mature and so sweet. She was so understanding. We sat outside and I said, “We re gonna go to the hospital and we re gonna go see grandma.” She said, “Okay.” I said, “I just need to tell you that this is going to be the last time that we re going to see grandma because she s very, very, very sick. She s gonna go to heaven.” and she just started crying. She cried and cried. We talked about it a little more, but I didn t know how to explain that further to her. So, we went and she came as well, along with my brothers and my stepdad. We had a visit. I didn t want her to stay the whole day but she had about an hour and she climbed up. I said, “Okay, give Grandma a hug.” She got up on her bed, hugged my mom and laid her head on her shoulder, and said, “I love you, grandma.” Then, she got down and I walked her out into the hallway someone was going to come to pick her up for me. We got halfway down the hallway when she stopped and said, “Can I go give Grandma one more hug?” I said, “Yeah, of course.” So, she ran back down the hallway, went through the doors, and said, “Grandma, I just want one more hug.” So she did and it was really sweet. After she left, we just spent time together. I mean, I ll say it was nice, but it was so much time apart. And we got to crawl in bed with her. My dad had bought her old cell phones it s a mom s cell phone so there are things on there from 40 years ago. Scott Moms don t delete pictures, right? Courtney No. She had all these things that we had lost because we probably had 100 new cell phones in the last three years, and she had, like, videos from when we were not when we were little because there wasn t cell phones. She had videos from years ago. She had the video of my daughter taking her first steps that I had lost long ago. She had all these funny pictures. We would just talk about so many of these things and laughed. We laughed so hard at all the things that we had, sort of, gone up to as a family and it was really nice. It was good. There was nothing else. It was just us. It was the 5 of us in that room and that was it. We had the whole day just to be together. Like I said, they were super accommodating. They said, “You can do whatever you want. We ll bring you the hospital dinner but do whatever you want.” As I said before, we re Canadian, so obviously we had to go get her poutine and a couple of pizzas. We sat around eating poutine and pizza, laughing and chatting. It was nice. I think I don t want to say it wasn t so heavy, but we had the next day. So, that day, we just really enjoyed it. Scott We re okay for today. Let s enjoy right now. Courtney For sure. Yeah, absolutely. Scott Probably a lot of old family stories came up… Courtney We all just, like, made fun of each other and talked about how she and my stepdad met, which is really amazing. My mom had a best friend who lived in town and the friend s dad had passed away, so her family was coming home for this funeral and one of the people was her brother. He was coming home to the small town that we live in for his dad s funeral and he said to her  sister, “Whoa, who s your friend?” It turns out that it was my mom. He was only here for a couple of days. He lived out west. I don t know what happened in 3 days, but here s my mom with 2 little kids. He basically said to her within a couple of days, like, “I m going to go home and pack all of my belongings, and I m going to move here. Do you want us to be together for the rest of our lives?” She said, “Yes.” They loved each other so much so much that you would think “That s crazy!” I think that s crazy. If I said that, I was going be, like, “Oh, this is what I m going to do” and move to another province and be with someone forever, it s like, “Okay…” Scott Yeah. Everybody would advise you that it s a really bad idea. Courtney I mean, they might have. But it has been almost 30 years since then, so joke s on them. She was the best mom. She made chocolate chip cookies. She made us spaghetti. She was always driving us to sports hockey, baseball, and soccer games. When we were little, when it was just me, my mom, and my brother, she would take us for real-life camping like, pitch a tent, all your meals are cooked on the fire that you ve assembled yourself, and you have to pack all the utensils and other things. She was great at it. She was it was a lot of fun. I have so many memories of going camping with her. One of my mom s hobbies was she collected dimes. She had this huge jar full of dimes. Anytime she got in my car, she d be like, “Oh my god, Courtney. Look at that!” I d be like, “It s 4 dimes. You re welcome to take your dimes.” Like, she would just go crazy. We bought her Christmas presents. As a joke, we wrapped, like, a roll of dimes from the bank, and she wouldn t give two shits about the present. She was like, “Oh, yes! Oh, yes!” Like, she was crazy about these dimes. It was so funny. My grandma would save her little plastic baggies of them and we d empty or change drawers and be like, “Okay, have at it.” She just was obsessed. It was so funny. I remember she rolled them up while she was home during COVID and she had almost $1,000 in dimes, so that s quite a lot. I remember saying, like, “Use it to go on a trip.” Then, she thought, “Maybe, I ll buy, like, a really good lazy boy or something.” I don t think she ever actually did anything with it, but it s funny how excited that would make her. The next day was Friday, August 6th. They had told us that this would take place at 1 o clock. It was the most bizarre thing. You can talk to people and say “Oh, my mom s really sick. She s not doing well.” but how do you call someone 4 days before and say my mom s gonna die on Friday at 1 o clock? It just didn t make sense. That morning, I remember that I set an alarm to get up, get ready to go and do this. I have trouble trying to explain it but I remember picking out an outfit and I want it to look nice. I don t know why this was on my mind, but I thought “I don t want to wear something that I love because I don t want this memory to be attached to it.”, so I picked something I d never worn before so that I could throw it away afterwards, which I did. So, I got ready. My brothers picked me up and we drove there together. We walked in and it wasn t, like, somber. It was just like I don t know. It s sort of hard to explain. My dad wasn t sitting around bawling. He was, like, happy for her because that s what she wanted and she was gonna get to do it her way. So, we all sat around. She had some breakfast. We shared more stories and laughed about things. When someone is sick like that, you don t say, “Well, if you die, then what should I do?” or “What do you want to pass along?” because you just always have this hope. But at that moment, you know that this is going to be it, so you re allowed to say these things that you wouldn t. I remember I said to her, “Whatever Christmas, we would make these bars. We made them all the time and we loved them. I was obsessed with them. Mom, where s the recipe for the bars that we make at Christmas?” She said, “Okay, go into the little kitchen.” We had a main kitchen and a side kitchen. She said, “Go into the little kitchen. It s in the cupboard on the right-hand side, and it s in a little blue recipe book that s where it is.” I said, “Okay, great. Perfect.” You can talk about these things, as I said. She wanted to be cremated and she was, sort of, indifferent as to what would happen after that. She thought that if her parents still had the farm, maybe she would like her ashes to be spread there and I could talk to her. I said, “Well, we don t own the farm anymore. So, I don t really like that idea.” It was just weird to have this conversation with her. I said, “Obviously, it s your choice, but I would really like for you to have, like, a stone in a spot where we can go and maybe feel that you re there. That s your spot.” She was like, “Okay, sure. That sounds good.” It was just so weird. Scott That’s just some bizarre conversations you never would imagine you would have with her. Courtney No, never. Like I said, they said it was going to be on Friday, at 1 o clock. So, we were there. The clocks are, like, those in an elementary school or something. They re great, big clocks with hands on them, and they re noisy. It was at the foot of her bed and it just kept in our moments of silence, if we just sat there and held her hand or whatever we were doing, you could just hear this clock and it was driving me nuts. It was so sad. It was giving us all, like, anxiety. She would look at it every now and then, and it was just heartbreaking. She was just watching the clock. Eventually, we took it off the wall and threw it in the hallway, so it wasn t there. Every so often, she would say, “What time is it?” We would say, “Well, it s 11.” She d say, “Okay.” Then, some more time would pass and she d say “What time is it?” We d say “It s 12.15.” We just loved her. I got in bed with her and held her hand. I remember my youngest brother sat at the foot of her bed and put lotion on her feet. My other brother was on the other side. You know that the time is coming and you know beforehand that the nurse had come in to put the IV in her hand so that it was prepped and ready. So, we were all trying to ignore what this nurse is doing. She couldn t get the bandage and she couldn t get it to work, so she had to get someone else to come. It was just like oh, for God’s sakes it was a lot. So, we were just laying with her and it was quiet. You knew that the time was coming and you hear a knock at the door. When we looked, it was the doctor he came in. It s fully her choice. He said, “How are you feeling?” She said, “Good.” He said, “Do you think you want some more time?” She just sort of looked at us like of course, she does, but the time had come, so she said to us, “Okay, come give me your hugs.” We all obviously had moments with her and hugged her. She said, “Be a good mom. I know you will be. You re such a good mom and I love you.” I remember just hugging her and saying, “I m so sorry, mom. I love you and I m gonna miss you so much.” My brothers and my dad had their time. I remember looking back at the nurse who was with him and I thought of my dear friend. I looked at that nurse and she was crying behind her mask. Her face was red, her eyes were red, and she was crying. The doctor went in, sat beside her, got her IV ready, and said, “Once I do this, it ll only be a couple of seconds, probably, and you ll just peacefully go to sleep.” We were at her side. I think I was kneeling on the floor and holding her hands. Her eyes were full of tears. She didn t want to leave us. I know she didn t want to leave us, but she didn t want us to watch her suffer, which would have likely been the outcome with everything going on. The doctor sat beside her and I was holding her hand. I remember staring at her and thinking, “Look at me. Just look at me…” She looked me in the eyes, and I just said, “I love you.” She said “I love you too.” The doctor looked at her and said, “It was my pleasure to have met you.” He did the injection and it was only a few seconds and her eyes just flooded. It really did look like she just peacefully fell asleep. We just continued to hold her hand. We just cried, cried and cried. Then, there comes the point, like, “What do you do now? You don t have to leave, but you don t want to stay looking… You don t understand looking at her this way. It was probably 20 or 30 minutes later when we decided that it was time for us to go, so we left. Scott Did you all go back to your parents place? It seems like that s a time when you would all want to be together… Courtney It does, but we didn t. We all wanted to be alone. My dad really wanted to be alone. He was gonna have to go back to the house. We all offered and wanted to, but he just really wanted to be by himself. The boys and I wanted to be by ourselves too. I drove back with my brother. I remember that I forgot my sweater and he said, “Do you want to go back?” I said, “No. Are you kidding? No. I ll leave it there.” It was a small town. One of the nurses in there, like, lived in our town and brought it to me or something I can t remember. I remember that he genuinely said, “Do you want to go back and get it?” Scott He wasn t even thinking when he asked that question probably. Courtney I don t know. We were all just, like, so Scott Well, it s not like something like you ve been through before. Courtney For sure. Scott How did you process it the next few days? I mean, you knew it was coming but you still had to be, in some way, kind of, unprepared for it. Courtney Definitely unprepared. It all happens so fast. It was like this blow of a conversation that I had no idea and, then, she was gone four days later. So I don t know if I did process it, to be honest. It all was really just a blur. It was weird, it was sad, it was quiet, and it was lonely. There s part of you that is, like, happy for her that she s not suffering. As I tell this, it sounds terrible, which definitely was for my family, but I definitely support people having this opportunity. I really do. So many people are suffering. Honestly, it could be worse. There are just so many more terrible outcomes, and this was really peaceful and there was no suffering. None. Scott And everyone had time to say everything they wanted to say. Courtney Yeah, absolutely. That was the nice part. Lots of people lose people tragically, and they don t have those moments. We had those moments. We got to say what we wanted to say. We got to ask the questions that we thought we would want the answers to, and we got to all be together and have spent time together. Scott You had mentioned that you joined a group like a 6-week program for people who have gone through this. Can you describe what that was? Courtney Soon after, I just felt so alone in that experience. I think I m not the first person to lose my mom and I m not the first person to lose someone to cancer. The way in which it happened is that I felt like no one understood. People would say, “Oh, I m so sorry.” and I would say thank you but, in my head, I would think that you have no idea. So, I wanted to connect with someone who understood. I had no idea where to start, but I found this group on Facebook I forget what it was called with people who supported that. It turns out that there were a lot of Americans. I felt like it was an inquiry and support page. Some people would say, “I live in Texas and I m considering this.” People would say, “Oh, is it legal in this state? Oh, it s not legal in my state.” There were just, sort of, people advocating and asking questions. I remember making a post in the group, which I don t think I ve done in my life. I don t know what I wanted the outcome to be, honestly. I just, sort of, said, “Here s what happened. It was very brief. While I support my mom s decision wholeheartedly, I m having a lot of trouble forgetting the events of that day.” All the comments were, sort of, people who said, “Well, when you re older, you ll understand why your mum made that choice. When you re older, you ll see that these weren t the golden years that your mom had planned for.” I was already numb and I was just defeated. I thought, like, “Again, you have no idea. I do support that. I do understand. I m grateful that she had the choice when a lot of people don t. That wasn t what I was reaching out for. I wanted someone who knew how I was feeling because it felt very lonely.” So, this woman reached out to me. She was from the States and she was a grief counselor. She had said that she had this idea to put together a 6-week grief group for people who had lost a loved one to MAID once it, sort of, became more known and talked about. She said, “I knew that this type of grief was going to be different and there needs to be a space for people.” and it was wonderful. It was so good. There were me and 3 sisters, kind of, from my area who had lost their mom, only a few weeks before I had. Then, there was another woman she was from LA. She lost her husband. We could all just be sad together, so it felt good. We just understood. There was no, like, “Oh, you don t get it.” They got it. They understood me. They were there too. They knew how I felt when I said whatever I said. I still keep in contact with them. I really value making connections with them in those days. It was really good. It was interesting too because the difference between the woman from LA her experience being in the US and our experience being Canadian were night and day. I mean, the same outcome but it s not covered financially. It s there. So, people have to figure out how to pay for it. Then, the surviving family members are left with the debt if there is some, I think. I mean, I m not really sure. I don t know how it works. I don t know if it s different in each state, but I know where she was. The person who was getting the assistance had to be the one to physically administer the dose to themselves, and theirs was by drink, which did not sound like a lovely experience, whatsoever. Our experience was, like, the injection. It took seconds, it was painless and quick. There s a mix, like a cocktail of sorts, that the person has to take themselves, which isn t very pleasant and it s not quick, either. Scott For someone who has been through this, you would recommend joining a group like that, I would assume? Courtney I would recommend joining a group or singular therapy or something. But yes. I mean, it s a really lonely thing. If you can find people who understand even just, like, a portion, I think it s really helpful, which is part of the reason why I wanted to speak to you because I tried really hard to find people to connect with and understood, but there was nothing. Anytime I Google “Counseling for medically assisted death”, a hundred things would pop out but it s about counseling the patient on how to prepare themselves, things to consider, and XYZ. There was nothing for the people who are there, who experience that loss, who are part of it but are still here. If one person hears this and thinks that girl understands how I m feeling or she s been there, too, then Scott Somebody might be helped by it, for sure, because, as you said, the resources for this are little to none. Courtney I feel that way. Scott As we recorded this, this happened about 10 months ago. If you could go back in time to 12 months ago, would you do anything differently? Courtney Yes. Scott What would you do? Courtney We stayed away. We didn t go home because of COVID and we wanted to keep her safe, and we lost those two years. I mean, I would have taken a rapid test and I would have moved in and been there every single day, but we stayed away to keep her safe. Scott Of course, you can only make decisions based on the information you have at the time, and you thought that was the best thing. Courtney We did, and she did too. She was very concerned about COVID and how that could affect her and her medication and stuff. So, it s not like she was begging us to be there. We probably would have, but she was very concerned, so we just respected how she felt. We would FaceTime, and we would visit in the backyard, or meet her at the park when she was feeling better before. We would do things like that. Scott How did you feel for the next few weeks or months? Were there any, like, family events when you got together but it just wasn t quite the same? Courtney We were planning her celebration of life for her birthday, which was in October. So, we had two months to grieve. I was in charge of all the photos, the boards, and going through all that sort of thing, so that was nice. It really was like an outlet. It felt good to go through all those pictures and relive those memories. I d send the boys something funny I found. I had my mom’s cell phones and it was funny because, growing up, my brother and I didn t like steak or pork chops or anything like that. As we grew older, we found out that we loved it. The reason was that my mom just cooked them so much, so they were always, like, well-done steaks. We’re like, “Oh my God. We actually love steak. What is this?” Going back to when she would take the pictures that were all blurry there were so many videos on there of just, like, the floor, her feet, or some little blurbs that she accidentally did. So, I played this one video that was taken years ago. We all just sound so happy and she just sounds like herself. She doesn t know that she s started recording this video. I heard her calling and yelling at my brother upstairs and he was like, “Yeah?” She went, “How do you want your steak done?” You can hear him go, “Rare.” She and my brother would never eat a rare steak like, absolutely not so, you would hear her go, “Uhhh. I like it a little bit more than that. Maybe, I ll do it just a little bit in between.” And he was like, “Yeah, sounds good.” I remember laughing so hard because it was just funny. They would be, like, “Yeah, just cook it rare” knowing that you would probably end up around, like, a medium or something. So that was good. I was happy to find that. The brother closest to my age was going to get married. He was set to get married in September. So, her goal was to make it to his wedding. Obviously, she didn t. So, his wedding was four weeks after she passed and it was sad. I really wanted them to have, like, a beautiful moment together without the focus being that our mom wasn t there. It wasn t this whole big huge thing there were just parents and siblings. Each had, like, a grandparent or something. Very, very small. Just us. Really pretty. So they got married here in Kingston down by the water. Two years prior, it was COVID, so there were no events or anything going on. So, it s this field down by the water where they got married, and it s beautiful. We were taking pictures. They were not just standing in one spot. Everyone s coming and going. They d go over to her grandma and take the pictures. We d move around. There were different sorts of scenery. She would take a picture with her brother and then her and her sister. Then, my brothers had a picture together. Then, he said, “Court, come get a picture with me” and I said “Okay.” So, I went over to where we were and I put my arm around him. I don t know what kind of human looks down at the ground when they re having their picture taken but, for whatever reason, I looked down and saw this shiny thing, and my heart fell. I thought, “There s no way” and I reached down. Out on the grass in the middle of this field, at the tip of my brother s wedding shoe was a dime. Unbelievable. I picked it up and I just held it in front of his face. We just stared at each other and my jaw just dropped. I couldn t say anything. I couldn t explain this. We all held it together really well, but I just lost it in that. There s nothing around I can explain this to you. It s an open field. It was crazy. I just started crying and I said to him, “I m just gonna take a minute. I m not going to do the photo right now. Give me a second.” I walked away and everyone was, sort of, looking like, “What the hell is her problem? All of a sudden, she was just crying and walking away when everything was fine.” My stepdad came over with a Kleenex and was like,” What s wrong?” I couldn t get it out. I was, like, choking on my words, so I calmed myself and said, Jake was standing on a dime. His foot was on a dime.” We all just cried and it was so it was amazing. There s no way to explain that. You can t even say that s a coincidence. It was just wonderful. Scott That is amazing. For anyone who is going or has gone through something like this, if they would like to contact you you ve given your permission we ll have your email address in the show notes so that they can contact you and ask questions or whatever. You re okay with that? Courtney Yeah, absolutely. Scott Courtney, your story and that episode– I mean, I ve done more than 250 of these now since I started, and it s still by far one of my favorite stories to listen to. You did such a great job in telling it and the reaction from listeners said the same thing. They loved it. How did you feel telling that story? Courtney Yeah, thank you. I felt really good. I felt so happy after it came out. I just felt so happy with the way that everything came across and the response from people was just so lovely. You just have such a wonderful community who just appreciates you and enjoys your work so much. And they were all so kind to me and sent the just the nicest messages and I m just very grateful. Scott You told me about an email that you got from an woman nearby. Can you talk about that? Courtney Yeah, I d received a couple of emails and there were comments on the Facebook post and a couple of direct messages and stuff. She had messaged me not for any reason she hadn t lost anyone. She had nothing to do with MAID. It was just purely because she lived in the next town over and we thought that was like a fun, interesting thing, like you being in Florida and here we are– and she was listening and she s like, “Oh my goodness. She s just like down the road.” So that was just the entirety of the message that she sent to me. We had a nice little chat and that was that. Then, two or three months later, she d messaged me again and I have it here I can read it to you. She messaged me and she said, “I just wanted to thank you again for your episode with Scott. Last Saturday, my nanny, like a second mother to us, passed away by MAID.” And I ll tell you, because of your story, I was so much more prepared for everything. So you did help someone with that journey. Scott That is amazing. Courtney It was. Oh my goodness. It was so beautiful and it was meaningful and special to me, and that s really all I wanted just the possibility to maybe help someone in some way. So that really touched me. It was really special to get that message. Scott I think your story does help people and will continue. As people discover the podcast for the first time, they go back and listen to the older episodes, so they re gonna hear it. And of course, today, it just went live again. It s been almost four years since that original episode went live. What s happened with you since then? Courtney Well, first of all, we sold our family home where I grew up since I was four or five maybe. So we did that and that s been a bit of a change, but really it s been for the best. The house was just too big for my dad to be at all by himself sort of thing, so that was a change, but it was great. It was good. He has moved with my youngest brother. They built him a place on his property, so it s been really nice for him. They have a really good community of friends and he just takes care of the chickens and they go ice fishing. My dad always had a motorcycle growing up. When he met my mom when I was very little, he came with this huge big bike but, because of kids and life, he put that passion on hold. So, about a year after, Mom passed. He was like, “I think I m gonna get a bike again.” I was like, “I think that you totally should.” So he s in his mid 70s and he s just ripping around on his motorcycle and he loves it. It brings him so much joy. It just makes me so happy for him. So they re doing, he s doing good. And my brothers, they re both great. They re really busy. They re very successful. They re happy. They re just really good people. So I m really proud of them. Scott I think you re all really good people. Courtney Oh, thank you. We try. Scott Yeah. And you? Courtney Yeah, me. So my partner and I, we ve been together for 12 years this summer. We built a house out in the country and that was all fun and exciting. We actually got married here at our property last fall. Scott That s awesome. Courtney Yeah, it was so much fun. It was just the best day. It was beautiful. Weather was perfect. It was great. Scott It sounds like life is good for you and your family. Courtney Yeah, life is good. Our daughter, who I spoke about last time, she s going to be 10 soon. She s funny, she s sassy, she is thoughtful, she s all the things. She s very artistic and she s in the choir she has been for years now. So overall, yes, we re all doing really well. The first year, if not two, for sure was very hard and sad and confusing. You learn to figure it out slowly and kind of try to create a new normal the best that you can. I won t say like time heals, but it definitely softens the pain after you ve lost someone that you love, but that doesn t mean that it s not still difficult at times, of course. I think of her constantly and we talk about her so much and there s been a lot of big happy moments, but they still have a bit of sadness attached to those. When I went wedding dress shopping, obviously, I very much wish that she could have been there. So that was tricky, but it was beautiful. I had a lot of other people there who care about me like my daughter and my mother-in-law and my mom s sisters both came with me at one point cousin best friend. So there s obviously those times and other big moments clearly like my wedding day and birthdays and Christmas and all those big kind of events. Scott Of course, yeah. And every time you find a dime, right? Courtney Yeah. Which still actually happens so often for all of us. Like, my brothers will just take a picture and send it to me. I find them quite a bit as well. Scott That s cool. Courtney Yeah. Scott All right, well I appreciate you coming on here and bringing us up to date and I wish you all the best for you and your family. Courtney Thank you. Thanks so much, Scott. It was so nice to talk to you. Scott As I told Courtney, this story is one of my favorites. I listened to it again recently because I knew it was coming up for a Flashback. It’s just so heartwarming and sad at the same time. And we have more pictures! You can see pictures of Courtney and her mom, her family, pictures on Courtney’s wedding day, you can even see her dad proudly showing off his new motorcycle. That’s all in the episode notes at WhatWasThatLike.com/256. Here in the US, 13 states and Washington DC allow medical assistance in dying. Several more are considering legislation. Do you have an opinion about this? If so, we want to hear it. That’s the next Tuesday question in the Facebook group – it’s this coming Tuesday, May 26, 2026. I’m especially interested to hear if you were undecided or even against the idea, and perhaps Courtney’s story about her mom has caused you to re-think that. Join the discussion where we have a new thought-provoking question every single Tuesday – WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai. And remember, you can sign up to support the podcast by going to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS, or on an iPhone just click on Try Free – you’ll get every episode ad-free, plus there’s more than 50 bonus episodes that are exclusive to supporters. Are you ready for a Listener Story? I always love this segment at the end of each main episode. It’s just a listener telling a story of something interesting that happened to them. You can tell your story by recording it on your phone and emailing it to me at [email protected]. Try to keep it around 5-10 minutes. Or, you could do what this listener did, and call it in on the Podcast Voice Mail line – 727-386-9468. That line is never answered by a human, so you’ll always get voice mail, which has a 3-minute limit. This week’s story is about an important item getting lost. Stay safe, and we’ll see you next time. (Listener story) My story starts in the summer of 2025 when my friends and I decided to go on a 5-hours road trip to Duray, Colorado. We decided to embark on our journey. We started early in the day, and we stopped about halfway in a small town for lunch. We decided to eat lunch from the cooler we had packed for the entire week and then some, so we had to pull out all of the Jenga pieces that we had arranged. It was like a Tetris situation. So we pulled out the cooler, we ate our lunch, and did some thrifting, and we were on our way. Well, when we reached our destination, it started raining. We were going to set up camp, but it was pouring rain. So my friend, she went to grab her rain gear out of the car and we realized that I had left her backpack on the top of my car when we were rearranging, trying to pull out the cooler for lunch, so her backpack was long gone. It was on the side of the road somewhere. It was missing. Well, we got in the car and I told her, “Let s pull up at the nearest Walmart and I ll replace all your clothes. It was a real bummer way to start the trip. Anyway, we get in the car and she pulls up her text to find a Walmart, and she sees a message from a strange number, and it said, “Hey, we have your backpack. We re at Duray campgrounds,” which is our destination. “Hopefully you re still nearby.” Well, we were nearby, alright. We were just about 30 seconds down the road from him. Turned out her backpack had stayed on the roof of my car for an entire 2.5 hours, and it decided to fall off the second we turned into our destination. So, within 10 minutes of losing her bag, we got it back and we were onto a great start of the trip after that. So, all’s well that ends well.

One of the things that makes this life so interesting is that something can happen that’s life-changing, when you least expect it. I mean, you’re just going about your day – stopping at the grocery store, or putting gas in your car, just a routine day. Then something totally unexpected happens, right in front of you. I remember one time when I was just on my way to work in the morning. Just driving on this rural road in Maine, and there was a pickup truck in front of me. And there was a man riding in the back – in the open bed of the truck. He was standing, facing forward, just hanging out. All of a sudden that truck went to the right, off the road, right into a power pole. I don’t know what caused the driver to lose control, but fortunately there were no serious injuries. Even the guy in the truck bed was mostly okay. But it just happened so fast. My guest today is Jayson. He was having a pretty normal day, just running some errands. Then he found himself unexpectedly witnessing an attempted murder. Jayson doing his stand-up comedy Jayson If you’d like to contact Jayson, you can do that through his website: http://www.jaysoncross.com/ You can also find him on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok: @jaysoncrosscomedy On X (Twitter): @jcrosscomedy Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/255 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT Episode transcript (download transcript PDF): One of the things that makes this life so interesting is that something can happen that’s life-changing, when you least expect it. I mean, you’re just going about your day – stopping at the grocery store, or putting gas in your car, just a routine day. Then something totally unexpected happens, right in front of you. I remember one time when I was just on my way to work in the morning. Just driving on this rural road in Maine, and there was a pickup truck in front of me. And there was a man riding in the back – in the open bed of the truck. He was standing, facing forward, just hanging out. All of a sudden that truck went to the right, off the road, right into a power pole. I don’t know what caused the driver to lose control, but fortunately there were no serious injuries. Even the guy in the truck bed was mostly okay. But it just happened so fast. My guest today is Jayson. He was having a pretty normal day, just running some errands.  Then he found himself unexpectedly witnessing an attempted murder. Scott How old were you when this happened?  Jayson This was 2018. At that time I was 40. No, it was right before my 40th birthday, actually. I was 39, so I was still young. I was on the cusp of being young and middle aged.  Scott Okay.  Jayson I was a week away from being middle aged.  Scott When you sent this to me, you said you were heavily involved in boxing at the time. Did you box every day?  Jayson I won t say every day, but I got into the boxing gym 3-4 days a week. No, maybe 4 or 5 days a week at that time. And I was doing a lot of road work. Road work is when you run around, you run 2-3 miles a day, so you don t get tired when you re in a boxing ring. So I was fairly fit at the time.  Scott And you also said you did something called boxing interviews. What is that?  Jayson Boxing interviews– so I would go to boxing press conferences and interview the boxers before the fight and after the fight. Sometimes, I would go to the gym and interview other boxers on what they thought about upcoming fights. I would interview certain boxers about boxing techniques.  Scott And was this for a local TV station or just for your own benefit? What was the purpose?  Jayson For two places– I had a YouTube channel called Laugh At First Site. I know it s offbrand Laugh at First Site but I called that segment punchlines to tie it in with the comedy I was doing at the time. And I worked for EsNews, Elie Seckbach News. He has a YouTube tube channel as well, and he s heavily involved in boxing.  Scott So were you boxing just pretty much to stay in shape or were you thinking like self-defense situations?  Jayson Both actually. I mean, you never know what can happen out here in this crazy world we live in. Mind you, this was pre COVID, so it wasn t as crazy and this was pre all the brick attack madness, so it wasn t as crazy. But to stay in shape I m a vain person, not going to lie and self-defense for sure.  Scott I know you are in Chicago now, but this happened in New York City.  Jayson Happened in New York City at the time. I lived in New York for approximately 20 years after college.  Scott Okay, so let s just talk about that day. You met a friend in Bryant Park and you were walking towards Hell s Kitchen– just kind of set this up for us.  Jayson My friend and I had a plan. We were going to go to the boxing gym, but first we made our way over to the dry cleaner. The dry cleaner was on 38th Street between 8th and 9th, between Hell s Kitchen and Times Square. Had dry cleaning there and had to go pick it up. I even remember the dry cleaner– it was my yellow shirt. I had this yellow shirt I used to love. Don t know what happened to it. Maybe I outgrew it, who knows. But I was going to pick up my dry cleaning. We walked up the street. The first thing I noticed distinctly walking up the street, there was a mounted cop and there were people playing with the horse, like trying to hand food in the horse s mouth. I thought these people were crazy because I said, “What if the horse just bites them?” And who knows?  Go in, get the dry cleaning, no problem whatsoever. Come out with the dry cleaning. I did the old 70s thing where you hang it on your two fingers like this and drape it over your shoulder. As I was coming out the door, I always looked both ways, almost like crossing the street to make sure there s no trouble. I guess this is one of the things or one of the habits you keep when you grow up on the south side of Chicago. You become very defensive and very aware of your surroundings. So I look left and right. When I look left, I see a guy walking towards me with a brick in his hand. A huge brick.  Scott The kind of brick that would fit in your hand not a cement block? Jayson No, not a cement block. You would have to have really big mitts to hold this brick. He was holding it with two hands. So, I would say it’s maybe 7 inches long, 4-5 inches wide, and maybe 3 inches thick. Pretty big brick. I instinctively get defensive. I handed my dry cleaning to my friend, moved him out of the way he’s a smaller gentleman and I was ready to box at the time, ready to use the skills even though I think it would ve been impossible to fight a brick.  Scott I m curious about this. You must have sensed something about this guy because somebody could be carrying a brick and maybe they work in construction or something, so they re just carrying a brick. But something you saw indicated that there was something malicious happening.  Jayson Well, I ve seen people get hit with bricks in fights in Chicago, for sure, as a kid. The fact that he had a brick put me on guard, on edge, for sure. He looked like a guy that was either on the streets from the streets. I profiled him and I wasn t going to trust him getting too close to me with the brick. He definitely didn t look like a stone mason.  Scott He wasn t wearing a construction hat and a reflective vest or something, right?  Jayson No, he wasn t there to build. He was there to destroy.  Scott And is this a, white guy or black guy? Jayson Black guy. People are going to put so many comments on this. I totally profiled the guy, not going to lie, well, because growing up in Chicago, I ve seen people that look like him hit people with bricks. I ve seen it happen. I mean, it was a mutual combat situation where they were fighting but, nevertheless, I wasn t going to take that chance. Scott And we should say– I mean, this is an audio only podcast, so people can t see you as we re listening to this, but you re black as well?  Jayson Yes, I m Black. Ligety Bigly Black.  Scott Okay. So you saw this guy and felt that there was some kind of a threat coming from him.  Jayson It could have been a threat. That was the thing. I didn t think it was a potential threat. Anytime someone has a brick and they re within striking distance, or if they have a knife or they re in striking distance, I m going to be on guard. Any kind of weapon that can cause severe bodily harm, yeah. I was on guard  Scott And he was walking toward you from your left, is that right? Jayson Yes. He was walking towards me from the left. From my left would ve been 9th Avenue. So he was coming from 9th Avenue walking towards 8th Avenue, for any of those who understand and know the street grid in New York. Scott When you say you got ready, do you have a fighting stance or something that would indicate to him, “Hey, don t bother me.” Something like that? Jayson Absolutely. A fighting stance is a bladed stance where if you re righty or right-handed, you ship your right hand to the back and your left hand to the front. It s called a bladed stance. So instead of standing square where he could see both shoulders, you turn to the side, so he can only see one. So there s less of a surface area to hit, and it s easier to move that way and be more elusive. He picked it up instantly because– I mean, I m sure the look on my face when I tucked my chin– I was in total fight stance, the chin tuck. I even put my hands up. Now that I remember, I even put my hands up and he instantly picked that up and he looked at me and said, “Nah, I m going to hit a white motherfucker with this brick.”  Scott Did you feel confident that you could take him even though he had a brick and you were unarmed at that time? Jayson It would all depend if he was able to strike me with the brick and where he would ve struck me with the brick because, if he would ve made a move, I would ve definitely got two punches off. But if the brick cracked me in the face, I mean, I m going out. Well, I don t know because I had another incident where I m shocked I survived it. That s for the next interview. That way, you ll have me back. But depending on where he would ve struck me with the brick – I definitely could have got to him – and depending on his punch tolerance.  Scott So he said he was looking to hit someone white. Jayson Not just someone. He said a white motherfucker with a brick. It was very racially charged. I don t want to downplay that and say, “Oh, hit a white person.” He said, “A white motherfucker.” He said it in such a way it s racist, hateful, prejudice, bigoted. At first, I initially thought he was just a crazy guy rambling with a brick. I didn t think he would actually do it. I didn t think he would actually do it. He said, “Nah, hit a white motherfucker with a brick.” I m like, okay. He saw that I got in a boxing stance. I ve noticed with some aggressive crazy people that they re only as crazy as the threat they have to go against. So if it s a little old lady, they re crazy. If it s a guy or a man they think may hurt them, they re not as crazy. So I figured he was just talking and he wasn t going to do anything.  Scott And he s still walking toward you?  Jayson Yeah. He kept his distance. He kept a good 6 feet away and he continued walking east down 43rd street. And as he was walking, I saw a guy with a red hoodie on his hands in his pocket and his head down.  Scott Where was this guy?  Jayson This guy was walking towards 9th Avenue. They were walking towards each other. Guy with the hood on who later became the victim, he was walking on the outside closer to the street, and the guy with the brick was walking on the inside closer to the buildings. Scott The guy with the brick had already walked past you. So they are both to your right.  Jayson Yeah. He walked past me but, like I said, I didn t really trust him afterwards because I didn t want to turn my back and he comes crack me from behind and I didn t see it, so I followed him, kept the stance all the way until he was maybe 10 feet out of range and about 15 feet. That s where they crossed paths.  Scott And the guy in the hoodie, could you see his face at all?  Jayson Couldn t really see his face. I initially thought it was orange but, in court, I found out it was red. No, I initially thought it was red. In court, I found out it was orange. I noticed he had glasses on and I noticed that he was of the Caucasian persuasion. Scott So did it trigger then that this guy might be in trouble?  Jayson Not then, even, because I just thought the guy was a crazy coward just walking with a brick. Not then. The perp with the brick– he picked the brick up over his head the same way you would try to strike a nail with a hammer if you wanted to hit it with intense force. So he picked it up over his right shoulder, over his head and he struck the gentleman in the red burnt orange hood on the left side of his chin, and he went down like a ton of bricks. When he struck him with the brick, he let it go. It was almost like a downward row slash strike, if that makes sense. It hit him in the face. He fell on garbage bags because, in New York, all the trash is thrown out in the front. They don t have alleys in New York City. At that time, I remember screaming, what the fuck are you doing? And that s when it struck me, “Oh, this guy s no joke.” I started towards him, but he picked the brick up again and he struck the guy again. Then, I started towards him again. Then, he got to the brick again and struck him again. At this time, I see blood just gushing and – I remember clear as day – I thought distinctly to myself, if someone (i.e. me) doesn t stop this, this guy is going to die right in front of my eyes. Mind you, after the first strike, there were people behind the guy with the brick on the side, closer, in a better situation to stop him in some way, shape or form, but all they screamed was, “Somebody stop or make him stop!”  The last strike– he hit him with the brick, he threw it down on him and the brick cracked in half and that s when I jetted and ran towards him at top speed. He was going down to get the brick, and I guess he heard footsteps coming his way or he saw me out as peripheral, but he looked up at me, made eye contact, and he jetted towards 8th Avenue. So if I was turned to my left and then turned around to the right, he went further to the right. Scott He wanted to just get out of there.  Jayson Oh, he started running, I remember. He had a sheet or a towel on and he threw it up in the air when he ran. The way the towel/sheet was floating in the air really stuck in my mind because it just slowed down. He took off. He was very bow-legged, running low, so he appeared shorter than I thought he was. I actually ran. The brick’s broken too – it was like 80% of the brick and then 20% of the brick. I scooped up to 20% of the brick, like a shortstop used to play little league baseball. I guess those skills came in handy because my initial thought was to throw it. Hopefully, it cracks him and he falls down and then we wait till the police get there. But then I thought while I was running, “Okay, what if I throw it, hit a car, break a window, hit someone else?” So I let that thought go and just kept a brick in my han, chased him, tried not to get too close to him because I thought he would stop, turn around and kick, and probably knock my win into the middle of next week. So we were chasing. I have to admit, I was in great shape, probably the best shape I ve been in my life at the time, but that guy was fast. I mean fast, fast. I chased him for maybe half a block and then we passed the mounted cop that I told you about. Scott Oh, the same one? Jayson The same mounted cop. He was there and people were still feeding the horse nuts or whatever. I said, “We got to get that guy.” I m out of breath because I m going hard. Like, he s only maybe 15 feet in front of me. I kept a visual contact, kept him in my eye line. “Get him, he hit somebody with a brick. We have to get him.” I m chasing the guy running and the guy cuts through traffic this way and the mounted cop is just on a horse, did not get off the horse, and I m thinking, why is this guy not getting off the horse so we could get this guy? So the guy runs through traffic, he goes to the other side of the street through traffic, and I run like on the same side of the street, but in traffic, if that makes sense, the same side he crossed from and kept a visual.  Through this time, the weird thing is – I don t know, maybe I m a natural born comic – I heard blaxploitation music in my head while I was running, the guitar, that music started playing in my head. I started hearing this music and then, all of a sudden, the guy just lays down – the guy who hit the gentleman with the brick. He lays down and spreads eagle on the ground. Full eagle – looks like a starfish. He spreads eagle.  I go in front of him, and then the cop comes from behind him, and I said, “All right, officer, that s him. He hit the guy with the brick in the head. He almost killed that man down there.” And the officer gets off and the guy tries to sit up and he says, “Get back down, get down.” And the guy just sits there and puts his hands up and I said, “That s him. He hit the guy with the brick.”  He looked me in the eye. I ll never forget this moment. It was the most compelling moment from the situation. He looked me in the eye and said, “You witnessing, bro?” The brick guy looked me in the eye and said, “You witnessing, bro?” For people, let me translate because I don t speak broken English. He meant to say, “Are you witnessing, bro?” or “Or you are witnessing, bro?” But he said, “You witnessing, bro?” Scott What did that mean?  Jayson Well, you tend to think about these things because in our initial interaction, he said, “I m going to hit a white motherfucker with a brick.” He thought I had the same racial animosity and hate that he had and that he was justified in his actions and that snitches get stitches. You know the worst thing in the world is you tell the police, you testify. I think they call it being a rat. Interesting portion of it all – about the rat and the testifying – I spoke to some gentlemen I knew, other African American guys, one was a stockbroker, one may have sold insurance, “Oh, Jayson, you can t testify. This is going to come back. People are going to say you re a rat, you re a snitch.”  Then I spoke to a gentleman I knew who was– let s say he ran the Harlem Underground Economy in the 70s and early 80s. He was on the other side of the law. And I said, “Oh man, I didn t know.” He looked and he said, “Jayson, what the fuck are you talking about? You re not a street guy. You went to college. You want to be a part of this society. It is your duty to tell. It is your civil duty to not tell, but to testify, to tell on this guy. Do you want to live in a society where crazy people are going around hitting 60-year-old men in the face with bricks? Is that where you really want to live, Jayson?” Mind you, this is a guy who did 15 years behind bars, came out for six months, went back for another 15 years. It really impresses something upon me, the dichotomy of people who are really into ‘street life’ versus people who are civilians and the perception of things. Yeah. But he definitely encouraged me. He said, “Are you crazy? What fools told you about this rad stuff? You guys didn t have an agreement. You don t know this guy.”  But the attacker was surprised. Oh, he was very surprised. He was shocked. He was appalled. I can t speak to his state of mind, but we re not in court, so that s not important. But yeah, I could tell he was shocked and appalled and somewhat hurt. Like, how could another black man tell on me for hitting and– excuse my language, I don t use this. How could another black man tell on me for hitting a cracker in the face with a brick? That s what I kind of saw going through his head.  Scott He felt kind of betrayed. Jayson He felt not kind of betrayed, but totally betrayed. I don t think he thought in a hundred years that I would ve testified. Even when I went to court to testify, he still felt betrayed at that time.  Scott But you were chasing him. I mean, it s not like you were going to say, okay–  Jayson Not like I m going to take a selfie for my Instagram story. Scott Right. Nice hit. Go on. Jayson Yeah, exactly. Yeah, bro, you did it. One down. It wasn t like I was going to do that. No.  Scott It was interesting that there were other people there, they saw it happen and they didn t– I know there s a thing called the bystander effect where an individual is less likely to step in and offer help to a victim when there s a group of people because nobody wants to stand out.  Jayson Well, they feel that someone else would do it, one. Two, they feel like if someone else isn t doing it, it s not a big problem. But most people don t want to get involved because there is a truckload of bad things, not bad things, but issues that come along with getting involved. You have to testify, you have to go through the anxiety of this. You have to worry about retribution, you have to worry about the label. I told you about snitch rat, whatever, even though no one s ever said that. And you might get hit with a brick because you re jumping in to prevent it from happening. You might get hit. So there s a plethora of issues that come along, so it s challenging, but seeing someone potentially about to get murdered made something in me click.  So the attacker gave up. He gave up, he s down, he’s looking at me and “You witnessing, bro?” I paused for a second and said, “Fuck yeah, you almost kill that guy for none.” And then he said, “Well, I can t breathe. I can t breathe. I didn t have my medicine today. I can t breathe.” Mind you, this is maybe several months, maybe a couple years removed from the Eric Garner case, New York City. I don t know if your listeners are familiar with that, but it was a black gentleman who was selling Loosie cigarettes in Staten Island, New York, I believe. He got choked out by the cops and he kept saying he can t breathe, and he ended up dying as a result of that altercation.  Scott So this guy was trying to play that same card. Jayson I think he was making a mockery of it. I think he was making a mockery of it. Yes.  Scott The policeman actually did eventually get off the horse and arrest this guy. Jayson He got off the horse but he held it. So I spoke to him. I saw him when we were at the grand jury first person I approached. I go up and say, “Man, why didn’t you get off the horse?” He said, “Well, think of it this way, Jayson. He gets away. You saw him. We have video. We could get him another day. If I let this horse go and it runs in the middle of Times Square and begins to trample people, we have a much bigger issue because he said he called for backup and other people are coming.” So he said it s a much bigger issue. I understood it when he put it in that perspective. But prior to that, because I was out of breath man, I was going hard. I m like, “We can t let this guy get away because I started picturing, “What if this was a little kid? What if it s a little white kid walking home from school, latchkey kid, no different than I was growing up. 10, 12-year-old latchkey kid walking home, and he gets hit in the face with a brick? He s going to expire. His brain s going to rattle around. Well, what if it was a grandmother or a little babushka walking into her rent control apartment she had in Hell s Kitchen since the seventies, or nonna walking in a rent control apartment and this guy just hit her with a brick for nothing?” The hatred he has in his heart, that s nonsensical. Couldn t let that go.  So after he said he couldn t get his medicine, they handcuffed him, they hooked him and they put him on one of those rolling chairs and they took him off to Bellevue. That s the psych ward is that politically correct? I don t know. Scott I don t know.  Jayson I ll say it. They took him off to the psychiatric hospital, which is Bellevue in New York.  Scott He needed some mental evaluation following his arrest. How about that?  Jayson Yes. Then I ran back. The victim is sitting on the back of the ambulance because I actually guided the ambulance to where he was, because I thought he was in worse shape. I mean, he got struck with a brick, 3 or 4 , maybe even 5 times. He was leaking pretty bad. He was in the ambulance and he was holding something against his face to stop the bleeding. I was almost cheerful at the time and I said, “I m sorry.” He looked at me. He had no idea what I was talking about, and he said, “For what?” I said, “That I couldn t get there sooner.” Yeah. I was tearful because, gosh, just to see him in that kind of pain and hurt and shock.  Scott Yeah. He never saw it coming.  Jayson Never saw it come and never know what hit him. He tried to get up one time but he slipped on the garbage bags.  Scott What do you do after that? You got to have a lot of adrenaline going on. Jayson Adrenaline was pumping. They take him off. I give a statement to the policeman, to the officer at the time, name, address, what do you see, what you didn t see. My friend and I, we get the dry cleaning and we walk to my place. We talked about the incident the whole walk there and how crazy it was. Then, I take the dry cleaning in and I go get the boxing gloves and it s off to the boxing gym and I don t think I ve ever trained that hard in my life because of my adrenaline. I don t even think it dissipated after I trained. I ran on the treadmill probably two miles at a six minute mile which is something I ve never been able to replicate again, unfortunately. I was Kenyan for a day. Hit that happy bag, hard hit pads with one of the trainers. Probably did 500 situps. It was an intense training.  Afterwards, you start processing everything. Who is this guy? Is he connected to some sort of street gang or street crew? And where is this going to leave me? And what kind of retribution is going on or what kind of retribution could happen? Scott:  You had mentioned that you also felt sadness. How did this affect you mentally?  Jayson Initially, it was shocking. Went to the gym, had a lot of anxiety. Then, a sense of pride came over a little bit like, yeah, I saved this guy, because things like this, you can say you have all the principles in the world, you can say what you ll do in a situation, but you never know until you re faced with that situation. I heard people say, “I wouldn t do this, and if this happens, I would do–” That s not true. It s not true. It s really not because I m pretty sure everyone who was standing around said, “I ll never let this take place.” But they stood frozen like they stared at Medusa. They didn t move. So I had a sense of pride about that, but I really was upset and sad that this is what our society was degenerating to because there was an incident that happened maybe two or three weeks later. A friend of mine who was an ex pro fighter who s been in the ring with some real animals. I mean, anyone who s a boxing fan would definitely know him from some of his fights. He s walking to the gym one day, 6 in the morning, a homeless guy comes from behind. Well, we don t even know. I can t even say homeless guy. Someone comes from behind could have been a woman punches him in the jaw, breaks it in three places.  Then, maybe a week after that, I heard an incident of men beating up women, beating up some women near Grand Central Station. So the violence started running rampant. Growing up in Chicago, there was always some sort of violence. Oh, he s in this gang, he s in this gang. Bang, bang, bang, bang and, sad to say, I kind of understood it, don t agree with it, but I kind of understood it. There was a reason. But the senseless violence– he just hit this guy for no reason because he was white. No rhyme, no reason, no past history in my eyes. It was for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Something like that really made me nervous. It made me super paranoid and sad and depressed for a little bit because you can t defend against it. It could happen to anyone anytime for no reason whatsoever. How are you going to put your head on a swivel for 24 hours a day? How are you going to play in the park with your children? How are you going to walk through Central Park? It s saddening that this is what our society s coming to.  Scott And I ve been to New York City multiple times and I walk around not really even thinking that violence could happen at any time because, for the most part, you re safe. These are the exceptions – these situations – but you re right, you never know. What was the outcome of this case? Jayson Roughly, let s say 6-8 months later, I get a call from the district attorney from Special Victims Unit, which was crazy to me because I watch a lot of Law and Order: SVU, so I m like, “This is a big DA from Special Victims Unit.”  “Hi, Mr. Cross. How are you? Remember the brick attack?”  “How could I forget it?”  He said, “Okay, well we re going to charge the guy and we re going to charge him with assault. We want to ask you some questions about your testimony.”  And I said, “Assault? He said he s going to hit a white motherfucker with a brick.” She s like, “He said that to you?”  I m like, “Yeah. It’s in the police notes.”  She s like, “All right, let me call you back.” So they decided to take it to a grand jury. I testified at the grand jury. That s where I saw the cop and was like, “Why didn t you get off the damn horse?” I actually saw the victim again for the second time, didn t speak, just saw him. I went into the grand jury and testified, and they upped it to a hate crime with attempted murder. Initially, assault is just five years. They upped it to a hate crime with attempted murder because this guy wanted to go to trial for just assault because it s five years. They upped it to a hate crime with attempted murder, and that s punishable in New York state, 25 years to life. So he took the deal, they offered him 14– no, they offered him 12 and the judge dropped it down to 10. So he had a deal for 10 years. He got a deal for 10 years and I think that s the end of it. I think that s the end of it. Towards the end of 2019, I think that s the end of it.  2020, COVID hits. I start thinking about the case. I get off social media. I kind of hide my internet profile more because now I m really into my paranoid mind like, “Oh gosh, this guy s going to join this and this is going to happen. And oh gosh, my paranoia.” So I deleted my internet profile. I don t know if people are watching it or not, but strangely enough he wants to appeal the case.  Scott Wait a minute, he took a plea deal.  Jayson Took a plea deal, got 10 years.  Scott I didn t even realize you could appeal something like that because he agreed to it.  Jayson Yeah, he agreed to it, but he chose to appeal the case. He had some special interest group that was going to help him. I m not a legal eagle, so I can t speak to what it was. Scott Right. But the interesting thing too, though, is he acted as his own lawyer.  Jayson He acted as his own lawyer, yes. So he was a lawyer. They gave him a public defender as his assistant counsel. Scott Okay.  Jayson Yeah. As his assistant counsel. He was his own lawyer, took the 10 year plea deal. This guy– I don t think he s a dummy. I think he has somewhat of a pretty decent aptitude, and I think he did that purposely so he could appeal. “Well, I didn t know what I was doing. I need to appeal this case because maybe someone caught COVID and they re not here anymore.” Scott True. Right. Jayson Maybe that vain black guy that chased me up the street, maybe he changed his mind. Scott Well, the old saying, anyone who acts as his own attorney has a fool for a client.  Jayson Absolutely.  Scott I mean, I ve heard public defenders aren t always really at the top of their game.  Jayson Yeah. Well, the one he did was actually a pretty good lawyer, I must say. He appeals this case, so I have to go back to New York to testify. Scott Oh, so you didn t live in New York at that point?  Jayson No, absolutely not. I said, man, people getting hit with bricks, punched in the jaw, thrown on subway tracks, let’s say you’re scared as hell when you move to Chicago to be safe. So he appealed it. I had to go back to testify and that was my first time in New York since I left. It was very interesting and I testified and pretty much told the same story I m telling you. And when it came his time to cross examine me, he said, no questions. And then he and his lawyer had a sidebar. He s like, “Well, you got to–” and I kind of hear him. They were supposed to be speaking, but they like, “You got to testify, you got to ask him something.” Then, his lawyer came up just firing off questions really fast, trying to trip me up. “So, Mr. Cross, tell me this. You ve been boxing for 10 years. How come you didn t run up faster?”  Scott Were they trying to discredit you as a witness?  Jayson Well, just certain things. He said, “Mr. Cross, you ve been boxing for 10 years. How come you didn t move up faster?” And I m like, “Bro, I m trying to fight people with gloves, not with bricks.” So he just asked certain questions, “(Unintelligible) Did you do this?” And then they said, that s it. I got off the stand and that took a weight off my shoulders. And then I saw the victim afterwards and we had a nice talk.  Scott Is that the first time you d actually chatted with the victim other than in the ambulance? Jayson Yeah. Besides saying “Sorry I didn t get there quicker”, I said, “Hi, I m Jayson” and apologized again. When I saw him, I said, “Hey, I m sorry. Couldn t get there quicker.” After I testified, then we got to talk, actually. Scott You got to know him fairly well.  Jayson Fairly well, yes. We became friends, I would say, afterwards.  Scott How did that happen?  Jayson I went to a language academy in Chicago for elementary school, so Sprechen Sie Deutsch?  Scott I don t, no. Jayson I love German. I say it s my second language. When I first spoke to him, he said “(German)” and I heard the German accent. So when I got to speak to him afterwards, I spoke a little German with him. I m somewhat of a Germanophile, so we speak about German history and Charlemagne and things like this and the Prussian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire and we became friends from there. Every time on the anniversary of this incident, we always say, “Hey, glad to have met you” and send each other messages.  Scott So he s still in New York?  Jayson Yes, for now. I can t say much on his behalf but, for now, yeah. Oh, I forgot to mention that the guy ended up– he had a 10 year deal, and when he went to appeal the case, he got 14 years. So he actually ended up getting more time. Scott I m just confused about that. I mean, it s a good thing, right? He got more time.  Jayson More time. Mm-hmm.  Scott And is he still incarcerated now or when does he come up for release?  Jayson So he s due to be released in March of 2030 but, when you get arrested, they take your DNA and they run it through CODIS. I have friends in law enforcement and they told me to run it through CODIS. So they run his DNA through CODIS and he s a suspect in a murder in Minnesota. A white lady was stabbed to death in the 2010s I mean 2013, 2014, something around there and I m guessing his DNA popped and he s wanted for that murder. So he may go straight from New York jail to Minnesota. Scott So they re not going to try him for that until he gets released? Jayson That, I don t know. I don t have too many details about it. I just read the news article, but I checked the law on that. That s punishable by 25 to life. I wonder, since she was Caucasian, well, they can t prove mens rea, so they can t say it’s a hate crime, so he probably won t get a hate crime enhancement, but it s kind of odd that you’re wanted for a murder of a white lady in Minnesota and then try to kill a white man in New York City. Scott You didn t even realize he was probably or possibly a murderer already walking toward you with that brick.  Jayson I didn t know already, but when he hit the guy with the brick, I saw in his eyes, I could see he had blood lust. I ve seen that look before, let s say. I could tell he definitely has killed people before, for sure. There s a certain blood lust you could see in a person s eyes if you know what you re looking for.  Scott Yeah. You don t want to see that when you re in the ring with somebody, right?  Jayson Well, it s a different kind of blood lust. That s just like aggression and anger or whatever. You would have to have been around certain situations or grew up in a certain part to really see these people or this person likes to kill for sport. Scott If you could do this all over again, would you do anything differently?  Jayson I would ve become a 2A advocate a lot earlier. That way, I wouldn t have to run as fast.  Scott But that s difficult in New York, right? You can t just get a concealed weapons permit.  Jayson Well, it s impossible. In New York, the issue or issue– I forget the exact law, but you can get it, but you can carry it in Manhattan County, I believe, which is hard. I mean, you can get a firearm, but it s very difficult.  Scott Really, what you did that day, you would ve gotten there sooner if you could, but that s about it.  Jayson Absolutely. Well, with the 2A thing, I do believe that as well, but that was more for comedic effect, of course, being my profession. But if I could do it all over again, when he said he is going to hit a white motherfucker with a brick, I would ve knocked the brick out his hand. But then, I’d think about that too or something, right? So what? Knock the brick out of his hand and he runs away? I m not going to chase him because he didn t hurt anyone at the time. He just said something at the time that s stupid. So, okay, this guy doesn t get hit, but maybe he goes around the corner and he gets that kid or grandmother that I spoke about earlier. I mean, I hate that the victim had to go through that, but I think it played out the best way it could have played out.  Scott Could have been worse for everybody.  Jayson Yes. Well, it could have been someone dead. I remember, before that, it was a reverse issue. It was a white guy that came down from Maryland. He was looking for a black person to kill and he stabbed some guy in the chest on 38th and 10th, which is where I go grocery shopping. So mind you, I hear this story on the news. This was a few months around there, and he said, “Yeah, I saw this one guy, but he looked too nervous. He was always looking around. So I decided to leave him alone.” I say I walk down that street every day, not every day, but a lot to go to the grocery store, so maybe 2-3 times a week and I wonder if that was the guy, because I m always looking over my shoulder, looking for this, looking for that. I have the in-square rule. So when you re walking on the sidewalk– you know how the sidewalk is divided into squares? I very rarely let someone get within square distance of me, not that I don t let him get within that distance, but without being defensive minded.  Scott Right. You re at least aware somebody s there. Jayson Aware and ready to strike if they strike, definitely. But yeah, he stabbed him on the corner I passed a hundred times yearly and I just really wonder what was going on, and that was racially motivated as well. That actually led to my heartbreak and depression too as well – all these racially motivated things happening and a place that s supposed to be the most liberal place in the union, New York City, and you have hate crimes everywhere you go. I would think we ll be more civil by now. In our evolution by now, we would be a little more civil than to judge people on such superficial things, or not even judge but to kill people based on such superficial things.  Scott How did this experience change how you look at life, if it did? Jayson It changed a lot. One, you have to realize things do happen and they can happen. I was not a 2A guy at that time. Then, the toilet paper debacle that added fuel to the fire. I said, people are acting crazy over toilet paper. We re losing our minds. Became a 2A advocate because I realized there may be a time where you have to defend yourself and there s no one to call. So you have to be prepared. I stay prepared, still paranoid, still looking. I say I probably profile certain people, I won t say certain people, but people in general more than I normally did when or normally would. It made me kinder in a way because you never know when things like that could happen, a little more kinder because you never know when the end is near. You just never know. So it helped me cherish the moment, I must say, and kept boxing. Started taking a little Judo made me realize you have to be in a military mind state. This sounds bad now, listening to it, but we re in a perpetual state of war almost. It might not be an act of combat, but it s a perpetual state of war and you never know when something can happen or when you re under attack. I do it not to be offensive. Defensive.  Scott Yeah. And there s always potential. Even if you re not seeing actual violence, the potential is there. Jayson It always can happen, yes.  Scott Tell us about your comedy career. You have a YouTube channel. How long have you been doing that? Jayson Oh my gosh. I started comedy– after college, I went to New York. I started off doing print work. That s why I went to New York City and I stayed, and I did that for pretty much the entire 20 years. But in the middle of it, someone told me, “You want to get seen by more casting directors, you should do standup. They re always at the clubs.” So I started comedy and I ve been doing that for roughly almost a quarter of a century. Good Lord.  Scott Wow.  Jayson How time flies. My first 15 years in New York though. That was the safe New York. Party and be inebriated and just walk home because you didn t think anything would happen. That s another thing. Alcohol is out the window because you have to always be cognizant of your surroundings. I have to always be cognizant of my surroundings so I don t drink. Maybe on New Year s Eve or something, I might have champagne or whatever. My comedy style is very, I don t say political, per se– social commentary. I have a lot of social commentary and a lot of it is shaped by this incident that we spoke of, for sure.  Scott Do you tell this story as part of your act?  Jayson Yes, I ve been working on it probably for the last four or five years, but it s really hard to say– how do you start off a joke with “I m going to hit a white motherfucker with this brick”? So it takes a lot of artistry and craft, but it works. It definitely works.  Scott Is this your full-time job? I understand you were a teacher at some point also, right?  Jayson Yeah. I have two full-time jobs. One is comedy and I work as an educator. My technical term is called an interventionist. There are a lot of kids that are two or three grade levels behind reading and math, so I do interventions and help bring them up to speed.  Scott Wow, that s interesting that term because, in this situation, you were also an interventionist.  Jayson Oh my goodness. I never thought about that. Wow.  Scott You got to work that into your act now, right?  Jayson Oh yeah. I m totally stealing that. Are you kidding me? No, because I always thought of myself as a translator. Like I could take this and explain it to them. I do have an affinity for foreign languages. But now that you put it that way, yes, let s title this episode, “The interventionist.” Scott It might be something like that. I don t know.  Jayson Oh my gosh. Thank you for sharing.  Scott You better write that down. Jayson I m writing this down.  Scott Do you keep a notepad next to your bed so that when you get an idea for a joke, you don t forget it? Jayson Yes. Notepad or my cell phone.  Scott Oh yeah. Just record it on your phone. Yeah.  Jayson Yep. Look at this, see. You just never know where inspiration is going to come from. Scott Well, we ll have a link to your YouTube channel so people can go watch your comedy.  Jayson They could go to my website if they want to find out where I m performing, and they could join my mailing list. It s jaysoncross.com. And they can find me on social media at JasonCrossComedy. Scott That s Instagram and– Jayson Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, X. I m on X as well.  Scott Well, I ll put links to all that so people can go find that. And you re going to be appearing here in my area.  Jayson Yes. St. Pete Beach.  Scott Yeah.  Jayson Is it St. Pete Beach or St. Petes’ Beach?  Scott St. Pete. Singular.  Jayson Singular. St. Pete Beach. Yes. I ll be in St. Pete Beach at Coconuts Comedy Club, at the Trade Wind Resorts on May 30th. It s going to be an amazing show. You could come here about this. You could come here at the Prelude, the aftermath. Yes, you could hear this whole story, but in a more comical way.  Scott Right, yeah. That is going to be interesting. If I can make it, I m going to try to attend that show, but it ll be interesting to see how you have crafted a story about an attempted murder into a comedy act. Jayson With great difficulty, I must say. The rate of difficulty, I put it on at least a 9 , but what inspires me is Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor attempted suicide by setting his himself on fire, and it s the funniest joke he ever wrote called Pryor on Fire. I don t know if you re familiar with his comedy. Scott Yeah, I remember that.  Jayson He has an entire bit about setting himself on fire, so I said if he could make that funny, I could make this funny. Scott Jason, thanks for coming on, sharing your story.  Jayson Thank you for having me on. It s been a pleasure. It s actually a catharsis to relive and speak about the situation and then actually see the positive outcomes of it. Scott Even before we talked about Jayson’s comedy career, you might have been able to pick up on his sense of humor just in the way he tells a story. And I can tell you he’s a funny guy. Just go to YouTube and search Jayson Cross Comedy if you want to have some laughs. And of course I’ve got links to all his socials in the episode notes at WhatWasThatLike.com/255. You know, when I started this podcast about 8 years ago, I had to spend a lot of time finding guests to talk to. But it’s different now – most of the stories come from the audience; people who listen to the show. If you’ve been thinking “Hmm… I wonder if my story is crazy enough to be a What Was That Like episode” – well, let’s find out. Just go to the website, WhatWasThatLike.com, and click where it says “Your Story”. That’s where you can send me all the details. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.  And remember, you can sign up to support the podcast by going to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS, or on an iPhone just click on Try Free – you’ll get every episode ad-free, plus there’s more than 50 bonus episodes that are exclusive to supporters. And once again, we’re about to hear this week’s Listener Story. Every main episode ends this way – just an audio story that was sent in by a listener, usually around 5-10 minutes long. You can record yours on your phone and email it to [email protected]. This listener tells about a pretty amazing coincidence. Stay safe, and we’ll see you next time. (Listener Story) It was a few months ago when I traveled to San Diego for an art workshop because I m an artist. The first morning, the teacher asked us to share something about ourselves and introduce ourselves to the group. Everybody had their turn and I went last. I introduced myself as I always do, and I said, “Hi, I am Aida. I m originally from Venezuela, but I live in Seattle.” And then I went into my little spiel about my work. Then, after I was done, the lady to my left turned around and said, “Oh my gosh, what a coincidence. There s two of us Venezuelans in this workshop.” So we start laughing because yes, it is kind of crazy that happened. We started chatting and kind of explained our situations and our immigration stories and how we got here, when we got here, if we had any relatives left back there at home.  We spent a while chatting and then I started telling her about my art and I use collage materials as part of my mixed media art. I have been recently using Venezuelan bolivar, which was the currency back in the day that is now worth basically less than the money it s printed on. I have my uncle back in Caracas that has been collecting them for me for years, so he has a stack that he s trying to send, but I tell her like, I don t have anybody that comes back and forth because this is not something you can send in the mail. She said, “Oh, well I have a cousin that goes from Caracas to Miami a lot. Maybe I could ask him to get in touch with your relative and he could do the favor for you.” So I said, “Okay, great.”  Well, we exchanged our information and I gave her my name and my last name. My married name is very German sounding, so I said, “My maiden name is Rojas.” She looked at me and she said, “Oh, Rojas?! My best friend from Venezuela growing up was Rojas.” And I thought in my head that there s millions of Rojas in Venezuela. It s like Smith or Johnson or Thompson. So I just tell her, “Yeah, well, what s her name?” She said Marialba Rojas and I just almost fell off my chair. I m like, “What? That is my dad s sister!” And she s like, “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Let s make sure we have the same person.”  Marialba is not a common name, but I start asking her like, does she have a twin? Yes. Does she have two brothers? Yes. Does she live in Valencia? Yes. And then we re like, it has to be the same person. We just start screaming and laughing and talking nonstop and exchanging information and stuff. Then, she asked me, are your parents Carlos and Andy? And I m like, yes. She s like, “Oh my gosh, I love your parents. By the way, I met you when you were a baby and I met you again at age eight one time we visited New York.” So this is just all so crazy. We start comparing stories and she starts telling me all about my aunts and uncles and my grandparents, growing up there with my parents– they were all one big group of friends because they were all the same age, and Vivian was not only an acquaintance, she was kind of part of my family. She knew my grandparents really well. They would spend weekends together. She would come over on vacation with my family and she was like another sister really.  So, we call my parents on FaceTime and they also cannot believe it. “Oh my gosh, we ve been thinking about you for so many years. We didn t know where you were.” And all this stuff. And then, she says, “Yes, I ve been looking for your family and for Marialba for 20 to 30 years, and I didn t know anything about her and I kind of gave up trying because I just kept hitting dead ends.” She got in touch with my parents. And then she starts asking me about everybody and who married whom and how s this person doing to catch up on 30 years of my family history.  Then, that night, I got a message from my aunt also crying, saying, “Oh my gosh, Vivian, my dear friend, I had lost hope that I was ever going to find you after 30 years looking for you.” And they finally got in touch. Sadly, they might not ever meet in person because getting to and from Venezuela is really hard. So the days went on and we kept finding coincidences like she was at my parents wedding as a witness, and she was the maid of honor at my aunt s wedding and her little brother and my mom s little sister went out for a little bit while they were in boarding school in Florida, and the coincidences just kept going on and on.  So we got to know each other really well. We were in touch. We are texting each other, sending pictures back and forth. I recently visited San Diego and took my family to meet her, and we are now connected. So I just realized in that moment how important it is to open up and to get to know people even as they are strangers, because you just never know what you might find, what connections you might make, and I m so happy and grateful that I was open that day and that I did share my story and I found basically almost like a new relative.

Every other Tuesday, we grab a past question from the Facebook group, then Meredith and Scott answer it and read some of the answers given by other listeners. The question for this episode: What makes you weird? Links for this episode: Meredith’s episode on circumcision: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-310-american-circumcision-preference-or-cultural/id1483941440?i=1000727817532 A scene from Friends without the laughtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgKgXehYnnw How to diagram a sentence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deiEY5Yq1qI Meredith’s coloring book of farting animals: https://a.co/d/06gcYpCP RideSafer travel vest for kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmlD0C61_bY Meredith’s podcast is The Curious Introvert: https://MeredithForReal.com To check out the new Tuesday Question and get in the discussion, join us at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Sponsor deals: Visit www.functionhealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up. Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns! Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month MintMobile.com/WHAT

Today’s episode is a little different. If you’re a regular listener to the show, you know that usually we hear a story from a regular person about something they’ve experienced that was extremely unusual. We have over 250 episodes like that – plane crashes, mass shootings, animal attacks, and lots more. And it’s not all trauma stories – we have some happy ones too. But sometimes we change it up, and I have a guest on who has a really unusual job. I’ve talked to Spence, who’s a lighthouse keeper, and Dan, who prepares people for their first time going to prison, and Jen – who works as a professional bridesmaid. You can scroll through all the back episodes and find those and a few more. So today I’m speaking with Elaina. As a young person, she was hired to work at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World – as Mickey Mouse. You know, when you’re at Disney World, and you’re walking around trying to decide if you go ride the Space Mountain roller coaster, or take a break in the air conditioning and watch the Country Bear Musical Jamboree, and all of a sudden you see standing right in front of you is – Mickey Mouse. Waving, signing autographs, and just making people happy. Yeah, that’s what Elaina did. She also played Minnie Mouse, and a few other characters sometimes. We talked about how she ended up getting that job, what it’s like to wear the costume, what would get you fired, and the celebrities she crossed paths with. And of course, what everyone wants to know about – the infamous tunnels UNDER Disney World. You’re gonna get all the behind-the-scenes stuff today. And why is this episode titled “Elaina was FRIENDS with Mickey”? She’ll explain that too. First day on set as Robin Hood Elaina as Minnie at Chef Mickey s at the Contemporary Elaina as Mickey in a wedding Elaina as Whiskers at local elementary school Elaina with her Whiskers head If you’d like to contact Elaina, she’s in the Facebook group https://WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/254 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT Episode transcript (download transcript PDF): Today’s episode is a little different. If you’re a regular listener to the show, you know that usually we hear a story from a regular person about something they’ve experienced that was extremely unusual.  We have over 250 episodes like that – plane crashes, mass shootings, animal attacks, and lots more. And it’s not all trauma stories – we have some happy ones too. But sometimes we change it up, and I have a guest on who has a really unusual job. I’ve talked to Spence, who’s a lighthouse keeper, and Dan, who prepares people for their first time going to prison, and Jen – who works as a professional bridesmaid. You can scroll through all the back episodes and find those and a few more. So today I’m speaking with Elaina. As a young person, she was hired to work at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World – as Mickey Mouse. You know, when you’re at Disney World, and you’re walking around trying to decide if you go ride the Space Mountain roller  coaster, or take a break in the air conditioning and watch the Country Bear Musical Jamboree, and all of a sudden you see standing right in front of you is – Mickey Mouse. Waving, signing autographs, and just making people happy. Yeah, that’s what Elaina did. She also played Minnie Mouse, and a few other characters sometimes. We talked about how she ended up getting that job, what it’s like to wear the costume, what would get you fired, and the celebrities she crossed paths with. And of course, what everyone wants to know about – the infamous tunnels UNDER Disney World. You’re going to get all the behind-the-scenes stuff today. And why is this episode titled “Elaina was FRIENDS with Mickey”? She’ll explain that too. Scott How hot is it inside that costume and how did you deal with that? That s the most common question, it seems like, everyone wants to know.  Elaina It is always the most asked question. It is hot, but it is like a different hot. If I could explain, it s like, now, the Florida heat is on you. It s different if you were, let s say, under a rug. So it s more like a sweltering heat where it s just kind of sitting around you. It s not direct heat. It feels different, but the amount of time that you re in costume helps alleviate what you re feeling in the costume, so it is definitely hot in there in the summer.  Scott Yeah, I can imagine. Let s talk about how you got started in this. This started when you were 18 and you were in Orlando. What were you doing there?  Elaina I had just started college at University Central Florida in Orlando. I was 18. It was 1995. I was living on campus and walking around campus and there was a gym, and the gym had a corkboard on the outside and there were all these different flyers posted, and one of them was, “Can you dance or are you small?” which, of course, caught my attention because I m 4’ 11”. So I thought, “Huh, that s interesting.” Of course, it said Walt Disney World and, as a kid, you re just like, “That would be so cool.” So that s really all it said. It might have said something about character auditions, but I didn t know very much. I mean, I just thought that would be fun. Let me try it.  Scott Now I m curious about the dancing part. Do Disney characters actually dance as part of the job?  Elaina The reason they ask if you can dance is mainly because they ask if you can move, so it s more about movement and, eventually, characters can move into, let s say, higher positions where they end up in a show. There s two segments of characters. There s just the characters that you see sign autographs, and then there s other ones that are in, like, another department and they re called entertainment. So the same characters on stage are not usually the same characters that you see signing autographs. I think the goal obviously is to bring in people that can move, that can dance, that eventually could move into those positions. Scott I assume the notice just gave an address and a time and date for auditions. What happened when you got there? How many people were there?  Elaina It was a full gymnasium, so the flyer obviously said, “Come on a Saturday” or something like that. You got there and let s say there were probably over a hundred people, all different shapes and sizes. Obviously, they were targeting the college kids. We got there and they gave us a number, so it was really like a regular audition. Now, I hadn t really been on a regular audition, so I didn t know much about it, but they gave me a number and then they started with teaching us a very simple dance combination. Scott And how did you feel about your performance in that first round?  Elaina Well, the first one was very simple and, to this day I mean, you re talking 30 years ago I still can remember the first dance combination. They put us in two lines and at the end of the line were two people that worked for Disney, and you had to skip and do a jazz box, and then you had to snap very simple but you had to do that all the way across the floor as you came up to these two people. And as you came up to them, they would point left or right based on whether you made it or not past that first round. That one was super simple. I was like, “I got this. No big deal.” So that was the first one. The second one– Scott You moved on to round two now.  Elaina Round two was very interesting. They brought us out in groups. If you ve ever watched I don t know like the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders or one of those shows where they bring everybody out in little groups, they teach you all a dance combination and then they bring out each group separately. I don t remember how many people were in that group definitely less than 10. They taught us this dance combination that was fairly difficult and the biggest thing that I remember about it is that the end of it had this, like, big fan kick and I just remember goofing and being like– I really did terrible on that. I just know for a fact I did not nail that dance, but I remember fan kicking and then doing something very silly, just some silly dance move and just was smiling and just being goofy.  Scott When you sent that to me, you said that it was the fan kick that you purposely flubbed. Elaina Because I didn t know how to do it.  Scott Okay. You were trying but you just didn t know.  Elaina I didn t know. I mean, I could attempt to fan kick, but I was no dancer– I mean, I loved to dance. That was one of the reasons that I wanted to do it because I had always loved to dance. I was no way a trained dancer. So fan kick was not my thing, but I was like, “I ll just go for it.” Scott It s not like Mickey or Minnie are out there doing fan kicks anyway, right? I mean, it s not a skill that you really need.  Elaina No. That s why I think it was like, “What are we doing here?” So it was a little much for– although I m not sure I knew that at the time. I don t think I knew enough about what the characters actually did in the park to know whether or not that was called for or not. So yeah.  Scott So was that the whole audition or what happened after that?  Elaina Pretty much for characters that are in costume, which I ll refer to as fur characters, which are characters in costume. Then there are face characters. Face characters are your princesses. They re all the people that usually talk. Scott Like Snow White.  Elaina So that s a face character. Yes, yeah. So those are face characters. So if you re in fur, that was the extent of it.  Scott You were cast as what you called “mouse height” for Magic Kingdom. How did you get that news?  Elaina They took us separately to, let s say, offer us the position I remember being one-on-one with someone, it must have been probably somebody in just casting and they said they would offer me the position at– and again, I didn t know the difference between– I thought you just got hired. I didn t know there was specifics to “You got hired for certain parks”, but if you re a Magic Kingdom character, you re a Magic Kingdom character. You re not an Epcot character. So you don t pass between the four parks. So I was Magic Kingdom. Then they said, “Just based on height alone, it’s which height range you fall into.” It s not like they were going to say to me, “You re Donald Duck.” It wouldn t work, obviously. I m not in that height category. So just by nature, I was “mouse height”.  Scott You were mouse height. And that s like everybody s dream, right?  Elaina I think so. I mean, again, I auditioned and had no clue really what I was auditioning for. I don t even think I knew that Mickey and Minnie were that height. I probably thought they were smaller, to be honest. And so when you get that news, I was like, “Oh really? I m actually mouse height? That s super cool.” And I feel like mouse height went from about 4’9” to maybe 5 1 , maybe 5 2 . But 5’2” is a pretty tall mouse. We ll probably talk about how shifts are done but, if you re back to back, your other mouse that s out there with you, if there’s too much of a height discrepancy, it s pretty noticeable to people when one mouse comes out and then the next mouse comes out and they re a little bit taller, so they try to keep you close in height. Scott And I never thought about the height. I ve been to Disney World. I ve seen Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse walking around. Never thought about height. But then, now that I think about that, it would be kind of weird to see a 6’ Mickey Mouse,  Elaina I mean, the costumes are made for just certain sizes. Same with face characters. Obviously, when you go to a face audition, they re definitely looking for height on those. But yeah, there s definitely duck height, mouse height, chipmunk height, Pluto height and goofy height. So that s your five heights. Certain costumes fit in those categories of height ranges. Scott Now, at the time, you were a college student, and so you would be expected to get to Magic Kingdom to work a shift. Did you have a car at the time?  Elaina I did not. It was my first year of school. Going to UCF at the time, you could not be a freshman and have a car on campus I think, maybe you had to pay or something like that, but I know that my first year. My parents were like, “Nope, you don t need a car, you re going to be fine.” So I just got there. It was August. I believe that the auditions were probably for a holiday season. They really ramp up their hiring around the holidays, so maybe it was October, November. So I was already calling back to my parents and asking, “Is there any way that I could get a car? I really need a car because I just got a job at Disney World and Disney is an hour away from the University of Central Florida.” When all is said and done, from driving from college campus to the backstage area not just thinking of Disney World right off I-4, the main highway you actually have to go backstage and it s quite a ways back there. So it s about an hour drive.  Scott I guess your parents relented.  Elaina Yeah, they did. They were like, fine. I mean, I m sure they were probably excited and thought it was super cool.  Scott Yeah, it s a big opportunity.  Elaina Yeah.  Scott Talk about the training. First of all, it started with what you call Disney Traditions. What is that?  Elaina So Disney Traditions, they still do it to this day. Anyone that becomes a cast member for Disney ends up going through their training and there s a whole training building and it s very organized. Traditions essentially is a week-long training to give you the history of Disney and then talk to you about the specifics of what you can and can t do. At the time, it was fairly strict. I mean, you couldn t have dark nail polish. Your nails couldn t be a certain length. Your hair had to be a certain way. There was, I don t think, facial hair. It was very strict back 30 years ago with how you looked. They would talk about backstage areas and being a cast member and what that meant. So just really history of Disney and try to make you drink a little bit of the Kool-Aid, to be honest.  Scott Right. That s company culture.  Elaina Sure. Company culture.  Scott They have a brand to protect and they have to be very specific about that. Then, you went into character training. How long did that last? Elaina Character training, for most, was another three days, unless you were mouse height. Mouse height had an extra two days at the end of the week. So the training is a full week, and the first three days are regular character training, and then the last two days of it are for mouse height.  Scott You said they re very focused on how to move and act. What does that mean?  Elaina Well, it s funny. Some people don t even register that the characters don t talk, but they don t. And so a lot of movement training is associated with pantomime and learning how to emote and do things without speaking. So the first part of the training is a lot of standing in a dance studio with full mirrors and watching yourself in the mirror as they give you different scenarios, watching yourself try to do these different things while not speaking. One of the exercises that they had us do is, I remember us standing in a circle and they handed us the top of a trash can, a circle trash can lid, and they passed it around one by one. Each person had to come up with something to do with this lid. Be creative. Some people put it on the top of their head like a hat. One person used it like the steering wheel, somebody else rolled it on the ground like a wheel. So that was the goal of a couple different sessions of trying to come up with creative ways to say something without saying something. Scott One of the listeners had a question about the underground Disney tunnels. You first saw those during training, right? What are those?  Elaina I might have even seen them during tradition. Magic Kingdom is built on the second floor. The way that Magic Kingdom was built is that the first whole floor is underground tunnels. None of the other parks are built this way, but Magic Kingdom is, and the tunnels are essentially just a way for cast members to move unseen throughout the park. Lots of entry and exit points throughout the tunnels to get into the park so that they re not walking amongst guests. The tunnels serve not only that purpose, but there s administrative offices down there, and there are also backstage areas for, say, face characters. They have a makeup room and then the characters have the zoo. The zoo is where you get your costumes. There s locker rooms down there because, in most cases, Disney employees or cast members don t come to work in costume. They get changed in the locker rooms. I m not sure if it s like that anymore, but that was the way it was then, is that you had to get changed when you got to work. The reason was because there was a pickup place for regular costumes as well, so if you worked retail, that costume still had to be picked up at a costume window. So you never really took those home, not at that time and the goal of that was to obviously make sure everybody looked fresh and clean and they weren t relying on you to iron your costume. It was part of looking nice. Scott Yeah. It s keeping on brand the whole way through. It s really the whole thing. Pretty impressive actually. Okay. Each new trainee got a costume head. What was your first experience with putting on the head?  Elaina To be honest, it was terrible. I remember the first head and costume I wore out on set, actually, in front of people. I remember that costume. That was Robin Hood. That one was terrible and I can go into why that was terrible.  Scott Yeah. What made it terrible?  Elaina Because Robin Hood s a fox and his head was super stiff and his visibility was atrocious. It was like two little beady eyes. I know a lot of people talk about visibility and all costumes are very different when it comes to visibility. Some of them out of the mouth, some of them out of the nose. Some of them, you can see out of the mouth and the eyes. Some of the eyes sit too high on the head where you are not even near the eyes. So it appears as if the eyes would be where you re looking out of and you re probably looking out of the mouth. So because his mouth was hardly open, his visibility was his eyes and they were close together and they were tiny. Your peripheral vision was, like, non-existent. That was my first experience out on set in costume. It was probably one of those scariest things I ve ever done.  Scott But you were cast as a mouse. Did you go out as Robin Hood the first time just so they could get you comfortable just being out there? Elaina Yeah, that s right, because they obviously did not want me out as a mouse. Not that you would screw anything up, but they were trying to just plop us into different areas with– and way back then, characters were just on the street. I recently went to Disneyland and they still do that at Disneyland but, at Disney World, they re pretty isolated into certain character meeting areas. But at that time when you were in training, they were just like, “Let s grab you a costume that s in your height range and we don t want to draw too much attention to you by making you Mickey or Minnie. So let s put you in Frontier Land and let s grab some obscure character that not anyone is like rushing to get to. We ll just throw you out in Frontier Lane and see how it goes.” Scott Yeah. You re getting stage time, pretty much.  Elaina Exactly.  Scott You have talked about how hot it is inside there. Are the heads cleaned after the previous person used it and sweated in it? Elaina If you think about it, essentially, you re sweating inside the head, but you re only touching the headgear. So the sweatiness of your head– you first of all are wearing a cloth head cap, and so it s like a cloth beanie that s tied around the back, so it kind of covers your hair. So that s kind of catching your sweats. You re always wearing a skull cap. On top of that, you re in the headgear. It s plastic and they pop into the head. So in most cases, you have your own headgear that you pop into each head. So it s your own head that has been touching this headgear. Same with the chin strap. So if you do wear a chin strap which I always loved wearing, which is like a football helmet chin strap that s attached to that headgear– or in my case, I just loved two safety pins and a nice thick piece of elastic, and that allowed me to really feel secure in my head so that I could move around easy. So those two pieces were yours. It was my chin strap, it was my headgear.  At the same time, when you went for your shift and you picked your head– when you went into the area, there were a bunch of posts on the wall with all the heads, and so you knew that your shift was Mickey. You would go into the zoo and you would pick whichever Mickey head, and there s no rhyme or reason. You d sometimes look inside them and be like, “Okay, does this one work well with my headgear that I need to snap in?” And so you d pick the Mickey head, and at that time there was cleaner there. It was called Stir Back Blue. I don t know if that s a real cleaner, but that is what we used. You would spray out the head and there were towels there and you would kind of wipe it down really quickly and then you would spray the anti-fog on the eyes if you looked out the eyes, which you do in Mickey and Minnie. Spray out the eyes, wipe that down. The same thing is when you turn it back in, you were responsible for spraying the Stir Back Blue back into the head and then placing it back on the headstand.  Scott The rookie gets Robin Hood the first time. How soon were you actually in a Mickey or mini costume out there? Elaina Probably the next day. And to be honest, it was very unlikely for me to be in anything else but Mickey and Minnie because Mickey and Minnie needed to be kind of everywhere. So there are other characters that I did a lot of. For instance, from Pocahontas, I was Meeko. He s the raccoon. Meeko always do dinner at Liberty Tavern, which is a restaurant in Magic Kingdom. So if I was scheduled that dinner, I would do Meeko. Crystal Palace is a restaurant in Magic Kingdom, and that was always Winnie the Pooh.  Scott You were also scheduled for different kinds of things.  Elaina Yeah.  Scott From what you told me, hotel, breakfast, parades, stuff like that. Elaina Yeah. Usually, what would happen is they would schedule you a breakfast. That would be like your first shift in, which had a terrible call time of 5.30 in the morning, which meant that a college student was driving an hour from college from 4.30 in the morning. I remember those days. Well, sometimes, never going to sleep.  Scott Hey, that s show business, right?  Elaina Right. I remember being so tired on breakfast shifts. Call time, 5.30 in the morning, get to the zoo, pick up your costume. So that was breakfast. And then usually there would be, like, a break in the middle of the day, and then maybe you were scheduled for the daytime parade. So even if breakfast ended at noon, you then were sitting around until about 2 because the parade is 3 o clock. So you were sitting around until about 2, and then they brought you back to get you suited up and it might be a different costume. So you might be doing Mickey or Minnie at the Chef Mickey s breakfast at the Contemporary and then, in the afternoon, you might be Jiminy Cricket in the daytime parade. And then you might be sitting around waiting for the Spectrum Magic Parade, which was the LightUp parade at the end of the day. So it was a mixture, but a lot of waiting around, to be honest.  Scott I understand you were only in character for certain periods of time and then you would swap out. So were there always two Mickey s? Elaina Yes. There were always two of every character. So if I go back to Chef Mickey s at the Contemporary, the shift would include– I think you might have Chip Dale, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy. That one has a lot of characters at Chef Mickey s breakfast or dinner. They have all day, pretty much, character dining. So each character has a back to back that’s what they called them. So there were always 2 Mickeys, 2 Minnies, and then you were out on set between 30 to 45 minutes. Usually, if it was an indoor space that’s air conditioned, you probably were in 45-minute sets. If you were outside, usually 30 minutes. Scott And then there was also what you called an escort. Did you always have one of them with you and what did they do?  Elaina In most cases, going back to Chef Mickey s, there s probably an escort or two, and they were just always out there in costume, not character costume, but they were in Disney attire with a regular name tag and they were just monitoring and watching the characters, making sure that nothing was wrong with the character. So they kind of worked the room and made sure that you were okay and they were also there to tell you when it was time, that you had five minutes left. So they were always giving you a cue and then you just did it by your own feeling of okay, they said I had five minutes left. Then, when you thought five minutes was up, you would then start walking backstage. So you d finish up at the table that you were at and then you d just walk back. Scott When you were there with the escort, did that person speak?  Elaina Yeah, they would speak to guests and they would say, “Mickey s getting ready to go take Pluto for a walk. So he s almost done.” or something like that. Or if I was trying to walk from the last table to the backstage area, if I was getting caught up with a kid running up to me and hugging me, and I just couldn t get them off of me, the escort was there to be your voice to say, “Oh, Mickey s got to go. He s going to walk Pluto real quick. He ll be right back,” or something like that. But otherwise, you started to learn even as a character to, like, point at your wrist as in “I got to go”, or you put your finger up real quick to say, like, “Just one minute, just one second” and then you leave. I mean, it s literally so noticeable when one Mickey goes and the other one is standing there waiting. They re right there.  Scott Oh, but you don t want to have both of them seen at the same time?  Elaina Oh, no. Oh, no. Never.  Scott Right. Elaina Never.  Scott What celebrities did you meet?  Elaina I had been told that I met quite a few celebrities but, when you re in costume and you are running through a line, you really don t even notice that you re seeing people. At one point, I had met Meg Ryan. She was super big at the time that was during her heyday. She had come with, I believe, her son, who s an actor now, by the way. I m in a picture as Winnie the Pooh with them, but I didn t even know it. I went backstage and someone s like, “Oh my God, did you see that? You posed with Meg Ryan!” I was like, “No. Darn it!”  Scott You would ve enjoyed it more if you knew, right?  Elaina I would have. I probably would ve played it up more or something, but I just didn t know. The other one– let s see, I met John Denver. That one was a special event and it was some conference at one of the hotels and he was, I think, a guest speaker at the time. I was Minnie Mouse and I walked him in. So we went arm in arm. Now I didn t meet him as Elaina, so I never really got to meet him, per se. That was one. Another special event was Bryant Gumbel. I met him or walked with him into an event.  The biggest one was– at the Parade Route at Magic Kingdom, there is a bridge that takes you from the middle of Magic Kingdom kind of in front of the castle and over towards the haunted mansion. There s a bridge right there and it s called VIP Bridge. There s some seats that sit on the bridge, and that is where they usually put celebrities when they are in the park and they want to watch the parade. It s closed off. No people can walk past there or anything. So I was in the SpectroMagic Parade, which is the LightUp Parade, and I, the character that I was that night, was a Spectro Man. There was a large ball that was driven by a driver, and I sat on top of the LightUp Ball and I was like this robotic-looking weird character. I was all lit up.  I had a whole dance routine sitting on the top of this ball and my ball driver came across the bridge and was spinning me around and there was always a fun thing with the driver. He would jerk you forward as if you were going to hit somebody. So he spun me around on the bridge and dropped me kind of forward. And as I looked right in front of me on the bridge, it was Tom Hanks and Tim Allen because it was Toy Story time and I was like, “That is so cool.” So yeah, that was my big one where I was like, “Oh, that was so cool.” Scott That s amazing.  Elaina Yeah.  Scott I ve heard some people want to have Mickey or Minnie in their wedding. Elaina Yeah. At the time, it used to be like $500 a character, something like that for them to show up for 15 minutes or something crazy. Disney s big into weddings. They have enough hotels to put together weddings and they actually have the little wedding pavilion. They didn t have that at the time, but they did a lot of weddings at the hotels. Similar to the event where I went with John Denver, you would sign up for special events. There was a board that you would sign up and try to pick up shifts and that s where you would try to sign up for specials, and the weddings were on that board.  I did two weddings one I was Minnie Mouse and one I was Mickey and the costumes are different. So that was what was so fun about doing specials is that you weren t in Minnie Mouse’s red dress with the polka dots. You were in an evening gown that was sparkly. It was so cool to get dressed up as Minnie mouse and Mickey Mouse had on a cape and a top hat. So you got to wear all the special costumes, so that was so fun. Then, I m probably in people s wedding photos at this point. I remember doing the chicken dance and the guests all being like, “Look at Mickey! He knows the chicken dance!” Scott People just love coming into contact. You must have felt like a celebrity yourself.  Elaina It really does feel like that. I mean, who doesn t know Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse and these characters? From the time people are little kids, there s just this nostalgia that goes with it that little kids are excited to see them. Adults are even excited and the adults are crying watching their children interact with these characters, and there s just such a magic to it that, to this day, when I see my own children interact with them, I am like tearing up and my kids are just like, “What are you doing, mom?” There s just something about it that is, like, so heartwarming and touching and they really do treat you like you are a celebrity and little old you inside of there smiling away trying to make their experience magical that they hope it would be. Right? Scott Right, yeah.  Elaina So it took a lot to try to bring that to life for them. If you had a love for Disney yourself, you just naturally would do it.  Scott Can you talk about when you would meet some of the kids who were there because of the Make-A-Wish Foundation? Elaina Yeah, Make-A-Wish obviously has a big connection to Disney and, in most cases, if a child is coming for Make-A-Wish, they do get a special meet and greet. In some cases, they can ask for the character that they d like to see sometimes. It s also considered a special, so you would sign up for those. In the front of Magic Kingdom, it used to be up in the town square kind of area. So, up towards the train, there s like a certain little area up there that they would bring in the kids and the family. It was very quiet and very private. Those were the moments that would really just bring tears to your eyes when you were in costume and you really wanted to make it super special for them. You wanted it to be everything that they hoped it would be. It s their dream, right? It was their dream to come there. It was their dream to meet Mickey and to live up to that. You wanted to make it special for them.  Scott What more gratifying job could you have than making a child s dream come true? Elaina Honestly, what other job actually makes someone feel that way? Even as adults, sometimes, we d like, “Oh, I d love to meet the celebrity that I m such a big fan of.” I m a super big fan of Janet Jackson and I just recently met her at a meet-and-greet, and I was like a blubbering idiot as an adult, you know what I mean? Scott Yep. Starstruck is a real thing.  Elaina Yeah. So that s how it is with these characters and with the kids just staring at you like, “I don t even know what to say to you.” Scott We had a bunch of questions from listeners and so I m just going to go down here and ask some of these. Any myths about Disney Parks that you can bust as not true? Elaina Myths? Hmm. Probably has to do with a lot of the deaths. People are always like, “Are there a lot of stories of people dying?” And I m like, “I don t really know about all that.” That s one thing. The other myth– this is probably not breaking the myth, but there are talks about how the tunnels smell and the answer to that is they do smell. The tunnels smell and the tunnels have areas that drip and, every now and then, you hear the trash being sucked through tunnels. There are tunnels in the ceilings, and that s how they move the trash. So they are kind of stinky.  Scott So that s a rumor that is true then? Elaina That is a rumor that is true. There s that other myth of there s always that funny picture of a Mickey Mouse, like, half in costume smoking a cigarette in like the back. You would have to be completely out of costume to be doing anything like that. Scott Right. That brings another question. What would get someone fired instantly from Disney?  Elaina Well, first of all, probably taking your head off in front of anybody. So, coming right off set and not being past the line of visibility and somebody seeing you take your head off. That could definitely get you in big trouble. At the time, we did not have digital cameras and we did not have phones, and so we took a lot of pictures with real old school cameras where you d have to send your film away, and there was always nervous feelings about doing that if you sent away your film and there were inappropriate Disney pictures on it. So you always thought, “Oh gosh, I m probably going to get fired for that.” And I bet talking. To be honest, I mean, you really should not be talking on set.  Scott Was there ever a time when you– because that kind of thing accidentally breaks the belief of people when they see you in costume. Was there ever a time when you accidentally broke that belief?  Elaina Not talking, but definitely a few things. There were two situations that I can think of. One was being out on set and I remember a child being behind me and trying to unzip my Minnie dress. I remember that one because my escort wasn t close by enough for me to signal them that this kid was behind me. I also couldn t really feel it well, but that obviously is not– kids are very curious, so they re usually, like, at your feet sometimes trying to pick through your shoes to see are there people s feet in here. So that was one.  The other one is I was at a special event. I packed my costume and I forgot a– it s a full-head skull cap. It s black, and you wear that. Usually, if the head sits too high, you can see your neck. So, it s always just safe to have that piece of costume in case the head sits high. I did not have it. I forgot it. My head sat high and my skull cap didn t keep my hair contained and my hair started to drop out of the skull cap and down my neck and the kids at the event were like, “I see hair.” And I was devastated. I felt terrible. I mean, you were talking 30 years ago and I still remember feeling terrible that I had possibly ruined the magic.  Scott Another listener asked this. Did playing a silent character change the way you communicate with people in real life? Elaina I think it does. I think it really does because I think you just learn so many ways of communicating non-verbally. I m Italian. I use my hands a lot. I think maybe I have a natural gift to do it anyway, but I do think that you really are able to communicate better. The more you do it, the more you come up with ideas on how to say things. One time, I was sitting backstage and they were like, “We don t want you just sitting around. Let s go throw Minnie Mouse into fantasy land again.” This was 30 years ago. They would never do that now but, at that time, they were like, “Elaina, go put on Minnie Mouse. We ll get you an escort and go stand out by Dumbo.” So I came out the back gate and it was like paparazzi. I had gotten swamped. There was no actual line. The kids started to swarm me and I was backed up against this fence. To go back to that nonverbal, I remember I put my hands on my hips and I put my finger up and I was like, “Wait a minute.” And then I took both my hands and I said, “Back up.” And then I put my hands on my hips, crossed my hand, and I said, “I will not sign.” And I made the pantomime of, like, “One second, I won t do it and I m not going to sign.” And then I put my hands on my hips. That kind of connection of all those things that I had to say non-verbally. And then the escort said, “Ooh, Minnie s not happy. Everybody back up.” So then they became kind of your voice. But yeah, you definitely learn ways to communicate a string of things.  Scott Okay. Do you have to like kids or people to do this job, or does the costume create enough of a barrier that it s completely different from normal interactions? That s from another listener.  Elaina I think you probably could get away with not liking kids, but there s a part that s like you re making it happy for them. So I remember every time I took a photograph, I was smiling inside there. I thought my happiness and my excitement emoted out of my body. I liked kids. I liked entertaining more. So it wasn t always about the kids. It was about kids. It was about adults. It was about being goofy and being slightly shy and being covered by this costume that had its own life to it, right? People love these characters and you just have to be fun inside of it. So for me, I don t think you have to really like kids, but I do think that the costume itself takes on a life of its own that allows you to just– I don t know how you would be in there and not smile, to be honest. That s so wild to me that how are you not smiling in there when somebody s like taking a picture. So weird.  Scott Have you had any children vomit on you or have you had a diaper explode on you?  Elaina No, I mean, most parents are watching that. One of the things is, as a character, you can t pick up children, so you re not allowed to pick up kids when you re standing. If you were going to pick them up, you d be sitting down and then the parent usually has to place them on your lap. So even if you re sitting down, you shouldn t be the one that s picking them up off the floor. The parent has to place them on your lap, and it s usually super fast. So, no, I haven t ever had anything gross like that happen. Scott You got lucky. That s good.  Elaina I might have gotten lucky, for sure.  Scott What was the typical pay rate for this job?  Elaina Oh gosh, pay. Oh, good old Disney. Well, back then it was about $5.25 if you were fur. If you were entertainment, you got paid more which, again, entertainment is the characters that are in the shows or on stage. Face characters obviously got more as well.  Scott I don t know how that translates to today s dollars but, even back then, I mean, this is a position that so many people want to go into the entertainment industry, but it s obviously not for the money.  Elaina No, it s not. It is not for the money. I use it as a comparison. A lot of us that worked in the entertainment industry in Orlando at the time, a lot of us did like dual parks. Some worked at SeaWorld and they worked at Disney. I worked at Disney and I worked at Universal at the same time. For Universal Studios, at the time, I was in the Barney Show, so I was the yellow dinosaur, BJ. To compare pay, that would be considered like entertainment where the character s not just signing autographs, they re on stage. That was about $12 an hour. But I remember at that time, that was a lot. I feel like minimum wage at that time might have been 4.75. Scott It was something in that ballpark.  Elaina Yeah, it was pretty low like that. So at Disney, you thought, “Oh, I m making more than minimum wage. Not much.” And at Universal, you thought you were like banking it. You were like $11, $12 an hour 30 years ago.  Scott How long did you work for Disney?  Elaina I was there as a character for about three years. Then, after I hurt myself in costume– Scott What happened that ended the character job.? Elaina I had been doing a lot of Crystal Palace shifts as Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh at the time was a mouse-height costume. Since then, it has been redesigned probably because of the injuries. I like to always describe the Winnie the Pooh costume– Winnie the Pooh s head, his little red shirt was attached to his head. So you would turn the head over, you d put your arms inside the shirt, and you d lift the head on top of your head. The headgear sat where you looked out his big nose. So imagine that you are now carrying the weight of the eyes, the ears, the top of the head all sits way above your head, and the only way that you can look out is by the nose. So in order to sign autographs, you have to push your head down to kind of look, and that strain on the back of my neck and my upper back caused such pain that, by the time I had hurt myself so much in Winnie the Pooh, I was unable to hold Mickey s head on which Mickey and Minnie s head are the lightest heads. Sometimes, people will ask that, but they are. Minnie Mouse s head is the lightest of the light, and her eyes are perfectly centered like sunglasses. Mickey s eyes sit further apart, so you have a little bit of crazy visibility in the middle, like you don t really have good visibility in the middle, but still his head is fairly light. I would work Chef Mickey s and I would put on his chef hat on top of Mickey s head, and I couldn t do it. I couldn t bear the weight of that hat and lean forward again to sign autographs. I mean, Disney took care of me. They did run me through their own physical therapy. They put me through physical therapy, paid for all of it. I m sure, at some point, I signed my life away and signed something that made them not liable for that injury, but they did send me through physical therapy and then they found me a job at Coronado Springs and I worked front desk for years. So I overall probably worked at Disney probably six years.  Scott Did having this job on your resume help you later in life? Did you continue in the entertainment world?  Elaina Funny enough, I love to tell this kind of story because it sounds like I m making things up, honestly. But I started at Disney, I was in entertainment, and somehow I ended up working for the FBI for 8 years eventually. I worked at the FBI and became a trainer and a facilitator and standing up in front of people, essentially being back “on stage”. Did it connect? Sort of. I still think it did. I think there s part of being on stage and being comfortable in front of people. That translated to later in life and, even to this day, being the mascot at my kids previous elementary school. I still do that and occasionally jump into that costume. Scott That must bring back a few memories being in costume in front of a crowd of people.  Elaina It really does. And I swear the kids, they just love it, and that s not even a celebrity character, but these elementary school kids, when they see Whiskers the Wildcat, they are so excited and it really does bring it back for me. I love it. I love it.  Scott You live here in the Tampa Bay area. How often do you get over to Disney World?  Elaina Well, I was for a while when my kids were little. My kids are 13 and 10 now. Before that, we were very into it. I think the Florida heat has kept me away as well as the lines. The experience is a little bit different now, but I m also a part-time travel agent and I go on Disney cruises to just see what the product s about. So that has been an experience for me to see some characters on the ship. My kids are really big into “Mommy, tell them that you were ‘friends with Mickey’.” which is the way that people that work at the parks tell other characters that they have been in costume. If you say you were friends with Mickey, the other person knows that you had been in costume.  Scott That is interesting. So you don t want to ever say I was Mickey because, again, that breaks the belief again, right?  Elaina That s right. So you always say, “I was friends with Mickey.” On the cruise, that Mickey pretty much lost his or her mind and was hugging me and they re getting all excited. So there s a comradery between people that have done it. Then recently, actually, just this spring break, I took the kids to Disneyland because I m a fan and I m a lover of Disney and I wanted to see the difference, so I took them out to Disneyland. We obviously just went to that park, but we don t do a lot of Florida. It s super expensive. It s really hot. The lines are long, and I worked there, so I have been on all the rides like a million times.  Scott Of course, yeah.  Elaina Yeah.  Scott Final question, are there any sort of unseen benefits of being a character that maybe people wouldn t think about? Elaina I think besides the probably well known one of “You work for Disney, you can get into Disney anytime you want for yourself.” You used to be able to get 3 people in 12 times a year. It was a big perk. I think it s a little bit different now. I think they give cast members tickets and I don t know how often they do that, but I think it s still one of the big benefits obviously being able to get into the parks or allowing family members and things into the parks. The other thing is anytime you work breakfasts or dinners, the restaurants would feed you. So that was always fun because you knew you had breakfast. You d go, you d do your first set, like I said, 45 minutes, and then you d come back in and there d be a full breakfast waiting for you. So that was really nice. Liberty Tree Tavern was the restaurant and I used to do Meeko there and they had, like, prime rib. So, anything that the people were eating, we were eating back there too. Crystal Palace or 1900 Park Fair is a buffet at Grand Floridian, and they always had really good food too. Now think of that, you re like a struggling college student. You re only making $5.25, but you re literally in costume for 30 minutes, 30 minutes just hanging out, having fun with friends, having some dinner. It was the life. Scott I can imagine, yeah. I sure appreciate you coming on and sharing this story. I know a lot of people are going to find it super interesting.  Elaina Yeah, I m happy to answer any other questions, but I love talking about it. Scott I loved this conversation! Obviously Elaina is one of those lucky people to look back on a previous job and remember it with so much fondness. I really appreciate her for coming on and talking about it. And in the episode notes you can see some pictures of her, in costume – WhatWasThatLike.com/254, And I know, Disney is this huge corporate behemoth that owns hundreds of companies. But they definitely have cracked the code for making kids happy. Before I talked with Elaina, I went in the Facebook group and asked, “What questions would you want me to ask?” and included a bunch of them in our conversation. But if there’s something else you want to know, Elaina is actually IN the Facebook group so you can ask her directly. Join us over at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. And if you liked this episode, you might like episode 139, titled “Tricia smuggled her dad into Disney World” from back in May of 2023. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.  And once again, we’re at the end of this episode, which means – it’s Listener Story time. I learned a long time ago that the listeners of this podcast have some great stories of their own. So you are invited to record a story on your phone, just something interesting that happened to you that you can tell in about 5-10 minutes, and email it to me – [email protected]. This listener is someone you may have heard before, and she’s talking about her birthday. Stay safe, and I’ll see you next time. (Listener Story) My name is Hali. I m not only an avid listener of Scott s podcast, but I ve recorded an episode “Hali was saved by a friend” is my story if you d like to listen to it. Today, I am calling about a question you recently asked, Scott, which is, “Do you value your birthday or do you celebrate your birthday?” Or something like that. My story s a little interesting because, on my 35th birthday, I decided to go to the movies and ended up being involved in a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. That was obviously detrimental for many reasons, but also the fact that it happened on my birthday made it very interesting because I had always enjoyed my birthday and I had always loved sort of being Queen Hali for a day. It s my day, it s my birthday. I can ask for whatever I want. I can plan whatever I want. I can do whatever I want. I can do nothing and nobody will argue because it s my day, it s my birthday.  Then something terrible happened on my birthday and I thought, “Oh, how am I ever going to get over this, let alone and enjoy my birthday again?”  Fast forward. I did get over it not get over it, I did move past it and I did find many ways to enjoy my birthday again. The biggest thing was just the perspective of celebrating my life and celebrating that I get another birthday and that I have another birthday, and it really shifted my perspective from it just being my day to being joyful and grateful for every day.

Every other Tuesday, we grab a past question from the Facebook group, then Meredith and Scott answer it and read some of the answers given by other listeners. The question for this episode: What s something you and your spouse/partner will NEVER agree on? Links for this episode: Meredith s bird nest Curious Introvert episode about dating in midlife: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-318-dating-in-midlife-where-have-all-the-good-men/id1483941440?i=1000737048315 Curious Introvert episode about hoarders: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-324-the-hoarder-within-us-the-psychology-of/id1483941440?i=1000743021329 Meredith’s siphon pump: https://a.co/d/09RqMx0O Scott’s recommendation – find out if text was written by a human or by AI: https://GPTzero.me Meredith’s podcast is Meredith For Real – the Curious Introvert: https://MeredithForReal.com To check out the new Tuesday Question and get in the discussion, join us at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Sponsor deals: Visit www.functionhealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up. Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns! Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month MintMobile.com/WHAT

Technology is making it more and more difficult to get lost. Right now, I’m here in my home in Florida. I could pull out my phone, type in any random address in, say, Washington state – the other end of the country. Roughly 3,000 miles away. And within a few seconds, I would have turn by turn audio directions that would enable me to drive directly to that address. I know, GPS isn’t always perfect, but it’s really an amazing example of technology. And usually it works so smoothly that we just take it for granted. But what if you’re on foot, and your phone’s battery dies? Now you have nothing to tell you which direction to go, and you have no way to contact anyone for help. That’s what happened to John. John told this story on the podcast about 7 years ago in one of the very early episodes. He was hiking in an area that he was not familiar with. And a hike in the deep woods that was only supposed to be a few hours turned into days. John Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/253 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT Episode transcript (download transcript PDF): Technology is making it more and more difficult to get lost. Right now, I’m here in my home in Florida. I could pull out my phone, type in any random address in, say, Washington state – the other end of the country. Roughly 3,000 miles away. And within a few seconds, I would have turn by turn audio directions that would enable me to drive directly to that address. I know, GPS isn’t always perfect, but it’s really an amazing example of technology. And usually it works so smoothly that we just take it for granted. But what if you’re on foot, and your phone’s battery dies? Now you have nothing to tell you which direction to go, and you have no way to contact anyone for help. That’s what happened to John. John told this story on the podcast about 7 years ago in one of the very early episodes. He was hiking in an area that he was not familiar with. And a hike in the deep woods that was only supposed to be a few hours turned into days. Scott   How would you describe your hiking experience? John  It’s something that I ve always enjoyed and loved, but it s not something that I m able to get out and do much a few times a year, but it s, kind of, something I ve been increasingly interested in and wanting to do more of. Scott  Have you hiked in this park before? John  I ve never been to this park before. Honestly, I didn t even hear about it until 2 days before I went there. Scott  Oh, wow. The park is Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. How far do you live from that? John  I live in the Magic Valley in Idaho, so I m over 350 miles away. Scott  Okay. So, how did you end up at Bryce Canyon in Utah on a Monday afternoon?  John  Well, here’s a little backstory of how I ended up there as cheesy as it may sound, I was, kind of, on a spiritual journey of sorts. I quit the job that I had been at for over 7 years and I had been traveling. I met up with a friend in Utah who told me about Bryce Canyon. I was thinking about heading down towards the Grand Canyon, so she said, “On your way, you might as well head to Bryce Canyon.” So, that was pretty much what happened. I decided to head on down there and see what it was like. Scott  So, it’s kind of a spur of the moment but, sort of, planned as well on your way to a larger destination. John  Yeah. I just, kind of, wandered aimlessly with, sort of, a broad goal nothing specific in mind but I knew that, eventually, I want to hit as many interesting places as possible. Scott  Yeah, sounds like a good plan up until a certain point, I guess. So, you got to the Bryce Canyon National Park on a Monday. From when we record this, it only happened like a month ago. John  It s been just a month, yeah. Scott  So, you got to the park at about 3 o clock in the afternoon and the plan was to do what? How long were you planning to be out? John  When I got there, I almost turned around because there was an entrance fee and I didn t really know what this place was like. So, I got up to the gate, turned around, had a second thought, and was like, “Okay, well, let s just do this. I made it all the way here. I should just go.” So, the hesitation is, kind of, weird. Once I got there, I only intended on being there for a few hours maybe, go hiking for about 4 hours total back and forth. Scott  Where you went in from isn t just, like, a big huge wilderness there is actually a hiking path, right? John  Yes. From where I started hiking, there is an actual path and a clear trail, but that trail, kind of, gets covered up after so far. Apparently, they are not able to maintain all of the deeper trails because it is just so big, and they don t have the manpower to do it. Scott  All right. It s a huge area. Do you know how big this park is? John  I think I read it s around a 50-miles radius. Scott  That s a lot of space to get lost in.  John Yeah.  Scott When you started out, what were you wearing? John  All I had on me was a sweatshirt and shorts, so I wasn t really prepared to be out there for too long. Scott  Right. You weren t planning to be out for too long either. John  Definitely wasn t. Scott  Did you bring anything with you like supplies or water or anything? John   I had a Camelbak, snacks, blankets, a tent, a sleeping bag, and everything in the trunk of my car. I was very prepared up until I actually left the car. Scott  That s pretty ironic. You had all that stuff because you were already, sort of, on a trip anyway you were camping out in other places along the way. John  I was planning on it. Yeah, definitely. Scott  Did you have a phone?  John  Yeah, I had my phone. Actually, once I started down the trail the first time, I got about 10 minutes in. Then, I realized that there was kind of a hurry. There is a challenge that they had there s a sign that said, “There are these monuments to look for on the trail. So, with your map, you re supposed to take a picture and then, kind of, mark off the monuments that you re able to find” We ll come to the map in a moment. I actually went back to the car for about a half-hour to charge my phone it was, at least, about 70% when I charged it. Scott  Could you get a phone signal while you were out there? John   To a certain point maybe, let s say about an hour down and then nothing. Once you get a little ways away, you have no service at all. Scott  Because they don t put phone towers out in the middle of nowhere. So, you started out at 3 o clock. Just take us through that day. Like, when did you know you were lost and what did you do after that? John  When I got there, I saw that they had an approximate time for sundown I kept that in my mind. So, I was like, “Well, I have about 2-3 hours to walk down and then, maybe, 2-3 hours to walk back. Once I got going, I just kind of lost track of time because I was really feeling great and enjoying the walk it was beautiful down there. The next thing I know, honestly, was it was starting to get dark. Then, I was like, “It s about time to turn back.” I had a flashlight on my phone, so I figured it ll last long enough. If I lose my way, it would, at least, help me find my way in the dark it shouldn t be a big deal and just follow the trail. Once it got dark, I kind of realized that, maybe, I wasn t where I remember I ended up using my flashlight and realized that I had no idea where I was. I couldn t find my original trail and I ended up stepping in some water. It was so dark that I was, kind of, walking around, trying to figure out and find a place where I can just hang out for the night. I figured that it ll be fine in the morning. It s not my first time hanging out somewhere without a tent no big deal. I, kind of, got annoyed when I stepped into some streaming water you can hear it moving and didn t really have a choice but to sleep in wet socks and shoes that night. Scott   It s hard enough when you re lost during the day, but now with it being dark though When it got dark and you realize that you don’t know where you were going, you kind of resigned yourself, “Okay, I m going to spend a night here.” John  Yeah. At that point, I wasn t really too worried about it I figured that I ll just make the best of it and it ll be, kind of, a fun little story, “I got lost overnight and I made my way back. No big deal.” Scott  How cold was it? John  It really wasn t too bad on that first night. I don t really know the exact temperature, but I would say that it probably got down to somewhere around 40-45℉, so it was a little chilly. But I live in Idaho, so we re used to the cold, so it wasn t too bad. I was able to find a small alcove on the other side of that water to crawl in, block myself, and help keep myself warm. Scott   So you had a little bit of shelter…  John A little bit, yeah.  Scott Were you concerned about wild animals? John  A little bit, at first, just because I saw a sign about bears they said something like “Just leave the bears alone” which is good advice, of course. But since I didn t really hear anything the first night, it really wasn t on my mind too much. Scott  So, you got bedded-in for the night there. Did you actually sleep that night? John  Eventually, I got a little bit of sleep. The wind, kind of, picked up in the middle of the night and that didn t really help I, kind of, ended up getting a little chillier. Because I was in an unfamiliar place, I was definitely a little worried, so I didn t sleep great. But, eventually, I got a few hours. Scott  Okay. So, day 2 Tuesday… John  I decided, “This is it. I m gonna go ahead and check out the map that I had.” When you get in there, they actually give you a map. So, I was looking at my map and thinking, “Well, this is where I started. Since the water is over here, this has to be generally where I m at.” So, I started to follow what I thought was the correct direction. I made my way through these bushes that have thorns and it s very annoying to get bushwhacked. Eventually, I got to what looked like it should be the trail, but there was a tree that fell over and blocked that trail. So, I tried to go over or around, and that just keeps happening over and over again. So, eventually, at some point during the day, I decided to climb and see if I can see anything my car or the street. So, I climbed up as high as I could and everything looked the same. I mean, there are slightly different colored rocks, but I couldn t see anything different at all. When I climbed down, I’m pretty sure that I just climbed down on the other side. So that, kind of, started me getting more lost than I already was, if that makes sense. Scott  That s one of the things I was going to ask you what was the terrain like? Is it all rocky or forest? What was that like? John  It was definitely a mixture. Where I was at is mostly forest. There are a lot of bushes, tall grasses, and trees. There are definitely parts of it where it s just rock. There are a lot of weeds. I didn t realize that once I got to the top, I was looking around and I got turned around. So, when I got down to the other side, even though it all, kind of, looks the same, there are certain landmarks, trees, and things like that, that you can pick out, but it still looked a little bit different from where I was just at. At that point, I was starting to get a little frustrated, but all I could do was just keep walking and finding my path. Again, I looked at the map and what I thought was the correct direction ended up nowhere. Scott  By ‘nowhere’, you mean you didn t see anything familiar at all as you kept walking? John   I just kept walking all day. By the second day, I was starting to get pretty thirsty. I didn t have any water at that point. I didn t think of drinking from the stream yet the stream that I stepped in that first night. I didn t see it. I couldn t tell what the water was like. When I woke up the next day, I should have thought about it, but I just didn t. I was thinking, “Well, it will certainly gonna take me a couple of hours to get to my car.” I wasn t really thinking about anything else. So, by the end of the second day, I was starting to get real thirsty. I didn t even make my way back to that stream until the third day I just walked and walked and walked all day that Tuesday. Scott  So you actually haven t had anything to drink since Monday. John Yeah.  Scott So you had nothing to eat or drink since Monday late afternoon or evening. John  Nothing to eat or drink. By the time I think it was probably about Wednesday afternoon I finally made my way back to the stream and started drinking from it, the sun was definitely warm and kept beating down on me. I did some more climbing to try and figure out where the hell I was. The climbing, again, was unsuccessful because everything looked the same pretty much. So, I got down and just kept walking some more. That night was freezing. The wind was blowing very hard. I ended up waking up somewhere very early on Wednesday morning in the rain. Scott   How did you sleep on Tuesday night? Where did you find the sleep? John  I tried to find, kind of, a tree. There are trees but they re not a very good shelter, so I tried to lay under the branches the best I could tried to find it where it was thickest and it still wasn t enough. I was drenched. Scott  So it started raining sometime early Wednesday morning and you woke up lost, cold, outdoors, and soaking wet. John  Yeah. That wind on Thursday, Wednesday, and Thursday night is so unbelievably cold it was the coldest I ve ever experienced. I mean, I ve been out camping and hiking at terrains like most of us have, but that was hands-down the coldest. You can hear the wind coming from miles away it s almost like a train and, then, once it hit you, it just chills you to the bone. Scott  So what happened on Wednesday? John  Wednesday is when I started to get really frustrated. I woke up and I just couldn t believe it. I was thinking to myself, “How did I let this happen?!” I was, kind of, getting to the point where I was thinking, “This might not end well.” I was still keeping hope, so I just keep walking. At some point, when I did find that stream again, it was the most satisfying thing, even though it wasn t much. I tried to use my hands as a cup to drink from that stream but it was unsuccessful. So, basically, I got down like a deer and just started lapping it up. I drank as much as I could but, then, I kind of got a second wind. I realized, “Okay, I m going to try this again.” Again, I looked at the map, did my best, and then I got to a certain point where I felt like, “This is it! I think I found my way!” There s a fence over here on the map. There are other land formations. Again, what is supposed to be my trail that leads directly to my car ended up leading me to just more trees and no trail. Scott  So, you built up that hope that you are almost back where you’re supposed to be, but then you realized that you re still just as lost as you were. John  I guess you could say that I was feeling very hopeful at one point. Then, by the end of the day, I realized that I m going to be sleeping here for one more night. I was, I guess, downtrodden. I was not only annoyed, but I was just very disappointed in myself that I let myself get to this point. Scott  Without anything to eat, you got to be just exhausted and starving. John  At one point, I was just thinking that I can just live off of the water somehow, but I had to keep moving. I couldn t just stay with the water because, according to the map, I needed to go in a different direction to get back to my car. At one point, I found pine trees and, kind of, tried munching on some pine needles hoping that there may be some kind of nutrients or moisture. I did that for just a few minutes until I just couldn t take it anymore it’s not very pleasant. Scott  It’s probably not all that nutritious.  John Probably not.  Scott So how did you sleep on Wednesday night? Did you have to go back to the stream? John  I made my way back to the stream during the day and then I just moved on again, because I just had this determination to find my car. They say it sounds, kind of, a cliche even a blind man finds his way eventually, I guess. So, I thought, “No matter what, I just have to keep moving and this is going to work out eventually.” That night, I ended up not sleeping so well. Again, I moved so far away from that stream, so I didn t actually have anything to drink that night and the next morning. On Thursday morning, I actually woke up in the snow. I did get a few hours of sleep. When I woke up, there were probably, at least, a few inches of snow all over me. So, basically, I tried to live off of the snow for the rest of that morning, I guess I ate as much snow as I could handle before my mouth and hands went numb. I had to start climbing in a certain direction to try to think of where I needed to go. There wasn t snow on the ground at one point a lot of it had melted off by the afternoon. There were certain shaded areas where I was able to get some snow off some branches. Scott  I would be thinking that if you know what direction you were walking from when you went in like you were walking east or west or whatever couldn t you tell which way was East, West, North, or South by the position of the sun and just walk the opposite direction?  John  Yeah, I thought about that too. Well, I wasn t really paying attention, unfortunately that was definitely one of my faults and things that I did wrong about where I started. I knew that there was actually an airport out there. I was thinking that like, in direction to where the planes are coming to and from maybe I can look on the map and compare that airport to where my car was. So, I tried that as well, but it just kept leading me to walls, like huge ruts in the ground, trees that had fallen over, and all these things that kept blocking me. So, again, I went and climbed around it, but it never ended up really leading me to where I was looking to go. Scott  Sounds like an escape room on steroids… John  That’s a good way of looking at it. Scott  So, at that point, you ve had nothing to eat and you ve been getting by with insufficient sleep. Were you hallucinating at all? John  Yeah, absolutely. By the end of Thursday, especially, I started seeing I don t know just things moving and I was hearing things. I don t know if I was hearing what I thought were voices. I just started, kind of, making up scenarios in my head, thinking, or just hearing I don t know. It s hard to explain just hearing things that I hadn t heard in the last couple of days. Then, I saw helicopters flying by on Thursday and thought, “Hopefully, this is going to be it. I m going to try to get their attention.” So, I kept yelling. Actually, the last Wednesday and Thursday, I started yelling at the top of my lungs to get anybody s attention, if there was any way that anyone could hear me. When the helicopters were flying by, I waved my arms up in the air. I don t know if they were looking for me at that point, but I saw them flying by a couple of times. Of course, I had no success. Scott  Do you know at what point you were reported as missing? John  Actually, on Tuesday, I was going to be meeting up with some friends in Nevada apparently, that was how the missing person report got out. My friends, Zeb and Kearson, were looking to have me over on Tuesday. At some point either Tuesday or Wednesday they didn t hear from me which was very unusual because, usually, I make it a point to either keep in touch or show up. So, apparently, they contacted some people my friends and family and nobody had heard from me for a couple of days. They, kind of, looked over Facebook and eventually found out that I was heading towards Bryce Canyon.  Scott  So, they were able to figure out through social media that you were planning to go to Bryce Canyon. John  Yeah. I just happen to make a comment that I was hitting there. I was, kind of, updating some of the posts that I made along the way. I didn t actually mention that I was heading to Bryce Canyon directly until somebody just happened to invite me over to somewhere else in Utah and I told him that I wasn’t able to make it because I was heading to Bryce Canyon, and some people just happen to see that comment. Scott  Thursday… what was your mindset like from mid-day to late-day Thursday knowing that you might spend another night out in the wilderness? John  By Thursday, it was pretty extreme. Again, I was trying to keep hope alive. While I was walking, I got so exhausted. Since I had no water and no food, I could only make it so far without having long periods of rest. So, I actually passed out many times. I would be walking for, maybe, 20-45 minutes. Again, I just kept climbing and trying to get back to where I was previously. So, I would have these goals set in mind. I would see this rock or this tree or a landmark and tell myself, “Okay, you re gonna do this. If there s any chance you re getting out of here alive, you have to, at least, make it that far.” So, after I made it that far, I would find a place where I could just pass out. So, I ended up taking many naps, I guess, throughout the day. Like, I was just so exhausted that I couldn t stay awake. Each time that I felt myself drifting off, I actually thought this was it. I thought, “Well, I m gonna go out like this. This is really disappointing because I ve done some dumb shit over my life and I did not expect to go out just lost in the forest.” So, my mindset was not great for the most part, but I couldn t lose hope though I had to try. So, every couple of hours, I just woke up and kept at it. Scott  So you never actually got to the point of saying, “Alright, that s it. I m just gonna die here.” John  I just couldn t allow myself to do that. I kept falling down, especially on Thursday. I was so exhausted to the point that my legs were very shaky and tired even when I was on flat ground I had been walking almost non-stop for 3 days, so my legs were just so tired and shaky. I was having a very difficult time just moving at all. So, I would take a few steps and, sometimes, trip over nothing. There were bushes that bushwhacking me over and over again these bushes have these thorns on them and kept cutting me over and over again, and I would fall into those bushes. Even though I was going through all that, I was still trying very hard to be as optimistic as possible it was very difficult. Scott  That would be quite a mental challenge after several days. I mean, the physical exertion that you were going through is a lot even for someone fueled and hydrated and everything you didn t have the benefit of that. John  At one point, on Thursday, I actually got so desperate that, for the first time in my life, I actually tried to drink my armpits, but it didn t go over so well. I mean, all I had in me was just water and snow over the last couple of days. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I was thinking, “I m so far away from that water. This is all I have, man. It didn t taste great, but what are you going to do?” Scott  What are you gonna do? That s what Bear Grylls does, right? So, What was that like on Thursday night? John  On late Thursday, I ended up finding, kind of, like, a mud river. So, I was able to find my way back to clear water at some point on Thursday for just long enough to, kind of, keep going because I was looking at the map of where I was at and thinking, “Okay, well, here s this river. If I just go in this direction, I m just going to be able to run into a trailhead and, maybe, somebody.” So, I kept following the water and it eventually led to, kind of, a mud river. Eventually, that mud river led me to another, kind of, alcove, so I was able to actually find some shelter on Thursday night. I don t think it rained or snowed on Thursday, but it was very cold and windy, so I was pretty grateful that I was able to find some shelter. Scott  Did you even know what day it was? John  I wasn t really thinking about that. As I said, I was hallucinating and hearing things I wasn t clear-minded. There were days that weren t really important to me. I had not even thought of, like, what day it was. Scott  Friday, you woke up and… John  Friday was really weird. That night, I actually have a memory of a dream or, maybe, a hallucination I really don t know. I somehow had a memory or something of me being able to charge my phone somehow just long enough to call Search and Rescue and schedule the pickup time. That was going on in my mind somehow, I charged my phone just long enough to contact these guys and schedule a helicopter over here by the mud river at 9 AM. So, when I woke up, my head was such a mess. All I could think about was that I had scheduled a helicopter somehow and I needed to meet them over here by the mud river by 9 AM. I kept, like, waking up every so often, looking at the sun, and be like, “Okay. Well, it s not quite 9 o clock yet, but I think I have enough time to get over there.” Probably, like, an hour or two into walking, I realized that I just made up this whole scenario. I finally had, I guess, a moment of clarity of “They re not coming to get me and I m doomed. I m gonna die out here.” Friday was when this really hit. Scott  Because your phone was long dead by then, right? John   Yeah. The funny thing is it actually died on Tuesday morning. Again, I don t know if I am just remembering this wrong or what, but I had a memory of actually trying to get a hold of my friends whom I was supposed to be meeting up with on Tuesday, and letting them know that I m not able to make it because I m lost, and that I ll check my phone after I got it charged the day I get rescued, and that message never went through. So I was thinking that either my phone died as I was texting them or, again, I just made the whole thing up I really don t know. But yeah, my phone was definitely long dead by Friday. Scott  Take us to the time when you were actually found and you came into human contact.  John  I kept following that mud River, probably, I guess, for a couple of hours after I woke up. I thought that, maybe, it was another auditory hallucination I heard voices and somebody yelling. I kind of tried to follow the voices the best I could. Eventually, I saw a couple of dogs and 3 men on horses. I waved and,  kind of, yelled at them to get their attention. First, all I did was just ask, “How the hell do I get out of here? I ve been here since Monday and I can t figure out where the hell I m at.” So, they said, “Well, if you just keep following this direction, eventually you re gonna hit a trailhead.” I don t remember all of what was spoken but, eventually I, kind of, let them know that I felt like dying and anything would be greatly appreciated. So, the kid automatically reached into a pouch and grabbed me a Powerade. His father said, “Hey, let s go ahead and just get you on this horse. I ll take you to the trailhead. We ll come back to get you when we re done here in a few hours, and then we ll take you to your car.” So, the father jumped off his horse, got me on it, tells his father and his son, “I m going to go ahead and take him over to the car, and then I ll meet up with you guys.” On the way, he explained that they go there for hunting every year it s a family thing and they just happen to be over here. He said that they ve never been down as far before or they just normally don t go down as far it’s either one of the two. So, it was just, I guess, pure dumb luck that they happen to be there when I was there.  Scott They literally saved your life! John Oh, yeah. Where I was at, I don t know if search and rescue would have ended up finding me at least, not for a while. So, they got me to the trailhead. It s pretty hot Friday afternoon. I was able to find one of those signs that, kind of, explains the park a little bit and the trailhead that shows you where you re at. So, on the pavement, I just, kind of, laid there. The man I can t remember his name, unfortunately, but he gave me a first name was very kind and he gave me a protein shake, protein bar, another Powerade, a bottle of water they actually hooked me up pretty good and said, “There are other people here. If they get back before we do, just let them know what s going on and they ll definitely be happy to take you back to your car.” I actually waited around, I guess, for possibly a couple of hours. By that point, I was obviously pretty miserable. They actually gave me a chocolate bar and also a little KitKat bar, but I couldn t even taste it because my mouth was so dry that I couldn t taste anything even with the Powerade and the water it was not pleasant at all. So, I consumed the liquids and tried to ration them the best I could.  Scott  At least the Powerade would have electrolytes in it, so it would be rehydrating you to some degree, right? John  It was amazing. It was the most satisfying thing I could think of at that time. Scott   It must have been a pretty emotional moment, I would imagine, to realize, “Okay, I m not going to die here.” John  When I first saw those guys, that was the first human contact I had in almost five days. I had this overwhelming sense of, like, “I might actually be okay. I might actually survive. There are humans.” And yeah, I was very relieved just to even see somebody. Scott  So after waiting he brought you back there who did you see next? John  So after a couple of hours just, kind of, baking in the sun because there really wasn t much shade, I think a dune buggy actually pulled up and I heard a couple of voices. I was laying down trying to just maintain I don t know. I was trying to get up very slowly because, again, my legs were really not working at all at that point. So, I slowly got up and, kind of, waved those guys down. As soon as they saw me, I heard one of them saying to the other, like, “Oh, wow. I m glad that they were wrong.” I never asked them exactly what that meant, but I just kind of assumed that they didn t expect anybody or me to be far away over there, at least, at this trailhead. It turned out that they were actually Garfield County Search and Rescue. Again, I wish I had their names because they were awesome and very nice people. They handed me a couple of extra bottles of water and said, “Yeah, we re actually out here looking for you.” They immediately took me to an ambulance that was waiting, maybe, 15 miles away or something like that. Then, the ambulance took me to the hospital. Scott  If they were out looking for you who had been gone for several days, they probably weren t expecting to find somebody still alive. John  I think there was a comment that was actually similar to that. They re like, “Well, it s not often for somebody to be out here for 4-5 days and still live.” Cody Sherriffs My name is Cody sheriffs and I m a local Garfield County Search and Rescue member, as well as a Garfield County First Responder, Bryce Canyon, Utah. What I want to talk about today is what happened that Thursday, May 3, 2019, after our team was called out to search for an individual who had been missing since April 29, 2019 approximately four days after hiking into Bryce Canyon s Swamp Canyon Trail. So, at around 11:30 AM, we were dispatched to a male who had hiked down the Swamp Canyon Trail in Bryce Canyon on April 29 and never made it back to his truck. Immediately, our thoughts were, “This is going to be a body recovered due to the weather conditions throughout the 4 nights, which included heavy rain, snow, along with temperatures that dipped into the mid-20s at night.” It s hard to believe that anyone that spent a number of nights in those conditions without the proper gear could survive, but John met those odds. So, knowing that this could be a body to recover still does not limit the resources that our incident commander put in place from a team that started hiking down the Swamp Canyon Trail another team member and myself were driving our search and rescue Wildcat side-by-side from the bottom of the canyon up towards Swamp Canyon Trail and having a state helicopter pick up one of our incident commanders to survey from the sky. We do not limit our available resources when it comes to rescues no matter what the circumstances are.  So, my partner and I started to search for John from a town called Cannonville, which is 12 miles away from Bryce Canyon. After about an hour into our search, my partner and I came up to the Sheep Creek Trailhead which, for some reason, we both had a gut feeling that we needed to stop and make contact with our incident commander just to let them know how far we ve made it, what our location was, and that we had made no contact with our lost person, which is normal protocol. When we stopped, our radio service wasn t all that great due to the remote location that we were at. The signal was probably as bad as it can get real choppy. So, after about a minute of trying, we both, kind of, heard a voice. As we turned around, a gentleman that had long hair, wearing a light sweater in shorts, appeared out of the bushes. At that point, I asked that individual what his name was, and he replied, “My name is John.” I then asked, “John, where did you come from?” He actually pointed up towards the Swamp Canyon Trail at the top of Bryce Canyon and said that he was picked up by some guys on horses and dropped off at the location where he was currently at. At that point, I turned, looked at my partner, and he said “I think we found our guy” which, kind of, blew us away due to the fact that we didn t expect John to be alive due to the conditions that he was left in for the 4 days.  At that point, we rendered John first aid, provided him with water, and performed a quick assessment of John s health, which showed extreme exhaustion and dehydration. His legs were also torn up pretty good from the bushes and anything else that he had walked through or fell down or slid off of. We did our best to contact our incident command with no luck due to the location and the bad radio signal that we were getting. Our dispatch center was able to make up our message stating that we had found our missing guy. At that point, we decided that we needed to get John back to the main road for better service to contact our local ambulance service in Tropic, Utah to meet us in Cannon Ville so that they could further help John and transport him to the Garfield Memorial Hospital, which is about 45-60 minutes away. So, if it was not for that gut feeling that my partner and I had, or the protocols that we have in place to make contact with our incident command to update them, we would have driven right past John we would have never heard him due to the side-by-side noise levels drowning out everything else and we would, possibly, not have located John for another few hours, if at all. So, whether it was luck the right place at the right time John was found alive. The Garfield County Search and Rescue team and other involved agencies were able to add another very successful rescue to the books. Scott  So, from there, you went to the hospital… John  Yeah. Once I saw those guys in that dune buggy, the reality still hadn t quite set in like, I had a sense of relief. Once I actually got into the ambulance, one of the men who were in there from the search and rescue handed me a sandwich. He was like, “I got sandwiches, and I got an extra one for you.” He dressed it all up for me broke out little packets of mayonnaise and mustard. On man, just the taste of real food was almost enough to just, kind of, make me want to cry it was just amazing. Everybody was being, of course, so kind. I was able to get, maybe, like, a quarter of that sandwich down, but it was the best quarter of a sandwich that I ve ever had. Scott  What stopped you after the quarter?  John  I was having a really hard time eating. I was very weak and, again, my mouth was so dry that, every time I take a bite, I have to wash it down with, like, half a bottle of water. But it didn t take me too much longer once I got into the hospital to regain my appetite. Scott  When you were examined at the hospital, what kind of condition were you in? John  Officially, they just put me down as very dehydrated. They didn t really address the superficial wounds that I had, which was fine because those were just all minor cuts. I had been bushwhacked so many times that my whole left calf I took pictures of it looked like it was, like, just ripped away. The whole left side of my left calf and part of my right leg were just ripped away, but other than that, I was very dehydrated. Once I was able to get a little bit of rest that night, when I tried to stand up the next day, I would have this excruciating pain in my legs from just standing up. So, it would, kind of, start with the ankle and work its way up all the way up to, like, the knee and it felt like I was just being stabbed by, like, 1,000 little knives in both of my legs I think it was just from the muscles being overused so much over the last 5 days. Scott   Yeah, everything was depleted there. John  Yeah, I have nothing left in me. Scott   How long were you in the hospital? John  From Friday afternoon to, kind of, late Saturday afternoon, so just about 30 hours roughly. Scott  From there, where did they take you back to your car? Were you able to drive home or drive away somewhere? What did you do after that? John  Luckily, my sister actually came from Idaho I think she and her friend were heading down to Salt Lake or deciding whether to go to Salt Lake or somewhere else. When they heard that I was in the hospital, they actually came down on Friday and visited me in the hospital. They took my keys, went to pick up my car for me, and drove it to the hospital. So, that was very nice very appreciated. Scott  That s a good sister! John  Yeah, it was pretty cool. Scott  That s good. Boy, what a crazy adventure! I m sure you realize how close you were to not making it. John  Yeah. My sister and my friend came from Salt Lake. They came to visit me and they were, kind of, like, “When you turn your phone on, be prepared” because once my friends, kind of, started getting the word that I was missing apparently, it hit social media, local radio, and internet, and it escalated from there I got bombarded with messages. It was really nuts. Yeah, it was overwhelming and definitely life-changing. Scott  It s, kind of, reassuring to know that there are that many people that care about you. John   I ve questioned that for a little while for no good reason other than, I guess, insecurities, self-loathing, and depression. So, I definitely have no reason to really doubt that people care about me any longer. Scott  Have you been in touch with your rescuers at all since then? John   Unfortunately, no. I had no idea how to contact those guys, but I would love to, at least, personally, thank the hunters and the Search and Rescue.  Scott  Yeah, they all played an important part… John  Very much. Scott  I know it has only been, like, a month since this happened, but have you gone hiking again since then? Or would you want to go hiking again? John  I have, actually. In fact, the first real and good hike was yesterday. As a matter of fact, I went up to Boise where there s, kind of, a popular hiking place called Table Rock, which is a good four-mile hike. It was very good for me to get out, stretch, and kind of get back to what I wanted to do. It was a little bump in the road, but that is not going to stop me from following what I want to do. Scott  That s good. I assume that when you went out on that one, you had a fully-charged phone and, at least, a bottle of water. John  Yeah. Actually, since then, good friends have given me, like, a survival pack and a personal locator beacon because they don t want me to get lost again. So, I m fully prepared.  Scott  That s great. What do you think is the biggest lesson you ve learned from this experience? John  Just two things… 1) Tell people where you re going is definitely a very important part. 2) Another thing that I ve been hearing over and over again that I definitely agree with is, no matter what, if you re just gonna go out on a hike somewhere, at the very least, bring some of the basics a bottle of water, a little snack, and maybe a compass, at the very least. Scott  Yeah, a compass would have been pretty handy for this one, right?  John Yeah, it really would have. Scott John, that’s quite a story and experience I m sure it’s not one that you d want to go through again. John  No, man. I m good. I ve led a pretty interesting life and I think that if this is going to be the most interesting thing that happened to me, I m okay with that. It was definitely a lesson learned and, maybe, it was good for me in a way. It’s, kind of, an expensive lesson to learn but, overall, it s been positive since I ve been back. Scott  All part of life experience.  John Absolutely.  Scott I wasn’t able to get in touch with John for an update – so John, if you’re listening to this, get in touch with me and let me know how you’re doing. And here’s a question for you, dear listener – have you ever been really lost? Like, so lost you were concerned for your own safety? If so, we’d love to hear you talk about that in a Listener Story.  This week in the Facebook group we asked the question, “What’s your story about getting a weird phone call?”. And this can be on your cell phone, or way back in the days of land line phones. I know I got some weird calls – have you? Come on over and tell us about it – WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.  And remember, you can sign up to support the podcast by going to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS, or on an iPhone just click on Try Free – you’ll get every episode ad-free, plus there’s more than 50 bonus episodes that are exclusive to supporters. And here we are once again, about to hear this week’s Listener Story. If you have an interesting personal story – and you know you do – just record it on your phone. It should be somewhere around 5-10 minutes. Then just email it to me – [email protected]. This listener talks about, as a young person, doing something against her better judgment. Stay safe, and we’ll see you next time. (Listener Story) My listener story takes place around 1986-1987. I graduated high school in 1986 and, later that fall, went on to start my first year of college in Charlotte, North Carolina. Well, as it turns out, college was not for me at the time, so I dropped out. Of course, I didn t tell my mother I dropped out she was three hours away so I would pretend that I was still going to class, but what I was really doing was working. I had gotten a job at Hardee s, which is a fast food restaurant, and then I got a second job at Pizza Inn.  One day, I had to work both jobs. I was leaving Pizza Inn to walk to Hardee s, and it wasn t a short walk but, over the years, I can t remember exactly the mileage, but it was definitely more than a mile, but less than 10. It was a hot day and I was walking and I was tired, and people kept pulling over, asking me if I wanted a ride, and I was like, “No, thank you. I m good.” Kept pulling over just– I mean, car after car pulled over and asked me if I wanted a ride, and I kept saying no, but eventually I was just so hot and tired. I said to myself, “The next person who pulls over, I m going to go ahead and get into the car.” So, sure enough, a few minutes later, a man pulled over in his car, he said, “Hey, you want a ride?” And I m like, “Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. Yes sir.”  I get into the car and we re not driving a good minute, and he says, “You want to make some extra money?” I stiffened and I m like, “Excuse me?” He said, “You want to make some extra money?” And I m shaking my head and I m saying, “Oh no sir. No sir.” And he s like, “Oh, you don t do that kind of stuff?” I was like, “No sir. No sir.” So he pulled the car over to the side of the road and let me out of the car.  To this day, that story rattles me because I watch a lot of crime TV, now I listen to a lot of crime podcasts, so I know that story could have gone many different ways, bad ways. So I m just grateful that this man didn t try to force himself. He didn t take me somewhere. He just let me out of his car and I m grateful. To this day. I have never gotten into another stranger s car. Although college wasn t for me at the time, I did go on to receive two associates, a bachelor s and a master s. So college became for me eventually, and I also was able to have a successful 24-year career in the Air Force. I m grateful I don t take those things for granted, and I realize that they could ve gone totally rough. Thanks for listening.

There’s a funny thing about being an American. I’ve seen this with some people I know, as well as some of the guests here on the podcast. Living in the United States, it’s easy to have the mindset that the way we do things is the way the rest of the world does things. Unless you travel to other countries regularly, and get exposed to other cultures, that’s kind of the default thought for a lot of people. An example of this is tipping. Here in the US, we tip service workers. In fact, I think the tipping culture has gotten way out of hand, but that’s a different story. But in other places around the world, they don’t expect a tip for good service. In fact, offering extra money for a job well done can be considered kind of an insult or even condescending. My conversation today is with Blake. He’s a US citizen, so he was accustomed to the American way of thinking about a lot of things. Like, the concept that marijuana is not serious drug. And the idea of being innocent until proven guilty. But while he was in South Korea, he discovered that they think very differently about these things. Blake in Korea Blake at an abandoned greyhound race track in Vermont (photo credit: Julie Novak) Blake Blake on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allamericanruins/ abandoned: The All-American Ruins podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/abandoned-the-all-american-ruins-podcast/id1618595497 Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/252 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT Episode transcript (download transcript PDF): Today’s episode comes with a content warning for discussion of suicide. There’s a funny thing about being an American. I’ve seen this with some people I know, as well as some of the guests here on the podcast. Living in the United States, it’s easy to have the mindset that the way we do things is the way the rest of the world does things. Unless you travel to other countries regularly, and get exposed to other cultures, that’s kind of the default thought for a lot of people. An example of this is tipping. Here in the US, we tip service workers. In fact, I think the tipping culture has gotten way out of hand, but that’s a different story. But in other places around the world, they don’t expect a tip for good service. In fact, offering extra money for a job well done can be considered kind of an insult or even condescending. My conversation today is with Blake. He’s a US citizen, so he was accustomed to the American way of thinking about a lot of things. Like, the concept that marijuana is not serious drug. And the idea of being innocent until proven guilty. But while he was in South Korea, he discovered that they think very differently about these things. Scott You re an American. Why were you living in South Korea? Blake It s a great question. I went to Emerson College for musical theater and, towards the end of my tenure there, I realized that I wasn t quite ready to move to New York City. I have sort of a multi-layered skillset that also includes music and songwriting and journalism. I had been bitten by the travel bug when I was 16 and was really interested in going to travel the world a little bit before I moved to New York to try acting. Four months before I graduated, I was working at Blue Man Group in Boston. My coworker, Marlin, she said, “Hey, I have this strange potential job opportunity in South Korea and wondered if you d be interested in auditioning for this ESL Children s Theater Company.” I thought that s kind of perfect because I can still do theater in a way and have the opportunity to travel places that I never would ve gone otherwise. What was really wonderful about that job is I had a month of paid vacation and I had free health insurance and I didn t pay for housing, so it was kind of a perfect first job out of college. So we auditioned and both got in and suddenly I was in South Korea working at what s called Paju English Village, which is now defunct, but it s basically a government-run theme park where Korean kids practice their English in these fake “western towns”. So I was flown over to South Korea to develop children s musicals for the Korean government. That was my first job out of college, and that s how I wound up there, and it was the best job I ever had. Truly, such a wonderful, freeing moment in my life where I really got the opportunity to learn what life in the real world was like in an extreme situation Scott And still doing what you love. Blake And still doing what I love. Another benefit to all of this is I had been in a relationship in college with a gorgeous specimen named Nicholas John Casey, and young love is very intense, and I was basically fresh out of the closet. So that first relationship really meant a lot to me and was very important and I think it s one of those things that, when you re young, everything is very heightened and everything feels very important. So when we broke up at the end of college, it was an opportunity for me to really eject myself from that situation because it wasn t necessarily a good pairing at the time. We both suffered from mental health issues and it just wasn t a good match, but we remained really good friends, and that s important context for this story because it was truly the other reason I wound up going to Korea to kind of get myself away from that situation physically. Scott And how old were you at the time when you went to South Korea? Blake I graduated when I was 22. I turned 23 in October of 2010 after I had been there for a few months. So yeah, 22 to 23. Scott So you hadn t been there very long, but were you kind of– obviously, being in a completely foreign country, were you kind of homesick for “American things” like– what did you miss the most? Blake Chipotle and Gushers were my two big missings. I m a simple gal from a suburban small town in Colorado, and never really realized how much I appreciated the corporate musings. Those were the kinds of things that I missed, those two in particular stick out to me, but I was so excited to be in a new place and develop a new way of seeing the world that it was actually more challenging to come back to the United States after being away for that year and readjusting to American life again, where I didn t have free health insurance and people didn t really follow the rules on the New York City subway the way that they do on the Seoul Metro, and it took me a lot longer, I think, to readjust to the American in me after coming back. Scott Okay. Well this all started on a Wednesday. Tell us what happened. Blake One of the many benefits of having so many lovely family and friends back in the States at this time is that people would send me care packages. After I got there, Nick and I stayed very much in touch and we talked often on Facebook Messenger. Towards Christmas time, he messaged me on Facebook to let me know that he had sent me a care package with what he said, “All of your favorites inside” I was so excited and I said, “Oh my gosh. Tell me what s in it.” And he said, “Nope, it s a surprise. It s just all of your favorite things.” So, I was so thrilled because I knew this package was coming. It wound up showing up about two weeks after Christmas, and I get a notification from the village that this package has arrived for me. What s really interesting about this whole story is– just also for context, I m an alcoholic in recovery and, at the time, I was kind of at the beginning of my rock bottom. For an alcoholic or an addict, getting to your rock bottom can often take years and years. For me, it took about three and I would say it really started when I was in South Korea. I had gotten drunk the night before. I went to go get the package and I wandered into the large building which looked like a giant city hall building to see if I could grab the package, having no clue what was about to go down. It always is amazing to me to think back to that moment and have such gratitude that there weren t security cameras because it would ve made it look like I knew something was wrong and that something was about to happen, which I did not. Luckily, I had the Facebook conversation with Nick to back that up. Scott Let me just ask you. This building– was it something like what we would think of like a post office? Blake The post office was inside of this– I mean it looked like a giant city hall building and, inside that building towards the back, right there was this office that was the “post office”. Scott Okay. So that s where your package was. Blake Yeah. Whenever we got a package, we had to sign for it in this office. It s the middle of January, 2011, and I walk into this post office to sign for this package. As I m signing for the package, the woman who worked at the counter who I had gotten very friendly with and we had gotten to know each other, she gave me this look as she handed me the package that felt off to me. As the package was landing in my hands, I suddenly had this moment where I thought, “Oh my God, I think Nick sent me drugs.” The reason that thought entered my head is because, before I had moved to South Korea, I had read up quite a bit about what the situation with drugs was in South Korea and marijuana is treated as a very serious narcotic. They see it as more dangerous than some of the club drugs that you might think of when you think of really serious drugs, and I don t really know the reason that s true. Again, this is 2011, things may have changed. At the time, Korea was in the beginning phases of really becoming a world cultural superpower. This is right before Gangnam Style hit the charts and K-pop got big. So I was really on the cutting edge of Korean culture, if I do say so myself. I think after the Korean conflict and after the country had to start over again, they very quickly developed this culture of no laziness. So suicide rates are extremely high in South Korea because people are overworked. I think marijuana is known as the lazy drug, so I think that s why it s treated as such. But regardless, I knew how serious drugs were and vowed that I wouldn t even touch anything while I was there, because I was still active at the time. But as she handed me this package, this thought dropped in my head and I could feel my stomach drop out. I walked out of the post office. As I was walking towards the doors of this city hall building, two men truly out of nowhere came behind these pillars and stopped me. One of the two men said, “Are you Blake Pfeil?” I said yes, and I knew instantly what was about to happen even though I didn t know the full-fledge situation. He flashed his badge and told me he was with the National Korean Police Agency, and he took the package out of my hands and escorted me outside. This dark minivan pulled up and the door opened, and there were several officers inside. I was asked to get into the car, and we sat there in silence as I waited for my boss, Mickey, to come out of the main office, get in the front seat of the car, and he turned around and he said. Do you know what s in this package? And I said, “I don t, Mickey.” And he said, “Are you sure?” I said, “I m positive.” Scott Obviously, you didn t want to mention the hunch that you had when you were handed the package. Blake Of course. No way. Because it was twofold. One, the package has drugs in it, but two, it is from an ex-boyfriend. My mind was spinning out of control with all of these robust what-if situations that really scared me because homosexuality in South Korea at the time again, this might have changed was treated as if it didn t even exist, almost worse than the hate I think a lot of people in other countries receive as a queer person there. It s almost like indifference. They just pretend it doesn t exist. So I had reason to be concerned for two very specific reasons. Mickey said, “Did you know that this package has cookies in it that are laced with marijuana?” I hadn t even opened it yet, and I said, “No, I did not know that.” Scott Of course, you couldn t know what was in it. You had not yet opened it. How did they know what was in it? Blake The National Korean police being the strict drug enforcers that they are, any package that comes into the country, they open it and they test it. They sniff it with dogs, and this package was no different. So they had actually opened the package. What s interesting is, as I handed the package over to one of the officers, I could see that it had been sort of jimmy-rigged, taped in a different way than the original. I could see there were two different types of tape on the box, and I had no idea that was the case that, in Korea, they open all of any package that comes in the country. So that s how they found out and that s how I found out. We all sort of found out. They knew before I did. So we re sitting in this black van and I have no idea what s next, and Mickey was there to translate for everything. He said, “Okay, well they need to search your apartment.” I said, “That s totally fine. I had nothing to hide.” So we drove this black van up through the streets of Paju English Village and we got to my apartment. I think this was the moment where the story really took a turn because, up until that point, I had it in my head that this was going to be like a brokedown palace situation and that I was going to be thrown in prison for 50 years and it was going to be like a hole to do. As I entered the apartment, I realized that this flock of 6 National Korean police was not behind me. I turned around and they were all standing on the precipice of my apartment and I said, “Mickey, are they going to come in?” And he said, “Well, they want to know if they should take their shoes off.” That always struck me because I was raised in a country where, if police search your home, there s no politeness to it, there s no manners to it. We come in, we ram our way in, we tear everything apart, and we don t even try to fix it. These men politely removed their shoes, proceeded to search my apartment, ceiling tiles, the whole– I mean, they really went through it all, but they put it all back together at the end. When they didn t find anything, they were all talking in Korean, of course, the whole time to Mickey, and he was responding back and forth and back and forth. Finally, he said, “Okay, well, they need to take you down to the police station because they have a lot more questions.” And the jurisdiction that they had for me, being a resident alien, was such that they could hold me for up to three days without any question. That was their jurisdiction. I didn t know any of this at the time because I hadn t planned on getting arrested in South Korea. So they officially arrested me and they took me down to the van and, right before I left, I said to Mickey, “Can you ask them if I can grab a granola bar? Because I hadn t eaten that morning and I was hungover.” He asked them, and they responded and he said to me, “Oh no, they re going to take you for an early lunch.” Again, just the disbelief of how this was all unfolding in real time really kind of caught me off guard because I kept expecting the worst and my experience was just completely different than that. So we got into the car. We start driving down to what eventually is Incheon, which is where the National Korean Police headquarters is. As we were about to get on the Jayu-ro, which is the Freedom Highway, we pulled off at this restaurant and I went into this restaurant with these six national Korean police officers, and we proceeded to eat an entire Galbi meal in silence. Again, I couldn t figure out what was going on and I was asking myself, “Are they trying to get me to relax so they can get more information out of me? What is the tactic here?” Scott Right. Like an interrogator trying to establish rapport so that you kind of let your guard down and spill the whole story. Blake Yeah, exactly. And nobody spoke English, as far as I knew, so no words were said at that meal. We all ate in silence. Scott What was the total time you expected to be on this trip? Blake I didn t know. I knew that Incheon was sort of like a sister city to Seoul because it is where the national airport is, but it was about 90 minutes from where I was, so not too far away, but far enough to be really concerning. Scott Yeah. An hour and a half in on this drive, in addition to the time spent at the nice lunch, but you had some time to really think. What was your mental state as you were traveling? Blake Well, I couldn t stop thinking about my mom and trying to sort out in my head how I was going to go about this because I had no idea what to expect. I had absolutely no idea what they already knew, what they were going to figure out, how they were going to figure that out. All I knew is that I had this truth that was extremely true and if I told that truth that this was a care package that I had no information about from an ex-boyfriend, I could get in trouble anyway just for being a gay person in South Korea. It s not like it was illegal, but the way that they thought of it was scary. So, I was thinking about all kinds of things. Again, I would revert back to a brokedown palace scenario in my head. I think in those kinds of moments where the suspension of disbelief is actually the only thing that s cradling you through one point to another. That passageway is just like a big gray area. It was bleak, though. Scott Did you have any idea of the penalty if they decided you were guilty? Blake Not yet. I found out later when I was introduced to my translator, who wound up walking me through everything. But when we got to Incheon, it was a very gray and heavily guarded building as it would be, and my stomach dropped. Then, once I got inside and they did all the processing, I was introduced to my translator, Mr. Park, who became my best friend very quickly. Again, I couldn t fully trust him up until leaving because I had no idea how they went about this kind of situation. When we shook hands, I noticed something about him, and it was very clear to me that he was a closeted gay man, and I thought to myself, “Well, that s a big plus for me because we already are going to have a rapport and that s great.” How it went down is they would bring me into a room, they would interrogate me for a couple hours, send me back, I would sleep, they would bring me back, I would be sent back to my room, I would sleep, et cetera, et cetera. But before I started that process, I was put into this giant cell with a group of men, and one of the men came up and sat down next to me and sort of put his arm around me. I mean, I thought, “This is how I get shivved. I m done for.” This is when I really learned that marijuana was treated the way that it s treated in that country because he started sort of miming to me this one man in this larger cell and what he was trying to get at was, “Why are you here?” He was miming punching, like, “Did you get in a fight? Did you get drunk?” I mimed smoking a pipe and his face went white and he immediately removed himself and went to the opposite corner of the room and stopped talking to me. So it was in that moment that I was aware and later reflected on, “Oh, this is really concerning for this population of people. They really find this drug to be the worst thing.” Because of that incident, they wound up moving me to a private cell, I think, especially because I was a white American in a Korean country. Before the interrogation began, Mr. Park said something to me that kind of was, I guess, the linchpin for the whole situation. He said, “Just tell the truth. They re going to know if you lie.” I took a urine drug test. It was completely clean, and thus began this interrogation. The first interrogation that first day was all focused on the drugs. It was about four hours total, and they asked me all sorts of questions. Did I know marijuana was in the package? Did I pay for the marijuana? Why did Nick send it? Have I ever used marijuana in Korea before? Scott Was it the same interrogator the whole time? Blake There was Mr. Park who was my translator, and then there was Mr. Kim, who was the lead interrogator, a very stately man who looks like any really attractive South Korean daddy, I would say is the best way to describe it. Scott I m sorry, but I have no picture of that in my head, but that s okay. Blake That s okay. Just google the father from Parasite and it ll give you a better idea. He was a very handsome man. They would also not just ask questions. Sometimes, they would just flat out accuse me and they would say, “I think you knew the marijuana was coming.” And I would respond, “I didn t know the marijuana was coming.” After four hours of this first interrogation, they wound up ordering me Chinese takeout. Again, I sat there and ate dinner in silence with these investigators. I was slowly but surely really disappearing from my body because I think I was really going into shock and dissociation because it was still completely unclear to me how this was going to go down. Scott I m wondering if you were concerned– you re clearly a well-spoken person. You choose your words carefully. Did you have concern that perhaps Mr. Park wasn t translating with the exact meaning that you wanted to get across? Blake I certainly did. And, oftentimes, even reflecting on this story, 15 years later, I still wonder were there any discrepancies between what he was translating and what I was saying to them and what information was actually conveyed to them. I still don t know to this day Scott Because it seems like it would be so easy– even saying things like, “I know what s in the box or I knew what s in the box” just the tense of a word can kind of indicate guilt. Blake Yeah. I mean, Mr. Park– I think this is where the luck really came in. Had it been somebody else, I don t know. But I do think that he recognized me and I recognized him. This is a thing that queer people often experience in real life where there s just sort of a “you know”. Scott I ve heard about this and I ve always kind of wondered how that happens. It s interesting. Blake It s a vibration. It s a signal. There s really no way to describe it, but you just know the person. I just knew about this guy and so I had to trust. The whole time, anytime I ran up against, “Is he translating this correctly?”, I had to trust that he was. There was no other alternative. The alternative would ve led to me really starting to stumble over my thoughts and my feelings, and I had to keep as clear a head as possible throughout all of this because there was no way I was going down without a fight. But that first day of questioning, it was all about the drugs. At the conclusion, they asked me– they didn t ask me, they said, “We need all of the passwords to your social media accounts.” At the time, I was on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and I gave them all the passwords to those and my email account and my work email account, and had no idea what they were going to do with those passwords, but assumed that they were going to go in and find the conversation that I had with Nick that I told them about, where it was very clear that I did not know what was going on. They took hair samples. I had all my personal items removed. They took me to the cell. It had heated floors, there were blankets, there was water. It was very, I don t want to say nice, but it was certainly not what you think of when you think of Korean prison. This also was in prison. It was a jail cell, but I didn t sleep that night. My mind was in a constant obsessive loop of what is going to happen. I think, that night, I did ask myself over and over again, “What if something that I said was mistranslated”? Scott Were you alone in the cell overnight? Blake I was alone in the cell overnight. They had originally planned to put me in a cell with other people, and then they moved me because they didn t want any trouble. Over the course of that, leading up to the interrogation, they laid the ground rules for me, essentially, and told me that they had the jurisdiction to keep me for 72 hours, that I was going to be allowed to visit with the embassy the following morning, just sort of how the whole legal system worked. What s really key to note here is that, in the United States, we have this famous phrase “innocent until proven guilty”. It is flipped in South Korea. They assume you are guilty until you prove that you re innocent. So it s completely the other way around. I “woke up the following morning” not really and I was taken to a different room where I met with the United States Embassy in Korea. Scott Alright, so they brought you by van back to the main building. Is that right? Blake To the main building. I was brought into this room. I was sitting in the room and the embassy walked in. It was this man named Kevin. He sat down and I had this assumption that this was going to be my reassuring moment where everything was going to feel better. I was going to be with another American. They were going to tell me everything was going to be okay. Instead, he sort of flopped down on his chair and, in a very smarmy way, might I add, he says, “We re not really here to give you legal advice, not really here to tell you that everything is going to be cool. You could face an indefinite prison sentence. You could face deportation. We re just kind of here to walk you through what the process is as far as their legal system is concerned.” I was sort of dumbfounded by the attitude because I really had thought to myself, “This is going to be the moment where I can have some relief.” Instead, it only increased my anxiety. Scott They re supposed to be the heroes. Blake They re supposed to be our advocates. That s their job. Scott Yeah. Did you get the impression that they assumed also that you were guilty? Like, “Hey, this guy did something stupid. Sorry, you re on your own.” Blake I actually seemed to remember him saying something along the lines of, “We can t align ourselves with whether or not you re guilty or innocent.” I don t think that he said it outright, but he’s smarm was enough to lead me to believe, oh, they actually don t give a shit about me. So when he said what he said, I said, “Well, if that s the only reason you re here, I guess you can go because they ve already explained everything to me, quite frankly, better than you just did.” And he said, “Okay. Do you want us to call anybody?” That was the moment where I was like, “What is happening right now? How have they not already contacted my out-of-country emergency contacts? This is crazy.” And I said, “Yeah, if you could contact my parents, that would be awesome.” I wound up finding out later that, when they called both of my parents, it was like 3 o clock in the morning in the States, and they left a voicemail on my mom s phone. All they said was, “Hello, Ms. Ferguson, this is the Korean embassy and Seoul. We re calling about your son. We need you to call us back.” As a parent, I cannot fathom what my mother went through for the next 24 hours at that point. She said it was the most scared that she has ever been because she couldn t– when she called back, the embassy was closed because it was nighttime there and she couldn t get answers. I don t actually recall how she wound up figuring out what was going on, but she did, and she knew that I had been taken. So they left and, at that point, I thought, “Okay, my life is completely over.” Well, we went back into interrogation mode and I was expecting that it was going to be the exact same situation where they were going to keep asking me questions or making statements about “You knew.” But they had gone through my social media and they had clearly found that conversation with Nick on Facebook messenger because, that second day of questioning, everything that I had anticipated was no longer true and all of the questions wound up surrounding my relationship with Nick because if you went back far enough in that Facebook conversation, it was very easy to find out that we had at one point been a couple and within 10 minutes of that second day of interrogation, I am convinced to this day that they knew that I was innocent. They had the proof that I proved my innocence after being guilty, and they were excessively curious about getting to hang out with a gay guy because that s not something that they realize they re ever doing. Scott And they could do it under the pretense of work. Blake That s exactly right. The questions had nothing to do with the case. More so, they would ask me questions like– this is a real question. I was asked, “Well, who is man? And who is woman?” and all of the questions surrounded this. In fact, as the interrogation went on, more and more investigators came into the room and sort of huddled around me answering all of these questions about my relationship with this man and what homosexuality was like in the United States. Scott Did you feel some kind of a medical oddity or something that they were just probing? Blake I think all I felt was gratitude because there was no sense of danger. At first, it was concerning, but I started to realize that they were just extremely curious because they had no information. They had never been exposed to something like that before. Of course, Mr. Park is sitting there this whole time translating everything. They wrap up this second interrogation. It s probably another 4 to 6 hours, I can t quite remember, but it was the late afternoon when that interrogation ended. I said to Mr. Park, “I need to go use the bathroom.” He said okay, signaled to two of the police officers. The three of them escorted me down to the bathroom. As we were walking down this hallway, I could see that Mr. Park was really deep in thought, and he said to me, “I have never seen a case like this. I think they re going to let you go.” It was in that moment where I was like, “I think he s right. I think they re going to let me go.” He later told me when he was walking me out that he had been working as a translator in this particular unit at the National Korean Police for over a decade at that point, and he had never once seen somebody acquitted. Scott Wow. Because it s difficult to prove your innocence sometimes Blake If you don t have hard proof, there s no way that they can expect– you have to have hard evidence. So we go back into the room and sitting on the desk is the Tupperware container of these marijuana cookies. Keep in mind, Mr. Kim, the lead investigator, the whole time, he has only spoken in Korean and he s sort of looking out of his window over the city of Incheon, very cinematic. He turned as we walked in, and he looked at me and then he looked at the Tupperware and then he looked back at me and he said, “Do you want one?” in plain English. It was this moment of, like, “These motherf-ers. They sneaky little bitches.” And brilliant to volley that way because it does create a sense of trust between the translator and the interrogated. Just unbelievable. I could tell this guy had a sense of humor and I said, “No, I m all set, but you could take some home to your wife and children.” And there was this tiny little– just the slightest corner of his mouth went upwards and I could see that he wanted to laugh, but he had to keep it serious. He looked at me and then he looked back at his desk and then he said okay, and he walked out. That was the last time I saw him. I m sitting in this chair and Mr. Park said, “Your case is dismissed and I m going to take you home.” Scott Did you take the Tupperware with you? Blake No. I m sure that s in an evidence locker somewhere deep in the bowels of the National Korean Police International Drug Trafficking Unit building. Mr. Park offered to drive me home and I said, “I m actually all set” because I didn t want to be around any of them. I needed to be by myself. And so he wound up driving me to the train station. I took the train station back into Seoul and then took the bus back to Paju. Scott You needed some alone time there. Blake I needed some alone time. I did wind up actually going to the apartment of the guy that I was seeing while I was over there, but then wound up eventually going back to my apartment, but it was late when I got home. Scott When you hear the words “You re free to go”, that just had to be the best feeling of relief ever. Blake It was. Oh, and actually on that drive, Mr. Park told me that another foreigner that day who had a similar case went to prison and wound up paying, like, $30,000 for a lawyer, and that was really truly the moment where I was like, “I could have lost everything. This could have been really bad.” Sort of the bright spot in all of this is I made this new friend in Mr. Park and he wound up friending me on Facebook and my suspicions were confirmed because, once a quarter, when we had a new musical that we mounted at this theater company, he and his very special friend would come visit and come see the show, and then we would go out afterwards for a meal. It was never truly confirmed, but I knew exactly what was going on. I deleted my Facebook at the top of 2025 and it was 20 years of my life that was on that platform, just gone, and he s one of those people that, after I deleted it, I thought, “Ah, shit, I should have let him know where I m going because I would love to keep in touch with him.” But maybe it s for the best that he sort of sallied off into the digital ether and I just have a lot of gratitude for him. I really do think that I am actually positive that he had my best interest in mind that entire time and that it wouldn t have gone as smoothly had he not been the translator I wound up with. So, Mr. Park, if you are somehow listening to this, I cannot express to you my gratitude because you certainly are the reason that I was released. Scott That s awesome. I am positive I have some listeners in South Korea. Blake Excellent. Maybe this will get back to get him Scott Or somebody he knows, maybe. Did you continue staying in South Korea after this happened? Blake I did. Initially, the village threatened to fire me anyway because they wanted to make an example out of me and I said to them, “That s going to be a really silly image that you re presenting to people that, even though I was innocent, you fired me anyway. That doesn t make a lot of sense and that s going to create a lot of distrust among your employees actually.” Scott Future prospective employees who would want to work there. Right? Blake Exactly. But they really wanted me to somehow be punished still, and they couldn t figure out what to do, and I said, “You know what, guys? Why don t we get the whole group? Let s get the entire staff together? The teachers, the edutainers, which is what we were called, the actual planning staff why don t we all get together and I will present a session about why it is bad to ever think that you could bring drugs into this country and you can film it. And if you want to offer it to future employees, you can do that because I m a case study as it were.” And they really liked that idea, so I had to give this seminar essentially to the entire staff about why bringing drugs into South Korea was a bad thing. I was happy to do that because I certainly was not interested in losing my job for nothing. But after that, I mean, a week later, I was in Hong Kong with my friends. Really, it was almost as if nothing had ever happened, but everything had happened. Scott I m curious what Nick had to say about this because, obviously, he didn t send this to you intentionally to get you in trouble. Blake No, he did not. No. One of the things that I so appreciate about my relationship with Nick before and after all of this happened was that we never ever had ill intent towards one another, but this situation was so precarious and really could have put me in a lot of danger and, truth be told, it was a very stupid thing to do. I got on Facebook and I messaged him and I said, “I really need you to read this, and I really need you to listen to this. If you care about me the way that I know that you do, we have to cease communication here and now.” And I gave him sort of the summary of what had happened, and he honored my request. He did not respond. After I got back to the States, I waited a couple of years before I contacted him again. I had heard through friends that he was so distraught that this had happened and it really impacted him too, and I believe that, and I believe that he has every right he had every right to feel the way that he felt about that because he was just trying to do a lovely thing and it was just a really stupid way to go about it. He knew that. I did wind up contacting him a couple years later because I missed him. I missed my friend because, despite our relationship not working out, he was my first love and he was very dear to me and I adore him. So he met me in New York City. He apologized and expressed to me there was no way he was ever going to be able to go back and change what he did but, moving forward, he d like to start fresh. What was so beautiful is, at that point, we had both gotten sober and I didn t know that about him and he didn t know that about me. We found out at that lunch that we had both gone into recovery. There was something so beautiful about that because it really just felt like that connection was real. We walked through Central Park afterwards and talked about his sobriety, talked about my sobriety and that journey, and then he took me downtown to my job at a box office on 42nd Street and dropped me off, and that was the last time that I saw him that I remember. I know there was another time, maybe a year later, where I saw him briefly in Connecticut, but it wasn t like a long visit. So that was the last time that he and I spent time together because, in the fall of 2017 this is September 16th, 2017 I had left New York City and I had moved upstate to go to grad school. After my first day of classes, I was home and my phone rang and it was my friend Steph, who is Nick s best friend. I hadn t spoken to Steph since we graduated, except for when she let me know that Nick felt really guilty before he and I reconnected. When I saw her name pop up on my phone, I knew something was wrong and I answered the phone and without even a greeting, I said, “What happened to Nick?” She let me know that he had died by suicide. It was such an interesting thing because, not only was it my first day of grad school and starting a new life for myself, but it was also my sobriety date. So it s an interesting thing that my sobriety date is also the day that Nick died by suicide. When he and I were in college, we started giving each other head-up pennies that we would find on the street, sort of as a way of saying, like, “I was thinking about you today. Here s the proof of concept.” And at the end of college, before I moved to South Korea, he gave me a giant bag of head-up coins that he had, like, laminated into paper and, on each and every single piece of paper that had been laminated to this coin, he wrote the date and the time and the location where he got that head-up coin and he gave me a full bag of them. I still have one. I left the rest of them in South Korea, but I have one left and it s framed on my piano. On the one year anniversary of his passing, I went out to lunch with a friend of mine in New Paltz, New York, because I was celebrating my sobriety. Just for context also, in college, Nick, he looked a lot like the actor, Penn Badgley, who, if folks are listening, might know him from Smallville. He s now on a show called “You”, I think. Anyway, he has his own podcast too that s done pretty well. But Nick and Penn Badgley look very similar. There was actually a point in college where Nick changed his Facebook profile picture to a picture of Penn Badgley and nobody noticed. This was sort of like a funny little known fact about Nick that everyone joked about. I was waiting for my friend at this cafe and I was thinking about Nick and she showed up. Behind her, when she walked into the cafe, this just incredibly attractive man walked in behind her. It was the end of September, she had a baseball cap and sunglasses on, and I mouthed to her like, “Holy shit, that guy s hot.” And she got really weird, so I let it go. After she and I finished our meal, I opened the door to the street. As I was walking outside, I looked down and almost stepped on a head-up penny. As I bent down to pick it up, obviously, immediately saying hello to Nicholas in my head, I said to Isabelle, “I m so sorry that I made you so uncomfortable. I was just noting that guy was really attractive.” And Isabelle said, “Oh, I know. I really don t like to bother celebrities when they re in public.” And I said, “Who was that?” And she said, “Oh, that was Penn Badgley.” Scott, I don t believe in ghosts but, boy, did that get me one step closer to believing in something. Incidentally, about a year and a half later, I told that story of the heads-up penny at this storytelling workshop, and there was a performance that accompanied the end of it. Isabelle, my friend, who was with me at the cafe, was supposed to come and she wound up not being able to go, but she left me a voicemail that I didn t get until I was walking into the performance where she said, “Sorry, honey, I m not going to be able to make it, but you re never going to guess who I just saw at the grocery store.” And once again, she had seen Penn Badgley. So I have a lot of gratitude for Nick because despite all of the crazy that happened, he was the first person who really saw all of me and loved every single part of it, and that s a special person to have in one s life. So we re coming up on– I guess this will be the ninth anniversary of his passing, in September, and I m just really grateful for him. The past five years, I really got my shit together and I lead a beautiful life. I think a big part of that is knowing that I would ve made him really proud and I m just so glad that he is always just a heads-up penny away. I m just very grateful for it. Scott A lot of times, people talk about loved ones who pass and they think about that person reappearing in their life in some way, and it seems like it s always– for most people, it s a butterfly that lands on your shoulder or something and that s that person. For you, if Penn Badgley walks in the room. Blake Well, what s hilarious about all of this is, today, I got an email from Podcast Movement Evolutions that Penn is headlining that conference coming up here soon, which you are attending actually. Scott Yeah, I got the same email, Blake So you should go ahead and go see him. And if he takes questions, let him know. No, don t, do that. That would be great. Scott No, I won t “Hey, guess what? You re a big part of this other guy s story and you should listen to my episode.” Yeah, let s talk about this. Your podcast– I mean, 15 years later, you have an award-winning podcast. It s called abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast. By award-winning, I just saw in the news a day or two ago that the American Writing Awards just announced your show as podcast of the year. So congratulations on that. Tell us about your show. Blake Well, thank you. First of all, that was a big surprise. I host a show called Abandoned, like you just said, and the show is an audio travel log that documents my time exploring abandoned buildings all over the world. From a very young age, I have been deeply obsessed with abandoned spaces and it s inside abandoned spaces where I learned the power of the human imagination as a tool for healing and mental wellness, and I sort of reconnected with the hobby– not sort of. I fully reconnected with the hobby when COVID started, and it s a much longer story. Essentially I had this dream. The story goes about this abandoned dairy farm that I frequented as a child in the mountains of Colorado where I grew up. I wondered if there were abandoned spaces around me because there was really nothing else to do, and I was too afraid to even go on the trails up near the Catskills where I live because there were so many people coming up from the city, and it was just such a mess, and I m such a germophobe. Anyway, abandoned spaces sort of became this refuge for me and wound up becoming these very kooky sanctuaries where I found a lot of solace and reconnected with my childhood self, which was the piece that was missing from my life. So the second I stepped into my first abandoned space, reconnecting with this hobby, immediately my imagination started spinning the exact same way that it did when I was a child. My imagination became a portal into time travel and these abandoned spaces started becoming not just interesting, historical, architectural relics, but they also started becoming mirrors to what I was watching happening in American culture and really became symbols of how I learned to understand what is happening to this country and how they represent the underbelly of America s past, present, and future, and tell a very different story about the roadmap to what we have all called 250 years of our independence. So the show is– yes, I certainly dive into the history behind these spaces but, more so, I am interested in the cultural implications and how they relate to what s happening in real time. They re also reflections of me because I found deep sanctuary and these spaces over the course of the pandemic where I was really able to sort the last remaining pieces of my life out that hadn t quite clicked yet. The biggest one of those was a return to the childhood me where I felt fully comfortable as a 38-year-old man now having this huge imagination. So, every episode, I weave folks not just through the space itself, its history and its cultural implications, but I m actually bringing folks into my imagination as I do it. So there are imaginary characters that come in and out. It s very esoteric experience and it s an immersive experience and it s not something that s a passive listen. I was very clear at the beginning of each episode, “If you re going to listen to this, it’s not something that can be done while you’re vacuuming or cooking. It needs to be done with headphones and you need to be sitting because I m about to take you on a 20-minute journey that is going to offer you some reprieve from the big bad world outside.” The reason that I resorted to doing it with audio is because I believe nothing in the whole wide world, I think, insights the human imagination better than sonic storytelling, and there s a lot of research to suggest why that s true. It allows folks the opportunity to take a little trip into a time warp and go see places that they wouldn t otherwise get to see, and then afterwards go to the blog and see if what they imagined matches up with the actual space. Scott Well, it s the whole theater of the mind. Blake That s exactly right. Scott Yeah, that s why I love audio as well. Blake, I appreciate you coming on here. Thanks for sharing your story. Blake Thanks so much for having me, Scott. It s a pleasure. Scott As you heard in our conversation, Blake’s podcast is called Abandoned: the All-American Ruins podcast. And I love the concept of this show – finding a place that people used to be in, but aren’t any more, and creating a story around that place. It’s not a surprise that this podcast has won awards. And if you want to learn more about Blake’s former partner, Nick, he did a whole episode you can listen to. It’s in season 3, in February 2025, titled Nick and the Assassination of JFK. I love the discussion happening in our Facebook group this week. On Tuesday, the question we asked was “What’s a book you read as a child and still think about today?”. This brings back some memories for me. Do you have a book that impacted you as a child, and still does? Come on over and tell us about it – WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai. And now it’s Listener Story time. We all love personal stories, and that’s how we end every regular episode here – with an audio story that was sent in by a listener. And you can send in your own story – just record it on your phone – make it around 5-10 minutes and email it to [email protected]. This listener talks about getting in trouble in school – as an adult. Stay safe, and we’ll see you next time. (Listener story) My identity in school all the way up through my master s program has been the goodie two-shoes, teacher s pet, straight A, good girl identity, but I had one professor in college my sophomore year that just was not having it with me, and it just jolted with my reality. Here are some examples of what would happen in his class, totally none of which is my fault. One time, he is lecturing yada, yada, that s basically what I heard and he turns and he says to me, “Maggie, like, you are not listening to me. Can you even answer the question?” I just stated, as a good student and an honest person, I did not do anything fake. I was like, “No, I m sorry. I was not listening. I cannot answer your question.” But then I said, “Because she–” and I pointed in front of me “–has something in her backpack.” I ve been sitting there trying to listen and be a good student as I was and this girl in front of me, I could see her backpack moving. It was very subtle, and I would stare at it for several minutes and it would not move, and then it would move and her hand would go in there. I was like, “What could possibly be in there? Nothing made sense.” I was like, “You can t put a puppy in there.” She thankfully didn t throw me under the bus. She unzips her backpack and out comes two sugar gliders, which I really didn t even know. I mean, I think everybody in the class was like, “Are those monkeys? They re not. They re marsupials. But I was like, “Oh, phew. I m vindicated here. Surely, he ll realize I m a good person, I m a good student, always concentrating. We ll be all good. Well then, some times goes by, he starts lecturing about his major pet peeve. He hates cell phones. At this time, this would ve been like 2002 or so, he was like, “Cell phones are from the devil. Cell phones are the worst thing ever and people have immediately become addicted to them.” At this time, I would say I had a cell phone and maybe one or two of my friends. Like, they were very new. So, he said to the class, which was maybe 10 people it was a small class he said, “I m not going to name names, but there s a girl in this class.” Okay, so now we re down to five or six people. “There s a girl in this class who is so addicted to her cell phone that every time she leaves class, she s got it plastered to her ear before she even reaches the door.” And he starts going on, “It is the problem. It is an addiction.” And I was like, “Hold on.” Because I was just like, “This is silly.” I said, “Everybody in here knows who you re talking about. You re talking about me.” Because I was probably the only person with a cell phone in that class, maybe one other person. But yes, I always had my cell phone plastered to my ear and I said, “My cell phone is out because I call my grandma at the same time every day to ask her how her mass was and what is she having for lunch because my grandma, as a good Catholic, always watched her– she would get her VHS out and tape mass every day and watch it every morning. As a good girl, good granddaughter, I wanted to keep in touch with my grandma when I was away at college. So, yeah, I would call her every day as the horrible evil addicted cell phone person that I was, and be like, “Hey, how was TV mass?” Because she always had an opinion on which priest it was and whether his sermon was good or not, and what was she having for lunch. What else are you going to ask your grandma about? He didn t apologize. He didn t seem to suddenly rethink how he felt about cell phones, but I was like, “Okay. Surely though, I must be back on his good list” because I want teachers to think I m just a delight. So, I didn t like that he kept having issues, but yet it strikes again. It strikes a third time. He calls me out, “Maggie, I see you writing furiously in your notebook, but you re writing way too much. You can t possibly be taking notes. Tell me, are you really taking notes there or is this related to class?” And again, being honest as I was, I said, “No, what I m writing in my notebook is not related to class.” And then he proceeded to go in this big lecture in front of everybody about dedication to your college education and blah, blah, blah. He never asked what I was writing about because the truth was, I had been through a very traumatizing experience either the night before or possibly the weekend before. I had two options in my mind. I could stay in my dorm room and cry into my pillow all day, or I could go through the motions, get myself showered and dressed, go to class, and just absorb as much as I was able to. What I ended up sort of doing– I don t even think I knew the word, but stream of consciousness journaling just naturally came to me as the thing I needed to do to sort through my feelings and what had happened to me. To me, I was being like a really good student. I mean, I had been through something and yet I was showing up. I didn t miss a day of class. I had to kind of journal my feelings, but I really thought that was not disruptive, but this guy had it all for me. So that s my story. I think three times in my entire life, up through grad school, I got yelled at by a teacher and it was all the same professor. I think, if anything, it s just a lesson to maybe keep your eyes out for your pet peeves and realize that might make you make some pretty wide judgements about people that maybe is not fair and maybe you should be aware of that. I would be curious, honestly– I would so love it if somebody could tell me if that professor had a cell phone. I mean, did he have a cell phone later that year, even? Because everybody has a cell phone.

Every other Tuesday, we grab a past question from the Facebook group, then Meredith and Scott answer it and read some of the answers given by other listeners. The question for this episode: What is the worst second hand embarrassment you ve ever felt? Links for this episode: Washington, DC lunch picture (from left to right: Meredith, Scott, Jayna, Kiona, Laura): DC video in CVS https://youtube.com/shorts/okIKTmzebVo Meredith’s nail polish: https://www.essie.com/nail-polish/longwear Scott’s Drip Dry recommendation: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000TBXWNW?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title th=1 Meredith’s podcast is The Curious Introvert: https://MeredithForReal.com To check out the new Tuesday Question and get in the discussion, join us at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT

If your brain changes, are you still the same person? That was the question behind a 1991 movie titled Regarding Henry. In that film, Harrison Ford played the part of Henry Turner. Henry was a wealthy New York City lawyer. He was also narcissistic, uncaring, and even a little unethical sometimes. He got what he wanted and he didn’t care who was in the way. One night he stops into a convenience store and accidentally interrupts an armed robbery. Henry gets shot in the head, but somehow survives. But he has damage to his brain. As he recovers, he slowly emerges as someone very different than who he was before the shooting. He forges new, loving relationships with his wife and his daughter. And of course they love the “new” Henry. My guest today is Marcy. She’s a wife and a mother. She has first-hand experience with seeing someone change after a traumatic brain injury – it was her husband, Greg. He was not the same person. Marcy with her kids If you’d like to contact Marcy, she’s in the Facebook group – WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/251 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT Episode transcript (download transcript PDF): If your brain changes, are you still the same person? That was the question behind a 1991 movie titled Regarding Henry. In that film, Harrison Ford played the part of Henry Turner. Henry was a wealthy New York City lawyer. He was also narcissistic, uncaring, and even a little unethical sometimes. He got what he wanted and he didn’t care who was in the way. One night he stops into a convenience store and accidentally interrupts an armed robbery. Henry gets shot in the head, but somehow survives. But he has damage to his brain. As he recovers, he slowly emerges as someone very different than who he was before the shooting. He forges new, loving relationships with his wife and his daughter. And of course they love the “new” Henry. My guest today is Marcy. She’s a wife and a mother. She has first-hand experience with seeing someone change after a traumatic brain injury – it was her husband, Greg. He was not the same person. Scott What was it about Greg that first attracted you to him?  Marcy Oh, he was a great looking guy for starters, and very athletic. The night we met, I think he was playing foosball and just crushing it at the foosball table. Back then, people played foosball and that was very attractive. Somehow, we struck up a conversation and things kind of went from there. Scott Okay. So a little bit of back story when this happened. Who was in your family at the time? Obviously, your husband, Greg.  Marcy So yeah, my husband, Greg, and my son who was five and my daughter who was two and a half.  Scott And how long had you been married at that point?  Marcy I ve been married for 12 years at that point. Scott So it seemed everything you ve told me about Greg is that he was pretty happy and everybody liked him.  Marcy Yeah, it was a very happy-go-lucky kind of funny, sweet guy. I mean my nephews preferred him over me when we would get together with them. We d go to see my sister, we d open the door, and they would run to greet him first before me. So yeah, he was a really likeable guy.  Scott And he was a hard worker. What kind of work did he do?  Marcy Oh yeah, he was a really hard worker he had a custom framing company, so he framed big custom homes and a very talented carpenter as well. He did a good bit of the work himself. He had a crew, but he also did a good bit of the work himself. Scott Alright, so let s talk about that day. What happened and was there anything unusual that morning at all?  Marcy Nope. It was a normal day. We had our sales meeting that day and I went to work. We kissed goodbye. We got the kids all set up. It was summertime, so they were going to camp. I believe I probably dropped them off. Just a normal morning. Went to work. Yeah, it was a normal day.  Scott And he usually left earlier than you.  Marcy He did. In construction, they typically started at 7.30 and finished by 4. I was in a sales meeting and it was one of those meetings where you re in a conference room, the door s closed, and everybody waits to interrupt until it s over. Like, nobody just comes in. The HR lady, who s a friend of mine, opened the door, was like, “Marcy, you need to come out. You need to come with me.” So my first thought was the kids. Something happened to my kids? One was at camp, the little one, my daughter was, I believe, with a babysitter probably, or daycare. So of course, my first thought went to my children as I m sure for a lot of moms.   Scott Sure. That s always the first thought. Yeah.  Marcy So I went to take a phone call and the lady who had come in to get me already knew. She had been on the phone with the paramedics and so– (sob) sorry. It was a paramedic on the line. He is saying he d fallen and I could hear screaming in the background. I knew that was him, but I didn t know how badly hurt he was. They were telling me he was badly hurt and they needed to get him to the ER and they were either going to LifeFlight him or drive him to the closest hospital, depending on where a neurosurgeon could be available immediately, and none of that really registered to me. Neurosurgeon. Like what? None of it registered. My other really good friend came out of the meeting because, now, everybody knew there was something major going on, so she drove me to the hospital. We actually got to the hospital before he did.  Backing up a little bit, it turns out neurosurgeon was available at the hospital, which was about a 10-minute drive from where he was working from his job site. It was about a 30-minute drive for us. So she drove me, we got there, and the first thing they did was usher us into this, like, little back room.  Scott But you got there before the ambulance, right? Marcy We actually did, and I found out later because with the type of head injury that he had, he d fallen and landed on his back, his head, and he was immediately combative. Apparently, they were having a hard time getting him stabilized so they could put him on a gurney and get him into the ambulance. Scott Okay. So you were in this waiting room where they brought you. Who else came in?  Marcy Greg s best friend came in, who d been on the job site with him. He couldn t really talk. He had blood on his shorts and he just really was sitting there and I was like, “What happened?” And he just was like, it s bad. He couldn t tell me and we didn t really know yet how bad. He’s a big guy that was just completely freaked out.  Scott So you still really didn t know any details of what had happened. Marcy No. Didn t have any details yet. The ambulance did come. We saw it pull up and I went running out and– of course, they ushered us away me and my friend and were like, “We need to get him into surgery,” et cetera. So, we went back to the room. Then, the paramedics who brought him came into the room and they needed to get information his age, all the details that you have to give somebody in that kind of scenario. I think I was just completely numb at that point. I just knew it was bad, but I just didn t know how bad. Then, here s these two big burly ambulance guys across from me with tears in their eyes. They re, like, sad. I m thinking, “Why are you sad? Nothing happened to you. Why are you sad?” Of course, in hindsight, I knew they were sad because they knew my life had just completely changed as I knew it, but I didn t realise that yet, but they did. They knew from the type of injury that he had that nothing would ever be the same again for me. Scott Before he went into surgery, the surgeon came in also. Marcy Right. She came in and she was detailing out the injuries. He s got two broken vertebrae in his back. He s got a broken shoulder, he has a broken ankle, and he has a major TBI, which is a traumatic brain injury. So I m asking questions like, “Well, is he going to be paralysed? How bad is his back?” And she s like, “Don t worry about the back. It s the head injury that we re really concerned about. We re about to take him into surgery. Do you want to come back and see him first?” Went back. It was July, it was summertime, and he was super tan and he just had shorts on at that point and he was laying there on the hospital bed completely peaceful. He was in really good shape. He looked fine except he had blood gushing from his ears because of the head injury.  Scott Was he conscious at all at that point?  Marcy No, he was not conscious. He was just out completely still. His body looked fine. It was just his head but you couldn t see any injuries to the actual head itself. Like I said, there was blood coming from his ears.  Scott For you to see that, that had to just be traumatizing for you as well.  Marcy Yes. At that point, I was just numb. I was just trying to take it all in and everything was happening so fast at that point. They re talking in medical jargon that you don t understand and they re asking, “Who do you want to call?” And I couldn t think of anybody to call because I would ve called him. So I didn t call anybody. I was there by myself with my friend and she was like, “Oh my gosh. I have to call somebody for you.” And she kind of took over. I just was kind of incapable of doing much. He was in surgery for three or four hours, and then they came. We were in the ICU waiting room. They said he d be in the ICU. So then, they came out to the ICU waiting room and, by then, a couple more people had come some friends and people who had heard what had happened and they said, “You can go in and see him.” Just me.  It was so shocking. ICU rooms are all open to the main nursing station. There s no doors and tubes everywhere. His head was shaved. He had a drain coming out of his head. He was on a ventilator. There was a nurse in his room that was stationed in his actual room. I could even barely get into the room there was so much machinery there.  When they do surgery, somebody has a traumatic brain injury, what they re trying to do is relieve the pressure in the brain as much as possible because the brain is going to continue to swell. He cracked his skull when he fell about 30 feet. He fell from a second storey he d been framing. He s a great framer, like I said, a great carpenter, and he just made a mistake and didn t nail something down and fell through a hole where the stairs would ve been and fell all the way down to the concrete basement and hit his head. So the brain just has nowhere to go. It gets slammed into the front of the skull. There really is no successful surgery. They re just trying to relieve as much pressure on the brain as possible in hopes of alleviating as much damage as possible because the brain is– they don t know how damaged it s going to be at that point, or how much swelling there s going to be, but they did say, “It d be about 48 hours before we know whether he ll live or die.” Scott And you re thinking, I m not going to know anything new for the next two days.  Marcy Yeah, time goes slow. Nowadays, 48 hours is the blink of an eye, or prior to that. That 48 hours was forever. I stayed at the hospital. I think I stayed probably till about 2 AM and then they wanted me to go home. There was nowhere for me to stay in the room or sleep, and it was just fueling my anxiety in a way that was just– I m sure I was making them crazy too, like asking all the questions about the beeping and the pressures going up. I finally did go home, came back early the next day, and that kind of became the routine. Scott And what about your kids?  Marcy They were at camp with a good friend of mine. Well, my son was at camp with a good friend of his family, so he went home with them for a couple days. I had a nanny in the past for the kids and she came back to the house and stayed with my kids and she was a godsend. She stayed for the next month or so at the house.  Scott Can you talk about your friend who was an ICU nurse who kind of translated stuff for you?  Marcy Yeah. Like I said, my anxiety was just at a hundred because I just didn t understand all these numbers. There s pressures and beeps from different machines and the amount of liquid being drained from the brain and blah, blah, blah. So, she was amazing. She was an ICU nurse, so she came and just explained to me what all these numbers meant, not that any of them were necessarily good, but at least I had some kind of an understanding. She brought me, like, a pad and a pen so I could write some of these things down because I was, again, trying to remember the medical jargon. This was like everybody had their phone. I could have Googled what does this mean or what does that mean. I was just taking it all in and trying to understand what was going on.  Scott And this was just a friend of yours? It wasn t one of the nurses working in the ICU there, right? Marcy Right, She just happened to be an ICU nurse and a friend of mine.  Scott That s pretty handy.  Marcy Yeah. She was amazing to have around. Over the next couple of days, you re just watching the swelling and watching to see is it going to get to the point where his brain is no longer functioning or is the swelling going to start going down. The swelling did start going down and they knew he was going to make it, so they put him at that point in an induced coma to make sure that his body would be still, and he d be able to start healing, whatever that looked like. I mean, the next few days were just a nightmare. He was in a coma. He developed pneumonia, which is apparently not uncommon when you re in a coma, so they put him in this, like, massive iron rotating bed. Then, every day when I was there, they would have me go out of the room and they would suction his lungs and it was terrible.  In the meantime, I got a letter from the insurance company that they weren t going to pay his bills because it was an on the job accident. I got a letter from OSHA fining his company, like, $5,000. It was like one nightmare after another. There were a couple different times that they tried to take him off the ventilator and lift him from the coma. The first time, he immediately was, like, fighting against everything, so they put him back under. They tried again, I don t know, maybe a couple days later and took him off the ventilator, lifted the meds that he was on that was inducing the coma, and I had this expectation that, just like the movies, he d come out of the coma and everything would be great, he s going to be fine. There s even a movie like that, right? They d come out of a coma and it was so far from that.  The first time, they had him sitting up. I remember I think I had gone to take my kids somewhere, I don t remember, but I got to the hospital and they had him sitting in a chair and he was holding onto a blood pressure cuff, like picking at some imaginary stuff on that blood pressure cuff. I don t even know how to describe it, but it was horrifying. I walked in and he didn t even acknowledge me. It s like nothing was there.  Scott Was he at all aware of what had happened or why he was in the hospital?  Marcy No, I mean, I guess the one godsend for the person who has the injury is that with the TBI, traumatic brain injury, to that extent, they don t know, they don t understand what happened. He didn t even know he was in a hospital. As he started to get “a little bit more aware”, I say in quotes because it wasn t aware like you and I would think of aware situationally aware. He thought he was at a hotel and he wanted us to check out. It s like, “We need to check out. We need to leave. We need to check out.” And he would ask the same questions over and over again, “Where are we and why are we here?” And he couldn t absorb any of it.  The ICU portion was about 10 days, and then they transferred him to an inpatient rehab type unit and they wanted to put him in this thing called a veil bed, which is like a zipped up canvas bed, so that if he did wake up middle of the night, he wouldn t wander or try to hurt himself or whatever. I refused to let them put him in that thing because I was like, “Oh my gosh, if he wakes up and he s in this trap, he s going to freak out.” It sounded horrible to me and it seemed almost, like, animalistic, putting him in a cage. So they said, “Well you re going to have to pay for a private nurse.” And I was like, “Okay then. We ll pay for a private nurse to sit in the room with him.” So did that.  Maybe three or four days later, he started coming around a little bit more, but he still wasn t aware of where he was. Same questions every day. Where are we? Why are we here? And just constantly agitated and had no filter. There was one kind of funny story where my sister had come and we were trying to keep him entertained and he was in the bed and there was like a big erase board directly in front of him. So she started to draw, like, a tic-tac-toe up there so we could play a tic-tac-toe or maybe hang man, I can t remember. As she s doing this, she has her back to him and, out of the blue, he says, “Gosh, see, I never realized how big your butt was.” So he had no filter. That was the only funny thing that ever happened. Beyond that, he was just mad. He was angry.  They were letting him get into a wheelchair and wheel around the hallways. We went outside a little bit and I came the next day and they told me he stole cigarettes from somebody. The weird part is he had been a smoker, but he had quit about a month before the accident, but he had forgotten that he quit. He had been a smoker his whole life and he had just had no memory. Apparently, he stole cigarettes from somebody on the floor and they thought I brought him cigarettes. That was a bit of a mess.  Scott Around this time, were you able to have any kind of meaningful conversation with him, or could you comprehend that he wasn t quite the same as before? Marcy Yeah. It was very clear that he wasn t the same as before, but I thought he would continue to get better. The neurosurgeon said, “Yeah, he s going to continue to get better.” There s kind of a scale they give you of the stages of a traumatic brain injury. There s like aphasia, which is actually what I think Bruce Willis has, where you say things like, “Okay, hand me the fork,” and what you really have in your hand is a cup. You mix words up and a lot of that, and then he would just get super pissed, frustrated, mad. It was everybody else s fault. He didn t know what was going on, so I thought, “Maybe if I bring the kids–” A good friend of mine was staying at the house with the kids at this point, and I thought, “Maybe if I bring the kids, he ll recognise them and it will trigger something for him.” So I had her bring them and it was a disaster. Get into the hospital room and he didn t recognize my son, his son. He was just like, “Oh, you re a big kid. Come here.” And he was scary. Sometimes, you just have that initial feeling from somebody that they re just scary. You don t want to be around them, and that s how he was. I don t even know the word for it. It was so unbelievable. It was like how could this be happening?  Scott Yeah. And your son was just five at the time, right? Marcy Yeah, he was five.  Scott And of course, you had never seen Greg have any kind of interaction like that with him. Marcy No, he was a great dad. He loved the kids and yeah, he loved having kids. He was a good dad. Same with my daughter. Nothing really registered and she didn t want to sit by him. She didn t want to sit on his lap. She just was also just kind of afraid of him. It s like the instinct that kids have of danger or whatever that is. So like I said, it was a disaster. I told my friend, I said, “Just take them back home.” He was getting more agitated because he didn t know why these kids were in his room. So she got back out to the car and she told me later that she put my daughter in her car seat and then she came around to strap my son and he had his little hands in prayer and he knew enough. He was praying. He was praying for his dad.  Scott We talked about your life changing. Their life changed then as well.  Marcy Yes, their life changed tremendously and, in some ways, I felt like it was a blessing that they were so young and didn t have as many memories of him before. I thought, in a lot of ways, that was a good thing because they wouldn t really know what they lost. They just knew him as the dad that he became after the accident. So before he came home, they told me to remove the keys, remove the alcohol. They gave me all the meds, all the things. He had a back brace because he had two broken vertebrae in his back and sent him home with Risperidol and Trazodone and all of these, like, heavy duty antipsychotics, if you will, which in hindsight, there s no relation between psychosis and brain injury. I guess one is to calm the brain. In the case of TBI, it s almost like everything got unplugged and they were trying to use these meds to plug things back in, maybe, but it didn t work. So we got home and he didn t know what was going on, why he couldn t drive, why he couldn t drink alcohol. I was angry, agitated. The first night we were in bed and one of his friends had come home with us to help me and spend the night. He was down in our basement bedroom and, all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, Greg wakes up and he s like, “I just know you snuck downstairs and you fucked Bob and you were down there in the basement with him.” I mean, it was so scary because obviously nothing like that had happened. But he was just so angry. That look in his eyes was “I m going to hurt you” kind of a look and just made no sense. I mean, I d been in bed the whole time. Scott That must have instilled a little bit of fear in you just having him back in the home. Did you have fear for yourself or for the kids?  Marcy I started to. I mean, almost right away, after that happened, yes. It became very scary. He was illogical. He would get angry over the smallest things. He would punch the wall, kick my car when I would try to go somewhere with the kids. The kids would not stay with him, so if I wanted to go to the grocery store or anything, I would have somebody come over and sit with him while I went to the grocery store. At this point, he was in outpatient rehab, so he was going to rehab most days during the day. I had my daughter she was two and a half and I had been working at the time, just going back to that. I had an angel of a boss who gave me 12 weeks off, fully paid because he knew I needed to take care of my kids and try to take care of my husband.  Scott You had enough to worry about. Marcy Yes. He s in outpatient rehab and I would drive him every day. Somebody would stay at the house and watch the kids. It was summertime, like I said. My son was going to various camps and then we rolled around to the fall and it s kindergarten. My son was going to kindergarten that year. I remember waiting at the bus stop on the first day of kindergarten and he didn t want to wait anymore. The bus was running late and Greg didn t want to wait anymore. He was like, “We got to go. I have to be at rehab. I have to be there at whatever time.” I was like, “This is our son s first day at kindergarten. Let s just wait for the bus.” And he was just getting super agitated. So one of my neighbours finally said, “Don t worry about it. We ll get him on the bus.” So that s always stuck with me. I never got to see him get on the bus for the first time just kind of meaningful time in a parent s life, right?  Scott Yeah. That s one of those moments.  Marcy Yeah.  Scott You told me ahead of time that it s okay to ask this question. How did this change sex with Greg?  Marcy Yeah, it was definitely like sleeping with a stranger and I didn t want to have sex with him, but I also felt like his wife and, maybe, in some way, shape or form, that will help him. But it was horrible. Again, it felt like sleeping with a stranger. It was just bad. It was bad all around.  Scott So you knew obviously something semi-permanent had changed. I mean, what do you do? Are there support meetings? How do you proceed from there?  Marcy Yes, there were brain injury support group meetings at the hospital for people who had a serious TBI and we would go to those and they had somebody there to watch the kids, and we would all sit around and talk. The spouse of the injured person would sometimes be often in the small group trying to just– we understood kind of a little bit more what was going on. Nobody else in the group had the same situation as me. One of the ladies had a husband who, after his TBI, became very childlike, which also can happen. So, for her, it was like taking care of another child instead of a husband. She would tell me that he seemed to understand that something was not quite right and he didn t know how to do certain things that he would allow her to whereas, with Greg, he was just angry, like, all the time.  I remember, one morning, we were on the way to one of the meetings and he asked me to get him some candy because he wanted some candy for breakfast. I said sure. So, I went in the house, got some candy, brought it out to the car, and he totally lost his shit because he told me he didn t say candy. He had said candy, for sure, but he had thought that he had said, like, a cereal bar. It was like the ultimate mind fuck constantly because I started questioning myself, “What did he say? Maybe he did say that and I didn t understand it.” I have my kids and I m trying to do all these support groups and doctors. Maybe it was me. Maybe he did say something and I took it the wrong way or I didn t understand what he said. There were a lot of those situations where he was just completely illogical.  There was one night where I think I d bathed the kids and I had sent them to go downstairs and I was cleaning up the bathroom. He was downstairs and I was just hurrying up, trying to get down there as quickly as I could, so they wouldn t be with him for very long alone. My daughter asked him if she could have Tootsie Rolls for a snack before bedtime I remember this like yesterday and yelled up to me upstairs. I m coming down. He says, “Can she have Tootsie Rolls for a snack before bedtime?” And I said, “Yeah, that s fine.” He goes, “Why would you tell her that she can have Tootsie Rolls before bedtime?” I said, “Well, you just asked me if she can have Tootsie Rolls because she asked you and I said yes.” He goes, “But why would you say yes? Why would you do that?” The conversations that we were having were just– it s hard to describe, but they just had no logic. They were, like, circular conversations that just didn t make sense and he didn t realize they didn t make sense, but they didn t make sense.  He was angry and mad. Instead of taking a breather maybe and being like, “Okay, maybe there is something wrong,” or just calming down or anything, he could not calm down. He just would not ever calm down. And it s hard because– I mean, some of it, obviously most of it, all of it, it wasn t his fault. But by the same token, living in that situation was absolutely killing me and my kids. I d lost about 30 pounds. I mean, I m not a big person as it is. I couldn t eat, I couldn t sleep, I couldn t do anything.  Then, two months after the accident is when 9/11 happened. And, on that particular day, his best friend, the one who d come to the hospital, had started taking him on occasion back to the job site just to have him be there and be in what seems to be somewhat of a familiar environment and give me a break. These were on, like, non-rehab days. On that particular day, I had told Pete, , his friend, that I would come pick him up at lunchtime, and I had told Greg we would go get a bite to eat before heading back to the house. So 9/11 happened that morning and we all know what happened and it was horrible and everybody s just freaking out. We got to the restaurant and the TVs were on, and everybody is of course glued to the TVs, watching what s going on, watching the news, and he literally looked up because I think we just got our food and say, “Are you going to watch TV the whole time or are we going to eat lunch together?” It was just a moment for me that almost took me completely over the edge because this thing is going on and he has no concept of it. He doesn t understand. I m trying to figure out what s going on in the world and he just has no concept, he couldn t care less, he just was just mad that I wasn t paying attention to him at that moment.  So I called Pete and I was like, “Pete, please, I m bringing him back. I can t do this today.” And so Pete came and got him, and I think I went to some friend s house that day.  Scott It paints quite a picture because you re seeing on the news, on the television that everything s being destroyed but, right in front of you, your own world is falling apart as well. Marcy Yeah, I kept having hope that things would get better. Like I said, we did brain injury support group meetings and we did a variety of different counselling sessions. I continued to have hope that he would get better.  Scott Can you remember a particular time when you just came to the realization that he s not the same person or was it just gradual? Marcy He was not the same person from the time he woke up from the coma. But what was gradual for me was realizing that he was never really going to get better like he was going to be. He was a little bit better to where he knew how to brush his teeth and do all the normal things, but he wasn t going to ever get better, and that s kind of what happened gradually. We went to several different types of counselors. I found one counsellor who specialised in– he was a marriage counsellor, but he specialized in trauma therapy and we d go to our first session and he said all the ground rules. I m not on your side, I m not on her side, blah, blah, blah.  We started the conversation and it was things like, “Well, she moved my cup last night when we were at dinner from the right side to the left side, and that s bullshit. That s some fucked up shit.” And the counselor s like, “Marcy, can you give me a little bit from your side?” Because again, he s not calling Greg out, he s not doing any of that. I said, “This is kind of our life. There s no logic to the things that he gets mad about and overreacts to.” So he says to Greg, “Is there a different way maybe you could have said that? I don t like you moving my cup or?” Greg launches into, “No, that s just bullshit. She shouldn t be doing that. And it s so fucked up.” The counsellor said, “Greg, can you step outside for a minute? I want to talk to Marcy by herself.” So my husband stepped out and he said to me, “I m so, so, so, so sorry, but I can t help you. This is not that. I can t help you.” So at that point, it was just getting closer to being at my woods end and just being like, I don t know how much longer I can do this. If it wasn t for my kids, I d be done, I d just be out.  The final straw was we started going to see our pastor. We were pretty involved in church at the time and he was comfortable with the pastor and went to see the pastor. The pastor was a wonderful man. The first session, he was just very kind and very understanding. We didn t really get anywhere, but he was just very empathetic. We got home and, that evening, I said to Greg, “When do you want to make the next appointment?” Because he was going back to work some days, I was trying to ask him, schedule-wise, when would you like to go? And he said, “I want to go on the next rain day.”  “I don t know when it s going to rain, Greg. Can we just decide on a day?”  “Nope. I want to go next time it rains.” I mean, it was definitive and cruel. Did he know that was like a really fucked up thing to say or not? There were times I couldn t tell whether he was cruel because he was cruel or he was intentionally being more difficult, but that was like the last straw for me and I knew I had to save myself. At this point, my friends were all saying, “This is not good. This is not getting better.” Scott They could see the toll it was having on you. Maybe more than you could.  Marcy Yes, I think so. I would be like, “No, he s getting better. Come over and talk to him and you ll see.” And they would come over and they would talk to him. They d be like, “Not sure what you re seeing, but it s not getting better.” But I think I was at that point so traumatized I don t even know the word. I just kept looking for the slightest ray of hope that things might be better and it just wasn t. The kids were scared of him and he was mean to the kids and that s one thing that I don t know that I handled as well as I could have, but we did finally get divorced. It was really difficult with the kids and he wanted some custody, but it was like he only wanted it to be vengeful because he knew I didn t want to give him any custody.  When I was around the kids and we talked about him, I never said anything bad, but I never said anything good. I never told them at any point in time when they were growing up that he was a great guy and he was sweet and kind and all those things because I always thought that, if I told them those things, it would feel like more of a loss to them whereas, if they just knew him as this person who wasn t good to be around and wasn t nice to be around, then unfortunately they just had this dad who was just not a nice person. And yes, he d had this accident, but you could only be empathetic for so long when somebody is constantly being cruel and, eventually, it breaks you. Scott Yeah. You didn t want them to feel the same loss that you were feeling. Marcy Right, yes. I thought it was protecting them and, sometimes, I think in hindsight, maybe I should have talked more about the good side too.  Scott It s easy to think about things in hindsight, but you ve got to give yourself some grace. You were thrust into a position through no fault of your own, or Greg s, and you have no idea how to handle this. All you can do is the best that you can do to protect yourself and your kids.  Marcy Yes. Thank you for saying that. I think I appreciate you saying that because it was so hard to get people to understand what I was going through and why I would leave, why I would get a divorce because people looked at it in a nutshell, “Okay, he fell, he had this accident, he had this brain injury, and then you left.” And I wrestled with that so much for so long because nobody understood what I was really going through and living with, and that part was also hard for many years.  Scott That s got to be incredibly difficult to be judged by people who don t really know what s going on.  Marcy Yeah. That was definitely difficult, but I was also in the middle of trying to raise my kids and work. I didn t get any child support from him. He went back to work a little bit, but not to any meaningful extent and I was just trying to get by.  Scott How did you have that conversation with him to tell him that you want a divorce?  Marcy I remember broaching the conversation and he was like, “No way.” He thought everything was fine. I mean, again, he just didn t have any concept of how cruel he was or that the kids were scared of him. He just didn t have a realistic picture of what was going on. I think I eventually enlisted his family and asked them to, “Please just tell him to come home for a little bit. Let me get me and my kids out of there.” He just wasn t going to leave. He didn t understand really what was exactly going on and why I would want a divorce.  Scott And how did the kids feel about that?  Marcy I think divorce is hard, no matter what age the kids are, what the situation is, because it s just a change. It s a big change. They were fine though. They were better because they weren t around him anymore, but he had some custody. He had like once a week and every other weekend, which as I said, was more like something bad to do to me more than he wanted the kids. They had to go over there and be at his house one night a week and every other weekend and that was also tough on them because he wasn t nice. Shortly after we got divorced, he told them to call me mo-hoe, like literally, and they were little. So they d come home and, during dinner, they d go, “Dad says we need to start calling you mo-hoe.”  Scott What does that mean?  Marcy Your mom, the hoe, like literally. I mean, they were too young to really understand. I knew they didn t really get what was going on and that it would all just kind of play out like it would play out and I was as supportive to my kids as I possibly could be. I never said anything negative about Greg. Like I said, I didn t say anything positive, but I never said anything negative. Over time, he became more and more cruel to them. They became more of the punching bag. Another thing I felt guilty about is I had escaped it, but they couldn t really escape it. Scott Yeah, but you tried to help them escape it.  Marcy I did.  Scott The courts just didn t agree apparently.  Marcy Exactly, yes. I mean, he could be functional enough to fake his way out in a conversation. The crazy part is if you didn t know him before, you wouldn t know what kind of person he was. If he s talking to a judge or an attorney, they just think he s kind of a short tempered guy, just not very easygoing but, unless they were in a scenario where they frustrated him or pissed him off, they re not going to see what s really going on.  Scott This all happened about 25 years ago. Marcy Yeah.  Scott What s happened with Greg since then?  Marcy Unfortunately, my kids haven t seen him in about 15 years. He was just so difficult to be around and so mean and hateful about me. They just chose to quit associating with him as soon as they were able to and he continued to work with his friend doing construction type work. From what I understand, that s still what he s doing. I m in touch a little bit with my ex sister-in-law. He remarried and was remarried for a few years while my kids were really young, which was a good thing. She was a lovely woman, but she d actually come from a domestic abuse situation, so I think that volatility wasn t as– I don t know. Maybe being with Greg felt familiar to her for some reason. They ended up getting divorced as well after about five years of marriage. He s out there somewhere but I have completely lost touch, like I said, so are my kids. Scott What s one of your favourite memories with Greg from before the accident?  Marcy Oh, I think my favourite memory is that we used to always sit down as a family for dinner. Of course, again, the kids were really little. One particular night, Greg got some food on his face and I said, “Hey, you have some food on your face,” and he goes, “Oh yeah, I m saving that for later.” And then, a couple days go by and we re sitting at dinner again and my son had something on his face, I said, “Hey buddy, you got something on your face.” He goes, “I know, mom. I m saving it for later.” Of course, Greg laughed his ass off at that. Of course, it was funny and cute and all the things. He was a good dad.  Scott You ve told me that part of your reason for telling this story now was for your kids. Can you talk about that?  Marcy Oh yeah. They know the overarching picture, but they don t know all the details and I always tried to protect him from most of that. Of course, they have their own story because they also had to live with him. The other part is that I ve wrestled so much with, “Should I tell them more about the good stuff?” Again, I didn t want them to feel more of a sense of loss than they already did and I just want them to know the whole picture that this is what happened. I did do my best. I tried to do what I thought would protect them. I don t know if it was the right thing or the wrong thing.  Scott You re a good mom. Marcy Thank you, Scott.  Scott I m sure they understand that  Marcy They re great kids. I mean, they ve turned out amazing. I mean, they re both awesome and I m very proud of both of them. They re very kind and sweet and very caring.  Scott Maybe they inherited that from you and from the original Greg.  Marcy Yeah. Scott You said something interesting to me also that, in a way, you were kind of jealous of people whose spouses had been in an accident and had actually died.  Marcy Yeah, that was a tough one for most people to understand. When somebody has a spouse die suddenly, just like this accident happened suddenly, they immediately mourn that person and they have these great memories of that person and it seems like the norm that people will just remember the good things when somebody dies that suddenly, especially in a marriage. They just remember the good stuff and that s kind of a gift, and I didn t get any of that. He lived but he became this completely different, horrible person. I thought many times it probably would ve been better if he had not, and that s the blessing and the curse of modern medicine, right? They want to save somebody no matter what and is that always the best thing to do? Scott And yet, once again, it s one of those things that if you say that out loud, “It would ve been better if he died”, nobody is going to understand that.  Marcy Yeah. Maybe my kids, but yeah, nobody who hasn t lived through it. But as I said to you, Scott, if somebody told me that, tomorrow, I would have that exact same experience, I would literally say, “I ve had a good life. I m out. Not doing it again.” Scott Have you met anyone else who s gone through what you ve experienced?  Marcy No, and that s the crazy part. I really wish I had. I know there s people out there who have had significant others or kids who ve had traumatic brain injuries and have turned more violent. I take that back. I was actually pen pals, email pals with a lady whose son had a traumatic brain injury and he also was violent and just not logical, same kind of scenario, but I think that people don’t maybe hear about it as much. People always want to hear the happy stories, the wake up from the coma and everything is wonderful story. Scott There s a good chance someone listening to this has been through something similar, so maybe they can reach out to you. I don t know what that connection would look like, but you would. You re in the podcast Facebook group, so that s where someone can contact you. Tell us just a quick update, what s happened with you since then? Marcy Yeah, so I was a single mom for about 14 years. I did date some, but my kids got older and grown. About three years ago I got remarried to a great guy and I felt like all those terrible years are now good years. I was in that bad situation for so long and now it s like the exact opposite. I ve married a great guy and we have a great life.  Scott We like a story with a happy ending. Marcy, thanks for sharing your story with us.  Marcy Yeah, of course. Hopefully, it ll help somebody else. Scott As I mentioned in our conversation, Marcy is in the Facebook group so come on over and find the post for this episode to ask a question or leave a comment about her story. WhatWasThatLIke.com/facebook. And speaking of Facebook, the question in the group this past Tuesday was “What’s something most  people think they want, until they get it?”. It’s like that old phrase, “be careful what you ask for!”. Do you have something like that? Come on over and share it with us. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.  And now, you’re in for a treat with this week’s Listener Story. Each main episode ends with a story that was sent in by a listener. And we’re still waiting on YOU to send in your story. Just record it on your phone, make it around 5-10 minutes, and email to me – [email protected].  This listener tells a pretty amazing lost and found story. Stay safe, and I’ll see you next time. (Listener Story) When I was a senior in high school, my parents got me a super nice Seiko watch as a graduation gift. It was gold and shiny, weighty, and they looked great on my wrist. At some point after I graduated and moved to Colorado, I accidentally hit the watch and knocked a small chip off the crystal face. Little did I know that small chip would soon play a key role in one of the greatest stories ever to unfold. As a freshman at Colorado State University, I lived in the on-campus dorms. It was a requirement. I lived in Westfall Hall, a 12-storey high rise on the west end of campus. The view from my 10th floor room was amazing. Looking out of the mountains, just to the west of the city, sunsets were epic. There was another set of dorms right next to the towers. Between the two dorms was a rec centre that housed a cafeteria and a bar called The Tap, which is key to this story. In Colorado during the 1980s, you had to be 21 to drink alcohol. If you were over 18, you could drink what was called 3-2 beer. Instead of having 6% alcohol, it only had 3.2% alcohol. Hence, the name. Even though it was beer light, we just drank twice as much and achieved the same effect.  So one night, let s just say I had my fair share of twice as much as I probably should have. The good thing though, I only had to stumble my way across a courtyard to get back to the building where my dorm was, which I did. However, once I got there, I didn t go right up to my room. Instead, I decided to go to the basement where there was a game room with all sorts of video games. There was no one else in the room. It was dark and quiet when I walked in, with the exception of the occasional bleep or bloop of a video game. I flipped on the lights, walked over to a game where you had to stand to play. I wasn t quite getting the dexterity in my hand movements that I needed to get the high score and a few free games. Instead of thinking, “Well, it must be because I m smashed,” I figured it had to be the watch on my left hand, the same shiny gold watch given to me as a graduation gift. So I took the watch off and set it on top of the video game cabinet. Problem solved, racked up points, fee free games, called it a night. The next morning, I woke up incredibly hungover and starving, so I rolled out of bed and was heading out my dorm room when I suddenly realised my watch was not on my wrist. Fuck! After a brief moment of panic through the pounding in my head, I remember I had taken it off after the bar last night when I was playing video games. No problem. I went down to the basement of the building, walked up to the video game I was playing, reached up on top of the cabinet, fully expecting my watch to be there. Fuck! I went to the office where the RAs hung out and asked if anyone had turned a watch in from the game room. Nope. I kept checking for the next week or so, but nothing. The watch was gone.  Christmas break was quickly approaching and I was in a panic. If I showed up at home with no watch on my wrist, my parents would ask questions. I m a terrible liar, and would ve been caught immediately if I tried to make something up. So I went down to the jewellery store at the mall, and luckily they had the same exact SEIKO watch in stock. I bought it. It literally blew most of my budget for the second half of the year, but I d figured that out later when I walked off the plane and greeted my parents. That watch would be on my wrist and they would be none the wiser, which I did, and they weren t.  In my second semester, I took an introductory astronomy class. I figured it would be kind of interesting and should be an easy grade. It was in one of those giant lecture rooms that sat 300 people in theatre style seating. One day, I was sitting in class. My mind started to wander, and I started looking around. Suddenly, I saw it there. It was my watch. It was on the wrist of a kid sitting directly in front of me, a couple rows down. My heart was beating like crazy. I knew it was mine because I could see the face and it had the same chip in the crystal. The conversation in my head began immediately, what should I do? Should I confront him after class or should I just let it go? I mean, after all, I replaced the watch anyway, he d probably deny that he found it and just tell me I was crazy. So I let it go, and honestly, I thought nothing of it again, nor did I see him again in class or on campus until my junior year. By then, I was deep into coursework for my major, which was technical journalism, and wouldn t you know it, on the first day in one of my classes there, he was sitting one row over with my watch on. I could see it much better now, and it was definitely my watch, but again, I figured I d just let it go, which I did. That was the only other class Jeff and I had during the rest of our time at CSU. But our paths would cross again professionally.  A few years later, I graduated and took a job at WTVT, a television station in Tampa. I d been working there for about a year or so as a newscast producer. One of the managers came up to me one day, and said, “Hey, we just hired someone to work on the assignment desk who went to your college.” I said, “No kidding. What s their name?” Sure as shit, it was Jeff, the guy who had my watch. So fast forward a few months, Jeff shows up and is working the assignment desk.  One evening, it was quiet. I was busy putting a show together and Jeff came walking by. He stopped, stood next to me, and said, “Hey, I m going to the break room. Would you like me to get you anything staring intently at my computer?” I said, “No thanks.” Then Jeff said it and it stunned me. Noticing the watch in my left hand, he said, “Hey, I have a watch just like that.” It was like the world and time slowed. At that moment, what I had known all along was right in my face and standing next to me.  This time, I was not going to let the opportunity go by. I stopped what I was doing, I turned, I faced him and smiled and said, “I know you do Jeff, and I know exactly where you got it.” The utter shock that came over his face was priceless. “You found it on top of a video game in the basement of Westfall Hall.” There was silence. Then he said, “How do you know that?” I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Because it s my watch.” I proceeded to tell him the story of how it ended up on top of the video game and how I d seen him wearing it in class, but decided not to make a big deal about it because I had bought a replacement. Again, he was speechless.  He explained that he had asked the RAs at the desk if anyone had reported losing a watch and they said no, so he kept it. He told me how it had travelled with him around the world after he left school and into the beginning of his professional life. We both had a good laugh about it. I told him, “No hard feelings,” but it did make for a great story. A couple of weeks later, we wound up working together again. One night, he walked up to me and said, “Here, this is yours.” In his hand, my watch. He said, after hearing my story, he felt so guilty that he had to give it back to me.  While this story took literally years to come to an end, it reminded me of one thing. People are inherently good to this day. I still have both watches and along with them, the greatest lost and found story ever.

Every other Tuesday, we grab a past question from the Facebook group, then Meredith and Scott answer it and read some of the answers given by other listeners. The question for this episode: What’s the most annoying thing people do in public? Links for this episode: Meredith hates Axe cologne: https://www.amazon.com/AXE-Fragrance-Collection-Premium-Deodorant/dp/B0CTB125V1/ref=sr_1_6 Life Kit podcast episode about nail care: https://www.npr.org/2026/02/12/nx-s1-5711411/dont-mess-with-your-cuticles-and-other-nail-advice Neti Pot: https://www.amazon.com/SinuCleanse-Relieves-Congestion-Allergies-All-Natural/dp/B000TFR6MG/ref=sr_1_1?th=1 Fenty Beauty Lip Balm: https://www.amazon.com/Pro-Kissr-Luscious-Lip-Balm/dp/B09CPC591V/ref=sr_1_6?th=1 Use your digital ID in Apple Wallet: https://support.apple.com/en-us/123719 Meredith’s podcast is The Curious Introvert: https://MeredithForReal.com To check out the new Tuesday Question and get in the discussion, join us at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT

Have you ever seen pictures or video of a hoarder house, and just wondered, what is going on? I mean, everyone has a different tolerance level for clutter. But hoarding is not just an issue of having a messy living environment. It’s actually classified as a distinct mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association says hoarding is characterized by a persistent, intense inability to discard possessions – leading to significant clutter, distress, and impairment in daily living. My guest for this episode is one of my favorite people – my friend Margy. We’ve known each other for years through the podcast industry, and she actually told this story originally here on What Was That Like back in 2022. Lots of things have happened with Margy since then, so stick around til the end for an update from her. Margy was an adult when her dad died. She came back home and saw the job that had to be done, and she channeled her grief into energy. And what seemed like an impossible challenge didn’t defeat her – rather, it made her unstoppable. Alex, Margy and Ozzy Margy’s company: Brainbased.com Get a free 2-week trial of the membership site for nervous system healing: FreeNeuroTrial.com Want podcast recommendations? Subscribe (free) to https://podcastthenewsletter.substack.com/ Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/250 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT Episode transcript (download transcript PDF): Today’s episode has a content warning for discussion of suicide. Have you ever seen pictures or video of a hoarder house, and just wondered, what is going on? I mean, everyone has a different tolerance level for clutter. But hoarding is not just an issue of having a messy living environment. It’s actually classified as a distinct mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association says hoarding is characterized by a persistent, intense inability to discard possessions – leading to significant clutter, distress, and impairment in daily living. My guest for this episode is one of my favorite people – my friend Margy. We’ve known each other for years through the podcast industry, and she actually told this story originally here on What Was That Like back in 2022. Lots of things have happened with Margy since then, so stick around til the end for an update from her. Margy was an adult when her dad died. She came back home and saw the job that had to be done, and she channeled her grief into energy. And what seemed like an impossible challenge didn’t defeat her – rather, it made her unstoppable. Scott  Have you ever caught yourself deciding to keep something rather than throw it away, and thought, “Oh, wow. I m becoming a hoarder”? Margy  Yes, all the time. It s like one of those things that I think about so much in my life. Many of the things I do in my life are, like, the opposite of what my parents did, which I think is true for a lot of people, after having learned so much about hoarding and realizing that that s what I was experiencing in my home growing up. One of the pieces of research on hoarding is that it gets worse as you age. So, for someone who is really a severe hoarder at 70, it was probably much lighter than that at 30 or 40. I hope I haven t made your listeners too paranoid, but yes. I always think of what s this going to look like in 30 years. Scott  That s definitely something to think about. Well, that s what you need to do. Give a little bit of background on this and what kind of led up to it. You were living in Taiwan for a couple of years as an English teacher, but you previously lived in the US. What made you decide to go and live abroad? Margy  I fell in love with travel when I was in my junior year of college because I grew up in Rhode Island, I went to college in Rhode Island, and I just stayed in Rhode Island. I think most of my life was very stagnant up until this turning point that we re going to talk about I felt stuck. I felt like a victim of it. I was one of those people who was like, “The decision was no decision.” Like, I just kept defaulting into these situations and then kind of mentally complaining about them. There were these moments where I would feel an impulse to actually do something that was different, that would, sort of, break the script, and studying abroad was one of those things. After dragging through college not wanting to be there and just not really participating I don t think college is as valuable as most people think it is, but my attitude did not help. After all of that dragging, I heard about studying abroad and I was like, “I want to do this. I want to live in Italy. It ll be so great.” I was an art and Latin major. So, I was like, “This is a great opportunity to become a better painter.” At that point, I wanted to be a professional artist, a professional oil painter, so I was like, “This will be great!” It was just, sort of, a different moment like, I just suddenly switched it up. That s what I really love about travel it has the ability to shake things up.  I think when you feel stuck or you get into this routine, even if it s a good routine, you would be a different person from being able to go somewhere far away for a little bit. You re more yourself. You re more present. You re discovering things for the first time when you re out of your routine. I think you realize how much your routine kind of starts to control you, how much more there is to you, and how much more free you actually are. That s why I love to travel. Because I had fallen in love with that feeling in my junior year of college, especially living somewhere where I hadn t even visited before, I wanted to do that again. I wanted to move somewhere that I had never even visited. Then, I went down this rabbit hole of teaching English. I was looking at South America. I was looking at Asia. I narrowed it down because I learned that you can make a lot more money in Asia. You can save a lot more money than you can in South America, at least, at that time. So, that s how I picked Asia. Then, I knew nothing about Taiwan. I had just been researching the best countries to teach English and it came down to Korea and Taiwan. I was planning to go to Korea. I got the background check and all the stuff that they require. Then, I read something online and I was like, “I think I want to go to Taiwan.” So, it pivoted and I ended up going to Taiwan. Scott  Then, fast forward 2 years, you were miserable. What happened that caused all that to change? Margy  I mean, my misery wasn t because of Taiwan I love Taiwan! But everywhere you go, you take yourself with you. I think, when you re somewhere short term, you really do experience things as new and, like, you re this different and more open person. Once you live somewhere, no matter how exotic or cool it is, you get into a new routine. So, that s kind of what happened to me in Taiwan. People were like, “Oh, it s so cool that you live in Taiwan.”  It is cool, but it s also kind of the same when you go to work or to the grocery, although it s really different. It wasn t Taiwan s fault, although it s swelteringly hot, and I didn t like that. It wasn t because of Taiwan it was really because of my mindset. This was a mindset that I had, I think, kind of my whole life of really just kind of depressed, anxious, neurotic, negative, and one of those people who s, like, always expecting things to go wrong. When something good happens, it’s like, “What s the catch?” or “When is this going to get worse?” Again, a pessimistic mindset. Scott  When we talk about what changed, it s so difficult to lose a parent even from natural causes. Had you ever considered that your dad might be suicidal? Were there any signs? Margy  No, not at all. It s like one of those things that you look at and you re like, “Should I have known based on this stuff” I mean, he was on antidepressants. Like, who isn t? I mean, I m not on antidepressants, but a lot of people are on them but it doesn t mean they re suicidal. Honestly, if you had asked me, “Who in the family is going to kill themselves?”, he would have been my last guess. Sorry, mom, if you re listening. He was just like this rock for the family. When we were both melting down, he was just calm, cool, and collected, breaking the tension with a joke, and making sure everyone got where they needed to be on time. He was like the rock of the family. Anytime anything happened, I d be like, “Dad, help me”. So, no, I didn t see the signs at all. I knew he was kind of quirky. Nobody, even his psychiatrist was, like, shocked. Everybody was totally blindsided. From talking to other survivors, that s more common than people think. There are people who die by suicide, who had attempted, and stuff like that, and that doesn t make it easier. He was one of those people that really was, like, totally out of left field. When I found out that he had died, I was like, “Oh, my God. Did he have a heart attack or something like that?” So, no. I had no idea. I still couldn’t believe that happened. Scott  Can you just describe the experience of getting that news? Margy  Yes, I can. I left school in the evening. I was teaching a few different classes. One of them was this really rowdy class of first-grade boys. They were just kind of rough because they are boys. One of them was joking about, like, killing a cat or something he wouldn t have actually done it. It was just, like, being crazy. I was like, “Actually, that s not funny. Let s talk about compassion towards animals.” Then, I went to the Taiwan SPCA, where I was fostering cats through, and I said, “Hey, can I get you all in here to talk to these kids about being kind to animals so that we can have an impact here?” They ll think differently because they do think a little bit differently in Taiwan about animals than they do in the US. I raised money from all the teachers who wanted them and paid them to come to speak. They brought a dog and it was great. The kids prepared questions. They were really engaged. They were really interested in the dog. As I was walking out of the school to go catch my bus, I was feeling amazing because I just pulled off the thing that had been months in the making. I was like, “Wow, I really had an impact here. These kids are going to be more compassionate towards animals. That was amazing!”  Then, I looked at my phone it wasn t a smartphone because it s really hard to get a smartphone in Asia as an immigrant. It was like a really old-school regular phone. I had a text from my partner at that time that just said, “I love you” with no punctuation which is, like, one of those things that are not a great sign if you know someone who always uses exclamation points and stuff like that. So, I was like, “That s weird. I hope something didn t happen.” Then, I had the thought of this is terrible, but this is what I actually thought “Well, I hope that, if something did happen, it happens to his family and not to mine”. This thought happened in a second, and then it was gone. I didn t ruminate on it or anything. It was just there and then it was gone. Then, I got on the bus and reflected on the day and all this stuff. I really didn t think anything was going on. So, I got off the bus. I walked to our apartment. I went up. We re on like the ninth floor. I went up the elevator. I opened the door. I ve got, like, my big bag with my books and stuff. I walked in. It was a tiny like, the smallest studio apartment you ve ever seen in your life. I walked in with my bag and walked across to hang up my bag. I looked at my partner he was someone who has like an olive skin tone. He was white he looked like a ghost. I’ve never seen him like that. When you see somebody that you know really well and they re just like that, I could feel it in my body. I could feel my cheeks tingling. I was starting to feel cold and clammy, and it happened so fast.  So, I hung up my bag I was in the closet where I kept my bag and I was like, “What s up?” He was like, “You need to call your mom”. My parents were still together. So, when people say, “Call your parents when your parents are together”, I was like, “Huh?” So, I was starting to panic. There were two things going on because I ve got this rising panic and I was starting to feel I can feel it now sick to my stomach. Then, there s also this part of me that s like, “Well, maybe it s not as bad as it could be.” I was trying to almost negotiate with reality. I was trying to get hints from him because I don t like surprises everybody knows this. I always demand information from people trying to do surprises for me. So, I was like, “What happened?” He was just like, “You just need to call your mom”. I was like, “How bad is this?” thinking that if it s not the worst-case scenario, there ll be some reassurance. If nobody s dead at that point, you ll say nobody s dead, but he didn t say that. I was like, “Okay…” But still, there s a big part of me that s like, “No way. No way. Is this happening to me?” I remember saying, “Is it the worst thing that could possibly happen?” He just said, “You need to call your mom.” So, I was like, “Oh, shit!”  So, I put my bag down. It was 5 AM in the US and he was saying, “Call your mom right now.” He s not saying anything to reassure me. It doesn t look good, but there s still an analytical part of my brain that s like, “Okay, he had an accident. He s in the hospital, but he s going to be fine. It s really serious, but he s going to be fine.” It s just like happening so fast. I remember walking across and it wasn t a lot of feet across because it was such a small apartment from my closet to this desk that was, like, a computer desk, a dining room table, and a catch-all of all the things. If you ve ever seen someone try and bring a horse somewhere the horse doesn t want to go, they re leaving it by the face and it s just, kind of, pulling back I felt that. That s what it felt like. I knew I was walking toward a totally different life and I was like, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no”, but there was this inevitability. I didn t want to get on Skype and find out because, once I found out what was going on, I knew there would be no going back. I was like, “No, I m not ready for whatever it is. Like, no.” I sat down at the computer. I called my mom. Of course, Skype was like “Beep boop beep”, which is not for the right mood.  Scott Right. It was very upbeat.  Margy Yeah, exactly. So, my hands were very, very cold at that point and my stomach was very tight. I felt this tingling sensation on my face. My nervous system was just kicking off. My mom answered on Skype. It was 5 AM her time. She s not a morning person. She s up. My mom has blue hair the color changes all the time, but it was blue at that time. It was clipped back. She had no makeup on. I can see that she s somewhere different the background is not our house. I was taking all this in very quickly without being super conscious of it. So, I was like, “Hey, Mom. What s going on?” Never one to mince words, she said, “Dad s dead. He killed himself.” Keep in mind that he was not a suicide risk in my mind. For someone like me who had been so neurotic and spent so much time ruminating on possible bad things that could happen, I had never even thought of this I thought of every unlikely bad scenario. So, I was sitting there with her. My hands started shaking really hard and violently, which is, like, how the nervous system goes into fight-or-flight. So, I was like, “What happened?!” She was like, “We don t know. They need to look into it. There were some propane cans, but we don t know what happened.” Then, it was this wild thing. I was shaking and freaking out, but I immediately go in to comfort her because there was the survival part of my brain that was like, “He s gone. Protect the one you ve got left.” Because I was very nervous. If he would do that, is she okay? So I was just like, “Everything s gonna be okay. We re gonna get through this together.” I just started reassuring, which was kind of surprising to me as a response.  The rest of the conversation is kind of a blur. She told me that she s staying at her friend, Caroline s house. We had a lot of pets at that point because I took a lot of stray animals home. So, they had my 2 cats plus some other pets. They had 5 cats and a dog in the house. She was staying with her friends. She said that people are going to the house and helping us to take care of the pets. Then, we got off the phone. I picked up my phone. I called my boss who was, like, a good friend of mine at my teaching job, and I said, “Hey, Michelle. I m not going to come to work anymore because my dad is dead. He killed himself.” She was just like, “Oh my God! Are you okay?” I was just like, “I don t know. Okay, bye.” She was just like, “What?!” So, it was crazy. Then, I felt like I was going to throw up. The stomach pain from that type of trauma was, like, a big part of it for me. Scott  So you knew immediately that you had to go home. Margy  Yes. I had been planning. I was coming to the end of my second year teaching anyway. This was January. He died on January 12. I found out on January 13, which was insane having no idea that someone s dead and just going about your normal life. But I was planning to come home in a few months. My teaching contract was about to end, maybe, in a month. Then, I was planning to spend 2 months backpacking around Asia. Then, I was going to come home and find a real job. At first, it was like, “What do we even do?” because I had to go home, but it was this big international move and you were really not in a headspace to be making big plans like that when you re grieving at that early stage, but you also usually don t have a choice if you re an adult. They cremated him. We did a viewing that I was Skyped into, which was absolutely insane. Then, I decided because I had been planning this backpacking trip for 2 months to modify it to be one month. So, I would still go and travel around Asia for a month, and then come home. I don t know why I made that decision. I just felt like it was something that I needed to do. Scott   Wow, I didn t know that there was a month in between before you actually got back home. Margy  Yes. There was more than that because I needed to like do some stuff in Taiwan with my taxes. I had to close out all my bank accounts there was just all this logistic stuff and then plan this trip. Then, we went traveling for a month to Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand, which was a bizarre trip. I spent a lot of money. I was like, “Why did I do this?” I just felt that I just didn t feel ready to go home. Everything was handled. The pets were all set for a month. There was nothing really urgent. So, I knew that once I went home, I would be dealing with this and there would be no going back, and I think I wanted to put that off a little bit. Scott  When you tell the story, do you ever get the impression that people are thinking, “Okay, her dad died. Then, she went on vacation and then went home. That just seems kind of odd.” I mean, do you have to explain to people what the reasoning was behind that or, maybe, they don t even ask? Margy  I mean, no one has ever asked that. I feel like they must be thinking it because I would be thinking it. I don t have an explanation. I know it s weird, but the whole situation was weird. Before he died, I had been planning to come home and clean the hoarded house. I was like, “I m finally going to deal with this. They re gonna get on board. We re doing this. They were not happy to hear that and they just kept being, like, “Whatever.” I was like, “Nope, we re gonna do it. It s gonna be great.” I was researching cleaners who are in Rhode Island to help. I was writing manifestation, affirmations, and gratitude, literally, every day, like a psychopath “I love my parents. Beautiful home. I had lost my mind. Of course, I m so grateful for my dad s health and happiness.” It was just like this manic gratitude practice. So, when he died, we had these plans to go on this trip and, then, clean the house. I was like, “Okay, I m gonna do this. I m gonna go on this trip for a month. Then, I m going to come home and I m going to clean the house.” I was helping to plan the memorial service virtually from the Philippines via email with the funeral director and my mom. It was bizarre. Then, I got home. By the time I got home, it was March. He died on January 12. I got home at the beginning of March. It was not good. It was the winter of 2015. For anyone who lives in New England, it was memorably brutal. There were 4 feet of snow on the ground, which is not typical. It was brutally cold. People said that it had been one of the most depressing winters for a while, which I was like, “I wonder if that contributed.” So, I got home. That s when the journey of cleaning the house, working with my mom, and trying to rebuild began  Scott  So, once you were done backpacking, you thought, “Okay, now is the time to go home.” and you got on that plane ride. How long was the plane ride? Margy  It was longer than it should have been. I flew from Taiwan to Korea, which is quick. Then, I flew from Korea to Dallas, which I think was about 11 hours. Dallas got a snowstorm. In Dallas, it was one inch of snow, but they weren t equipped to deal with one inch of snow, so the entire city and all the airports were shut down. So, I got stuck in Dallas for 48 hours I mean, a long time. I couldn t get my bags back because they had already checked and moved on. So, I was stuck in the Dallas airport with no toothbrush, no change of clothes nothing and going through the worst experience of my life, sleeping on the ground, eating vending machine food, calling my mom, crying, like, “Mom, what do I do? How do I get home?” She was just like, “I don t know.” It was just crazy. Scott  Then, the flight from Dallas to Rhode Island is probably what? Five hours, maybe? Margy  We couldn t get a flight to Rhode Island. It was one of those situations where you just keep booking and booking and booking flights and they just keep canceling. We were trying different airlines. We were trying different airports. We eventually got a flight to New York because my partner s family lived on Long Island. So, we flew to New York City because it was the only flight that we could get after 2 days in the airport. It was from a different airport in Dallas, so we drove to a new airport without any bags, and then took this flight from that other airport to New York, because that was the only thing that we could do to get close to home. Then, we were with his family for a day or two. Then, we took the ferry to New London and, then, drove from New London to Providence. Scott  That kind of sounds like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” the international version.  Margy   Yeah. It would have been a stressful travel experience even if my dad hadn t just killed himself. With that in the mix, it was one of those things where I was, like, “This cannot be happening. There s no way that this many bad things could happen in a row. This seems made up.” I kept feeling like, “Am I on a movie or TV show? This cannot be real.” Scott  Somebody s gonna jump out and say you ve been punked…  Margy I really thought that! Scott So when you had all these hours including the first 11-hour flight to get to Dallas just to sit and think, what are the thoughts that were going through your head about what you re about to get into? Margy  I mean, some of it is a blank in those early days. After a few months later, new realizations just keep hitting you. I remember this moment on the flight I don t know if it was the flight to Korea or the flight from Korea to Dallas I was just sitting there holding my passport because we just had to show them. I just mindlessly opened my passport and my dad was my emergency contact. I was like, “What do you do if your emergency contact is dead?” All those little things that you don t think of at first just keep hitting you, like, “Oh my god.” Scott  Well, let s talk about when you finally got back home. First of all, was this the house you grew up in? Margy  Yes, basically, we moved into that house when I was in fourth grade. It is a 6-bedroom Dutch colonial, built in 1900. It s a big house. Scott  I have to ask you this. As far as the hoarding, was it mostly your dad, or was your mom also a hoarder? I mean, hoarding, from what I know, is a mental health disorder. So, it would seem kind of odd that they would both have it. Margy  Hoarding is a spectrum. I believe in all things, so I also believe that there are a lot of different types of hoarders. I mean, the research on this is emerging, but hoarding can result from a lot of different things. For some people associated with people who have types of OCD, there s a lot of correlation between trauma and hoarding. So, that is not necessarily a chemical issue. It s that all this unprocessed trauma can lead to this disorder or this attachment. They ve also done the research, showing that people who are hoarders or who have a tendency towards hoarding which a lot of us probably have but don t act upon it because we re feeling good and we re taking care of ourselves. But they did experiments where they scan people s brains, and the part of the brain that s associated with really strong emotion lit up over minor objects, whereas that didn t happen for someone who s more average or average in that area. So, they did experiments where they had junk mail. They let the people sort the mail and say, “This is junk.” and then they shredded the junk mail in front of them and scan their brains. There really was this heightened emotion from people who were hoarders. So, there s a lot of complexity to hoarding. I took a DNA test and there s a genetic marker that I have, that possibly shows difficulty parting with objects that are no longer needed. There s like this complex web of things that create this situation, I believe. I think trauma plays a big part in whether or not that tendency gets flipped on or not, which I believe that both my parents, most people who have gone through trauma, and their generation were not as vocal about it. As you know, they didn t understand it as much. So, it wasn t the type of thing that you would try to get help for you would walk it off.  So were they both hoarders? Yes. Like, it wasn t always so bad. My mom is very, very ATD. So, she has a lot of trouble with organization and spaces and stuff like that. My dad s hoarding was more of indifference. It seemed like it just lacked care he just didn t care about the mess. He sort of lived like 19-year-olds. There were just trash and bottles. If he couldn’t find something, he ll just buy a new one. It was less attachment to the objects and more of an indifference that I think stemmed from a lot of unprocessed trauma, depression, not caring about himself, and feeling overwhelmed. Whereas my mom, I think, has more of the typical attachment to objects, being overwhelmed and trying to understand how to organize things. So, there is a spectrum. The combination of the 2 of them together with the pets with them, both working long hours, not having a lot of time, and not having learned the skills to manage a house, which is a skill. I think people think that it s a thing that you should just know how to do, but it s not. So, that was sort of the perfect storm. So, I would say that s a very long way of saying, “It s both of them.” but it s complicated. Scott  Can you describe walking through the door the first time when you came back home? Margy  Yes, it was freezing cold. I got out of the car. My mom was, frantically, trying to shovel the steps. I walked over to her and she didn t even look up or acknowledge me. She was just frantically shoveling I said this with no judgment because she had just been through insane trauma. I was like, “I haven t seen you in two years.” I was like, “Hey mom.” She was like, “Hey” and just really focused and stressed about the stairs. I was like, “Okay, this is going well.” I walked in the door. I unstrapped my bag and dug into my arm but, of course, there was nowhere to put my stuff down. It was freezing in the house. There was stuff everywhere. There were no clear surfaces. The smell of cat urine is so strong that it burns even in cold weather. This was, I think, the beginning of March. It was, like, a really long winter. It was still freezing. Scott  So you were planning to stay in that house, right? While you were doing the cleaning, was there even a place for you to stay? Was there a room that had space for you? Margy Not really. I used to live on the third floor, which was a really nice setup. Since fourth grade, I had that space, which my wife said, “It’s why I m so spoiled now.” There are 2 bedrooms and a full bathroom up there that was, like, my space for me and my cats, but my dad had taken over that space while I had been away, so it had been trashed. There was just one twin bed that was like a really hard mattress. My partner and I were both there, and it was not in a condition that you could stay up there. So, there was this spare room. The whole house was just like spare rooms that were full of stuff because it s like a big house full of bedrooms that are unused. So, the rooms are just labeled by the color that the room is, not by the function, because there is no function. So, there s a room called the blue room that had a big desk in it, had all these papers, clothes and piles of stuff. My mom had bought a new mattress which to her credit, thank you. There was a new memory foam full mattress in the middle of this room that was full of junk, but there was nowhere for my stuff. So, we just slept on the mattress on the floor in this random room full of stuff. I just remember waking up in the morning when it was laid out, realizing that a cat had either thrown up or pooped right next to the bed, and I was just like, “Great. This is lovely.” Scott  Well, I guess that helped you decide which room to clean first, right? Margy  Yes. Cleaning was such a process it was such a phased process because, first, we had to get it to the point where I could, like, live. Then, when my partner went back to be with his family in Long Island for a little bit, I would just sleep in my mom s bed with her because it took a long time to carve out a space for me. Scott  Can you just describe what was in all these piles of stuff? What was it? Margy  Nothing really noteworthy. It wasn t like tons of newspapers or anything it was just stuff like clothes, fans, papers, extension cords, and all the objects that you would expect to see in a house, but at a huge volume and everywhere. The thing that made it really challenging was the pets because, when you have pets, you can t have piles of stuff, especially if you have cats. I love cats but, if you have a cat, you probably know that cats love to pee on piles of clothes. It s like a rare delicacy for them, so they can t help but treat themselves. When you don t clean up a pet’s mess right away, they will continue to mark the rugs, the clothes, the furniture under the clothes. There were piles of shirts and New Balance sneakers of my dad s in a closet. It had been peed on so many times that the rubber on the shoe had melted to the hardwood. I was like, “How does this chemically even happen? There are so many layers, right?” Because when you get the stuff off, the thing under this stuff is so damaged, so it was just layers and layers and layers. Scott  You seem like a really organized person. You would look at a project and plan it out like this is how we re going to do it. Did you come up with some kind of a plan to tackle this? I mean, it seems overwhelming to start with. Margy  Yes, I am pretty organized. I like to just tackle things. I had spent 2 years in Taiwan thinking about how I was going to tackle it and researching, which was helpful. When I got there, it was really overwhelming. Because my dad had just died, I might have given up with enough pushback if my dad had still been there and just be like, “Okay, it s your life.” Knowing that I was going to leave my mom to live in this house alone as a widow to rebuild her life, I was like, “I can t. This has to be dealt with.” So, if I had felt like I had any choice, I probably wouldn t have taken this on or I would have quit, but that feeling of not having a choice was helpful. This was such a great experience. I mean, it was the worst experience but, in terms of business, this was the best experience, because I came into a seemingly impossible situation with none of the skills, experience, or team that I needed to deal with it, and I had to just figure it out. Everybody told me at the beginning that I couldn t do it. They were like, “No way! It s too much! Don t take this on. You ve been through enough. There s no way you can do this.” I had cleaners come in who told me that the house was going to be condemned, that I should just give up. They told me there s no way I could even do anything with the house.” I mean, I would cry like I was affected by it. But then, I d keep Googling and find somebody else.  So, the first thing I did was try to find someone to help me, which I think is true for business, too is the smartest thing you can possibly do: Find someone who does the seemingly impossible thing all the time and knows how to do it. So, I was looking for an expert in cleaning and hoarding. After talking to some truly horrible people who just said terrible things to me or about the house and just made me feel hopeless, I found this woman, Nicole. This is what she does. She had this kind of crappy Comic Sans font-like website, but when I read her website, she talked about why she does this and why she feels compelled and moved to help hoarders. I was so touched because she was the first person who approached it with compassion. I had her and her husband come over. They looked around the whole house. After so many people telling me, “Give up. The house is gonna get condemned. You can t do it.”, Nicole looked at me I love this woman and she said, “You re so strong. You ve been through so much. I m so sorry for your loss.” which no one had said. Then, about the house, she was like, “This isn t even that bad. We can totally do this.” So, I was like, “Finally…” So, that first massive breakthrough came from finding the right person. Scott  How did your mom handle that process? I mean, was she able to help or was it just all you? Or did she kind of say, “No, we gotta keep that one thing.”? How involved was she? Margy  Yeah, my mom is scary. Mom, if you re listening, I say that with love. She was a federal prosecutor. She was the first female United States Attorney in the state of Rhode Island. She s a scary lady. So I say that with respect she was not on board, and it added a big layer of complication to be working with someone who wanted to block me at first, and it wasn t her fault. If you come into anybody s life and you re like, “We re going to change everything.”, no matter who they are, they re probably going to be, like, “Get lost!” On top of that, they ve just lost their husband to suicide and you re like, “Hey, I’m gonna need you to go through this box real quick.” She was like, “Get away from me!” So, she was not happy, but there was a part of her I could tell that was more willing to work with me than ever before. I don t know if her resistance had been broken down by the loss. I suspect it had more to do with the fact that she felt really sorry for me because me and my dad were really close. So, the fact that I had lost my dad to suicide, I think, made her more willing to work with me out of pity, which is fine I ll take whatever I could get to get the job done.  So, she was really resistant at first and it was just fights after fights. In the beginning, it took her days to go through a single box. She would be mad at me, being really grumpy and negative, and kind of make mean comments. I was just like, “This is gonna be a long time. If it takes this many days to go through one box, this does not look good.” But bringing in Nicole was really helpful. Having a third-party come in is really helpful to get people on better behavior. So, there are things that if your family tells you, you re like, “Shut up”, but if a really compassionate expert comes in, you re kind of, like, “Okay.” They re saying the same thing, but it hits differently because it s a different relationship context. So, Nicole was really helpful in getting my mom to cooperate. Then, we did hit this point it was like pushing a boulder up a hill for a long time, like months of, basically, fighting against my mom when she was trying to block this. Then, we hit our stride. We started hitting this momentum. She started getting pretty good at going through stuff. She started working with me. She just gave in to the inevitability that this was going to happen and I wasn t going to back down. I don’t know if the momentum just made it easier or both, but we did get better and better at working together once we got that initial momentum. Scott  How long did it take? You just use the term “month” How long did this whole process take? Margy  It took exactly 5 months because I moved to Colorado on the day that we finished. It took exactly 5 months. I took one single day off. I m not a grinder I don t work like that. I m not one of those entrepreneurs who work at 5 AM and am the last person who stopped working. No, I am not a grinder I don t work well that way but this project required that to hit this deadline. So, every single day, I woke up at, like, 5 AM and I would start cleaning around like 6 or 7. I would finish around 8. I would fall into bed, make my to-do list for the next day, go to sleep, and wake up again, for five months, every single day. It was amazing that we were able to get it done in 5 months. Scott  It must have been difficult to do that every day, not just because of the hard work involved and such an overwhelming project, but you were also still mourning your dad at that time. That must have been a mental strain. Margy  Yeah. Well, it was and it wasn t. I think that having a project like that helped me to channel a lot of energy into something. I think it somewhat served as a distraction. Also, I think, because it was a suicide, because I was out of the country, not only did I not get to see him before he died like you would if he died from cancer or something, I didn t see his body afterward. When I saw him, I hugged him goodbye at Logan Airport in 2013. The next time I saw him, he was in an urn. So, there s not a lot of closure there. So being able to physically process his stuff, go through and touch every single thing that he owned, and make a decision about throwing it out or donating it was really powerful. Honestly, what I felt most was I felt that it was an honor. My dad was an amazing person. He was the funniest person I ve ever met. I m not just saying that because he was my dad. He was really funny. He was so smart. He loved animals. He was just such a wonderful person. It was an honor to be able to do that for him. Scott  Can you talk about the moth infestation? Margy  Yes. This was one of many things that happened where I was like, “This cannot be real. This is insane!” I was going through room by room and we re doing pretty well. I opened the door of the orange room like I said, they re named after colors because they have no function. I just kind of looked around, took stock of the different piles, and started making a game plan for the room in my head. Then, I was like, “Oh, a little moth. Isn t that nice?” I saw a single little one of those small moths fluttering and I was like, “Oh, so beautiful!” Then, I saw another moth and I was like, “Huh…” Then, I realized that there are just hundreds of moths in the room and I was like, “This is a horror movie.” If I look closely, they re eating the drapes. They re swarmed over this one part of the carpet eating it. They’re in all the boxes. I was just like, “Oh my God.” So, I closed the door. I was horrified, but I was also laughing because my dad had this really irreverent sense of humor. I just thought of all the people I ve heard who said, “My loved one visited me as a beautiful butterfly.” Of course, my dad visited me as a swarm of moths because he thought it would be so funny. So, I was like, “Okay, well, this is why exterminators exist.” So, I started calling exterminators and they didn t believe me. They were like, “No, that doesn t happen. That doesn t happen with that type of moth.” I was like, “I m telling you, it s happening.” Every exterminator I called wouldn t help me. They were like, “Sorry, we don t do that” which, again, was one of those things where I was like, “How is this possible?” Scott  It seems like it should be an easy job. You ve one of those cans where you would bomb the room with some fumes or something and just kill all of them. Margy  Right. I was like, “Why can t an exterminator do this for me?” There is such a thing going to professionals and being like, “This is what s going on” and them being, like, “No way.” and I m like, “Yeah, of course.” So, I eventually went that DIY route of setting off a bug bomb, but the house is full of pets, so there was a lot of logistics because I had to find a place for all the cats and stuff to safely be while I did the bug bomb, and then enough time passed. There were many more steps than I thought it would be, but we did the bug bomb and everybody’s safe. The pets were in their locations. I cleaned up all the little moth corpses. That room was full of cedar there was just cedar in random places because I just can t take a chance again. So, we did overcome the moth infestation, but it was just one of those things that you would wake up thinking that you re tackling one problem, and then you end up spending days on this thing that you re like, “This shouldn t even be happening…” Scott  Can you just describe seeing the truck haul away that last bit of stuff? Margy  Yeah, when the truck took the dumpster, it was crazy. That was, like, either the day I was moving or the day before like, it was at the very end. It was incredible. First of all, I had become attached to the dumpster because throwing things in a dumpster is really fun. I was, like, dumpster-crazy I lost myself at that dumpster. Then, I got really crazy about people not throwing their garbage in it. If I saw them, I d go outside and be like, “That s not your dumpster!” I really lost myself. I had a very small world. Scott  Dumpster territoriality that s kind of odd.  Margy  I know. My mom still calls me the dumpster queen because I was obsessed with this dumpster. Yeah, the truck came and covered it over. Then, they drove it away. I guess I couldn t believe the amount of stuff that was gone. When you re coming to the end of a project like that, you are so in it in the day-to-day that you don t pick your head up that often. So, to finally pick my head up and have it be done People said the house looked like it was staged for sale empty. I had managed to get all the cat urine smell out of the hardwood floors with a variety of aggressive home remedies. It was incredible. Scott  This essentially was an impossible project that you took on, and you did it you won! How did that change your outlook on your life? Margy  The change wasn t immediate, but it totally changed my understanding of my own abilities and my understanding of what s possible. The interesting thing is, I feel, in books and movies, this huge breakthrough happens and then that s it. Like, things are great, but that s not really what life is like because it s just this never-ending thing. So, there was this huge high and victory with finishing the house. Then, immediately, we started driving with the U-Haul and my cats to live in Colorado. I probably should have known that was a bad idea to go somewhere where I had no job, no friends, and no support right after losing my dad, but I was just like, “Well, we gotta keep going, go with the plan, and carry on.” He had gotten into a Ph.D. program, so I was like, “Well, we re going.” As I left and drove to Colorado, the grief and pain that I had been avoiding/channeling into the house project started to really catch up with me. So, when we got to Colorado, things went downhill very, very fast with my mental health, with how my relationship was going it was very bad. I hit a series of rock bottoms. Then, it was through coming back from that, that I reached my full capability as a leader, along with the lessons I had gotten from the house clean. I really had to go down further to go up. Scott  Since then, you ve done some pretty amazing stuff. I know that you started as a $15 an hour employee at the company that you re with now. Now, you re the CEO of that company. We could probably talk for an hour just about that process, but can you kind of summarize how did that happen? Margy  Yeah. So much of how that became possible was because of what I got out of that house clean the attitude and the things I learned about tackling seemingly messy, impossible problems, which is so true for business, especially early business. Then, there’s also the personal growth work I had to do. I had to eventually get into trauma processing therapy process losing my dad and process all this stuff that I hadn t processed before. I got kicked up by that loss, so I did so much work on myself as a person. Then, also, the combination of that and taking on this huge project and succeeded. When I came into this situation, I knew I wanted to work from home, and I wanted to start my own business. I was trying to start a business in the fitness industry, but it was not going well. I really thought that what I wanted was a fitness business. So, I had been connected with just my business partner now because we worked together. We actually didn t know each other that well. We were just vaguely connected on social media. We reconnected because she adopted my dad s cat when he died. So, she went from this person who had been a colleague who I didn t know very well to someone who was really on my radar because, now, she s sending me pictures of kittens and that was such a bonding moment. So, all these things came together.  I wanted a remote job. I saw on Facebook that she was hiring part-time contractors at $15 an hour to book people on podcasts. I truly had no idea how I would financially survive with a contractor position with no benefits, paying self-employment tax, while earning $15 an hour, but I wanted to work from home. I was tired of driving in the snow in Colorado with no 4-wheel drive. So, I interviewed. I got that. Then, things started happening very quickly. From there, I started listening to my clients’ podcasts, really getting to know them, listening to their interviews, and I was like, “Oh, I want to be a business owner. This is amazing. I ve already been trying to start a business. As I got to see all these success stories in different industries, I started learning and Googling, “What is SEO? What is content marketing?” and all these things I was hearing in the episodes this was 2016. This wasn t that long ago. I didn t know any of these terms.  So, actually, working with Interview Connections is going great. The rest of my life was not great. I don t really have close friends in Colorado. I didn t want to leave the house. I just wanted to be home with my cats. My relationship was going very badly, so we ended up breaking up almost exactly a year after arriving in Colorado. I left Colorado to go home and live with my mom, which felt like a new rock bottom, but there was space for me because I had just cleaned out the house. So, that was a silver lining. I was 27 and I m going back to live with my mom. I started going to therapy and taking therapy incredibly seriously.  At the end of 2016, I was a contractor that whole year and I had just started taking on leadership responsibilities like looking for ways to improve the company and my client experience because I really wanted to do a good job. She asked me to become the first employee of the business at the end of 2016. So, I said yes. I went home. I cried my eyes out to my best friend because I don t want to be an employee. I want to be a business owner. But she was like, “This is gonna be a great opportunity.” So, I showed up in January 2017 as the first employee. Then, we have the rest of the team as contractors besides me and Jess. Almost immediately, we just heard an HR person speaking about contractors versus employees, and was like, “We need employees, not contractors for what we re doing.” So, in a very short time, we got rid of all of our overtime contractors and hired local in-state Rhode Island employees, and I was in charge of this.  I had no experience. I was way over my head with this. I had just come out of this house clean, so it was like all of this stuff that kept coming up. I was like, “I ll figure it out. No problem.” because I had this new confidence that I wouldn t have had before, that I can basically figure anything out. So, it was a very steep learning curve mistakes were made but bringing that “We can do this. No problem.” attitude that I had developed, if anything hit us, I was like, “No worries, we can deal with it.” There was definitely crying in those moments, but I had processed so much in therapy that I was just, like, so resilient. Jess and I started a podcast, “Womensplaining”, that I wanted to start because I wanted a podcast where we could just talk about anything. We did talk about death on show two. We were partners on that project. We would work on it on Sundays.  Then, we started to talk about partnering for other businesses and potentially starting a media company. She knew that I really wanted to be a business owner. So, we were talking about all this stuff. Then, we started talking about potential equity in Interview Connections. So, throughout the end of my first full year as an employee, I was in these kinds of negotiations. I asked for 50% equity and, then, there was, like, a counter offer. I was like, “Look, I m not going to take less than 50% equity. I m not being a diva, but I want to have equal risk and equal reward, and I don t want to feel like ‘anyone s my boss’. If there s uneven equity, it s going to feel like there s an imbalance of power.” So, it wasn t a negotiation tactic. I just stuck to my guns. I had the vision to bring the business from $400,000 to $1,000,000 in a year. I was like, “We can do this. Here s how. Here are all the things that we can do. We can do this.” and ended up getting the equity and was co-owner at the beginning of 2018. Scott  So your kind of optimism, maybe, was a little bit contagious with her, thinking, “Wow, this could be a really big forward step for the company.” Obviously, as I ve seen and a lot of people have seen what happened since then it has skyrocketed. One of the things that you talked about on your podcast was the stuff that you discovered that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about. Well, just explain that it s just fascinating to me. What did you find? Margy  Yeah, this was so fascinating to me too. So I started down this rabbit hole because I was looking to create content. I was working with a great coach, Jacqueline Nagel, who helps people with messaging and content. I was looking to create more content around my lived experience and was struggling to, sort of, explain what happened because I was, like, this kind of negative, miserable person. Then, my life fell apart and I lost my favorite person in the world. Then, I was so much more successful and happier. I wasn t really sure how to explain that. So, I did research as I was creating content and seeking to better understand this, and I started stumbling on the primary one being by Malcolm Gladwell these studies about the connection between grief and high performance. As soon as I saw it, I was like, “Yes, this is it!”  He coined the term “Eminent orphans” and did studies of these highly influential people like presidents and all this stuff, and found that these people who had been presidents who were super influential, who had more than one paragraph in the encyclopedia, had a much higher percentage of having lost a parent than you would find in the general population at that time, which I thought was really interesting. A lot of it is focused on people who lost their parents young. When my dad died, I was 26, so I wasn t, like, super young. Although I felt young, I think I was, sort of, floating around, not taking responsibility, and killing time by being an English teacher, but there were some older ones. I just found this correlation between loss and high achievement so interesting why is it that some people fall apart because of loss and, for some people, it seems to be a catalyst for this expansion? So, my interest in that is what led me down this rabbit hole of starting my podcast, “We Get It, Your Dad Died”, where I interview high performers and high achievers who have gone through a substantial loss. I talked to them about not just what happened with the loss usually, it s the death of someone very close to them but I also had some people talk about sexual assault and some other things. So, we talked about the loss. Then, they also shared about these really incredible unexpected gifts that they got out of this experience, that helped them have a much bigger impact and showed up in a more powerful way. Just hearing these stories has been so incredible and, really, in an anecdotal way, supports what I learned from Malcolm Gladwell about this connection between high performance and loss. Scott  Yeah. When I heard you talk about that, I never would have guessed that. Obviously, you have kind of lived that out. You and I are friends on Facebook. I subscribed to your podcast, so a lot of the content that you create, I consume. I have to say that you re honestly one of the most insightful people I know. You have a gift for figuring something out and then explaining it, and I m like, “Yeah, I can use that.” So I hope you keep doing that. Let s talk about your podcast. It s called, “We Get It, Your Dad Died”. When I first saw that title, I thought that was so odd. Where did that come from? Margy  Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you so much for all that nice stuff you said. That means so much to me. I m so honored to hear that and happy. Yeah, “We Get It, Your Dad Died” is a weird title, and I think it had to be, sort of, weird for it to feel on-brand with me. My dad had a very irreverent sense of humor that he had passed on to me, so I came up with that title as a joke. It was not going to be the actual title. My business books people on podcasts. I am a client of my business, so I got out there on podcasts all the time. That s a big part of how my messaging and storytelling have evolved by getting interviewed on so many podcasts every single month. I just kept telling the same story, like, because it just kept coming up. Because the loss of my father is such a pivotal piece of my leadership and business journey, in some way, I ended up talking about it on every show. So, it just got to the point where it just felt like I was talking about it so much. So, I just made the joke to someone I was working with, like, “Let s just call it, ‘We Get It, Your Dad Died’.” Then, I was like, “I m gonna keep that.” I m always worried that guests are going to be super offended, especially if they lost their dad, but everyone s been very cool about it. It is a respectful show, but I like the irreverent title. Scott  It is. You can be respectful and still have some humor even awkward humor. I mean, a lot of times, if you go to a funeral, not everybody would be sad. Somebody would be telling a story about the person that died and everybody would laugh because something is funny. Margy  Yeah, there s a lot more comedy in death than I would have imagined like the aftermath of my dad dying. Those dark moments were so dark, but there were moments where we laughed so hard because there would be something that was so ridiculous, especially when you re in a dark place where there s so much tension, you just laugh that much harder. As I said, my dad was so funny. He was, like, the funniest person in the world. So, as sad as we were, and as hard as it was, there were a lot of moments where we would just lose our minds belly-laughing. Scott  How can people find your podcast? You do a blog as well. How can people find all that? How can they contact you? Give us all your contact stuff. Margy   Yes. My podcast, “We Get It, Your Dad Died” and my blog both live on my website, which is margywithahardg.com. Obviously, the show is on Spotify and iTunes, and it links out from the website there too. Then, if you want to just connect, if you heard something that you want to chat about or you have a shared experience, the best way to do that is probably to DM me on Instagram. My Instagram is @heymargy.  Margy Hi, Scott. I can t believe it s already been almost four years since we recorded our episode together. So much has changed since that time. Most importantly, I became a mom when I had my daughter, Ozzy, in November, 2024. I have also added three new rescue cats to our family, which as you ll remember from my story, cleaning up cat pee was a big part of my journey. Luckily, these cats are doing well. Everybody s behaving themselves, so that s good.  At the end of 2025, I exited my company, Interview Connections, the podcast booking agency that I was co-owner of and CEO for 8 years, which was a really big transition for me. I left so that I could pursue my dream of really helping people and being in the personal development and growth space.  I am now the co-owner and CEO of another company that is fully aligned with my purpose of helping people find healing and transformation. The company is called brainbased.com. We help our clients achieve healing and transformation through the vehicle of nervous system rehabilitation and somatic. Working through the body by creating safety and presence within our own bodies, we can then radiate that out into every aspect of our lives. I m really passionate about this because it s a modality that has completely transformed my life and my healing, and it s something that I came to after experiencing the trauma that we talked about in our original episode. I m so grateful to be able to live and work every single day, helping people experience the healing and the transformation that I m so grateful to have experienced myself.  My mom has some exciting updates too. Her home is going through another massive clean out as we speak. This time she has professional organizers helping her instead of me, which is great. I m getting a little break. It is being completely emptied out and staged over the next couple of months in preparation for her to sell it. She is moving to this really cool, independent living co-op, which is really close to where I live, and really close to where her house is, so she s staying in our neighborhood. She is so excited and so thrilled for this next chapter. The fact that we already did that big clean out in 2015 is making this process much easier. So, I m very excited in about a month to be able to walk through the house and it s going to be totally emptied out and staged and painted, and I think it s just gonna be such an incredible full circle moment. So I m really excited about that.  Thank you so much, Scott, and thank you so much to the listeners. Scott I’m really happy to be connected with Margy and it will be fun to see what’s next on her journey! She’s not creating new episodes for her podcast now, but the show is still available to listen. And if you’re interested in getting a 2-week free trial on her membership site for nervous system healing, you can do that at FreeNeuroTrial.com. I’ll have that link in the episodes at WhatWasThatLike.com/250.  And speaking of podcasts – I want to tell you about a way to discover new podcasts that you might not otherwise hear about. My friend Lauren sends out a free email newsletter to tell you about shows that she’s discovered and recommends. She listens  to about 30 hours of podcasts every week – and then WRITES about them. It’s a great source for discovering new shows. You can sign up at  https://podcastthenewsletter.substack.com/  and I’ll have that link in the episode notes also. She doesn’t know I’m telling you about this, so when you sign up, tell her I sent you. She’ll get a kick out of that. If you’re in the Facebook group, you saw that the question this past Tuesday was “What’s an opinion you changed after getting older?”. I know I’ve changed my mind about a few things. What about you? Come on over and tell us about it. We do questions like this every week at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.  And remember, you can sign up to support the podcast by going to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS, or on an iPhone just click on Try Free – you’ll get every episode ad-free, plus there’s more than 50 bonus episodes that are exclusive to supporters. And now we get to hear the Listener Story. This is how we end every episode – with a story sent in by a listener. You can record a story on your phone, roughly 5-10 minutes long, and email it to me – [email protected]. This listener recalls something she did in school, as a First Grader. Stay safe, and I’ll see you here next week, with new episodes on Tuesday and Friday. (Listener story) The story takes place back in the early 80s. My family and I lived in Germany on a military base. I was in first grade and I had the most awful teacher. This is the kind of teacher that would make me hate school from here on out. She was essentially the wicked witch of the west. She had this yardstick and she would smack us with it. I mean, we wouldn t see it coming it was a yardstick. It was just for the most minor infractions when you weren t sitting correctly or didn t have your pencil out, stupid things.  Anyway, one day we were sitting on the floor. It was story time. This was right before the end of the day and, boy, did I have to pee. I mean, I m in first grade bladder the size of a thimble. I raised my hand. She ignored me. I kept it raised, getting increasingly frantic. Finally, she tells me, “Put your hand down. You re not going anywhere.” And I said, “I have to go to the bathroom.” And she said, basically, “Tough luck. It s the end of the day. You ll be going home soon and this is story time. You re not going to interrupt.” And I was dying internally. All I could think about was how bad I had to pee. I could still think about it right now and feel that urgency.  I somehow managed to breathe through it, and it was the end of the day. Man, I was not going to make it to the bathroom. Usually, I am very shy, just want to dive into myself and not be seen kind of little kid. Something in me snapped that day and I looked at her chair and yeah, I thought to myself, “I can do this. She deserves this.” So when her back was turned, as she was helping get all the other little kids together, I snuck to the corner of the room, hopped up on her chair, and man did I pee. I peed and it overflowed and I don t know how nobody saw me do it or heard it, but nobody saw me. I jumped off the chair, pants soaking wet, I grabbed my backpack and I tied my jacket around my waist and I left.  My mom picked me up. We re walking back and she notices that I m soaking wet, and she asked me what happened, and I told her that the teacher didn t let me go to the bathroom and I couldn t hold it. Did not tell her about the chair. I guess the teacher put two and two together and my mom got a call from the principal. We all came in and the teacher was just so mean. I don t even remember what she said to me but, like I said, I was so embarrassed that I did that and–I hated any attention, good, bad, or indifferent. So, she was up in my grill trying to get me in trouble but, when it came to the point where I told the principal, “She didn t let me go to the bathroom,” it kind of changed. My mom got mad and the principal got mad at the teacher, so it really kind of backfired on her.  I did take that opportunity to tell them that she also hits us with a yardstick. I don t know if anything ever came of that because it was, I guess, legal at the time. But yeah, she did get in trouble for not letting me go to the bathroom and I think I got my point across quite clearly because, any other time that I had to go, I was always let go out of the class. And I think about it to this day, I would absolutely 100% pee in her chair again if I had to.

For a lot of people, flying is a really scary thing. And that fear can come from a few different factors. You’ve heard stories about planes that have crashed (even though it’s rare). You’re gonna be in this metal tube a few miles above the ground. And you’re putting your life in the hands of people you don’t even know. Part of flight attendant training is learning how to handle a passenger who has anxiety about flying. If someone steps on to the plane and tells them, “Hey, I’m pretty nervous about this”, they have ways to deal with it. They need to keep that passenger comfortable, and everyone on the plane safe. One thing a fearful passenger can do is ask to meet the pilot. This might not always be possible, but in many cases the pilot is happy to meet a nervous flier and provide some reassurance. Then, a few minutes later when the plane is taking off, you can think “this feels a little scary, but I met the person who’s flying the plane, and they seemed to know what they’re doing”. But takeoff is just the first part – you still have to get back to earth. What if the plane is landing, and no one – not even the pilot – knows that anything is wrong Until you hit the ground. Full show notes for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/249 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.   Try What Was That Like PLUS free:   iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”   Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app       Sponsor deals: Visit FunctionHealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod   Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up.   Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!   Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month - MintMobile.com/WHAT Episode transcript (download transcript PDF): For a lot of people, flying is a really scary thing. And that fear can come from a few different factors. You’ve heard stories about planes that have crashed (even though it’s rare). You’re gonna be in this metal tube a few miles above the ground. And you’re putting your life in the hands of people you don’t even know.  Part of flight attendant training is learning how to handle a passenger who has anxiety about flying. If someone steps on to the plane and tells them, “Hey, I’m pretty nervous about this”, they have ways to deal with it. They need to keep that passenger comfortable, and everyone on the plane safe. One thing a fearful passenger can do is ask to meet the pilot. This might not always be possible, but in many cases the pilot is happy to meet a nervous flier and provide some reassurance. Then, a few minutes later when the plane is taking off, you can think “this feels a little scary, but I met the person who’s flying the plane, and they seemed to know what they’re doing”. But takeoff is just the first part – you still have to get back to earth. What if the plane is landing, and no one – not even the pilot – knows that anything is wrong Until you hit the ground. Scott Prior to this, were you ever nervous at all about flying?  Elenas I did have a fear of flying, yes. It wasn t super severe, I wouldn t say, but I took the job knowing that they did fly and I was hoping to overcome my fears with flying. So I did have a fear of flying.  Scott That s something that a lot of people have, but it s interesting that you pursued a job that required that. Are you typically the type that s “I m afraid of it, but let s just face it, let s just hit it head on”? Elenas Yes. I m not going to let it stop me from travelling because I love travelling.  Scott This happened about two and a half years ago. You were flying pretty regularly back then? Elenas Yes, probably around twice a week. It depended on the work schedule, obviously. I would say I was part-time and I probably flew, I would say, four to five times a month.  Scott And what was your work? What were you doing?  Elenas I was a surgical assistant for a medical facility, and we just flew around to their separate locations in the northwestern part of the US. They had several locations. Scott And when you say surgical assistant, it sounds like you d be the one to hand the surgeon the tools that they ask for while they re operating on someone.  Elenas That s correct, yes.  Scott Okay. I figured that out really easily.  Elenas Well, I was making my way up in the company. At that time, I was a sterilising assistant, and then you make your way up through the company and you re all the way up to a surgical assistant.  Scott And what kind of surgery was this?  Elenas This was cataract surgery.  Scott Okay, so cataract removal. It s interesting though because, usually, I think of surgery happening in a hospital, so you would just stay local. Why didn t they just hire local people? Why did they have to fly you around to these various locations?  Elenas I m actually not really sure why they didn t hire just locals. It s still a question I have, but I couldn t tell you why it was more productive for them to buy these jets and fly people to facilities.  I don t know.  Scott And so you weren t flying commercial, the company had these planes and they had their own pilots and everything then?  Elenas Yes. They were like a 10-seater twin engine jet, and they had three of them.  Scott I guess there s money in cataracts.  Elenas Yeah, I think so.  Scott Was this usually just overnight and then back home? Elenas No, it was just a full day. It d probably be about a 10 to 12 hour day if it was flying. We d start our day at 6.30, getting on our flight, and we d get home probably around– could be anywhere between 6.30 and 7.30, but never overnight.  Scott Let s talk about what happened on that day. What kind of plane was this or how many passengers were on the plane?  Elenas There were nine passengers, and it s just a Cessna twin-engine aeroplane jet, not the propeller kind, and it was just like any other day. I was actually on call that day and got called in that morning. I never have been called in, and that was the first time that I actually got called in that day. Scott So there were nine people. These are all people that you work with?  Elenas Yes.  Scott So you knew all of them?  Elenas Yes, I knew all of them. The plane was so full that one of the staff had to sit in the cockpit next to the pilot. So it was a full flight. I d say it was about a roughly 45-minute flight. We got on the plane about 6.30 AM and you could either listen to podcasts while you re on the plane or a good movie. Actually, the pilot that day, excellent pilot, he s one of my favorites just very smooth takeoff, very smooth landings. He is just one of my favourite pilots, and it was a very uneventful flight, no turbulence, beautiful day, clear skies. So we went in for a typical landing. I was putting away all my gear and my backpack, and we came in for a landing and hovered over the runway a little longer than I thought. Since he was such a great pilot, I thought the plane had already touched down because his landings, I m telling you, were so smooth, but we had not hit. We were hovering.  Then, it hit and it was metal-on-pavement, if you can imagine, screeching, grinding sounds. It was really loud and at that moment everybody looked at each other. The girl in front of me, her seat faces me, so she s actually going backwards. The look on her face was just sheer terror and everybody s looking around. I see the girl up in the cockpit. She turns around to look at us, and we re just skidding across the runway and sliding and grinding. The plane actually started to turn slightly to the right. The left wing was starting to turn. I thought, at that point, that the airplane was going to start rolling or swinging around, but it somehow corrected itself and I could see the pilot trying to gain control of the aircraft. At that point, you don t have any control over an aircraft. All you have is wing control, I m guessing. If whatever s happening underneath the aeroplane isn t down, you have no control.  Scott So this was completely without warning?  Elenas Yes. There was no, I d say light noise going off, no warning signals, anything. It was totally silent. That whole aircraft was just silent. I always pay a lot of attention to what s happening in the cockpit because I am a fearful flyer. So, I always watch the pilot and what they re doing, and if they re freaking out during the flight, then it s a good indication for me to start freaking out. I watched as he landed, there was nothing happening on that airplane, no warning signals at all.  We slid all the way from when we landed. I would say it was 20 feet. We stopped 20 feet before the end of the runway, and NTSB says, “We stopped at the departure lane where planes come in to depart.” I was looking out the cockpit thinking, “We re going to keep sliding and we re going to slide into the ground and this thing is just going to start flipping” because we were still going so fast.  Scott Do you know how fast you were going when you hit the ground?  Elenas The NTSB said that we hit the ground at 164 miles per hour and it just slid the whole length of the runway.  Scott And what s past the runway? Is it trees or a road or do you know? Elenas It was just dirt and gravel and brushy stuff. It s a very dry country kind of deserty out there.  Scott Can you describe how loud was it? What was the sound like inside the plane while you were sliding?  Elenas It was very loud. It s really hard to describe the sound unless you ve heard metal grinding on pavement. Just screeching. It s indescribable. If you ve ever heard any sort of metal dragging under your car while you re driving I d say scraping across a pavement, times that by 10 because we were totally on our belly. Nothing was down.  Scott Obviously, you landed without the landing gear, without the wheels, but it seems like a plane would have some kind of notification that you re getting too close to the ground and your landing gear has not been deployed.  Elenas Yep. Correct. Scott What were the other passengers doing? Was there a state of panic?  Elenas Everybody was actually very quiet. I mean, everybody s eyes were as big as basketballs, but we were all very quiet, and I feel like our brains were just shutting off and preparing us for the worst. I mean, that s the only way I can explain it because I thought I was going to die, like, “That was it. I was actually living out my worst fear of dying in a plane crash. That was it.” And it was completely silent on the airplane. Not even alarms going off. I mean, just silent. Scott And was everyone wearing their seatbelt?  Elenas Yes, everybody was wearing their seatbelt.  Scott While this was happening, what was the pilot– could you see him? Was he saying anything?  Elenas He wasn t saying anything. I was looking out my window and the cockpit window because I was watching us approach the end of the runway, but I kind of was watching him as well, and he was pressing buttons and trying to control the steering wheel, I would say, of the aircraft, keeping it from twisting. But I really don t think pilots have much control if their wheels aren t down and it s just sliding like that. I think he was just trying every angle he possibly could to keep that thing from twisting and turning.  Scott Yeah, I can imagine the pressure on him because– I mean, you guys are all in fear for your lives individually, but he s kind of responsible for everyone s life on that plane.  Elenas Yes. So it finally reached its stopping position and he got up out of his seat and he said, “Everybody, you need to get off the plane right now.” I grabbed my bag and he was opening the door it was on the left side of the aircraft if I was facing forward and we all filtered out. I was probably third or fourth off the plane. As I stepped out the stairs usually drop underneath the aeroplane they just fell out right onto the pavement and they didn t fall under because we were on our belly of the aeroplane.  I stepped out and I looked to my left and there was just fire blazing from the back of the plane and there s a hole in the wing and there s jet fuel just spilling out onto the runway from the wing. And I just ran. I was like, “This thing is going to explode.” And I ran. I got to say I didn t even look back. I was in fight or flight mode and I didn t think about any of the other passengers, which is not very nice to say, but I don t know. I was just in a really weird state of mind and just ran, and I heard the plane just– I couldn t tell you if it exploded or the front window blew out but, at that point, it exploded. I turned around and the whole thing was just totally engulfed, and that was probably close to about 15 seconds after the last passenger exited the airplane. Scott And was the last passenger off the plane the pilot? Elenas No, it was a girl in the very back of the airplane. Everybody hates that seat. It s actually like across from the bathroom and it s dark and there s no windows. She was back there and it came very close for her to get off that airplane.  Scott I just have to pursue this question. Was the pilot the first one out?  Elenas I can t remember if he was either the first or the second. He did run off of that thing pretty quickly.  Scott So when you exited, was he already out? You could see him out of the plane? Elenas I have a hard time remembering.  Scott Yeah, you re full of adrenaline and not really– Elenas I feel like he was standing in the cockpit hallway area. I feel like he was standing there, but I know that he wasn t the last one off. He wanted to go back for his laptop and phone, and the lady that was standing next to him told not to go back there because it blew up right after the last person. You got to just leave it. It wasn t like a sink-with-the-ship with him. He beamed off there pretty quick.  Scott So where did you go from there?  Elenas I called my husband. At that point, I could hear the fire trucks and ambulances. They were coming up and they had no– usually, there will be a call in if planes have no landing gear so that they can spray the runway with foam so that planes don t catch on fire, which they had no warning of, so they were rushing down the runway. I called my husband at work and I feel so bad because I scared the daylights out of him. He thought we had crashed in the wilderness and he was like, “You need to call 911 and get away from the airplane.” I was like, “No, I think the tower has already called 911” because I hear the ambulances and I just feel really bad. And then I had called my mom and told her what was happening and then we all just stood around until they put the fire out on the airplane, and then the firefighters and ambulance came over to us and started asking us questions if we were okay. At that point, I was sitting down because I just felt so sick, so nauseated. It must have all the adrenaline just coming down on me at once. They took us in the ambulances and some vans to the fire station at that point.  Scott And is this a fire station that s local in that area or is it on the airport grounds?  Elenas I believe it s local in the area. We went to the fire station. They gathered us in a room and they, “Do you guys need anything? Can we do anything for you?” I feel like everything at this time was very cinematic, very slow motion. I don t remember a lot of it. The time is just really strange, but they had us fill out a report on what happened and then turn it into us. I guess there were some investigators there.  We were there for probably an hour, and then they said, “We need to get you guys out of here because the reporters are starting to show up.” So they filtered us into their fire station area where they keep the fire trucks and they pulled the vans in there, put us in vans, and then took us to another airport. I don t know what was happening, why they were pushing us around all these different places, trying to figure out what to do with us. Somebody had said, “Well, how about we send another airplane to get you guys and bring you back home?” And I said, “I m not flying anywhere. First of all, I ll hitchhike home if I have to. I m not flying. “ Scott You had enough of it for that day, huh?  Elenas Yeah. So we went to the other airport and sat there for a while. I just remember the pilot– he was just pacing and he was going through something, I don t know– because it was already coming out on the local news and everything that there was a plane crash. From there, they took us to a medical facility that I work for in the area, and we went into the break room and the owner came out, talked to us, and asked what happened, and he was just in shock at that point and they were trying to figure out what to do with us and they figured out that they had some vans for us and they had some drivers to take us back home, which was probably about three hours away.  Scott What kind of message did the owner of the company want to convey at that time? Did he have an explanation or did he say, “Don t worry, we re going to take care of any injuries”? How was he handling it?  Elenas He handled it very well. He felt really bad for the whole situation and he asked the pilot, he said, “What happened?” And the pilot explained to him what he could, and then we explained to him and he was just kind of in shock. I do have to say though that the owner said to us, “If anybody needs compensation, please let me or your supervisors know.” It s a religious company. So he prayed with us and then he said, “I got to get back to work” because he s like the main surgeon. So he went on to work.  Scott Were there any actual physical injuries?  Elenas Some girls claim to have some back sprain and there was a couple– it seemed like it happened more in the back of the airplane because that s where more of the girls have back issues. In fact, they have gone to the doctor for this and have had MRIs and all of that done, and they re working with Labor and Industries through Washington State to get that taken care of. Scott Were you under the impression that s what the owner was talking about as far as compensation? I mean, obviously you d all just lost a day s work also,  Elenas Right. They did pay us for the day, but that s not what I thought he meant by compensation. I had actually reached out to him and the CEO and asked about the compensation again, and they probably talked to their lawyers and I m guessing, and came back and said, “That s not what we meant by compensation. What we actually meant was if you needed time off.” So it was kind of retracted.  Scott He spoke a little too soon before consulting with their attorneys.  Elenas Yeah. So that s how that went. They did pay for counseling sessions for all of us afterwards.  Scott You got home like three hours later after the three hour ride. What was that evening like?  Elenas I mean, the car ride was really quiet. Then, we got back to the airport hangar and some of our supervisors were there and they were hugging us and crying, and I just want to get out of here and I just want to go home. I got in my car, went home, which is about a half hour away. My kids were all there staring at me, my mom was there, my husband was at work still. I told him there was no use for him to just leave work and come because it was such a chaotic time and I just, “I ll see you when you get off work.” It was just like a really surreal time, a very strange feeling. Everybody was just in shock of what just happened.  My sisters were texting me. I had other family members texting me, “Are you okay? And what happened?” There was a rumor that somebody had started that they had seen the crash from the airport and he said he didn t see anybody get off the plane and that we all died. He sent that to my workplace and everybody was freaking out over there, and it was just chaos. We did get a mass email from the owner– the pilots. This will never happen again, they re sorry about it, and they promise to everybody this is not something that will ever happen again, in other words. The technical term I want to say from the NTSB was that the pilot did not ensure the landing gear was extended before landing, and that contributed to the pilot s unstable approach.  Scott Not only to put down the landing gear, but also the wind flaps to slow down the landing, slow down the forward speed of the plane he hadn t done that either.  Elenas I looked this all up on the NTSB because that s where I get all my information from. The airplane s flaps were likely configured in a takeoff setting, which contributes to warning lights not triggering on, if you understand. When you re going too fast for landing, which the plane was at 164 miles an hour landing, and landing speed is 130 knots, which is I believe 110 miles an hour. So when these things are not done correctly, I think that what they re saying is the warning signals do not go off because the plane doesn t think it s landing. That s why there were no warning lights being issued when we hit the ground or getting close to the ground because the plane didn t understand that it was landing. Scott That just seems weird to me. I m not a pilot, so I have no idea what I m talking about here, but the plane should have known that, oh, I m 10 feet off the ground. Maybe the wheels should be down. That seems like common sense.  Elenas NTSB found no issues with the plane s electrical system or warning system, none of that. They didn t find anything wrong with it.  Scott Did you ever hear anything from the pilot himself?  Elenas I haven t heard anything from the pilot. I haven t heard anything from the pilot. We saw him that day and then, after that, I had never heard one thing from him.  Scott He was probably advised to not say anything. Elenas I think a lot of people were advised not to say anything.  Scott Is he still your favourite pilot? Elenas No. I don t have any favourite pilots anymore.  Scott He lost that status pretty quickly, huh?  Elenas Yeah.  Scott When you got that message from the owner, what s your reaction to that? I mean, do you just say, “Oh, well I m not flying this anymore” And was the pilot fired?  Elenas No. So that email came out. The pilot was pushed back into flying and I put in my two weeks notice. It was all probably within the same day or within two days because I was done with it. They didn t even have the decency to come to us, say, “Listen, we re going to have him back flying with us. Are you guys okay with that? How do you feel about that?” Nothing was said to us. And he was brought back. No explanation. I have no idea why. I just put in my two weeks notice because I can t work for a company that doesn t value their employees.  Scott And there could be, obviously, the chance that you d be flying with him again.  Elenas Yeah. Well, I told them right after I said, “I m never flying with you guys again.” I told my supervisor, I said, “Do not put me on any flights.” And it was even getting hard just riding with people. We would ride, in closer locations, in large vans, and everybody would take turns driving and I was like, “I don t even want anybody driving me anywhere.” Scott You don t know how good of a driver somebody is either. Elenas Yeah. At that point, I was like, “This is too risky for me. I have too big of a family, and I can t risk dying in a car crash or a plane crash,” and so I just walked away from it.  Scott Did everyone file a lawsuit?  Elenas No, three to four of us did.  Scott Individually? Elenas No, we were together on it. So we ended up filing a lawsuit on it but, after a year and a half, two years, it took two years for the NTSB investigation to finalise their report, and then our lawyers jumped on it and they said, “The company is covered. You cannot sue for something like this because the pilot is actually a coworker.” So we couldn t go any further with it. They just dropped it and said, “You have to go through workers compensation.” Scott What was the claim on the lawsuit?  Elenas It was an injury lawyer, so we were just trying to get anything out of them because a lot of us had quit working for them and just backpay from when we quit. I mean, just anything to help with other bills that we had. A lot of us have other bills that weren t paid for because working with workers comp is a nightmare, so we used our own insurance or just paid things outright such as massage therapy or psychology visits, therapy visits.  Scott I would think, for something like this, the company must have been insured. Elenas Oh yeah, I m sure they have to be.  Scott I mean, not just for the replacement of the destroyed plane right, but for liability, for having all these employees in a plane crash.  Elenas I had asked about compensation and the reply I got was that the cost of the new airplane was too far– it cost too much to replace the airplane to compensate the rest of the employees. Scott Wow. Just what you wanted to hear.  Elenas Yeah, I mean, it just felt like we were a number in a group and you guys lived, you made it, be thankful and go back to work and if you don t want to work here, then see you later. We ll hire new people.  Scott The pilot s still flying. I wonder if the people that are his passengers know the story. Elenas Oh, they know it, yeah. They re risking their lives. I think those planes should have a big black riding on the outside, “Fly at your own risk” because they should know. If I was them, I would not be flying with that company. No, there s no way.  Scott And I would think too, just from the pilot s perspective, he must have a lot of self doubt now at least when he went back to flying anyway. thinking, “Man, what if I do that again?” Elenas I mean, I don t think he ll ever make that mistake again. I m sure he will always triple, quadruple check to make sure that his landing gear is in fact down, but who s to say if he ll forget something else or another pilot will forget something else. I just don t think they re held to enough standards because they fly privately.  Scott Have you flown again since then?  Elenas I have flown, yep. I did have to obtain some medications, some Xanax to be able to fly again I ve never had to ever take that before, but it does help with flying. I still get really nervous. I get nervous when the plane lands. but I m not going to let it stop me from getting out there and seeing the world. Scott That s impressive. Some people would say, “No, never getting on a plane again.” And I can imagine certainly, at the Landing– I mean, everyone on the plane has never been in a crash. I mean, when I fly, it s always kind of tense up and wait for that hit and then okay, good, we re down and we re safe once again. Elenas Yes. And with all these plane accidents happening, it s just been crazy. I m not going to let it stop me though.  Scott Did you have any psychological symptoms or an actual diagnosis like PTSD? Elenas I had a couple psychologists help me and they said I did have PTSD just because I have– I used to have really bad night terror from it. A couple times I d wake up just running through my house from a dream, like a sleepwalking but running, because I was having these terrible dreams, and then they started to go away, fewer and fewer. Now, I really wouldn t say I have PTSD anymore just because my dreams have really subsided from it. But a year after that, I would have pretty bad dreams and I worked a lot with a psychologist.  Scott Did you feel your treatment was complete then? Elenas I think so. I mean, I would ve liked to have continued, at least, a couple times a month, but the cost is just astronomical with them, and I don t feel I should have to pay for something that a company did to me, so I let it go and I work things out kind of on my own. I have my own faith and I ve been able to do that on my own. Scott Do you still do the same type of work?  Elenas No, I m not working at all anymore. I kind of felt like I had only been working there for eight or nine months and I was off taking care of my children for eight years beforehand, and I went back to work for eight or nine months and this happened. So I think I ll just stay home with my kids. I just feel that maybe, with a lot of your people you ve had on podcasts, when you see death coming for you, I think it changes you as a person and this has totally changed me as a person and how I view things now. And I used to– I don t want to say take more chances, but I feel like life is obviously short, so let s just do it. If something makes you happy, just do it because it s not worth just waiting around for whatever may happen. I feel like I’d take not dangerous chances, but just more better chances in life and– it s hard to explain, but just seeing things differently. Scott It sounds like you re living life deliberately now and enjoying the present and this moment. Elenas Yeah, exactly. It s hard to explain, but that hits it right on the head. You can t just wait around for things to happen, just do it and don t fly private aeroplanes. Don t fly privately unless you really know the pilot.  Scott All right. Crazy story. I m glad you made it through.  Elenas Yeah, Thank you for having me. Scott I know for some people, going through something like this would mean they might never fly again. It’s like, okay – used up all my good luck on that one, not gonna do that any more. And that would be a completely valid position. Sometimes with stories like this, I get comments or questions about the legal aspect. That part is still ongoing, so none of that can be talked about right now. Maybe in a few years if we do this as a Flashback episode, Elena can talk about how it all turned out. Now I want to talk about something that I’ve seen come up a few times. This has to do with reviews in Apple Podcasts. You might notice, I almost never ask for ratings or reviews. I hear other shows constantly saying “Don’t forget to leave us a 5 star rating and a review” and it just gets tiresome. So I don’t do that. But a lot of people click and leave a nice review anyway – and I do appreciate that. But – what confuses me is when someone will go and write a review and comment or even ask a question about a particular episode. Like this one – this review was just left recently: The subject is: Victoria’s Dad And the review said this: “My main question is, why didn’t Victoria seek charges or a confrontation with Uncle Robert? She’s expecting law enforcement or CPS to get her dad, but what about HER abuser? Makes no sense.” Now, this person did rate the show 5 stars, so I appreciate that. But there are a few issues. First, these are anonymous. The person leaving the review is “NurseHHR” which is just their user name for Apple Podcasts, so I have no idea who this is. Second, anyone who reads this will almost certainly have no idea what story they’re talking or what the details are. Who’s Uncle Robert? What happened?  And third, there’s no way I (or anyone else) can respond. You can’t leave a comment on a particular review. So the questions are just floating out there, with no answers. Like I said, I do appreciate the 5 stars, but if you have questions like this, or comments, or really anything to say about a particular episode, we have ALL of that in the Facebook group. In fact, a lot of the guests you hear on the podcast are actually in that group and so you can ask them questions directly. That’s all at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. So you’re certainly welcome to leave a rating and review, but for an actual discussion, come on over to the What Was That Like Facebook group and join the conversation with over 9000 other listeners. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.  And now we’re gonna hear this week’s Listener Story. Every main episode ends with a story that has been sent in by a listener, just like you. And I would LOVE if you would just record a short personal story on your phone, like 5-10 minutes, and email it to me at [email protected]. Seriously, we all want to hear it! This story is a nice reminder to enjoy each moment. Stay safe, and I’ll see you next week. (Listener story) My story is about a moment in my life when somebody made a big impact for me that, even today, I still remember. It was back many years ago when I was a middle-aged mom and I was taking my 13-year-old daughter to Maui, to the beach with the intent to snorkel. So we re on the beach and we re getting all of our snorkel gear on and our flippers, and we re just cracking up because we know how silly we look with all this gear on and then attempting to get down to the water. Here we are with our flippers on, trying to walk backward down to the water, just joking and laughing and having the best time, and it was just such a great memory.  We were down in the water and we had a wonderful time looking at the fish in Maui and then, when we were done, we just hauled back up to our beach towels. When we got to the beach towels, I noticed that there was a note in my shoe, so I immediately went over and I wasn t really expecting anything. I thought maybe it was a piece of trash or something, but there was a note in there for me and it simply said, “You are aging with grace.” That moment just stuck with me because I realised that somebody saw the value in me that I wasn t caring what anybody thought about me, that I was just intent on having the best time I could with my 13-year-old daughter. And we did. We were having a good old time. I was concerned about anything around me, but just her and somebody saw that, and that meant so much to me that they saw the importance of just having a good time, letting go, being in the moment with your child, and that meant so much to me.  Well, just as I was about to show my daughter, I lifted up the note to say, “Hey, take a look at this.” And then the wind came up at that moment, grabbed it out of my hand, and it went flittering away, and I didn t run after it. I just let it go and my daughter and I both just thought that maybe that s the way it was supposed to be, that it wasn t something for me to keep and keep looking at. It was just a very kind observation from a stranger that needed to just stay in my memory.

Every other Tuesday, we grab a past question from the Facebook group, then Meredith and Scott answer it and read some of the answers given by other listeners. The question for this episode: What s your irrational fear? Links for this episode: Ear Hustle podcast: https://www.earhustlesq.com/ Inside True Crime Podcast with Matt Cox: https://insidetruecrime.com/ Dan prepares people for prison: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/51 Meredith’s episode with RDAP Dan: https://www.meredithforreal.com/podcast-episodes/episode/780fdeea/ep-220-or-prison-consultant-a-pill-mill-walkie-talkies-and-youtube Meredith’s episode with Eric about drunk driving: https://www.meredithforreal.com/podcast-episodes/episode/48be1403/ep-37-or-from-eagle-scout-to-inmate Scott’s dumbbell workout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnZyBg5cjUk t=24s Netflix show, Animal Control: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21376524/ Meredith’s podcast is Meredith For Real – the Curious Introvert: https://MeredithForReal.com To check out the new Tuesday Question and get in the discussion, join us at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Sponsor deals: Visit www.functionhealth.com/WHATWAS or use gift code WHATWAS25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. Visit AuraFrames.com and use promo code WHATWAS at checkout to get $45 off. If you’re 21 or older, get 25% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [WHATWAS] at https://inda.shop/[WHATWAS]! #indacloudpod Go to ThriveMarket.com/WHATWAS to get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift just for signing up. Go to Quince.com/whatwas for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns! Get 15% off OneSkin with the code [WHATWAS] at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Try Mint Mobile for 3 months, for just 15 bucks a month MintMobile.com/WHAT

September 11, 2001 was a tragic day in America. The terrorist attacks caused the deaths of 2,996 people in New York, the Pentagon, and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Thousands more were injured. And many people since then have died from illnesses caused by exposure to toxic materials at the World Trade Center crash site. Here on the podcast, each year in September we dedicate an episode to hearing stories from people who were there and witnessed the tragedy. In this episode, you’ll hear from Lori Brody, who worked in the World Trade Center, and from Joe Falco, a New York City firefighter. Their stories were told a few years ago here, and we’re taking this opportunity to make sure their voices are heard again, so that we never forget that day. If you, or someone you know, personally experienced the terrorist attacks at any of the three locations, please contact me through the website at WhatWasThatLike.com. May we never forget.   Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/149 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well). Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS.Try it free:iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free”Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app Sponsor deals: Go to Seed.com/WHAT and use code WHAT to get 25% off your first month. Go to rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app to start saving today!<!-- notionvc: 5a64eb6f-2fff-4a4f-b9af-bf1e8b2dda0e -

I live about 20 minutes from world-famous Clearwater Beach. I do bike around that area sometimes but that’s about the only time I go there, because I’m not much of a beach person. But people come from all over the world to sit in that sand, because that’s one of the things Clearwater is known for. But there’s something else that makes this city famous. Clearwater, Florida is also the worldwide spiritual headquarters of the Church of Scientology. Back in 1975, there was a Scientology-founded group that purchased the huge Ft Harrison Hotel in Clearwater for $2.3 million. On the paperwork, the tenant was listed as “United Churches of Florida”, so the City Council and the citizens of Clearwater didn’t realize that the new owners were actually the Church of Scientology – until after the purchase was finalized. Citizens groups and even the mayor of Clearwater at the time, protested against the church establishing a base there, and they repeatedly referred to the group as a cult. But the group stayed. And now, the Scientologists own 185 properties in downtown Clearwater. If you drive around the city, you’ll see these people walking from one place to another, doing their work or taking courses. My guest today is Kat, and she knows about the Church of Scientology from first-hand experience. When she was barely a teenager, Kat was given to the Scientologists – by her mother. Kat at 13, working at the Sea Org   Kat   <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-3329" src="https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/kat.jpg" alt="The week this episode went live, I happe

There’s a phrase I find interesting. It’s often used to describe a person who seems to have an unusual power in different ways. The phrase I’m thinking of is “force of nature”. When I hear “that man, or that woman, is a force of nature”, it makes me think of someone who comes in like a whirlwind, with a clear objective, and nothing is going to stand in their way. And that description makes sense, because that’s how nature is sometimes. Here in Florida, we’re about to go into that magical time of year called Hurricane Season. A storm comes up out in the Atlantic, and they often make their way here. And they are literally a force of nature. Thankfully, we usually have lots of warning, so we have time to prepare. But if you’re in the path when a hurricane comes through, it’s loud, and scary, and terrifying. It doesn’t care about you. It’s just doing what nature does. But sometimes nature can be just as scary, and just as deadly, in complete silence. That’s what Gregg found out, when he found himself alone and wondering if he would survive. overview of Gregg’s artwork at the airport   Closer view of one section   <figcaption id="caption-attachment-3308" c

There are a lot of things we have that are amazing, but we take them for granted. Have you ever seen those videos online where the person being recorded is color blind? And their family gets them those specially-made sunglasses that actually allow a person to see colors, even though they have never been able to before. Of course, everyone in the family wants to see their reaction the first time they put on those glasses. So they all go outside, and there are usually some brightly colored balloons nearby, and the birthday person opens up this package to find a pair of sunglasses. Nice, thanks for the sunglasses. And of course everyone encourages them to try them on. And what happens when they put those glasses on, and they are now actually seeing colors instead of everything being black and white or just having shades of difference – their reaction is always amazing. In many cases, they are just so overwhelmed by the colors and overcome by emotion, they start to cry because of what they’re seeing. In that moment, everything has changed for them. They see everything differently, and they notice every single color. But for most of us, we walk around every day seeing all of these vibrant colors, and we never have a single thought about it. It’s just our normal. We often don’t understand or appreciate something until we are able to see the difference between having it, and not having it. My guest today, Chris, can attest to that. Like most of us, he grew up having hands – a left hand and a right hand. They were right there with him for more than 40 years, always doing what he needed them to do. But today, the hands that Chris uses are not the hands he was born with. Corn picker   <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-3294" src="https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/hook-first-day.jpg" alt="Chris, first day with hook prosthetic" width="500" height="375" srcset="https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/hook-first-day.jpg 500w, https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/hook-first-day-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500

You know when people are asked about what their biggest fear is, a lot of the answers are what you’d expect – fear of heights, fear of spiders, and so forth. Humans are afraid of a lot of things. But when people are asked what their single BIGGEST fear is – the big one that usually comes out as number one is fear of public speaking. For a lot of people it even ranks higher than their fear of death. When Jerry Seinfeld heard about that, he correctly observed that that means if that person is at a funeral, they’d rather be the dead person in the casket than the one giving the eulogy. But there are some situations where we have to speak in public – and one of those is in a courtroom. For me, that would be the worst place to be nervous about speaking. When I’m in an uncomfortable situation, I’ll usually try to use humor to sort of ease the tension. But when you’re on the witness stand answering questions, with a judge and a whole room full of people watching you, that’s not really the time for a stand-up routine. My guest today is Collier, and he knows all about that situation. He was only 12 years old when he had to testify at a murder trial, to talk about what happened at his house one night. And the person he was testifying against was his own father. Collier with his mother   12 year old Collier, testifying in court   <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-2972" src="https://whatwasthatlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Jack

This is Scott, and you’re listening to What Was That Like. But this is not a regular episode of What Was That Like. I’ve got a really cool BONUS episode for you today. What you’re about to hear is the first episode in a new podcast series called Dark Valley. This series is investigation-oriented, and it’s about as True-Crime as you can get. You’re gonna learn about America’s “unknown serial killer” – or by the name given to him by law enforcement and the media: The Connecticut River Valley Killer. And it’s all laid out from the perspective of that murderer’s only surviving victim, Jane Boroski. Jane Boroski Can you imagine being attacked by a serial killer? And this was not a routine attack. Jane was stabbed 27 times by this man, whom she had never met. Oh, and when it happened, Jane was 7 months pregnant. In this first episode of the series, Jane talks about what happened. And I also had a conversation with Jane, and asked her a few questions of my own about this whole experience. You’ll hear that right after this episode plays, and of course we’ll have this week’s Listener Story as we do on every episode. The Dark Valley podcast series is produced by Crawlspace Media, and if you like this first episode, you can go and listen to the next one on Apple, Spotify, or whatever app you’re listening on right now. So I hope you enjoy this first episode of Dark Valley, followed by my conversation with Jane Boroski. Links: Dark Valley: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dark-valley/id1644915712 Invisible Tears: https://invisible-tears.com/ Jane’s social media: https://linktr.ee/invisibletearspodcast Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/144 Transcription was done by James Lai. Sponsor deals: Head to factormeals.com/wwtl50 and use code wwtl50 to get 50% off! What Was That Like is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit <a class="notion-link-token notion

Do you ever think about the children in your state who are currently in foster care? Here in Florida, there are about 19,000 children living in foster care. That’s a lot of kids. And in that group, there are about 500 children who have no identified families. Can you imagine how scary and lonely that must be, to be a child with no family at all, and only the government to try to take care of you and keep you safe? There are a lot of different situations that can lead to that. But whatever happened, it’s no fault of the child. They didn’t ask to be born into a family of addicts, or criminals, or abusers, or maybe just someone who didn’t want them. They’re already starting off life with a disadvantage. It’s not fair. My guest today, Samantha, learned about the foster care system kind of by surprise. She and her husband, Jeremy, were living their lives and they had three young children of their own which kept them pretty busy. They were a happy family. They didn’t plan to suddenly be dealing with the foster care system – or more specifically, a process called “Family Placement”. And it all started with an unexpected phone call about a baby. Samantha and Jeremy   Samantha, Jeremy and kids (Hannah blurred for privacy) Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/143 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listener

Here on the podcast, I talk to people who have been through extremely unusual situations. Like witnessing a murder, or being attacked by a monkey, or winning the showcase on The Price Is Right. We get to hear those stories first hand, from the person who experienced it. In this bonus episode, I want to introduce you to another podcast that has a very similar format, which means you’re gonna want to subscribe. This podcast is called The Only One in the Room, and the host is Laura Cathcart Robbins along with her boyfriend Scott Slaughter. I’ve known them for years. Truly wonderful people. So today I’m bringing you an episode of The Only One in the Room, and in the opening Laura will explain where that title came from. In this particular episode, you’ll hear the guest, Traci, talking about her husband, Chris. Chris was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, and get this – he spent 3 years in jail just awaiting his trial. In the meantime, Traci is on the outside fighting to prove his innocence, while still maintaining an income and taking care of their 3 children, basically as a single parent. So much to talk about with a story like this. And keep in mind, this happened back in the early part of the Covid pandemic. Hang around after the conversation, and I’ll have an update about where the case is at today. I just have to say, Laura is one of the most compassionate people I know. You’ll hear it in this story, as she talks with Traci about what happened. And if you like this story, there are lots more that you’ll love. Just go to whatever podcast app you’re using right now, and search for The Only One in the Room and click Subscribe. I’d love to hear what you think about this story, and it will definitely generate some discussion in the Facebook group, so let’s hear your comments. So please enjoy this conversation with Laura Cathcart Robbins from the Only One in the Room, talking with Traci, whose husband Christopher was arrested. The Only One in the Room podcast: https://theonlyonepod.com/ Traci Kearney on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justiceforchristopherkearney/ Full show notes and transcript for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/142 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well)   If you’re looking for a simpler and cost-effective supplement routine, Athletic Greens is giving you a FR

Content warning – this episode includes discussion of sex trafficking, and graphic depiction of sexual attack. If you’re in the car with the kids, you might want to save this one for later. The situation that Jennifer found herself in is one that no one ever expects. She was away from home, and she didn’t really know anyone. On top of that, she was an American in Turkey and she didn’t speak much of the language. And her attacker was strong, and determined. But what came to her during this traumatic experience were things she had heard on a television show. Oprah Winfrey would sometimes have law enforcement specialists and self-defense experts on her show to give advice about what to do in certain situations. They said to always fight back – and NEVER let yourself be taken to a second location. That advice, along with some other tips she remembered, may have helped save Jennifer’s life. Because even though she was able to fight him off, he came back. Jennifer in 2009   Jennifer today If you’d like to contact Jennifer, or get two weeks of her brain and nervous system training for free, visit the website RewireTrial.com. Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/141 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well)

There’s a problem that’s becoming a bigger and bigger issue for anyone who owns a home. The problem is squatters. If you’re not familiar with the term, “squatting” is when a person – or even a group of people – figure out that a house is not being occupied. Maybe the owner is trying to sell it, or in some cases, the owner lives there but is just away from home on a vacation. When the squatter determines that no one is home, they just go in – usually by breaking in – and take up residence. They just act like its their house. This is happening all across the country. And the infuriating this is that in most cases, the police can’t just go and remove them. It becomes a civil matter, which means the homeowner has to spend money on lawyers and court filings, as well as paying for some other place to live in the meantime. And all the while, the squatter is living in the home without paying anything. My guest today is Flash. He didn’t expect it, but he was faced with a squatter problem. But he decided to handle this case on his own. Disclaimer – the process that Flash used may not work for everyone. It might not work in your case. It also might be dangerous. For advice on how to deal with squatters, consult your attorney. Some of the squatter’s stuff   Flash If you’d like to contact Flash by email: [email protected] Petition to make squatting a crime: https://www.change.org/p/change-squatter-laws-help-make-squatting-illegal United Handyman Association website HTTPS://Un