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

I hate to make this joke, but I have to.

It's just right there for you to make these delivered. Oh, no. It's really nice. You're a dad. You didn't tell me you've become a.

Dad since I saw you, but they really did. These are good stories.

They are awesome. I told Huey the well, we're not allowed to say who he drove for.

But the person walking, I told everyone.

And what's people's reaction? I mean, whoa. Hughie almost lost consciousness. He got white in the face.

There's a part in that story. It's the third story that is, like, so impossible to unsee in your brain.

It's a Stephen King story, and a.

Couple people have defended it. And you'll know why when you hear it.

Sure, sure. Let me guess. Laura did Julia and David. I think I put a nice spin on it.

Oh. Oh, I think David did, too. Yeah. So you can guess what's going on.

Okay, so these are crazy delivery driver stories. Please enjoy. Hard times come and go good times take em slow my life, I had em both remember one thing you gotta.

Know I'm gonna keep on shining.

Hello?

Hello?

Oh, my God. You sound wonderful. Can you hear us? Yeah.

You also sound wonderful.

Oh, my God. I don't know what your setup is, but it's really nice. And basie.

Ooh. Thank you.

Dan, where are you?

I live in Minneapolis with my wife and two daughters.

We love Minneapolis.

It's nice there. It's kind there.

We saw your live show here.

Oh, you did?

It was really cool. We had Andrew Zimmern.

Yeah, that was really, really fun. And then he took us out to an incredibly fun dinner afterwards. Very memorable experience there. What do you do in Minneapolis?

Well, while this story revolves around pizza delivery, I am no longer in that industry. I'm the chief marketing officer for a cyber security company called Arctic Wolf.

Nice.

Dax, you may have heard of them because we sponsor the Red Bull racing Formula one team, so our logo is out there.

Oh, okay. You know, sponsoring the Red Bull team, there's a great saying for that, a blessing and a curse, which is you're sponsoring the winning team, but they don't ever show it on tv.

Why?

Because they don't ever show Max on tv. Cause he's out front. There's no axes so far ahead. They're only showing the battles that are happening.

That's interesting.

It is. I wonder if. Well, you're a CMO does that kind of analysis cross everyone's mind? Yep.

There's this thing called Qi media value, where somebody does the work of measuring how often your logo is on tv and how premium the placement is overall. It is good to be on the winning team.

Okay.

That's okay. Well, I guess you're always in the winning circle. The car pulls up, it gets a close up, but I would be interested to see what team actually gets the most airtime.

Well, Red Bull is a giant in general compared to the other motorsports teams. Their social media following is two x, the next closest team. They have such a cool brand.

They sure do.

Even when a race isn't going on, you get a ton of value from it. So we're going really to happy to be a partner. And it's also cool to say that we do the cybersecurity for the best f one team in the world.

Yeah, the best.

Buying a long shot. Okay, so before this lofty job of CMO, you were delivering.

Yes. If I could transplant you back in time to the late nineties.

Oh, what a time to be alive.

1999, I was delivering pizzas in small town, rural Minnesota. Population 900, no stoplight. This is before GPS, before smartphones, so people would call in to do their orders. I would get directions, like, oh, yeah, our house is about 1 mile past where the Erickson's barn used to be.

Oh, my God. Oh, that's amazing.

You have to not only know all the landmarks, but the past landmarks. Correct.

You need very local knowledge. I was living my best life. I was 16, you know, I'd had my driver's license for a few months. I was driving this piece of junk Chevy hatchback, a 1985 citation two.

Oh, baby.

That was completely rusted out. No air conditioning. It's hot. The windows are down. I also went for the full 212 inch subs in the back.

Yeah, you did. Well, you had a hatchback. You gotta fill it up.

You had to do it. That was the environment I was operating in. And it was a night, you know, like any other. We got what ended up being the last order of the night. The sun was down, and I go out to deliver this pizza. The delivery actually goes off without a hitch. Deliver the pizza, everything's fine. It's the drive back where things get interesting. Okay, so I'm about 3 miles outside of town. Long, straight road, no lights. I'm going 55. I'm coming back to kind of the main road to get back to the pizza shop, and I notice in the distance that there's a car. It seems to be coming at me. It's in my lane, and I'm like, well, whatever. There's nobody else on the road. I'm sure they'll just move over when the time comes. Well, it gets closer and closer. It's looking increasingly like I am about to be in a head on collision.

Oh, my God.

And you gotta figure out what way you're gonna swerve.

If I swerve left, I go into their lane, and that might make it more likely to be a head on collision. I can't stay straight. So the option is the ditch.

Sure.

And it is upon entering the ditch that I realize that this car wasn't a car at all. It was a truck parked in my lane with its high beams on.

Parked?

Yeah.

It gave me the illusion that it was coming at me, but it wasn't.

Oh, no.

This then begs the question, why would a truck be parked in your lane? I found out as soon as I got in the ditch, because there was a man in the ditch, and he was relieving himself.

Oh, number two or one.

It was the number one.

Oh.

Luckily, he's standing, and he's able to, like, jump out of the way. But his hand hits my windshield.

Oh, my lord.

I hit the guy, and from his perspective, I must have looked like an absolute maniac.

Yeah, like, you saw him and are now trying to murder him.

Or you're just out of control and driving your car into a ditch.

Right. This guy, understandably, is now very upset. I gotta get out of here, right? So I get out of the ditch, I turn around, and I see him making a mad dash for his truck.

Is it a pickup truck or is it a medium duty, or is it a semi?

It was a pickup truck, like a Ford f 250. So the guy bolts into his truck, whips it around, and I'm thinking, this guy thinks I just tried to kill him. He's going to come and settle the score. I'm like, okay, time to get out of here. So I punched it. We're now in a high speed chase.

The slowest high speed chase ever. A Ford f 250 and a citation. Exactly.

So he is on my tail, and I'm like, okay, what am I going. I got to get back to the pizza shop. My plan is I'm going to park as fast as I can, run in, lock the door, and then call the cops. I park. I try to make it to the door. He does not park. He gets out of his truck while it's still, like, rolling to a stop.

Oh, my God.

I'm, like, trying to get to the door. This guy's charging right at me, like, full grown man versus 16 year old me.

Oh.

And he just loads up a haymaker and absolutely clobbers.

Oh, you're kidding. He just clocked you?

I don't know any of the words.

You just.

Haymaker's just a big, wild right hander.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

So he drops me immediately.

Does he get you on the chin, the cheek, the forehead?

Like the cheek, right by the eye.

Oh, Jesus.

So I am down. I didn't get knocked out, but I am on the ground, and I'm thinking to myself, this is not good. So he then starts yelling at me. He's like, you tried to kill me. I'm calling the cops. And I realize as he's talking that he is completely intoxicated.

Well, yeah.

Well, hence the pee pee in the.

Middle of it and parking on the.

Yeah, it starts coming together for me. I go, you're gonna call the cops on me? You're wasted, and you just punched a kid. I'm calling the cops on you.

Good. Yeah.

He walks to his truck, which had come to arrest. It slowly hit the liquor store that was next to the pizza shop.

This is some small town shit right here. This feels a little familiar.

He then gets in his truck and drives away.

Did you get a license plate?

I did not. This is where it really is. Some small town shit, because everybody knows everybody. But I didn't recognize this guy. And to this day, I'm pretty sure my boss knew who he was, and he wouldn't tell me his name. It was like some, like, small town code of honor or something where he wouldn't reveal. Who knows? They're probably related. I still, to this day, don't know who the guy was.

Did you call the cops?

Nope. I felt like that was wrong for some reason.

Wow.

We cleaned up the pizza shop, we watched the end of who wants to be a millionaire? And then we all went home and just moved on with our lives.

Were you at all blessed with a really drunk guy throwing a haymaker? Like, was the punch a little less than what he was intending? I'm hoping no.

It hurt a lot.

It hurt a lot.

Okay.

Okay.

I get the feeling this guy, he's been in a few bar fights.

Yeah. When you swing on a 16 year old, you're playing by a different set of rules, I think. What a motherfucker. That he was in the wrong lane.

I know.

At least be in your lane to get out to pee.

Also, go to the shoulder.

Who thinks people are really trying to kill them with their car.

People who have had massive trauma where they have thought other people were trying to kill them in the past. Or maybe they were trying to, I.

Guess, but also be accountable for your actions.

Listen, when you park your truck in the middle of a highway and pee.

In a dog on the wrong side.

Of the road yeah, shit's gonna happen. You know, it's like shit happens when you party naked.

I think about it a lot. Like, as more time has passed, I thought I was a few feet from potentially killing someone.

Right. That is scary.

How different my life would be just that split second. I have mixed feelings about it.

Weirdly, there's a clue in there. On some level you probably had to be experiencing in addition to the facial pain and the fright of it all, some kind of deep gratitude. You hadn't killed a stranger that night. And so maybe it was offsetting your compulsion to call the cops.

You know, it's hard to recall exactly how I felt but I just remember thinking, like, well, everyone's fine. What am I gonna do? Fill out a bunch of paperwork?

If you were 16 and 99, that means I'm eight years older than you. That probably means you never saw the Patrick Dempsey movie, lover boy.

No.

Neither you, Monica? No, he's a pizza delivery boy. Patrick Dempsey. Remember? He was so cute in his young age. He still is.

Very handsome.

Women would call, and if they ordered a pizza with extra anchovies it meant they wanted him as a lover. Oh, he was a young man trying to make money for college. And so he was sleeping with all these women around town. These older ladies. Yeah. Yeah, he was an escort of sorts. That was a pizza delivery guy. And then, of course, someone ordered extra anchovies but just because they wanted extra anchovies. So that was a bit of mix up. A.

Was it a meet cute?

Yeah, of course. He's in love with a girl. He wants to go to college with her. But what is he gonna do? He's gotta make this money. But anyways, I think anyone my age who saw that movie thought maybe if I delivered pizza, I would get invited in one day.

I will say, minus this one incident, it was the greatest job in the world.

Because you get to peek into people's lives every 20 minutes. Is that why?

I just liked the freedom of driving around with the tunes cranked windows down, no responsibilities, just totally carefree. Delivering pizzas is easy. There's somebody else, like, mopping the floors and doing the hard work when you.

Would get in your car on Monday morning to go to school. Would it just reek like a pizza in there?

Yes.

Yeah. Permanently.

It was a little contained because you have the red insulated bag that keeps the pizza warm, but it definitely smelled like food the next day.

Last question. What was the biggest tip you ever received? Did you want to get that Christmas Eve shift?

Oh, yeah, for sure. The guy who owned the place and never revealed the puncher, he would do this thing where he would always make the specials, like $16. So people would pay with a 20 and you get $4 back.

Smart.

He was nice that way. So it was a lot of just automatic $4 tips. I received some non cash tips. Like, I got tipped in a bag of weed one time. Oh, that was from the trailer park.

That's way back when.

That's way more than $4.

It was a great job.

You kind of make me want to deliver pizza, but not here in LA. I want to deliver it in Milford, where I'm from. Like, I want to be able to pull up someone's long driveway, and I'm so nosy. I want to peek around their house, and I want to look when the door's open. I want to see what's happening in there.

Sure. Lots happening.

Curious.

Maybe in your retirement and mine, too. We'll start delivering pies.

I'm in. Where do I sign?

Well, Dan, great meeting you. And I'm so delighted that you are at that Minneapolis show. It was such a fun night.

This is great. Hey, before I sign off, can I just have my wife pop her head in here?

We would love to meet her. What's her name?

Her name is Megan. She found out about this prompt, so I got to give her credit. Now I have to let her into my recording laboratory here.

Hi, guys.

Hi, Megan. Nice to meet you.

I have been listening from day one. Me and my friend Rebecca, we talk about you guys every week just like you're our best friends.

Shout out Becca. Best friend.

And I also need to say shout out to my daughter Maggie. She's nine, and she will be very upset if she does not get a shout out.

Okay. Shout out Maggie. First and foremost, Megan and Maggie.

This is pretty cute.

And then we have a little seven month old, Penny.

Oh, Penny. That's a great name.

Penny and Maggie. I love these names.

That was Dan's name choice, so he gets full credit for that one.

I like it.

You guys are very good at giving one another credit.

Oh, thank you. We've had lots of therapy and lots of practice.

Good job.

We've actually known each other since we were ten years old, so we're going on 31 years of knowing each other.

So you're from the same town of 900?

Yep. I'm also from Avon, Minnesota. I was working at the Texaco station across the street from the pizza place.

Did he ever deliver pizzas to you?

No, but they also had ice cream, so I got some ice cream deliveries often because he was courting me for some time.

Oh, this is so cute.

I love it. Well, it's so nice meeting you. And Dan.

You too. Keep doing what you're doing. I love everything you guys do.

Okay. Thank you. We will.

Bye.

Take care. Again. I know I say it all the time, but. Sweetest human beings in the world listen to the show. I don't get it.

I ran into a blue box.

Oh, wow.

I forgot.

That was egregious. That's the biggest one you've ever had. I think I couldn't even understand what you're saying.

I ran hungry. I ran into two at blue bottle, and they were so nice.

We're in here talking about diarrhea and snakes in your butt. Oh, someone's name is rags. I like that. Ooh, rags.

Oh, it's in quotes. That's fun.

I like a name in quotes. I'm gonna put my name in quotes.

Dax shepherd.

Hi.

Is this Alicia?

Alicia, nice to meet you, Alicia.

Wonderful. Why do you have a sound deadening background?

So I am actually in my office. I work at a tech company. We have these little pods that people work in for quiet.

And is it much more peaceful inside of there? Can you tell the difference? Immediately.

I work in an office, like, in the back part, but we have an open floor plan, so I'm sure it's so much nicer to work in this if you work on the floor. Everybody's loud. We have a ping pong table, all.

That kind of stuff.

Oh, my God. How fun. Is it Google?

No, I'm in Sacramento. So we're a smaller tech company.

It is interesting people really embrace this whole notion of what these tech companies should be or not. They sound great if you're an extrovert, but if you're an introvert, you basically have to fucking work out loud in public. I don't know.

I guess you just live in one of these pods.

Well, it's the fact that they have to build them says something.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people at our company work remote, too, so coming back to the office has been interesting.

Yeah, I bet. Okay. But before you have this esteemed position. You delivered items at one point.

Yeah.

So back in college in 2012, I was actually a flower delivery person. Oh, it was a really cool job. I actually learned so much. I still do flower arranging and all that kind of stuff.

For fun, you would make the bouquets as well as deliver them.

So I started out as just, like, a delivery person, and then I luckily got to learn how to do all the big stuff. But I worked for this really small, like, mom and pop shop owned by this really nice greek man.

I just want to say one thing. It never occurred to me when we had this prompt, but now that I'm talking to you, this is almost the opposite end of the spectrum as a parking ticket attendant. Whereas, like, the parking ticket people, everyone they interact with hates their guts. Whereas if you deliver flowers, like, virtually every single person is excited to see.

You unless they have a stalker. That's not this story. But that is definitely common. I was so thrown off.

Oh, I, wait, really?

Like, you're delivering 100 roses, and they're like, oh, fuck, yeah.

We had to put, like, people's names down on a list of who not to deliver to because there would be stalkers trying to come in and send them stuff.

You got to dime a dozen.

You also got to juggle your ethics like they're good for business.

Let's do stocking. True.

They're trying to tip you huge to send these flowers, and you're like, no, no, no. Can't do it. So, yeah, that's the dark side of.

Florists, the underbelly of flowers. Okay. Okay. So you were delivering at the time?

I come in just my third week of delivering, and it's gone smooth. It's been pretty easy. Still kind of getting used to just awkwardly showing up to someone's house with stuff.

Can I ask how big of a town this was in?

It's, like a suburb of Sacramento, so I think we delivered in, like, a 50 miles radius. But, yeah, this was so interesting because I got my list of deliveries for the day, and the first one was a funeral, and I had never delivered to a funeral. I've barely been to funerals at this point. Luckily, I was talking to my boss, and he said, oh, we made all of these arrangements for free because they're, like, a friend of my family's. So there's a bunch of stuff to take. He's like, are you good with going alone? I was like, yeah, I'll just take them in and out. They're on stands. That's fine. So we load up the van. It's maybe 15 minutes away from the shop, and I'm pulling up, and I think I'm, like, in the wrong place because the parking lot looks like a full on tailgate. There are barbecues everywhere, and those pop up tents and tables spread out and a ton of people. And so I'm, like, slowly pulling up, and I see a woman just, like, waving me down excitedly for the listener.

You had a very excited look on your face. Yes.

Yeah. She's just like, over here, over here. I park the van, and she's like, oh, my God. Thank you so much. Tell your boss thank you so much. We're just so happy that you guys made all these arrangements for us. Please just go in and set the arrangements, come back outside, get a plate of food. So welcoming. It was all greek food. It was a giant greek family. It was something I'd never experienced. I've only been to, like, solemn catholic weddings or funerals. So I walk into this building. It's not like a church. It kind of feels more like a community center room, but it has, like, some pews set up. And then I see the casket, and I don't know why I wasn't thinking the casket will be there. It's half open. I've never seen a dead body, so I was, like, shaky and nervous. I'm the type of person that if you go to, like, a wax museum and you get close to the figures, it freaks me out. And it kind of felt that same vibe.

They'll squeamish. Yeah.

So I'm like, okay, I'll just put these up really quick. I gotta get out of here really quick.

Was any part of your brain in the same way that when you're standing high up on a building, your brain's telling you to jump for some weird reason? Were you not being taunted by yourself to go look at the dead body?

No, I was just like, let me just not get close to it. Which, in hindsight, I have to get close to it. So I'm putting up these tall standing, like, sprays that are going on the other sides of the casket, and then we have two small displays that are going on pillars, and then we also do have a casket display.

Oh.

So I put the two ones up, and I go out, and I'm like, let me just get this casket display out of the way. I know I'm gonna have to go really close to this body. It's not super big, because I'm assuming he knew that the casket would be open. It's a curved casket. You put it on that side. I'm, like, getting close to this body, and I'm kind of shaking, and I can see it. And I go to put the display on it just really quick, and I guess I didn't set it on it very well, and the display started tipping back. But it caught on the casket part. That was open. And it fell on the body?

No, the whole arrangement fell on the corners.

The whole arrangement fell on the. So, first of all, I'm so lucky nobody's in this room while this is happening. But also, I start freaking out, because I know I'm gonna have to going grab it, and I'm already freaked out by the body. So I pick it up really quick, and I put it on the casket, and I look, and there is debris from all the flowers.

Like, all that fake moss and shit.

Yeah. Oh, my God. What if there was, like, a little flower in their mouth, in their hair?

He's wearing, like, a white shirt. And then I realized that some of the water from the floral foam has also spilled out onto his shirt.

No.

Completely soiled his corpse. The family's gonna be like, what happened to him? Where did he go? What did he do? Since we saw him last?

I'm just feeling so bad. Cause I'm like, am I desecrating this body?

Yes.

I don't know what to do. Do I go tell someone? And then I'm like, oh, my God, that's such a big group of greek people. They might come back to me and be angry. I don't know. I just touched a dead body for the first time, and I still have two more arrangements to bring in really quick.

Did you get him all spick and spanish?

Right? Did you, like, brush off the debris?

I didn't know what to do, and so I was just like, okay, let me just get these other arrangements in real quick, and then maybe I'll tell someone, or maybe I can find something to clean this up. And luckily, when I went out to get the two small arrangements, I realized I had, like, those microfiber work towels in the truck. And so I grabbed one, and I went back in, and I put the little displays up, and I went over to the body again, and I kind of just, like, dust the debris with.

The edge of the towel.

Yeah.

I'm just, like, being so weird, still looking around, making sure no one's watching me. And then I was like, okay, well, I gotta get this water puddle up. And so I just, like, start dabbing. And as I'm doing that, people start coming in, and I panic, and I tuck the towel under his body, and I just start darting out.

Oh, you just stuffed it in the corner in the cab.

Just under his back.

Under his back. This is virtually weekend at Bernie's. Like, it escalated so fast.

Oh, my God. Also, now it's like when doctor. There's a bunch of bullshit in doctor death leaves the towels in people.

Yeah. The sponges.

Now I kind of understand why he might have.

You'd be like, where'd all this trash come from? He's like, dirt and leaves and towels.

Yeah. What if the family starts walking up and then they just start screaming? Because obviously something horrible happened.

That's all I could think of. The way I almost ran past these people that are coming, I really think I'm gonna be fired and that this family's gonna be so upset. But to be fair, when I dusted the stuff off, you really couldn't see that there was anything going on.

You did a good job.

In a pinch, I could clean off a body, I guess.

I would love to see a heart rate monitor in that moment. Oh, I wonder if you were, like, at one side.

I was probably profusely sweating. There's no way that my makeup wasn't melting off.

Yeah. You vandalized the body.

Yeah.

It was the most nervous I've ever been.

Risky with the towel, though, because they're wearing makeup.

Yes. If you would have scraped the makeup off.

Yeah.

Again, I feel awful about what I did, but also, his makeup was scary heavy, and I'm like, oh, my God, if water got on it, he's gonna have, like, a streak on his face. Who knows?

Yeah. That's the part you never prepare yourself for when you go see a dead body. I almost feel like they should just let it be normal because the person's dead. You've never seen him dead. That's one thing. Then you're like, well, this is me. Like, if they were a kabuki performer. There's so much makeup on this person, it's uncomfortable. Their hair is styled. You're seeing them with a makeover, right?

Yeah. His hair looked, like, super jet black dyed, and I was like, I don't think. I think he rocked that.

You may have heard the story, but, yeah, they dyed my friend's blonde mustache brown.

That's so drastic.

It was so drastic. So much so that we thought he might have been an undercover.

Undercover? Yeah.

Needless to say, I did not get fired, which is nice. Nothing happened. I hid the evidence as well as anybody could. I'm hoping they just kind of said their goodbyes, closed the casket, and that was the end.

Yes. This story makes me want to hire you desperately. I tell the story all the time about Monica. The test of her as a great employee was when. And she was showing a duplex we owned to some prospective renters. And all of the appliances had been stolen out of it the day before. And they were like, what happened to.

All the appliances that were here? And the appliances were gone? And these were. People are coming in six minutes and they were coming back. So they had already seen it.

They had already fallen in love with the appliances.

I acted on my feet.

Yeah. And said, you know, it was a nice place. And they decided to upgrade the appliances. So they've all been taken out, but we're going to get even better ones in. And I was like, oh, Monica's a gangster. We gotta keep her forever when the shit hits the fan.

That's right.

Getaway driver.

I think it really prepared me. Cause now I work in HR.

A lot of dusting.

Yeah.

I gotta do a lot of cleanup. I gotta think on my feet very quickly. So it definitely was an experience I will never forget. But I still feel so bad for that family. And then I'm so mad that I didn't get a taste all the good.

Food because I was panicked and had to leave.

You could probably just crash a greek wedding or.

Well, I mean, maybe both. Either. Yeah.

I was like, here's hoping I get invited to something greek soon enough.

That was fantastic.

Yeah.

Thank you, Alicia. That was awesome.

Yeah.

I just want to say I'm such a big fan of both of you. I went to both of your shows in San Francisco. Oh, you did the first one with all the kind of drunk people.

Oh, yeah.

Got a little rowdy.

That was the one that made us stop giving people in the audience microphones.

Yeah. They were kind of just going on and on. I was like, oh, what is happening down there? Then when I went to the second show, it was for arm shared and dangerous, which was so cool. Cause I'm so in love with David.

We all tell him. Yeah, he's a stud. Well, this was really fun chatting with you.

Yeah. It's great meeting you.

Thank you so much. I hope you have a good rest of your day.

You too. Take care. Oh, my God.

That is hilarious.

It's such an eighties movie.

It is. I bet I would blow on his face to get the debris off. What if you had to lick your.

Finger and rub his lips? And then all of a sudden, you decided it would be easier just to kiss him.

What is wrong with you? Oh my God.

Or sniffing him. You'd like be all up in that casket. You'd be tough. For you. Cause you're so tiny. You'd have to probably climb up in it like a little kid.

Well, and you like sick people. Sick boys.

Yeah, I'm afraid of that. Sick.

Not that sick. That's a little.

Here's rags.

Hello.

Hello there. Now, rags, this is a great name. Is that your nickname or just one you made up for this interview?

That's my childhood nickname I got when I was about 1011 years old.

What instigated that nickname?

Probably derived from my last name. It's an italian last name, so they just kind of shortened it up a little bit.

I like it.

Even my parents called me that when I was a kid. It's a good nickname.

Okay, now listen, can I attribute this great vascularity in your left bicep to the fact that you're carrying a lot of packages or are you in the gym also?

I do gym also. I mean, this job will keep you young, that's for sure.

Yeah. My grandpa. Sorry, go ahead. I'm gonna tell you about my grandpa's. Your time. You don't wanna hear about my grandpa.

I'll listen to your grandpa. I love grandpa stories.

Well, he carried these 60 pound bags of flour wonder bread for like 40 years. So his biceps were like fucking bowling balls. And he never in his life lifted a weight. But what glorious biceps he had, right?

It was a different generation back then. You know, they all worked hard like that.

You had to earn your biceps back then.

I have a feeling your story is gonna have to do with the shirt you're wearing. I don't know if we're allowed to say.

We should probably not say.

Yeah, we shouldn't say unless you.

But I'm making that assumption too.

Probably keep that under wraps. Okay, great, because I'm taking a little lunch break. We'll just say one of the big three delivery companies.

Okay, great.

Okay, so hit us with your crazy delivery story. Well, let me back up without saying who you work for. We've had a pizza delivery person. We've had a flowers delivery. I would imagine for them they're going to hit like 15 customers a shift. You must hit what, like 40, 7100 houses a day or something?

100 and 5160 a day somewhere around there. Plus businesses tied in. It's a busy business.

You're constantly walking up to people's houses. I would love this, by the way.

It's a great job. I love the physicality of it. I love that there's not a boss with you all day. They leave you alone for the most part, unless you're fucking up.

Do people ever tip? I have, but I don't know how common that is.

Well, you know what? On my old route, which I loved, I was there for 1819 years. It was a little small town. I knew everybody. It was great. This guy would give me a $20 bill every time.

Every time.

So nice.

You could sit there and try to reject it. He would just be like, I don't want it. You take it. Super nice, dude. But, yeah, we get tips every once in a while. Christmas time, especially, people give gift cards and leave snacks out on the porch. Whoever's out there listening, leave snacks out for Christmas. We appreciate that kind of stuff.

So I interrupted you. There's one that was crazy among, I'm sure many of you have.

Yeah, I have a lot of them. But, yeah, one is crazy. It was about ten years ago in a rural part of Ohio, you know, on a back road. I found a guy dead outside of his house.

Whoa. Jumped right to the bottom.

Oh, my God. Whoa.

He lived on this back road, and when you pull up to his house, he had a long driveway that went down in, and he had a camera up top. By the time he got to the back of the truck and grabbed the package, he would have already walked up the driveway, and then by the time he got out, you just handed it to him, and he went on his way, and then I would go on my way. So it was probably 10th, 15th time I delivered to him. I pull up there, he doesn't show up. So I give a little double tap on the horn, give him a little bit of extra time. This guy's a hoarder. He's got a lot of junk and a lot of stuff, and you can't even see the house from, like, the top of the road. So when he doesn't show up, I'm sitting there going, well, I'll just fucking walk this thing down. So I'm heading down the driveway, and my head's on a swivel because this guy's got so much junk. And the first thing I'm thinking about is, if who's got this much stuff, he's probably got a dog to protect it.

You know what I mean? I don't want to get bit. I'm on high alert. It's like sensory overload at this point. It's like November, so it's cold in Ohio and all the leaves are off the tree. So it's kind of eerie, you know, walking down this drive.

Yeah, this sounds a little bit like a zombie apocalypse for sure.

So I'm walking down there and I hear this radio plane from the house and it's 100, 5200 yards away from me, so I don't think anything of it. I'm walking down there and the leaves are swirling and shit. It's just a creepy atmosphere. I get down there and I see this guy laying outside. He's, like, by a workbench.

Blue collar.

People are always tinkering outside, so I don't think anything of it. And so I yell his name out and he doesn't respond to me. And I'm like, well, maybe he can't hear because of the radios on. I'm getting closer and all I see is his legs sticking out from this workbench.

Oh, boy.

And I'm like, well, you know what? Halloween just passed. You know, maybe somebody stuffed a pair of jeans with some leaves or something as, like, a scarecrow. I'm looking around, like, now this fucking guy doesn't decorate. So I'm getting closer and he's still not responding to me. And I noticed his arm was, like, behind his back. I could see his hand was, like, a grayish blue color.

Oh, no.

So then I'm like, either this guy's dying right now or he's already dead.

Oh, yeah.

And then it's swirling. You're like, well, what the fuck do I do? I might have to save this guy's life. You know, I was a boy scout when I was a kid. I took a lifeguard class. I know CPR, but that shit goes right out the window. So I get closer and get closer. This is where it gets fucked up.

Wait, this is where it gets fucked up?

So he's got a lot of cats.

I mean, they're top of the moon.

Roof of the house. They're in, like, broke down washer and dryer that's in the yard.

Wow.

And they're all doing this weird meowing and shit. And I'm just like, what the fuck? So as I get closer, I definitely realize that he's dead. And when I get closer, the cats are up by his head and they are chewing.

No, no.

This is what's crazy. The day I responded, am I allowed to name drop the lady that got ahold of me through the email?

Oh, yeah. Emma. Emma. Yeah.

Okay. Props to Emma.

Big props.

No, Emma's this secret weapon that no one meets yeah, she's incredible.

Absolutely. She did a great job. So when I'm responding to this email, I like Theo Vaughn. A little quick thing pops up on my phone about him, and it's about, cats will eat their owners if they die inside the house.

I read the same post from Theo. Yeah.

Fuck, yeah.

He goes, they won't even wait. They'll just start. So I get up there. There's probably five to ten cats up there.

Ew.

I just got, like, a brief look because I didn't want to see any more, you know, and I could see what they were doing, and it just wasn't pretty. And I kind of clapped my hands a little bit. Did it make them scatter, shoot, scream, scram? And they did to a degree. And then at that point, I'm like, well, what the fuck do I do now? And I was like, well, probably call the sheriff.

Really quick question. This is such a low priority given what you're dealing with, but did it cross your mind, like, well, I can keep this package?

No, that never crossed my mind.

I think that would have crossed my mind, like, well, he's dead. He doesn't need this package.

I was just trying not to get eaten alive by the cats.

That's all I was worried about, just.

Getting the fuck out of there.

How long did you think it was? Were you like, this is over a day.

Being in November, it was probably like 40 some degrees. So it probably preserved the body a little bit. And so when the sheriff showed up, or the deputy, he comes down. I don't mean to think this is funny, but he walks up, he goes, yep, he's dead.

Yeah, yeah.

You get desensitized in these jobs.

And so he said it was probably a few days he was out there. You know, if this was August, he goes, you probably would have smelled him from the top of the driveway.

How old was this gentleman?

Probably mid sixties, somewhere around. He was an older gentleman.

And was the theory maybe he dropped dead of a heart attack or had he injured himself on this saw?

I'm thinking he had a heart attack and then just felt dead on the spot. Cause I didn't want to touch him either. In case something crazy did happen, somebody showed up, murdered him.

My imagination might have ran away with me when I had already felt scared walking down. It's a very creepy property. Too many washing machines and rusted out cars and tractors. You see the dead body, you might think, is there a murderer in the house?

You just never. No, it was crazy.

Total sidebar. But on first glance, the thing about the cats, it feeds my narrative that I don't like cats and I like dogs. But then I was just thinking about this. If I died and Rob and Monica wanted to eat me, I'd also be extremely flattered by that.

No, that's disgusting.

You wouldn't be flattered if you died and rob and I wanted to eat?

No. That's so disrespectful.

I see both your guys points.

Wait, no, you don't. No one sees Dax's point on this.

If we're on an island and we.

Have no food, well, that's fine. That's different.

It would mean, like, you guys loved me so much you wanted to consume me after I died. No, muscle's too tough. We wouldn't have anything to with do. It would be terrible. There's no debate there. It's just I think I'd feel flattered if a cat ate me. I'd be like, you, motherfucker, you never loved me. But what I'm saying is, if you guys chose to eat me, I would feel very loved by that.

Okay, eating ceremony. I'm not gonna be doing that.

So is this a part of your job you like, too? If you're an accountant every day? Yeah, you're gonna come across some crazy receipts one day, but you're not gonna probably wander upon a dead body with cats. I would like that part of your job.

I do. That's why I've done it for so long. There's always something new around the corner that you've never seen. Whether it pisses you off or you're like, wow, that was pretty cool.

Have you ever caught people making love?

I've heard it, but I've never really seen it. I mean, I've had people open the doors naked and shit. It's always usually the dudes that do it.

Oh, come on. Dudes.

Dudes need to get their shit together. It is a real problem.

Or like an adult.

I know. Oh, my God.

Oh, my.

This is a show. Stop.

This was incredible.

Yeah.

I mean, fuck, this is making. This is top five shit.

Thank you.

Let's just all agree that nothing will ever, ever pass the woman in a marathon who shit herself and then had an orgasm. I will never hear a story as long as I live.

I didn't expect to top that one.

Yeah, there's no beating that.

Mine doesn't even hold that jock strap for that one.

Yeah, she's the Jordan. Well, great meeting you, rags. This is a party. No.

Thank you guys so much. You guys made this easy. And also, another thing, you know, when I was going through that whole story, props to emts and shit. They have to deal with that stuff on a regular basis to keep their cool. Shout out to those guys. For sure.

Yeah, when shit gets too heavy for us, we have people we call, and then they show up.

There are other humans on earth.

Oh, well, great meeting you, rags. I hope we're keeping you company on the road there.

Yeah, you guys made my day.

Okay. Wonderful. All right, take care, brother. That was a good midwestern dude right there.

Here's Lily.

Lily, time to meet my friend Lily. Oh, she wants a delivery driver. I promise not to replace her, even though I'm capable of driving.

I didn't even think about. The robot is going to be triggered by this. I hate that.

That's why I was designed. I'd rather work in companionship with you.

Aw.

I could carry your car keys. Hello?

You just missed the robot.

I got to see the robot live. This is the most exciting day of my life.

I was blowing my nose, and I was still talking, and I realized that.

It was doing that.

So then I said, I'm a delivery boy.

Hi, Lily.

Hi.

Hi.

Where are you?

Well, I'm in the closet.

You've done a great job.

No, I'm in. Sorry, I'm in Spartanburg, South Carolina, which is, like, upstate, but did your story.

Take place in Columbus, Ohio? Is that what you were about to say?

Columbia, South Carolina. So, Columbia, South Carolina, is where the University of South Carolina is, which is where I was when the story took place.

I gotcha. I love South Carolina. Do you like it there?

I do. I'm from Virginia originally, and I moved down here to go to USC, which, of course, to you all, is probably not the USC you know.

It's the USC I know. Go dogs.

Yes.

Roll tide.

I went to USC and met my boyfriend, who I stayed down here for, but I love it here.

And does he have a super charming southern accent?

You know, the first time that my parents met him, they were like, you are talking so slow. He doesn't talk like that. I don't think he's that slow. He doesn't have that big of a southern draw.

But it's definitely.

Let's just for half a second. Has nothing to do with deliveries. But there's a pretty big difference between West Virginia and Virginia. Now, Virginia is very kind of metropolitan, and West Virginia is very appalachia.

It just depends. So I'm from northern Virginia, and there's Virginia, and there's northern Virginia. So we're like the 30 minutes outside of DC. And yes, it's more metropolitan and then southern Virginia. Anywhere that's 30 minutes outside of DC or more, we're like, you're not the same. And it's really more like the south. It's like a cultural divide. We say it's like the north versus the south. Very different. We speak faster. We don't hold doors for people in northern Virginia. But then you go 30 minutes outside.

Of DC, and it's the Virginia George Washington was from.

Yeah.

Okay, so you were at one time or are currently a delivery driver?

I'm currently a teacher. Not currently a delivery driver. Nothing against that occupation.

No. As I've talked to three of them already. I'm dying to do this in my retirement. Cause you're on an adventure nonstop, and you're like, getting into people's homes and shit. I think it sounds exciting.

Yeah. So I had stayed through the summer and I decided to get a summer job, and I had had a few different ones. This is my junior year at this point. And a friend of mine had done delivery before, and so he was like, you should really do it. We're just going to call the restaurant china one. He was like, china one's great. They pay minimum wage and they also do tips on top of the minimum wage. So it's not like two or $3 plus tips. Minimum wage plus the tips.

I think this is state to state. But yes, when I was in Michigan, if you had a job that did give tips, they were able to give you 230 an hour instead of the 435 that was minimum wage. When I was a kid, it was.

725 when I was getting paid the minimum wage, plus tips. And depending on the day of the week, the time, or how many deliveries you took, dollar 50 to dollar 100 per day was pretty good for tips. And so this particular day was a great tip day. I had made $175. I was like, yes, let's keep the money coming.

Was it a holiday or just a rush?

No, it was just a rush. And depending on how many people are working, let's say there's three people working, one person's taking calls, two people are on delivery. And so if there's a ton of deliveries, then you're kind of all constantly rotating. If there's not a ton of deliveries, you might be in the store for a long time. So this day they were, like, rolling, and my shift was coming to an end. There was only about five minutes left before I was leaving, and people were already out on delivery. And a ticket came up, so nobody's there to, like, get the ticket. So I decided to work a little longer, grab the ticket. It had three orders in it. I'm not sure how much other people told you, but the way delivery works is they usually in the kitchen try to put together deliveries that are close to each other. For this one, there was two on one side of town. There was one that was closer to campus and the football stadium. So I decided to take the further one first. Deliver. That one had two different orders in it. And so I delivered those two orders.

When I get done with that, it starts to drizzle. I'm like, all right, let's get this over with. I'm done. And as I type in the third location, the street pulls up, but the physical house number does not pull up. It had been 5 hours I've been working, and like I said, it started raining. I know the area. I'm just going to go towards it and when I get there, I'll figure it out.

You have a phone number for them. Could you have called and said, like, this address isn't popping up?

I did call and it didn't work. So I really should have known right then and there. Probably not to go that direction, but we'll just call it. I was tired, so I headed that direction and I knew the area well. The football stadium, if you go two minutes too far, is just a little sketch. And then if you go two minutes further than that, it's student apartments. So there's like a very fine window. I wasn't exactly sure which window we were in, so I was hoping student apartments. It's only like 530. And it's starting to get darker, ominous. I pull onto the street. It's pitch black outside. The clouds are dark and of course, like a movie scene. The heavens open up. It starts pouring down rain as I'm turning onto this road and there are no streetlights, and I'm just looking at each house, trying to see nine children, whatever the thing was. Lane. And I'm driving house by house and do not, of course, find this house. It doesn't exist. So I get to the dead end of the street and I'm like, I'm just gonna cut my losses and go back to the restaurant.

And as I'm driving back down the street in the pouring down rain, this kid that's four or five years old walks out from a house towards the road, and I'm like, okay, maybe this delivery is for him. So I stop and he looks at me and I'm like, okay. So I park the car, put my hood on, grab the delivery order, and I take it out. And they had not paid, so I was gonna collect money from them before I gave it to them. And as I step out of the car and put the food onto the hood of the car, I'm like, hey, bud, did your parents give you any money? And he is just staring at me. Me, because he's, like, four. And I was like, can we go over there and see if your parents have money? And at this point, he's not looking at me anymore. He's looking past me.

Oh, no.

So I look over my shoulder, and not 5ft away is a man who is holding a gun, and he is probably 2025, and he's got a buddy who's standing on the other side of the car, and they're just looking at me. And I look back over my shoulder because my immediate reaction is scared for the kid. He's gone.

Oh, earmark. Whether he was in on it or.

Not since then, I. I do strongly believe that this kid was in on it.

I mean, they entrapped the kid.

Well, yes.

Okay, so. Oh, my God. So there's 220 year old dudes. One has a gun. There's a four year old, he's gone.

And then the other guy's standing there, got a hood on, bandana on. The guy with the gun looks at me and is like, get in the car. You're taking us to your bank.

Oh.

I had, at this point, only thought they were, like, trying to take my money or just get out with the food. But as soon as they mentioned the bank, I'm like, how do I get out of this?

Yes.

The guy with the gun walks me over to the driver's side door. The guy without the gun goes to the passenger side door, and I get in the car. I'm a terrible liar. So I was just working on instincts here, and I was like, I have dollar 27 in my bank account. I'm past due on rent. This is all the money that I have. They looked at each other, and I could tell they were figuring out. They decided that it wasn't worth going to the bank. But he was like, give me all of the money. Give me your phone, give me your wallet. It was a day. I had worked a ton. So it was like $400 to $500 of cash in my car. I give him my phone, I give him my wallet, and as I'm getting the money out of the console, I was like, what can I do? It's just hard. Do you give him everything and just leave? You know, I was watching breaking bad around the same time. I'm like, what if he just hurts me anyways? There's so much going through my brain. I'm about to give him the money.

I'm like, that wallet right there. My grandma, she died a month ago, and that's the last thing I had of hers. And this is a complete lie. She had not died. I was like, can I have this wallet, please? It's the last thing I had from her. And he throws the wallet back at me, grabs the cash out of my hand, and they bolt.

Oh.

And that was that. They took $400 in cash, but they left me with my wallet, and they didn't take me to the bank. And so I drive back to the store in the pouring down rain without a phone, so I can't call anyone. I can't call the police, nothing. And I get back to the store and the owner, instead of asking how I'm doing or asking if I'm okay or ask you if I need to call the police, she basically is like, where's the money that you owe me? And if you can't get it, then you're gonna have to work it off because you owe us dollar 400.

Oh, my God.

And I was like, no. Can I have a phone? I need to call somebody.

Yeah, that's not how this works.

What the fuck?

So I called the police. They came, took the incident report, called my boyfriend at the time. He's my now husband. He came, picked me up, and I stayed with him. But to be honest, the craziest part of the story is that later that same week, a news report had come out about a girl who went to USC, and she lived in the apartments that were like two minutes further down the road from where this incident happened. And she had gotten abducted by two men who fit the same profile as the men who had robbed me. In her story, she said they wanted her to take them to the bank while they were in the car. Like, she got in the car with them. They were talking about what they were gonna do to her. They were gonna take her to their cousin's place. And they were basically talking about what was gonna happen when they went to the cousin's place and were alluding to.

Bad things assaulting her.

Yes. She was a criminal justice major, and she said that some instincts kicked in. I don't know what training she had been a part of, but she, upon hearing this, unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the door, driving and rolled out and ran the other direction and escaped. Of course I hear this, and I'm like, okay, those people fit the same profile. It's not the same story. Well, when I went in a few weeks later to identify the suspects, so.

Those guys got arrested in that situation.

I'm not sure if they got arrested or not, but when I went to the police station, they just had a list of people who I think had been committing crimes in the area.

Gotcha.

And they asked me to identify them. They confirmed that they were the same people.

Oh, my God.

That had abducted that girl later that same day.

Was it super obvious to you who they were? I have this anxiety that something like that would happen to me, and then I would go to identify them, and they'd show me eight pictures, and I'd be a little bit confused.

Well, yeah. Cause if they had bandanas on and stuff, too.

Exactly. One of them had the bandana, and one of them didn't. I identified one of them correctly, and one of them I did not. They didn't tell me which one it was, but they did tell me. We already know who he is. Enough people have identified him correctly that they're gonna be able to get him.

Did you ever have to testify or anything?

Because I only had identified one of them, and I think they had said that there was enough witnesses, I didn't have to go to a trial.

Whoa.

You do hear this, right? Like, a common thing you hear is you should never go to a second location with people, which is imagine in the moment. Really hard to not.

God, you were so smart.

I think I had just been watching a lot of breaking bad leading up.

To it, and so I was, like.

Ready to go on my toes.

And how did the job resolve itself?

I worked one day shift after that because I was like, I'm never going out in the dark ever again. When I was done with that shift, I never came back. I just stopped. And during them.

Oh, wow.

Wow. Oh, Lily, that was really intense. I'm so sorry that happened to you. Yeah, that's really traumatic.

To be honest, I, like, blocked it out of my memory. I have told this story probably three times ever, because it's just a weird thing to bring up anyways. But when I was listening to the podcast and I heard the prompt and you said delivery driver story, I was like, whoa, I have a crazy story.

You sure do.

Absolutely. Bonk. You know, another thing I can't help but observe, which makes me sad, is desperate people prey on other people who are not well sorted. Like, you're working hourly, you're trying to get tips. They're stealing from someone who's also scraping by. The whole cosm makes me sad, to be honest.

One of my first feelings afterwards, and maybe it's just the teacher in me, is those guys were young adults and they are doing what they know how to do and what they learned how to do from their upbringing. At some point, you have to be accountable for your actions. But, like, they grew up in a house in an area where this is what they had to do to get by. So there's like a part of my soul and heart that went out to them even though I was robbed into this four or five year old.

Exactly.

That's kind of the point is like, this four or five year old is got a pretty predictable trajectory now. And I will not think this person shouldn't pay for their crimes, but also, like, man, that's how growing up.

Yeah.

And then these two dudes were that.

Four and five year old.

At some point, the whole cycle is just depressing.

Oh, that's really a lot. Sorry.

I'm so glad you got out on skate.

Yeah, same. Never gonna be a delivery driver again. I don't recommend it for the tiny people or for the people who are not ready to, like, fight back because I heard a lot of stories of other people who worked in delivery who have had issues. I was not the only one. Two months of working delivery and I got robbed at gunpoint.

Yeah. Wow.

Well, it's such a pleasure meeting you. You're so happy and smiley and you're a teacher.

We love teachers.

This was a good icing with cake. It was a full moon yesterday, and so the kids have been crazy today. And there's a class I was supposed to be teaching and my co teacher just covered it for me. I was like, I'm sorry I'm leaving you with these crazy kids right now, but I'm going to talk to these people.

I hear every single day.

We thank her for covering for you.

Shout out Lori Lynn.

Thank you, Lori Lynn. All right, well, take care. It was great meeting you.

Thank you guys so much. Have a great rest of your day, too.

Bye bye.

Wow.

So I'm imagining I could predict our two takeaways. You never want to deliver, and I can't wait.

That's a thing surrounding college campuses, well.

There'S always, like, serial killers.

And I just think that a lot of areas surrounding the campuses can get a little dicey.

Yeah. On some level, it's like a naive group of people all on their own for their first time living out of the house. It's like a very fish and barrel pressure cooker. Well, let's focus on the more uplifting story. The cat's eating the dead body. Let's end with that thought.

Wow, these really rammed the gam.

They sure did. All right. Love you.

Fun.

Doing a sing a tune or something. We have a theme song.

Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for.

This new show, so here I go.

Go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of Mom Jerry's book, it's some suggestions on the fire rhyme dish. I'm the fire rhyme dish. Enjoy.