Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Buck Henkley, and I'm joined by Monster Mash. Monster Mash is a Cookie Boy, everybody. Meet the Cookie Boy Monster Mash. Today is Crazy House Sitting Stories. One of these stories had us just absolutely howling out of our mind. It was impossible. It was so funny and it's so well told. It is. It left hook. Oh, my God. Is it good?

We're not going to spoil. I'm not going to spoil.

But I do believe everyone is free to listen to this one, just glancing at the four stories. Yeah. Yeah, this one's good. Safe. Give it a shot. But it's been a while. You probably haven't listened in a couple of months. So please enjoy Crazy House Sitting Stories. Hard times, come and go. Good times, take them slow.

My life, I had them both. I remember one thing, you got to know. Phoebe, can you hear us? Look at this fort.

I know.

It looks like a wooden ship.

Those are windows. Yeah, it does. Can you hear us?

I can.

Can you guys hear me?

Yeah.

Can you hear us talking about your fort? It weirdly looks like a wooden ship from the 1300s. No, this was the best that I could do, so I hope that it works. It's incredible. Why do you have such a nice mic set up?

My fiance is a musician, so thank goodness he helped this situation.

Yeah, good on him. So the fact that you want to go by Phoebe is exciting because it makes me think this house sitting story potentially has legal ramifications, which is a great setup.

Sure. We'll go with that. Okay, so where in the world does this house sitting story happen?

We are going to set the stage in the mountain West. A lot of states come to mind. You've got Utah, Colorado, Montana. You're pretty good with geography.

Oh, thank you so much.

This was mid 2000s. I was very newly 18. So as you guys know, the prefrontal cortex is not doing its thing. I'll take accountability for this, but I don't think I should have to. Oh, great.

I was a pretty easygoing kid, very mature, held down a job, but didn't get in really a lot of trouble. So my mom gave me a lot of flexibility, which did mean that I was able to get away with a lot. And there's things that she's still hearing to this day.

But because of this, she had a friend, and we'll call her Rachel.

Rachel needed someone to house it for her while she was going to be out of town for a couple of days. This sounded like a great option for me. I was still living at home. I was still in my senior year of high school, so this was an opportunity to pretend to be an adult. Yeah, I would love this. It was amazing. I said, Absolutely happy to do it. I should also introduce to, there is one more character to this story, and we'll call him Chandler. I see what's happening. Oh. You just got- I can't believe it. As soon as I heard Rachel, I felt like she was playing to the choir. Oh my God. But I originally was going to name Rachel Monica, and I was like, Wait, I'm going to talk to Monica.

I can't do that. It would get confusing. We can't have Monica as a character in this story.

So Chandler was new in my life. He was a little bit older.

If I had a medium amount of processing ability, his was definitely lower.

Sure. I had to Rachel's house for the first day. She's still there. She gives me the layout of the house. She encouraged me to eat or drink anything that I would like to other than the beers in the fridge. The responsible part of me was like, Yeah, absolutely. No problem. Rachel leaves. And the first night, as far as I remember, went really well. And how often was mom checking in on you? Was she calling every 45 minutes to make sure everything was groovy? Nothing.

She was taking the night off as well. She was acting like an adult. Yeah, full trust. And night two, I think I was just feeling a little bit more confident, a little more settled in.

And wouldn't she know Chandler comes right over. I'm pretty sure I had permission for Chandler to come over. I think the vibe was just he can't spend the night. However, as soon as Chandler got there, we were definitely cracking open the beers. Oh, wow. Sure. And really quick, did you have a plan on how you were going to replace them before the next day?

Loosely, we would replace them.

Do we think about how? Do we think about how they were all different kinds of beers? There was several different brands? No. Why would I think about that? So we're feeling good, having a couple beers a piece. And I get this idea that inspires me to start investigating. And I say, Chandler, let's snoop through Rachel's house. Let's just see what secrets are in here. For sure. We start systematically going room to room, looking through closets and drawers under beds, and really did not find anything too interesting, winding down like, Okay, this is fun, but not really, when we decide look in the last room, which was the bedroom situation. It was in this room that I stumbled upon a box seemingly unopened that had inside of it something I had only ever heard of in fairy tales. I will say when I say fairy tales, I do mean sex in the city. And inside of this seemingly unopened box was a rabbit vibrator. Sure. Oh, God. And you know immediately what it is? Immediately. I've I've always heard about these things. They're apparently a big deal. I was too broke financially and also scared to take myself to anywhere to buy something like that.

Where do you hide it in your room?

Exactly. So many logistical issues.

I'm just thinking to myself, I'm not thinking about ethics, but I'm like, this sounds fun. So I'll spare you the gory details, but the box was opened. Oh, my God. What could be more exciting for a couple of 18-year-olds and stumble upon the rabbit and incorporate it into their brand new Right. We're adults. We're having some beers. This is such a mature thing to do. It's totally normal.

It's totally fine. The first consequence to show up in my purview was the next morning when I woke, flooded with anxiety and panic about, All right, What are we going to do?

How are we going to tie up some loose ends and make sure no one ever finds out about this? I'm hung over. Did Chandler spend the night? He did spend the night. We just go into action plan time. So we very respectfully decided we should sanitize this utensil. And how else would you sanitize it? But to put it in the dishwasher?

Oh, boy. We threw Mr.

Rabbit in the dishwasher and then embarked on replenishing the beers. Fortunately, Chandler did have a fake ID. Oh, good. Thank God. Yeah, we need that. But we very soon found out that buying 6-10 six packs was incredibly expensive. I had a list of all the beers we had drank. We were trying to replace all of them. Okay. Also, So Chandler should have fucking shown up with a twelve pack of Bud Light.

What on Earth?

Why have that thing? You knew you were going to drink. Exactly. He was- He's at fault a little bit. I agree. I think he took advantage of the situation.

Oh, why I wouldn't go that far. No, not of you, but of the situation where he's like, I could buy and be romantic, but there's free beer, so of course, I'm going to do that. It is his fault.

I've always felt that. So I appreciate that validation.

We probably spent about $60, and then we're like, We can't buy any more beer.

If she realizes that one or two fat tires is not in there, it is what it is.

We get back, we clean up the house. I take lovely Mr. Rabbit out of the dishwasher, make sure he's nice and dry, put him back into the packaging, seal it up, and then he goes back into his normal home. So house sitting ends, and I'm still feeling so anxious and so panicked. What is going to happen? The plan was for me to leave, and then Rachel and I would at a later time, and she would pay my money out. So for this whole span of time, I'm just sick with anxiety. And I wish I could say guilt over impacting other people, violating their privacy. But I think primarily, I was just really worried about getting caught. Of course. It's a couple of days later, Rachel has reached out. We planned to meet in a public location. It was actually outside of my job at the time for us to exchange money. All of the anxiety symptoms are there. Upset stomach, I'm sweating, I'm I'm gassy. It's just a bad time. You're like crossing the border with a kilo in your luggage. I am. I'm like, How do I look this woman in both of her eyes right now?

Knowing what you've shared. You've shared a lover. I'm really telling myself that it was brand new, okay?

It turns out I didn't have to worry about any of that because Rachel showed up, did not look me in the eyes, paid me my money, and left.

And I never heard anything else about it. I was never asked to house sit again, But my mom never said anything to me about it. Never any fallout. I will say my mom actually introduced me to armchair, and when I got Emma's email, I was like, All right, well... Cat's out of the bag. I got to tell her. I picked Mother's Day to let her know what this was. Oh, good. Did you go all the way? Did you tell her about the rabbit?

Oh, yeah. Oh, wonderful.

What a moment to share on Mother's Day. It was. It was nice.

She was shocked, which feels hopeful. I'm like, Okay, so Rachel didn't know. But, Rachel, if you're out there, I'm really sorry.

First of all, I want to recommend everyone. This is a Raymond Carver story. It's one of the best short stories ever. Oh, really?

This couple house sitting for another couple's apartment, and they just can't stop going in there and looking at all their stuff. Oh, that's funny. It's so confusing and I think relatable. Yeah. We're curious creatures. Curious cats. If she didn't look at you, I wonder if you didn't put the rabbit box back in its spot, and so she felt embarrassed that you found it.

Maybe she was just like, Oh, no, she found this. Because she wouldn't be embarrassed that you drank some of her beer. I think that would be best case scenario.

When I told my mom, she was like, What if she had cameras?

I was like, It was so early. It was before people recorded everything. I think worst case scenario, she knows, and she didn't want to confront a high schooler for having sexual relations at her home. Well, and I'm afraid people will call me perverted for saying this, but it's like, I would be delighted to know that someone did that in my house.

That's great. Not take the vibrator. No one She wants anyone to use their fucking vibrator. You're in a monogamous relationship. I'm not judging, but that is disgusting. Oh, I don't know. You can judge.

As a full-grown woman, I would never, ever.

Well, also for you, you weren't.

That's the whole thing. You were using a new one. But the idea then that she would then use it after you've used it, no. It's tough. Okay. There definitely wasn't consent involved, so I apologize for that.

But That's okay. You know what? I think this is a win. This is a big win.

Well, it is a win. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. You had a great night with Chandler.

Oh, Chandler.

Even with... Okay. God damn it, Chandler. I mean, it's teenagers.

You don't really know what you're doing. But I will say it at least allowed me to talk to you guys and become closer with my mom.

Now she knows one more of my secrets. Okay, wonderful.

Yeah, we love that. Wonderful. Well, Phoebe, so nice meeting you. Yes. Wonderful to meet you guys as well.

This is amazing. I do have to just say, Monica, I I am in the mental health field, and I have a lot of clients that struggle with fertility, questions around having children, and I recommend Race to 35 all the time.

Oh, that is so nice. I appreciate that a lot.

All right. Well, be well, and thanks so much for telling us that.

Of course. Thank you guys so much.

All right. Bye-bye.

Ready for Ellie? Yeah.

Hello. Is it working?

We can hear your voice, but your face is still a mystery.

I'm really keeping it anonymous, aren't I? A little too anonymous. Okay, let's fix that.

Hold on just a sec.

Oh, there you are. Hello. Hi. Wow.

When we could only just hear you, it sounded like her, the movie.

Oh, like Scarlett Johansson?

I felt like you were a robot talking to us, but like a really advanced robot. Well, it'd be interesting to see if AI does trick us at any point.

Yeah. Yeah. But you're clearly not AI. Dax, you might be interested in where I am right now because I think you visit this area quite a bit.

Austin? San Luis Abispo. You go to the dunes a lot, right?

I have been to Pismo, to those dunes, but my dunes are glamish south on the Mexican border. But I do love that area. But you're Cal Poly? Whenever I hear the dunes, I just assumed you meant Pizmo.

You know where I spend a lot more time right by you is a Tascadero.

Because when I very first came to California on a road trip with Aaron Weekly, our friend from Michigan was visiting his cousins that lived in a Tascadero, and we ended up spending tons of time there. Cool. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so you have a crazy house sitting story, and did it take place in San Luis Abispo?

I have a house sitting disaster story, and it took place in Berkeley, California, in 2012. Okay.

Twelve A couple of years ago, Berkeley.

Hippies.

Well. Oh.

I'm going to start off strong with Monica here by telling her that I was house sitting for a college professor.

Fuck, yes. I just got PQs.

Yes, he was attractive.

Oh, my God.

Was he married? He is now to another professor. They're both very attractive and very intelligent. Lots of good things to be said about them. So it's too bad that I had a disaster of a house sitting story to report. Back in 2012, my boyfriend at the time and I, this was our intro to befriend this young, cool professor. So we are pretty excited to have him ask us to house sit. Unfortunately, the reason why we were house sitting is because he had a last minute trip back to the East Coast to bury his father. He had four cats and a dog for us to take care of. Lots of pets to keep track of. This happened Thanksgiving week. We were house sitting from probably Tuesday to Sunday. Before we started house sitting, we went over to get instructions. We're there with Joe, the professor that we're house sitting for, and Joe has some interesting instructions. So the first piece of information he wanted to relay to us was all of these cats are cats from the street. I lured them in here. Oh, my God. If they ever get outside, they're never coming back.

They're captive cats.

He very graciously adopted feral cats.

And they smell freedom, they're going to sprint.

Yeah.

Gosh. Yeah. So he had them for a while, and it was a good deed of him to get them off the streets. But he did warn us, these are feral cats. If they get out, they probably won't come back. Another thing that we were told about the cats is if you can't find them, they hide inside the couch. Note, I said inside, not under, not behind.

So worried about this story. I wish that Professor knew that all those cats are going to eat his brain within 24 hours of death.

He may know that.

Yeah, but maybe he's okay with his nutrients going back into his cat.

Apparently, these cat people- I think a lot of people feel good about that. They do. It's really- I get it. They're not judgmental of the cat for having a free meal.

The other piece of information that he gave us is, Hey, don't mind the guys outside across the street on the corner. They are there all day, every day. They're totally harmless and definitely drug dealers.

Great heads up. You don't need to call the cops on them. They're good.

It starts off strong. Thanksgiving comes and passes, and then it is Black Friday. And it's just a stay at home day for us. We end up walking the dog and taking our time. We stop by one of those coffee shops and check out the neighborhood some more. We're probably gone for an hour and a half, maybe. And when we get back to the house, we open the front door, and the front living area is just full of smoke. And the fire alarm is going off. We do what anyone would do, and we rush in, and we open up all the doors and windows, and we start throwing around pillows over our heads, trying to air out the place, turn off the smoke alarm. We're wondering if the fire department is going to show up. We find the source of the smoke. It was me. I caused the fire.

What was it?

After I had showered before we went out, I took my bath towel and I threw it on top of the furnace. I did check that the furnace was off, but I grew up with central heating. I didn't know that there was a pilot light. Oh, yeah. Right. The furnace was was this box unit that was inside of the fireplace. The fireplace was no longer used as a fireplace, but that's where the heat source was. That area has tile around it, and it meets carpet. So when this towel caught on fire, it ended up falling onto the carpet and the tile. The fire was out when we got there, but the carpet was smoldering, and there was a big burn, probably about the size of this water bottle. So standard size water bottle against the tile there. Whatever flame retardant is in carpets did pretty well since it didn't just ignite the rest of the carpet. Yeah, lucky.

Yeah, for real.

Of course, we are freaking out. We're sitting on the back step, and this guy at his dad's funeral. Are we going to call him before he gets home? Are we going to wait till after he gets home? Or are we going to somehow make miracles happen and fix everything before he gets home?

Was it wall to Was it a wall carpet or was it a rug?

Oh, no, it was wall to wall carpet.

Okay, so, yeah, we got to tear the whole thing out.

Main living area. And then we think, oh, God, the cats. We run inside, we have all these feral cats and open doors. Oh, Jesus.

Oh, my God.

So we close up the doors. We start searching all over the house. There are no cats to be found. We're looking under furniture. We're looking in furniture. We flip over the couch. We're really looking in the couch. Just how deep do they burrow? They're not in the couch. They're not in closets. They're not under furniture. The cats aren't there. No cats. No cats. Four out of four cats missing.

Oh, boy. So now not only do we have to tell him that I caught his house on fire, we also have to tell him I lost four out of his five pets.

Yes, yes, 80 %.

This is so stressful.

Oh, it was so stressful. So we're looking all over the neighborhood for two hours. In retrospect, I don't know what our plan was. How are we going to capture these cats?

No, you can't. Maybe they'll see one run away, but that's about it. Yeah.

So the friendly neighborhood drug dealers directed us to Kitty City. Oh, okay. We weren't sure if they were messing with us or not, but sure enough, we follow their instructions and we get to a vacant lot. And it was very obvious that we got to Kitty City because there had to have been just two dozen cats hanging out. So we're looking at the cats, and I don't think we would have even been able to identify them. Yeah. Right. Nor would we be able to capture them. It was hopeless. So we split up. I go back to the house. Maybe the cats are going to come home to eat. I end up calling my mom, just sobbing like, Mom, I really fucked up this time. And my mom was very, very sweet and pretty good at de-escalating But there's only so much that someone can say to someone who has caught a house on fire and lost four cats while the homeowner and pet owner is away dealing with his own tragedy. So I make it back to the house, and I'm going into the bedroom, probably just to collapse and defeat. And when I open the door, right in the middle of the room is a cat.

One cat. One cat. We looked everywhere. So I closed the door back up and I'm like, Are there other cats in here? So I start looking in the pause, I start looking all over again. I'm like, Okay, well, maybe the couch isn't the only furniture that the cats hide in. So I find a baseball-sized hole in the box spring. And I take a flashlight and look in there. And sure enough, one, two, Three sets of eyes.

Oh, my God.

All four cats were there.

My thought was, there's smoke going. They're going to leave the house as soon as they can. But no, they hid in the box spring. Thank goodness.

That's a huge relief.

What a blessing. It's Friday. Joe is supposed to be back Sunday. We have that much time to figure out the rest of this mess. So it's probably like 3:00 PM at this time on Black Friday. I start calling around for carpet repairs. I really don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that I made 40 calls until I got a hold of one man off of Craigslist who said, Yeah, I can do that job. I'm busy tomorrow, and I'm on a job right now. But if you don't mind a late night repair, I can come tonight around 8:00. Oh, wow.

Okay, that's not too bad. It's not midnight.

Yeah, and a late night carpet repair off of Craigslist, what could possibly go wrong? Yeah, yeah. So this guy gets there, and let's call him Dave. I don't know if we thought about this ourselves or if Dave instructed us to do this, but we actually found a carpet scrap in the basement. So the carpet that matched the carpet inside, or at least we thought it did, Dave came and gave us the bad news that this carpet is not going to work. This carpet has been in here for years. There's foot traffic, there's sun damage, there's five pets in here. It's not going to match up. It's going to stick out like a sore thumb. But I can take a piece of carpet from somewhere else in the house. I can put your scrap of carpet in that place where it's less noticeable. Then in this main area where it gets all this natural light, we can put that other piece of carpet, and it'll blend in a little better. And he did it. He sewed it right up. He did an amazing job. You could not tell. Really?

That's genius.

Oh, I would not That's how you expect that outcome.

Well, right off the bat, it was this lighter piece. So just imagine two 22-year-olds going outside, grabbing some dirt, rubbing it into the carpet, vacuuming it up, and soiling it again. We were taking sand paper to it. We did that until it matched the surrounding carpet.

Oh, wow. Congratulations.

I'm impressed. And it worked. Perhaps the craziest part of this story, that guy refused our payment. He is working on Black Friday at night. Out of pity, would not take our payment.

Because he loves cats so much. Did you tell him about the cats?

He had applied to Berkeley.

Maybe he knew the professor.

He just was a really nice man who was like, these poor kids really need help.

Oh, my God.

What a He was a hero of the story. The other hero of the story was the boyfriend who I was going through all this with because he was incredibly helpful at figuring out the rest of the damage. He's just so, so, so hours full. We were able to fix up the rest of the mess. There was another miracle that happened where Joe called and asked if we could stay an additional three days. We have three more days to air out the house and fix up the rest of the damage. Because what I didn't mention is it wasn't just the carpet. The tile and the furnace also had surface damage. So we uninstalled the furnace, turned off the gas, detached it from the gas line, brought it outside, put it on a tarp, sanded it down, resurface it with the appropriate heat resistant enamel.

This guy's a stud you were banging.

And then we had to do the same thing with the tile, just resurface it. It looked too good. So again, we're soiling it. And esthetically, you could never tell anything happened.

Congratulations. That's amazing. You guys would also be ready to walk right into the film and television business because there are people who age and they make sets that have to look lived in. So there's a whole science to aging things.

Yeah, taking a bat to a couch. Yeah.

So you guys would have been ready to start.

Yeah. So to my knowledge, Joe never found out.

Wonderful. This is great. Yeah, great job. Until maybe now. Love to flatter ourselves and think Joe's listening, but I think it's low probability. If it's the four cats and one dog, that would be the giveaway.

And that he's married now to also a professor.

That's a giveaway, too. I think he would be delighted at your resource. He'd be proud of you.

Yes. This is impressive.

So the only thing you really screwed him over on is he was missing the towel, I guess. Oh, yeah.

I think he could probably get over that.

You didn't think to just replace it all and then say? I think I would have been like, this horrible thing happened, but we've replaced everything.

No. This was better. So my parents and I were talking about this the other day. They're like, well, do you really think that he didn't have any idea that something happened? I was like, no, he definitely didn't, because a few weeks later, he referred us. We house that for another teacher.

Oh, wonderful. Yeah, you got away with it. Yeah, it's all good. This is a big victory. Yeah, I love it. Big win, big test, and you rose to the occasion.

Yeah, now I got to tell it.

Yes. Oh, that was tasty. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, thank you, Halley. That was great.

Thank you. And I do want to mention, Stuart and I did not end up remaining together, but we did have a very nice friendship after some years apart. And he actually ended up passing away a year and a half ago. Oh, no. He made a freak plane accident. He was a pilot in one plane, the other plane hit him. It was just devastating. And I've been wanting to write down this story to share with his mom. And by having to write down the story for this prompt, I finally stopped procrastinating this, and I finally wrote down the story. Oh, good. That's lovely. So now she's going to hear it for the first time.

And I called him a stud before I even knew that. That's right. Yeah. Well, it's so nice meeting you, Allie.

It's so nice to meet you, too. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my It's a monstrous story.

We loved it. All right, take care. Bye.

All right, ready for Melanie?

Where's Melanie? Hi.

Melanie. Hello.

Hi. Yes, is it Melanie?

Melanie.

Why'd you think that? I was joking.

Well, because Rob Dolmy was. He just says all kinds of weird stuff over there. Yeah, but I'm dyslexic. I have to defer to people.

Rob, don't do that again.

That was a cheap shot.

Melanie, the classic way.

Melanie, we got it now. Where are you, Melanie?

In my closet in Omaha, Nebraska.

Omaha, Nebraska. I don't think we've ever had an Omaha, Nebraska. Probably not.

It sounds new to me.

Made famous by Omaha Steaks.

A lot of beef around here.

A lot of beef.

Are there a lot of men there? Well, there's a lot of cattle. But also men. Yeah, Farmers. Oh, yeah. Farmers.

A lot of cowboy boots. Sure.

But Omaha is the city. Well, and Lincoln.

Lincoln, Nebraska. I've driven through it a couple of dozen times.

Have you ever driven through it in your Lincoln?

No, but that would be great.

That'd be cool. With Lincoln.

Yes, that would be ideal. On our way to the land of Lincoln, Illinois. Okay, so you have a crazy house sitting story.

I do. I have house sat and dog sat a ton. Back before I had my own home, I would probably have 15 families at a time who would schedule me out and try and get me for their summer vacation.

Were you with an agency? How did you cobble together that many clients?

Great question. I travel to Malawi, Africa every summer. I help run a nonprofit there. When I didn't have money, I I drew it on the internet. I was like, Hey, everyone, if you want me to dog sit or house sit for you, I would love to. It's going to help me get overseas. So that really took off. I mean, everybody told their relatives and friends.

Word of mouth.

Classic marketing.

Right? So this particular instance was seven months. So the family that I was house sitting for got a job in Europe. I was like, That sounds really cool. Can I move in, though? I don't want to just come back and forth. And they're like, Yeah, of course, move in. I moved in at the beginning of 2014, and the story takes place in June.

Was it a nice house? Was it a big upgrade from where you were living?

Yes. What wasn't fun was mowing the lawn, but I got used to it. In Omaha, there's the College World series is in June. And so that brings us to where this started. And I was a part of some young adults group through my church, and we were meeting regularly, and I showed up on Wednesday, and we had a speaker. And the speaker was a guy that was biking across the United States to all the major sporting events in an effort against human sex trafficking.

Kind of abstract, but okay.

Yeah, and I don't remember at all why or how he was bringing awareness to it.

Yeah, and then also just link to the sporting event. It's a really peculiar game plan, but alas.

Well, I've heard it can be pretty bad at sporting events.

And are we calling this prostitution with adult sex trafficking? I just want to be clear on what... Do we even know what his- I don't think she knows. Did he mean minors being held captive?

I believe it was minors, specifically on IAD. That's where Omaha is. So it's like a big road across the United States. So he shows up to our group and he does his whole spiel. It's over. We're all standing outside and someone is like, Hey, man, Where are you staying tonight? And he's like, Oh, I can't. And we go, Have you seen the weather? Because it's like a tornado warning tonight. He's like, Oh, I'll be fine. I'll be fine. And one of the guys is like, Hey, someone should host him. Oh, no. Nobody volunteers until I volunteer.

Sure. I got this house.

The person who says someone should host him has to be the one to host him. Right.

I agree. I know who it was, and I would say he should have hosted him. I was like, I've got beds. You're a complete stranger, but I'm sure it'll be great. I give him the directions to the house, and I get there, and he bikes over. So he's like, 30 minutes later. I'm like, Hey, your bed is downstairs in the basement. There's laundry. If you want to do your laundry, feel free to take a shower. Make yourself at home. It's late. I have to go to bed. I got to work early in the morning.

Were you hoping for a meet cute secretly?

No, he wasn't attracted.

Okay, got it. To me. To someone, yes.

I go upstairs, get ready for a bed, and I lay down, and I immediately am like, What am I doing? This is really dumb. And so in my fear of getting murdered, I text my older sister, who's 12 years older and much wiser than me, and I say, Hey, this is what I did. In case I don't make it, love you, love the fam.

Oh, God.

Got a rando in the basement. Right.

And she doesn't answer. I was like, Well, here's to hoping. Wake up in the morning, and I get up super early because I'm anxious because someone's in the house. I get ready for work, and I hear him leaving at 6:00 AM. It feels really early. And so I popped my head out and I was like, Hey, are you leaving already? And he was like, Yeah, thanks so much. And like, beelines at the door. And I was like, This is weird. I just let you stay. So I follow him out because his bike is in the backyard behind the fence. I'm like, Okay, well, thank you so much. Good luck.

Thank you.

Yeah, you're doing such a good thing. And I wave him goodbye. And he was like, Yeah, maybe I'll catch you down at a game. And I was like, Maybe. And so he bikes away. And I go, Well, I didn't get murdered. We're good. I go downstairs, I take the sheets off the bed, and it's like, Everything's fine. And when I tell you I never thought of this kid again, I didn't. I was like, We're good. Two months go by, and I move out, and the family comes back. It was Probably a week later, I get a text from the dad, we'll call him Brad. And he's like, Hey, Melanie, did you by chance leave a pair of men's shorts and an orange cut off tank shirt in the hamper? And I immediately was like, No, I don't wear the color orange. There's no way that's me. And I was like, No, do you think it could be your brother? He came over and fixed something while you were gone. Is it your son's? And he was like, No.

You've just not thought it might be the bicyclist. It's not that you're covering.

He forgot him.

Totally forgot. We should name the bicyclist. Let's call him John. A week later, Brad again, Hey, Melanie, we found this grungey old wallet. It's empty, but we found it in such a random spot downstairs, in the cleaning supplies. Do you know who that is? And I was like, No, honestly, that's really weird. Again, do you think it's your son's or your son's friend?

I'm just confused as you are.

Then another week goes by, and this is where he gets serious. He's like, Hey, I just went downstairs to get I got it out a pair of Chuck Taylor's that I had gotten for Christmas that I specifically put in the box deep in the basement under the steps. I got it out knowing that I want a fresh pair of shoes after being away overseas for seven months. And inside the box are used old Chuck Taylor's. Where are my shoes? And who has been in this house?

Oh, my God.

His tone has changed.

I was like, Oh, my God, I fucked up.

At this point, you now realize I know. Okay.

It's all coming back to me, and I was like, Oh, I don't even know how to tell you this. I let a complete stranger sleep in your basement. Yeah. And he was livid. His wife was like, I'm so glad you're alive. But also, that was dumb. And I was like, I know. I feel very stupid. And you'd think it ends there. Oh, no. So Brad is fired up. So he's like, Give me his name. Give me the organization. I'm going to find him. I didn't even have his last name. Just the first name and this organization. Well, his air post. I don't know if it was real.

His foundation. He's a sex trafficking warrior out on a bicycle.

Connected to the sporting community.

When you say it, it really sounds even worse. I give him the info, and he finds him on Instagram and Facebook. Oh, wow. In the Instagram photos, he is wearing-No. He's Chuck Taylor. Sure. And he is wearing clothing that belonged to Brad. And he is wearing accessories that we hadn't even clocked as missing.

Oh, boy.

So this guy ran that. Yeah.

He revamped his whole wardrobe.

But everything looks normal. It didn't look disheveled or anything when you look. Nothing.

Wow. This is so Out of my character. I was meticulous about their house because I wanted it to look exactly the way it looked when I got there. And so things were not out of order. And I even went down that morning, everything was fine. So he finds all this stuff and he starts writing it down. He has calculated that this guy, John, stole probably $500 worth of stuff from his house. I'm just feeling even worse, and the guilt is just escalating. So he messages him and he's like, Hey, man, I know what you did. I need all my stuff sent back or I need $500. And John ignores him, doesn't answer. That just adds fuel to the fire. So Brad's like, Okay, well, let's do some more research. And he finds other families that this guy stayed with. Oh, wow. So he starts reaching out and is like, Did this guy stay with you? Has anything gone missing? Starts all these conversations with families. And then he goes back and says, Hey, John, I've been in contact with these people where you stayed. We're all aware of what you're doing. You need to come forward.

And he doesn't. He's ignoring it. It takes Brad threatening John with the organization. He's like, I'm going to reach out to your organization and tell whoever you're working for that this is what you're doing and it's wrong. Finally, he gets the hint and he is apologizing, but we give up because there's no money, there's nothing getting sent back. I'm like, Hey, I'll give you $500. I feel awful. How can I rectify this? Brad's like, No, that's not the point. And lo and behold, months go by and John Venmo's, Brad, $500. No way.

Oh, wow. Did not see that coming.

None of us did. This is like good family. Brad's like, If you would have needed those shoes, you could have said, Hey, Melanie, I really need a new pair of shoes. She would have messaged me, and I would have said, Give them away. Sure, sure, sure. It all worked out in the end. They were Rightly so, very angry with me.

Well, hold on. Rightly so. So Brad, sure he's a wonderful guy, but also, my God, let go of the all stars. This is a lot. You have made so much work for yourself. I know. I agree. And you got $500, and the guy is still the same person.

And you're feeling bad.

You're ruminating on it and grumpy. I mean, that's a lot of power to give. He made himself a much bigger victim by his reaction.

Probably.

Anyways.

They couldn't have been too mad me because they had me back a year and a half later to do another seven-month stint where I saved their house from a fire. An electrical fire started. Oh, my God. Their basement flattered three times, so then I took care of that. We weathered a historically bad hailstorm that totaled their car. Oh, my. Took care of that. That year, they had three bats, and one of them was in the room I woke up in, so I had to get tested for rabies. So we're even.

Oh, my God.

Oh, wow. This was karma going like, You want some real problems?

I know, but she had to deal with all of them.

Yeah, that's true.

That's so unfair. Brad probably feels like that. Like, this is karma for the last time, Melanie.

Oh, okay. He may. I doubt it.

Melanie. Oh, wow.

You're so sweet. You are. I'm sad this happened to you.

That's the headline of this story. I'm trusting.

I'm too trusting.

And you didn't have to feel as guilty as you did. I agree.

You should not feel guilty about this. This is all Brad's fault.

You just go like, Yeah, this shit happened, and everyone's alive.

I understand he felt violated and he didn't know how to handle it.

That's a fair assessment, but it all worked out.

Melanie, you're delightful. It's so nice to meet you. I want you to know how it's for us.

Me too. Anytime. I have traveled far and wide.

Oh, my God.

This is great. Wonderful. Well, lovely meeting you. Thanks for telling us that story.

Nice to meet you guys, too.

Take care. Oh, it's sweet. Of course, you'd let her watch your house.

What is it? Just trying not to be so mad. If Brad was my husband, I would be like, She feels so bad. You have to stop this. Sure. I think I'm divorcing you.

Right. Ready for Brad? His terrible house sitting story is when he left someone and his Chuck Taylors were gone. Tyler. Hi.

Yes.

How are you doing?

I'm doing really well. It's really great to meet you right now. Yeah. Where are you at? I'm in Palatine, Illinois. Right next to where I grew up.

Oh, Robbie Rob said that's right where he grew up. Neighbors. I went to high school at Fremd. At where? Fremd? Fremd. Fremd. Do you know Fremd high school?

I don't think I have even passed that one.

Okay. Did you move here as an adult?

Once I married my wife, we moved to Palatine, Illinois.

Neighbor to Wabi Wab. Yeah, maybe One day you'll have children that'll end up going to- Fremd. Fremd. That terrible name for a school. What name is this? It's like, is it Fremd? Yes. But did they misspell Fremd? It's a last name, William Fremd. Fremd? It's terrible. That's really bad. How did you spell that, Wabiwop? F-r-e.

E-m-d.

Fuck that. Terrible. Okay. Tyler, please. You have a house sitting story for us.

Yes, I do. So this takes place in Sugar Grove, Illinois. That's really close to Naperville, Illinois, if you're familiar with that.

I know it very well. Bob Odenkerk's from there.

Perfect. So Sugar Grove is just 15 minutes west. I was asked to watch my best friend's family's house, and I was also to watch their family dog while they were gone. They would be gone for a full week. I've watched their house quite a few times, so there was nothing new about this. And the first few days went completely fine. And it was Thursday night that things went a little bit different. I went to sleep with a movie on. It was late, and it was approximately 2:00 AM. I had woken up. To explain a little bit of the layout of the house, it is an open concept living and it's a conjoined dining room and kitchen. I had the dog with me on the couch. I wake up and I see that the dog is going crazy. She's just a small shitsu. She's barking up a storm, and I just slowly turn around and there is just glass shrapnel all over the ground of the dining room. There's dishware all over. What? I look at the appliances in the kitchen and where the dishwasher is, it's just pulverized. The door is off the hinge.

Oh, my God. Hold on. We were just handed photos of the scene. I don't think the listener can even imagine the amount of destruction-Oh, my God. That has happened in this kitchen. And I'm Immediately curious how the fuck you slept through whatever happened.

It's like a demo. It feels like it was demolished.

Yes, they were demoing the kitchen.

Oh, my God.

Okay, wait. The dog's freaking out. You look over, there's shit everywhere.

I'm trying to comprehend what I'm seeing. I had come from a very deep sleep, and I did sleep through whatever the initial noise was. I'm looking at the kitchen, and I'm thinking to myself, What caused this? I smell some gas in the air. Maybe there was an earthquake that came through because I could hear some rumblings going on.

Yeah, that's what it looks like.

Well, like a 9.6..

I can't really think very well, but at the same time, I'm like, I got to call my friend Tim. I give him a call. They're in New Jersey.

Hold on a second. Tyler, what on earth are you going to tell them?

But Tim's the- The friend. Yeah, okay.

Looking at these pictures, again, we're going to have to somehow post them or something. There's no explanation. You got to have an explanation before you call Tim, right?

So that's the part that is really funny, this voicemail that I left because they're in New Jersey, so they're definitely asleep at this time. And I'm like, Hey, Tim, I hope that your vacation is going well. Things are getting weird here. If you can give me a call back, that would be great.Thanks. Bye.oh.

My God. It's like a poltergeist in the house.

Okay, I smell gas. Oh, no. Did I leave the oven on? Did I blow up the oven and destroy the kitchen. But a moment later, I hear a knock at the door, a little unsettling because it's really early, and I just make my way to the door and I'm like, Oh, it's a neighbor. They're probably checking. They probably heard the explosion. I open the door and I can see his face is a little concerned. He's like, Hey, you know that there's a car in your house right now? I'm like, What do you mean? A car went through your house.

Oh my God.

You mean that other picture? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Look in the garage. There's a fucking car buried in the corner. Okay.

Immediately, I just go like, Man, that is so much better. I thought I blew up the kitchen. This is way better. He's like, No, it's a car through your garage. We can see that the red and blue lights are coming into the subdivision. I go inside, I grab a shirt, I grab the dog, and I wait for the ambulance to approach. The fire chief comes to me and he's like, Are you all right? Is everything fine? I'm like, Well, things are damaged in there, but I'm fine. He's like, We got to make sure that the house isn't compromised in any way. So he goes in, and As I'm standing outside, another neighbor comes over to me and he's like, Hey, are you the homeowner? I'm like, No, I'm actually just house sitting. He's like, Well, I'm the one that called 911. I was awake at the time of the collision. So I ran outside, and I can see that there's a young guy coming out of the wall of the home, and he looks like he's about to run. I tell him, Stop right there. We need to wait for the cops to come. And moments later, my buddy Tim finally gives me a call back.

And this is where I finally get a chance to go around the house and check the damage. As we put it together later, what the driver did was he came from the entrance of the subdivision. It's a curved road, and it goes into a straight. Instead of taking that straight, he went through the curve, he went over an empty grass lot, and he went over a curb, a road, another curve, up into the yard and through the bushes, and nailed the one car garage that's attached to the house.

So he blew through the side of the garage, not the garage door? Yes. Oh, my fucking God. Right. Yeah, right there is a huge hole behind that bush.

He came in there. Okay. He made it through that first wall, and he obliterated all the tools that are in there. That was mostly what the garage was used for.

Climbed out of the wall.

The car stops its impact at the final wall, which is the shared wall between the kitchen and that garage. So that destroyed the oven and threw all that shrapnel through the kitchen.

I cannot believe you did not wake up. How on earth, Tyler, did you not wake up? A car literally drove through a house. That's a joke you'd say to your partner like, You sleep so deep, a fucking truck could run through here and you wouldn't even wake up. I even wonder if the dog hadn't been barking, if you would have just woke up the next day.

I usually tell the story as I He had the movie up very loud. There was an action movie going on.

Okay. Watching Die Hard.

Oh my God. Wow.

Holy fuck.

The fire chief comes back out. He's like, Hey, do you have anywhere you can stay for the night? And I'm like, No, the dog's got all her stuff in there, so I got to stay here. He's like, Okay, that's fine. If you're fine with a hole in the house, we cut the gas, so that should be fine for tonight, at least. The next morning comes. He did inform me that an inspector would be coming in to check the house to see how it was compromised. An inspector comes. He goes down into the basement. He comes back upstairs, and he's like, We're going to wait for the homeowner so I can speak to him and go through all the insurance stuff that needs to be done. And so he leaves. About a couple hours later, Tim's dad finally arrives.

They have cut their trip short, obviously, to come deal with this.

Yeah, he actually came back by himself. He left the rest of the family in New Jersey to finish the vacation. He just wanted to get a jump on all of the insurance stuff, and he was just so overwhelmed. He comes in and he's so happy that I'm fine. I was sleeping on the couch.

Yeah, he was going another 30 miles an hour. Still wouldn't have woke up.

The shrapnel definitely hit the back of the couch. Oh, my God. So he was just so happy that everything was fine on my end. But as we're reminiscing, he's like, Do you smell some gas? I'm like, They said they cut the gas. We go outside. There were many people that day just driving by looking at the hole in the house. So the police officer was there. We flag him down, and we're like, Hey, we smell some gas. Right away, he calls the fire department. The fire department that was there earlier in the morning, they come back, they check, and they see that the inspector that was there, he had thought that the gas was still on, so he turned it off, but he really just turned it back on. Oh, my God.

Okay. Oupsies. That's a mistake that shouldn't really be able to be made because a gas line, if the thing's in line with the gas pipe, it's on, and if it's perpendicular, it's off. That's how they're made.

Yeah, I was in my mid 20s, so I didn't know how any of that really worked. We had learned a week later about what happened to the driver. The driver's blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit, and he had cocaine in his system.

Oh, he should have been more alert. He should have seen that curve coming.

They found a scale in his car, and they had said that he was probably connected to some of the local drug dealing around the area. He actually lived just a few doors down. That is probably where he would have ran off to, but he did not have a great time that evening. Oh, wow.

So he got arrested. Yeah. Oh, boy. Well, hopefully, he ended up in treatment. That's a pretty good low. It's a good story in an AA meeting. Did you get eyes on him that night?

I saw the kid just sitting there on the curb, and the cops were over him just watching him. So he was fine from what I could see. What I learned later on was I heard rumbling happening in what I thought was an earthquake. That was actually the kid trying to get out of the car.

For sure. Yeah, you got to get out of there. Yeah.

My God.

Let's go. Wow. Are we allowed to post those pictures? Do you think the homeowner would be fine with that? Yeah. I think we got to post those. I don't think anyone would realize how insanely damaging this event is. How funny that you're trying to make-He thought you exploded. Trying to make sense of the kitchen that literally just self-detonated.

I'm really sad we didn't have the voicemail. We kept that voicemail that I left to my buddy Tim for about a year or two, but when he changed phones, he forgot to keep it. We listened to it so many times, and every time it's just like something weird is going on. I can't comprehend what I'm seeing, but it's not good.

I'm so glad I saw it in the order I did, too. Yeah, that was great. Oh, this is great. Oh, Tyler, that's a fucking home run of a story. That was a good one. Yeah, man, all the drawers are thrown out. The island's been shoved But it would be so confusing because it's not like a robber.

There is no way to piece together what could have possibly-Your explanation was smart, which is like, Oh, there is a gas explosion.

It does look like everything exploded off the wall.

And that far wall is where the oven is, so it's gone. I can't even tell that it's an oven anymore. And I classically do leave an oven on once in a while, and my wife finds that. So it wouldn't be beyond me to do that.

The oven is gone. It's nowhere in the-I love it.

You were I believed that it was a car.

That's true. Oh, I would have been, too. Me, too. That wasn't my fault. Oh, thank God. Just a car drove through the house. That was a blessing.

It's very Stephanie Tanner from Full House. She drove the car-through the home?

Into the home, yeah. On coke and drunk?

No, unfortunately, just childish.

Old-fashioned way? Yeah. Okay. Well, Tyler, thank you so much for sharing that story with us. That was great.

Of course. If you wouldn't mind, I would love to give a shout-out to my wife. She was the original arm cherry that got me into listening to you all a couple of years ago. She was listening for this prompt, specifically. I said, If there is a house sitting story, I will submit it, and I will try to tell it. And what's her name? Her name is Zohar.

Well, thank you, Zohar, for turning Tyler onto the show. And I'm so delighted you guys listened.

Thank you so much for listening to the story. I appreciate it. All right. Take care, brother. Thank you.

Oh, that was a great way to end. No kidding. Loved that. Really got me.

Yeah, really. These pictures That fucking car just buried sideways in the garage. You're having a hard time understanding that, right?

I was because it looks like- Because you're seeing this car? Well, no, but you don't see the hole. So it looks like that was a car in the garage that somehow turned on and went sideways.

And parked sideways. And this garage is only 10 feet wide. Exactly. And there's a whole car in there sideways. Yeah, I couldn't comprehend that. I'm surprised you're not seeing the bumper sticking out of the kitchen wall in these other photos. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That fucking oven is gone.

Oh, It's funny. Yeah, we'll definitely post that.

All right. Oh, that was a blast.

Fun. All right. Love you. Love you.

Do you want to sing a tune or something?

We know a theme song. Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're going to ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, I rindish, on the fly, I rindish. Enjoy.