EP. 179 — The Size of a Cantaloupe

[00:00:04] CHRIS: Hello to everybody whose getting married on a Tuesday. It’s Beautiful Anonymous. One hour, one phone call, no names, no holds barred. 

 

[00:00:18] THEME MUSIC: I’d rather go one-on-one. I think it’ll be more fun and I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to know me. 

 

[00:00:28] CHRIS: Hi everybody, Chris Gethard here. Welcome to another episode of Beautiful Anonymous. It’s really, I have to say – I wake up on the day that we do these tapings and universally, no matter what mood I’ve been in all week, I get in a good mood that I get to go do this show. Thank you guys for that. Thank you for calling, and hey – we have not laid out on the show itself how you can participate in the show in a very long while. We used to plug this hard, haven’t done it in a while. So just to let you know, easiest way to do it: you follow me on Instagram and Twitter. And usually what I’ll do is I’ll put out an Instagram photo when I’m in the studio and about to take some calls, and I’ll make sure it goes right to Twitter as well. It shares to both of those platforms at the same time. And then, you know, hey, it’s activated and it’s live. People do try pretty heavily, so… you know, if you get that busy signal, just keep trying… and, you know, don’t give up over the weeks. I want to talk to all you guys. Sometimes people will send me messages and say, “Hey, I don’t have Instagram or Twitter”, to which I say, I’m not sure exactly what else to do, except to also reiterate to you that we do have a voicemail line, and I have not plugged the voicemail line in a very long time: (802) 392-3288. That’s (802) 392-3288. If you’re not on social media, or you’d rather just leave it out there and not, you know, play the lottery and see if you get through, that’s the number to leave a voicemail. So those are the two ways to participate. Follow me on social, or leave a voicemail. It’s pretty cool. I’m going out on a tour. I’m not going to plug all the dates. ChrisGeth.com. Go check if I’m coming to your city! I might be, especially if it’s on the East Coast. Big East Coast- but just added some Chicago shows too. Okay, you know, one thing I love about this show is very often these things end in a way that you could not predict when they start. And this fits that to a T. Our caller today, as you will hear, is a very good-natured person, very positive person. And in the beginning, we spend a lot of time joking, spent a lot of time joking about frivolous stuff. But then what happens is we get comfortable with each other. The Caller actually tells us about a lot of stuff; about medical stuff, about her past, and about how it’s affecting her ability to look towards the future. And it’s just a very, very good reminder that on the surface, you can be saying one thing and it doesn’t mean that there’s not a deep well of experience underneath it, and I think a very, very good lesson in not judging people because of their age, or their perceived life experience or anything. This Caller’s been through a lot. You’re gonna hear about all of it. 

 

[00:02:59] PHONE ROBOT: Thank you for calling Beautiful Anonymous. A beeping noise will indicate when you are on the show with the host. [beep]

 

[00:03:07] CALLER: Hello? 

 

[00:03:08] CHRIS: Hi.

 

[00:03:09] CALLER: Hey!

 

[00:03:11] CHRIS: How are ya? 

 

[00:03:12] CALLER: I’m good. How are you?

 

[00:03:13] CHRIS: I’m good! I’m good. I feel really good, except physically I feel beat to hell. But that’s OK. That happens. 

 

[00:03:20] CALLER: Yeah, [laughs] that sounds about right. 

 

[00:03:23] CHRIS: Yeah. That’s that’s the break sometimes. 

 

[00:03:28] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:03:31] CHRIS: Now, how about you? How are you feeling? 

 

[00:03:34] CALLER: I’m pretty good. Feeling kind of crappy yesterday- I had a really bad migraine, so I had to like sneak out of work early and then I slept for like 16 hours. 

 

[00:03:46] CHRIS: Well, that’s no good.

 

[00:03:48] CALLER: And… [laughs] I woke up feeling quite a bit better after that, but… [laughs]

 

[00:03:52] CHRIS: That’s good. I used to get migraines three or four times a year, and I realize looking back now, it’s just because no one told me to drink water until like 2004. 

 

[00:04:02] CALLER: [laughs]

 

[00:04:02] CHRIS: No one…

 

[00:04:04] CALLER: It was just a lack of water. 

 

[00:04:06] CHRIS: Yeah. Gary Coleman is a comedian. He has a great bit about how growing up in the 70s and 80s, you never drank water. And it’s totally true. And I had migraines. I had migraines all the time. 

 

[00:04:16] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah.

 

[00:04:18] CHRIS: Now I don’t. I drink water every day. I used to not drink water… three, four days in a row? It would just be Hawaiian Punch. 

 

[00:04:26] CALLER: [laughs] What kind of Hawaiian Punch? 

 

[00:04:29] CHRIS: The stan-

[00:04:29] CALLER: Like the Hi-C Hawaiian Punch? 

 

[00:04:30] CHRIS: No, those are different products. Okay-

[00:04:33] CALLER: Oh. 

 

[00:04:33] CHRIS: You’ve just revealed yourself as younger than me because you didn’t grow up in a gener- 

 

[00:04:36] CALLER: [laughs]

 

[00:04:36] CHRIS: Hawaiian Punch is its own thing. It was just red. And they did have some other flavors later on, but it was generally just a red drink. And then Hi-C…

 

[00:04:47] CALLER: Oh, okay! [over Chris’s voice]

 

[00:04:47] CHRIS: … had multiple flavors, including, of course, the cult-classic “Ecto Cooler”, the Ghostbusters tie-in that every kid my age lost their minds for and it outlived Ghostbusters and you could just still get “Ecto Cool”. 

 

[00:04:59] CALLER: Huh. Yeah. I’ve never really liked any of those drinks. Cuz they have like a strange texture to me. Like…

 

[00:05:04] CHRIS: Syrup… corn syrup.

 

[00:05:06] CALLER: Yeah. And they, like immediately make your teeth feel like gritty and dirty afterwards from like all the sugar. 

 

[00:05:12] CHRIS: Yes. That was my entire childhood. Gritty and dirty and sugar. Yes, and it sounds… I’m guessing because of your mix up with Hi-C and Hawaiian Punch, sounds like you maybe grew up in a generation where things like protein and vitamins were valued. And hydration. 

 

[00:05:32] CALLER: Maybe a little bit, but I think just like from where I came from and stuff like… I grew up in a small town. So that like wasn’t really a huge thing. 

 

[00:05:40] CHRIS: Yeah, I get that. I get that.

 

[00:05:43] CALLER: We mostly just like consumed a lot of dairy products. 

 

[00:05:46] CHRIS: There you go. Nothing but dairy. 

 

[00:05:50] CALLER: Yeah, pretty close. 

 

[00:05:52] CHRIS: Nothing but dairy. What else do you need? Cheese and milk and “Hawaiian Punch”. That’s a well-rounded American diet. 

 

[00:06:00] CALLER: Yeah, that’s… yeah. And lots of soda where I came from. Even though like, I don’t really drink soda. I don’t really drink anything other than water. Most of the time. But…

 

[00:06:09] CHRIS: Wow. I drink lots of soda. I love a good soda. Looks like you and I are just opposites in every way. [laughs]

 

[00:06:19] CALLER: [laughs]

 

[00:06:19] CHRIS: This is the sense I’m getting.

 

[00:06:20] CALLER: I guess so! [laughing]

 

[00:06:26] CHRIS: So what else? What else do you want to talk about? You let me know where this bad boy is going. 

 

[00:06:30] CALLER: Yeah. I don’t know. I’m really game for anything. I am going to a wedding today a little bit later, and it’s a wedding on a Tuesday.

 

[00:06:42] CHRIS: Yeah I was gonna say… Tuesday wedding?

 

[00:06:45] CALLER: Yeah, and it’s for people that I don’t know… like I’m not going to know anyone there. 

 

[00:06:49] CHRIS: Why are you going to this stranger’s wedding?

 

[00:06:53] CALLER: [laughs] Yeah. So I had a friend that like lived in my area, and then shortly after we met, he actually moved out of state. But now he’s- he came back for the wedding. So he’s staying with me. And I’m one of the only people in the area that he’s like still kind of connected with. So he asked me if I wanted to go with him. And I was like, “Oh, sure!”. 

 

[00:07:14] CHRIS: Mmhmm…

 

[00:07:15] CALLER: So it’s a wedding where I’m not going to probably know anyone other than my friend, but that’s OK! [laughs]

 

[00:07:21] CHRIS: So you’re the date of someone who knows ’em. Now, is this a roman- is this person who’s invited… Is this a romantic overture that you’re the date? 

 

[00:07:30] CALLER: No. No, it’s not. 

 

[00:07:32] CHRIS: Are you positive? Because I was once invited as a date to a wedding by my friend… I won’t name names actually… by an old friend of mine… and I did not think it was romantic. And then we later made out twice! And I realized maybe it had been romantic! So what do you… do you think maybe there’s some potential here? Is this definitely off the books? 

 

[00:07:50] CALLER: No, it’s it’s definitely like a friend. A friend only situation. 

 

[00:07:55] CHRIS: Okay. Well listen, if you get to smooching… just hear my voice in your head…

 

[00:08:02] CALLER: No, that’s not gonna happen. [over Chris’s voice]

 

[00:08:03] CHRIS: … I’ll say “I told you”. You’ll just hear me in your head going “I told you so.”

 

[00:08:07] CALLER: [laughs] No, I have a partner. 

 

[00:08:09] CHRIS: Oh, you do? Never mind. 

 

[00:08:10] CALLER: We’ve been together for like a year and a half now…

[00:08:12] CHRIS: My bad. 

 

[00:08:13] CALLER: Yeah!

 

[00:08:13] CHRIS: My bad! Never mind. 

 

[00:08:15] CALLER: [laughing] It’s okay!

 

[00:08:17] CHRIS: That’s good to have a partner. 

 

[00:08:20] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:08:22] CHRIS: That’s good. Tuesday when- who gets married on a Tuesday? What’s going on with these people? 

 

[00:08:27] CALLER: Yeah! Well, yeah, I don’t know. A lot of the people like from the wedding, they’re all like service industry people. So it’s a lot of like bartenders and like servers and bar owners and managers. So I think a lot of them have more free time during the week than they do like weekends. 

 

[00:08:46] CHRIS: That makes sense. 

 

[00:08:47] CALLER: So I’m assuming that’s probably why they’re doing it. 

 

[00:08:50] CHRIS: That makes sense. I bet that’s a crowd that will get rowdy at a wedding!

 

[00:08:54] CALLER: Oh, yep. Yep. We were supposed to be going to the reception afterwards, but I think we’re going to bail out after the ceremony. I have to work tomorrow. And neither me or my friend are like very big like drinkers or party animals anymore so… [laughs] 

 

[00:09:16] CHRIS: I’m not either. I wouldn’t… I don’t know if I’d like going to just the ceremony. You gotta get at least the hors d’oeuvres. Go for the happy hour!

 

[00:09:24] CALLER: Well, yeah. Yeah. They’re doing that stuff at the wedding venue awards and then they’re all taking a party bus downtown…

 

[00:09:32] CHRIS: So you’re skipping the bus?

 

[00:09:32] CALLER: … to go to a reception. Yeah. And they’re not doing that until like 11:00 p.m. …

 

[00:09:37] CHRIS: … on a Tuesday…

 

[00:09:37] CALLER: … which is like, past my bedtime as it is.

 

[00:09:39] CHRIS: Yeah. No thanks. No thanks. So you’ll stick around and grab a couple waters. You’ll have a bacon-wrapped fig or two- whatever the, whatever the… 

 

[00:09:49] CALLER: No. Nope. No bacon for me. I’m vegetarian, but-

 

[00:09:52] CHRIS: Me neither, I would not have bacon either. It’s just.. back when I did eat… my friend Antony’s wedding… my friend Anthony King had prosciutto wrapped figs as part of their happy hour. And I’ve never tasted anything better. That was back when I ate meat though. 

 

[00:10:07] CALLER: Oh, I’m sure. Yeah. Yeah

 

[00:10:08] CHRIS: So you drink water. You’re vegetarian. Your bedtime is before 11:00 p.m., some people might not say that you scream “party animal”. 

 

[00:10:19] CALLER: [laughing] No, I’m definitely not. I’ll like have a drink every now and again. But it’s usually just like if we’re going out, like I’ll have a glass of wine with dinner or something. But other than that, I mostly… I’d say I’m a homebody. 

 

[00:10:34] CHRIS: A homebody?

 

[00:10:34] CALLER: I like to hang out at home and… yeah.

 

[00:10:37]  CHRIS: Do you enjoy a good crossword puzzle? 

 

[00:10:41] CALLER: I… [laughs] I do! Although sometimes I get frustrated with them, if I can’t figure out like the one word that I need to figure out. But I like, like Sudoku and other like, like mind puzzles, logic puzzles. 

 

[00:10:57] CHRIS: I’ve never played Sudoku in my life. I remember when it first came around. Never played it. I saw that it involved numbers and I ran for the hills. I don’t like math. 

 

[00:11:08] CALLER: [laughs] I’m terrible at math! Like terrible! But it doesn’t really involve like… you don’t even have to like add numbers or subtract or anything. It’s just… they could have done it with letters. Like it doesn’t… the numbers don’t really matter that much. You just have to have like, only one number between one and nine and each section. So you just like can’t repeat those numbers. 

 

[00:11:34] CHRIS: That doesn’t seem hard. I bet I could do that. 

 

[00:11:36] CALLER: No… [laughs] no.

 

[00:11:41] CHRIS: What do you do for work?

 

[00:11:44] CALLER: Well, right now, I am an intern. I’m still in school. I’m going to school for my Bachelor of Fine Arts. 

 

[00:11:53] CHRIS: Okay…

 

[00:11:55] CALLER: I do like, digital arts… so I’ll do like, some graphic design. But I also like, like digital painting… I also like, like audio and video. But it’s kind of everything in the digital realm of art. But the other thing that I really love is printmaking. 

 

[00:12:15] CHRIS: Printmaking? 

 

[00:12:17] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:12:18] CHRIS: And what’s… is that… making prints? That’s… is… you mean like frame-able prints?

 

[00:12:25] CALLER: I mean, you can like do them that way. Most of most of mine are now just sitting in a huge Rubbermaid tote in my basement because I have like given it a solid effort to try and like sell them to people. And it’s not even really to make money off of them, but I figure that like, I’d rather someone else have them than them just sit in a box in my basement. I only normally keep like one of each of the prints that I do, we normally do quite a few at a time. It depends on which print technique we’re doing. 

 

[00:13:01] CHRIS: So all the different techniques come into play… screen printing?

 

[00:13:05] CALLER: Yep. There’s like lithography, pronto plates… 

 

[00:13:10] CHRIS: Pronto plates? Are those plates you get done very quickly?

 

[00:13:14] CALLER: Yeah… yeah they actually are! [laughs]

 

[00:13:16] CHRIS: Mmhmm… see! I can solve a logic puzzle too! You’re not the only one who’s good at logic puzzles!

 

[00:13:23] CALLER: [laughing] Yeah, that’s… you know, it’s pretty self descriptive, that one. Yeah so, along like with all of the digital art stuff, I like to like, do some stuff with my hands too, you know? Just the more traditional. I’m like, terrible at drawing and painting. Which is probably really weird to hear from someone who’s getting a bachelor in fine arts. But…

 

[00:13:45] CHRIS: It is. 

 

[00:13:46] CALLER: Those have just like never been my strong suit. 

 

[00:13:48] CHRIS: How do you even have… how do you have the gall to go into the fine arts when you’re not good at painting and drawing? How do you pick that as your major?

 

[00:13:54] CALLER: Yeah, so I originally went into the fine arts for like photography. But then I took like my first digital arts class, just like an intro class, and I absolutely fell in love with it. And I realized that I like, didn’t have to be like the best at drawing or the best at painting to be able to do well in like digital art. And I like doing like vector graphics a lot. So that’s fun. Like logo designs and stuff along those lines. My friend just got home. [towards friend] Hey, do you know who Chris Gethard is? 

 

[00:14:29] CHRIS: They’re going to say no. 

 

[00:14:31] CALLER: Oh! He said no. 

 

[00:14:32] CHRIS: Yeah, I know. That’s.. yeah, nobody knows. Can you put them on the phone please?

 

[00:14:31] CALLER: That always is sad to me. Yeah! [towards friend] OK so… so you can’t tell him any of our names… 

 

[00:14:44] CHRIS: Yeah, no names. [over caller]

 

[00:14:44] CALLER: [still towards friend]…because it’s an anonymous podcast that he does. So no names. Got it? 

 

[00:14:49] CALLER’S FRIEND: [in background] Yeah.

 

[00:14:47] CALLER’S FRIEND: Good afternoon, captain! 

 

[00:14:53] CHRIS: You need to slow your roll, dude!

 

[00:14:55] CALLER’S FRIEND: [laughs] I’m extremely over-caffeinated… ton of work this morning and, right after that I had to taste out a bunch of espressos and things for a cafe that’s opening up by me. So… I did not eat before I did that, and now I’m getting ready for a wedding. So I just bought a cup of soup, and hopefully that’ll calm down before I get there. 

 

[00:15:13] CHRIS: Wow, okay! That’s a lot of info… right out of the gate.

 

[00:15:16] CALLER’S FRIEND: Yeah. [laughs]

 

[00:15:18] CHRIS: Now, you’ve never heard of me. That’s fine. Most people haven’t… you never watched “The Office”?

 

[00:15:23] CALLER’S FRIEND: Every once in a while. 

 

[00:15:24] CHRIS: You ever see the guy that Dwight hires to take out Oscar in Season 9? 

 

[00:15:29] CALLER’S FRIEND: Oh, “Moe”? Yeah. Or… not “Moe”… their buddy? Yeah! Who’d get the crowbar and whatnot…

 

[00:15:34] CHRIS: Yeah. [over caller’s friend]

 

[00:15:34] CALLER’S FRIEND: … and just is terrible! [laughs]

 

[00:15:35] CHRIS: The sandwich delivery for Oscar Martinez. 

 

[00:15:38] CALLER’S FRIEND: Yeah. 

 

[00:15:39] CHRIS: Yeah. That’s me dude. That’s me. 

 

[00:15:41] CALLER’S FRIEND: Oh, cool! Hey, nice to talk to you! How are you doing today? What are you up to?

 

[00:15:45] CHRIS: I’m just talking to your fr-

 

[00:15:46] CALLER’S FRIEND: [over Chris] Podcasting, obviously. [laughs]

 

[00:15:46] CHRIS: Yeah, talking to your friend. I got this podcast where people call in and then anonymously we talk about their lives. I’m learning about your friend who is into logic puzzles, and only drinks water, and is vegetarian, and is going to a wedding- apparently with you- on a Tuesday. 

 

[00:16:01] CALLER’S FRIEND: Yes, correct! 

 

[00:16:03] CHRIS: But it sounds like you’re maybe not going to get on the party bus to full-on reception because it’s weekday. Who knows? 

 

[00:16:09] CALLER’S FRIEND: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m also… I’m not very keen on going to the location that we’re supposed to after we’re all done. I’m very against the owner that is over there. And I actually like quit working for him. He used to be my landlord, which is odd enough. A terrible, terrible bar owner, a huge bigot… not a big fan.

 

[00:16:30] CHRIS: A bigot landlord? A bigot landlord bar owner? Yeah, this is not someone you need to be giving your-

 

[00:16:36] CALLER’S FRIEND: Yeah. No. This guy actually fired my girlfriend after my girlfriend reported that his friend had raped her at a bar she worked at. So, I blew up this bar pretty badly on Facebook a couple of years ago. And a ton of… there was a ton of fallout for them, and me, and a lot of other people and whatnot. It was a very exciting time to be in the service industry, and that city that we were in at that point. But I don’t live there anymore. And fuck that city, to be frank. 

 

[00:17:02] CHRIS: Wow! Now, is this the city that your friend currently lives in? 

 

[00:17:08] CALLER’S FRIEND: Kind of. Sort of. Relatively nearby… like 40 minutes away? 

 

[00:17:11] CHRIS: 40 minutes away. So, yeah. So there’s a whole city that you are not fond of. 

 

[00:17:17] CALLER’S FRIEND: I love the city. I should say that. I just don’t love the service industry in that city. The community of the service industry in this city is egregious. One of the highest drinking rates per capita for the city in the first place, but especially in the service industry. You see a lot of O.D.s, a lot of deaths, a lot of… there’s not a lot of support. Also over here, the minimum wage is $2.33 an hour, so there’s just no fiscal support. So a lot of people end up in these scenarios where they’re working- not paycheck to paycheck- but like day to day, and they need lots of help and things. So this city felt incredibly unsupportive to me, which is why I actually moved… because of stuff like that. I’m just sick of dealing with it. 

 

[00:18:00] CHRIS: Wow. Wow. 

 

[00:18:02] CALLER’S FRIEND: Yeah. 

 

[00:18:03] CHRIS: You’ve never heard this podcast before. Huh? 

 

[00:18:06] CALLER’S FRIEND: No, I don’t spend a lot of time on… I don’t do a lot of repeat podcasts. I like, listen to a lot of new things for the most part… and just going all over the place. There’s a couple of like, main people I’ll go back to. Like Ethan and Hila Klein… h3h3. That’s probably the biggest like, regular ones that I will consistently always listen to. Other than that, I’m kind of all over the place, and I’ll just find topics I’m interested in and see what people are talking about and get back to it.

 

[00:18:32] CHRIS: Because you’re really-

 

[00:18:33] CALLER’S FRIEND: But yeah, I actually… I did a few things with “Screen Junkies” actually back in the day, so I… pre Andy Signore I should say. [laughs] But yeah, I used to do some podcasting work over there and whatnot. And now I actually… I’ve done a few podcasts with the company I’m with now, which is kind of like a physics thing, which is pretty nifty. Big fan of it.

 

[00:18:54] CHRIS: Because I have to tell you- slamming the unjust labor laws of a service industry and then speaking to your personal experience with it is very, very on-target for what we do here at Beautiful Anonymous. So you’re falling into the groove in quite a lovely way. Now, you clearly have had too much espresso. Why don’t we go ahead…

 

[00:19:09] CALLER’S FRIEND: Yeah! [over Chris]

 

[00:19:10] CHRIS: …let’s put your friend back… 

 

[00:19:11] CALLER’S FRIEND: [over Chris] I drink coffee once every six months. You want to get her back? I’ll get her back to you…

 

[00:19:14] CHRIS: Let’s get her back. You get some soup in your belly. Maybe calm down, take a breath and we’ll see if we can find another place for you. But thank you so much for your contribution. Maybe we’ll talk to you again later.

 

[00:19:23] CALLER’S FRIEND: [over Chris] Have a great one, homie! Yeah. For sure. Here you go.

 

[00:19:26] CHRIS: Okay.

 

[00:19:28] CALLER: Hello.

 

[00:19:28] CHRIS: Your friend doesn’t need to be calling me “captain” and “homie”, okay? 

 

[00:19:33] CALLER: [laughs]

 

[00:19:33] CHRIS: It’s a little presumptuous. 

 

[00:19:34] CALLER: [over Chris] That’s just how he is! He does that with everyone.

 

[00:19:37] CHRIS: Really? How does that go over? 

 

[00:19:39] CALLER: Yeah…. fine normally.

 

[00:19:43] CHRIS: Yeah, not this time! [laughs]

 

[00:19:45] CALLER: [laughs]

 

[00:19:47] CHRIS: That’s okay. No, no, no, no! He seems like a nice guy. He seems like a nice guy. 

 

[00:19:50] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:19:51] CHRIS: Now, how’d you two get to know each other? 

 

[00:19:54] CALLER: So it’s actually like a really funny story. But the town that I’m in has like, this Facebook page-

 

[00:20:03] CHRIS: Oh, wait one second. Can you just ask him what kind of soup before we get into it? What kind of soup? 

 

[00:20:08] CALLER: [towards friend] Hey… what kind of soup did you eat? 

 

[00:20:11] CALLER’S FRIEND: [in background] Chicken dumplings.

 

[00:20:12] CALLER: He had chicken dumplings. 

 

[00:20:14] CHRIS: Okay. So there’s a Faceb-

 

[00:20:15] CALLER: Oh, it’s still downstairs. He hasn’t even eaten it yet!

 

[00:20:17] CHRIS: Yeah. See, he’s got to get some his dumplings in the system to cut that caffeine. Okay, so your town has a Facebook group…

 

[00:20:24] CALLER: Yeah. He’s also… he always has that much energy. That’s just like how he is. So that’s not even like caffeine, that’s just like, his personality. 

 

[00:20:34] CHRIS: I’ve never had that much energy one time in 39 years on planet Earth. 

 

[00:20:39] CALLER: I agree. I’m the same way. 

 

[00:20:41] CHRIS: Yeah, me and you are more on the same page.

 

[00:20:42] CALLER: Yeah. [laughs] 

 

[00:20:43] CHRIS: All right. All right. You’re the “yin” and he’s the “yang”.

 

[00:20:46] CALLER: Yeah, so we have this Facebook page… [over Chris]

 

[00:20:48] CHRIS: Yeah. Okay… 

 

[00:20:48] CALLER: Yes. Yes. 

 

[00:20:50] CHRIS: There’s a Facebook page… 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

[00:21:26] CHRIS: You’re the “yin” and he’s the “yang”.

 

[00:21:27] CALLER: Yeah, so we have this Facebook page… [over Chris]

 

[00:21:28] CHRIS: Yeah. Okay… 

 

[00:21:29] CALLER: Yes. Yes. 

 

[00:21:30] CHRIS: There’s a Facebook page… 

 

[00:21:32] CALLER: Yes. So it’s like centered around… well, it kind of started for like women in our area. But now it’s kind of branched out to be like everything, except for men. [laughs] But anyways, so people will post things on there sometimes, just like asking questions, asking for advice, just all sorts of things. And so his ex-girlfriend and him had gotten a dog, and his dog kind of had like a hard time adjusting. Especially because she’d… like, is more timid around men. So they were kind of looking for someone to just like, meet up with them and just like go for a walk with the dog just to help the dog, like, get more adjusted towards being around him because she’s great around women… but men are just like kind of intimidating to her. She’s a rescue so… you know, who knows what happened before. But I actually, too, I have a dog that’s a rescue as well. And she doesn’t like men. So I figured that maybe we could kind of help each other out and I could help his dog be more comfortable around him. And he could also help my dog out by having someone who knows dogs pretty well, and will introduce himself the right way. So that’s basically how we met. So it’s kind of like a weird… like, I don’t know. 

 

[00:23:09] CHRIS: So through a… through a Facebook group that excludes men, you have befriended a man via dogs? That is…

 

[00:23:16] CALLER: Yes, exactly. 

 

[00:23:18] CHRIS: Yeah. That’s a lot. That’s a logic puzzle in its own right. 

 

[00:23:22] CALLER: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah it really is!

 

[00:23:23] CHRIS: Now, I’m telling you, Harry and Jared over here have been putting up some logic puzzles on the screen for us to solve together. Are you interested? And I’m telling you, they- they infuriate me. I’ve read through them and they infuriate me. 

[00:23:36] CALLER: Okay, let’s do it. 

 

[00:23:39] CHRIS: A mother is 21 years older than her child. In exactly six years from now, the mother will be exactly five times as old as the child. Where’s the father? Is that the same one, or are those two separate questions, Harry? 

 

[00:23:55] CALLER: Where is the father? I don’t know where the f- 

 

[00:23:55] CHRIS: Those are two… two different… is that two different logic puzzles or the same one? Same one. Okay, you got a pen? A mother is 21 years older than her child, in six years, the mother will be exactly five times old as the child. Where’s the fa… okay… so…

 

[00:24:15] CALLER: Yeah. I don’t know. This is like too… That’s not the type of logic puzzles I like doing. [laughs]

 

[00:24:23] CHRIS: The hell? Where’s the father? What’s that have to do with all those numbers?!

 

[00:24:28] CALLER: It’s probably one of those weird ones where it’s like he doesn’t actually have a father or like, [laughs] or like the father isn’t born yet. [laughs]

 

[00:24:38] CHRIS: A mother is 21 years older than her child. Exactly six years from now the mother will be exactly five times older… child… [trailing off] I hate that you put this on my computer screen, guys. I hate it. It’s numbers and math… 

 

[00:24:57] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. The numbers one are… those ones are like a little bit too much for me. But I recently was just interviewing for new jobs, and they had sent me a like online personality type test to take before they hired me on. And along with that, there was like a section of like logic puzzles that I had to complete. But it was nice because I had like some paper and so I could write everything down and stuff. But I actually had a lot of fun with it. I feel like most people would hate having to do that, but I… like, it was it was a fun time for me. 

 

[00:25:35] CHRIS: Okay, here’s another one. You are in a room with no metal objects except for two iron rods. Only one of them is a magnet. How can you identify which one is a magnet? Because I guess they stick together. But then you go… how do you know which one’s the magnet and which one’s just the metal? Why are we doing this?!

 

[00:25:57] CALLER: [laughs]

 

[00:25:58] CHRIS: Oh, God, I’m so frustrated! This is my whole experience in any… any classes involving math as a kid. I just wanted to be creative. I just wanted to be creative, and read, and think about history. I don’t want to sit here solving problems!

 

[00:26:13] CALLER: Yeah, that’s me for the most part. I like… I like things, though, that are like, more of like a creative issue. Like, not like a numbers or math, like logic puzzle… 

 

[00:26:22] CHRIS: What’s an example? [over caller]

 

[00:26:23] CALLER: …like something that… 

 

[00:26:23] CHRIS: What’s an example? Give me an example. 

 

[00:26:27] CALLER: Well… one of the ones that I did for that like personality test that I had taken, it would kind of… it would ask a question and then it would give you like, certain things that were like, true about the scenario. And then you had to figure out, like, from a group of… like a multiple choice, which of those multiple choice things were also true. Like, relating to the question so like…

 

[00:26:52] CHRIS: I’m so confused. [over caller]

 

[00:26:54] CALLER: [laughs] One of them was like about a car, and it said, like… “So-and-so drives a blue minivan,” and like, “so-and-so drives a this-color car.” And then it said, like, “If all of those above statements are true, which of the rest must be true?” So then you just kind of have to like… 

 

[00:27:10] CHRIS: This is just such a reminder that if you put a gun up to my head and said, “Hey, you have to go back to school”, I’d just look you in the eye and I’d say, “Pull. The. Trigger.”

 

[00:27:24] CALLER: Yeah, I’d probably say the same if it was like, middle school or high school or something…

 

[00:27:28] CHRIS: [over caller] Oh my God, it’s bringing me nightmares…

 

[00:27:29] CALLER: But, I like.. I like college a lot more. So I get to, you know, decide and actually do all art related stuff. 

 

[00:27:36] CHRIS: You make prints. You make prints and you stick them in a big Tupperware in the basement. 

 

[00:27:41] CALLER: Yes, that’s exactly what I do. 

 

[00:27:43] CHRIS: You’re making big prints. I feel bad… before I was I was saying a designer was charging me too much. But I want to say I support an artist asking for the time… you know, valuing their own time and being clear about… I wanna be clear about that. I just want to say I don’t got that! And people think I got that. That’s part of my point. Not that they shouldn’t try to value their own time… Oh! And now that you… Oh, my God. Jared and Harry put these logic puzzles on… Now they put them back. Okay, I’m going nuts. Anyway. All right. So you’re going to this wedding. You’re not going to hang out that long. You got a friend is full of caffeine and dumplings. What else do I need to know about your life? 

 

[00:28:16] CALLER: Well, I guess while I have like, kind of a platform that, like, people might listen to and stuff, I guess that I’d like… I have like a life experience that I’d like to share. So in that way, like other people can learn from it. 

 

[00:28:31] CHRIS: Okay. 

 

[00:28:32] CALLER: So, I recently was just going to like all my yearly doctor’s appointments, and I had gone into the gynecologist. And I had just thought because it was like, the end of finals week, I was living off of like… Cheetos and Mountain Dew. And I was stressed, and I wasn’t sleeping very well, and stuff. So I thought that I was just like, getting bloated. And so then I actually ended up going in and my doctor was like, “No, that’s definitely not the case.” And so she scheduled me to have an ultrasound like two or three days later. And then they found that I had a 19 centimeter mass on my left ovary. 

 

[00:29:21] CHRIS: Whoah.

 

[00:29:23] CALLER: Yeah, so… like, I know that, like, people hate going to the doctor and I know that people hate like going to the gynecologist. Like, it’s not fun. Like it’s not my preferred thing to do, but like… go do it because I would have had no idea because I just thought that I was like… bloated from like eating crappy and being stressed and all that stuff. But then it turns out-

 

[00:29:45] CHRIS: [over caller] How large… how large was the mass?

 

[00:29:48] CALLER: Nineteen centimeters. So they said like the size of like a cantaloupe, roughly. 

 

[00:29:52] CHRIS: A cantaloupe. You had a cantaloupe sized mass growing inside you?

 

[00:29:56] CALLER: Yeah. And I had no idea. 

 

[00:29:57] CHRIS: That’s terrifying. 

 

[00:29:59] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:30:00] CHRIS: Did they go in… did they get it? 

 

[00:30:02] CALLER: Yeah. So then I had surgery scheduled the next week after that. And between then and my surgery, I did like, continue to get like, larger and larger. Like, I basically looked like I was five months pregnant before I had it out. 

 

[00:30:18] CHRIS: Whoah.

 

[00:30:19] CALLER: And my doctor said it could have been growing for a really long time, but it just got so big. To the point where it like was shifting around like my other organs and stuff. And I was pretty much like somebody who was pregnant, like I had to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes. My back hurt all the time. I was exhausted. [laughs] Like it was like all of the like… pregnancy symptoms, but I was instead… I had like a cantaloupe sized mass in my body. 

 

[00:30:46] CHRIS: So you have to have surgery then? Like… 

 

[00:30:49] CALLER: Yeah. So I did. So I had surgery, and they removed the mass. And so I basically had to have like, a C-section. But obviously, they didn’t have to, like, go into my uterus or anything, but they did have to remove it. And then I would say, like three days after surgery, I got a call from my doctor. And she let me know that part of the mass was actually a borderline ovarian tumor. 

 

[00:31:24] CHRIS: A borderline ovarian tumor?

 

[00:31:27] CALLER: Yes.

 

[00:31:28] CHRIS: What is that? I’ve never heard of a borderline tumor. 

 

[00:31:30] CALLER: Yeah, exactly! Exactly! And so… when she first told me, I was like, “Okay, so what does that mean?”, like… And so she was like, “Well, it’s caused by borderline ovarian cancer.” And I’m like, “Okay, so wait… ‘borderline’? Like… does like… is… do I have cancer, or do I not?” Like, I feel like they’re not really like “Well, you kind-of do.” But no, like it’s a thing. So… I’ve basically-

 

[00:31:58] CHRIS: That’s… I’ve never heard of something that’s simultaneously good and bad news as much as that. It’s like “Congratulations! You don’t have cancer, but you do have more cancer than you thought you had a month ago.”

 

[00:32:13] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. That’s basically it. And it’s kind of because it has like some behaviors of like, cancer. But it also has some behaviors of like, not being cancer. Because like it’s not normally affected by like, chemo and radiation. And it also is like, more slow-growing than most types of cancer, so it’s like not very aggressive. But yeah. So it’s like kind of a complicated thing. It’s like, it’s own thing and it kind of sucks because they don’t have like a lot of research on it yet or anything. So then I actually had to have a second surgery like three weeks later to have my left ovary and fallopian tube removed. 

 

[00:32:56] CHRIS: Oh wow. That’s very serious. 

 

[00:32:58] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:32:59] CHRIS: I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that.

 

[00:33:00] CALLER: Yeah, it was like a lot to deal with, especially because, like, I’m 23. 

 

[00:33:05] CHRIS: Yeah! 

 

[00:33:06] CALLER: And so it was like, kind of a lot of like scary stuff to deal with all at once. And it happened so quickly, like within a month. I basically they told me I had this mass in my body and then all of a sudden I’m two surgeries later, and down an ovary. [laughs] 

 

[00:33:24] CHRIS: Wow! 

 

[00:33:25] CALLER: Yeah. But that’s why I’m saying that everybody needs to go to the gynecologist!

 

[00:33:34] CHRIS: Yeah, definitely. You gotta get your checkups…

 

[00:33:36] CALLER: [over Chris] Just like go! Like I know it’s not fun! I know it’s not like the best experience, but like, just go and do it. Because otherwise I would have had no idea. It could have been a lot worse. It could have spread to other parts, like in my abdomen. I could have had to have both of my ovaries removed. So, like, it’s good that I caught it when I did, and that I know now. So they can do like follow-ups with me and stuff. 

 

[00:34:04] CHRIS: Why did we spend half an hour talking about Sudoku and chicken dumplings with your friend? That’s… this is a big one!

 

[00:34:10] CALLER: I don’t know! [laughs]

 

[00:34:11] CHRIS: That’s okay. That’s okay. It was fun. 

 

[00:34:13] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah.

 

[00:34:14] CHRIS: So, how does that… how does that affect things going forward? Do you have to keep a very close eye on it to make sure this doesn’t recur? Also, I hate to ask, but just out of curiosity, when you lose an ovary and a fallopian tube, if you do plan on… you know, having a family… down the line is is something that is a concern now?

 

[00:34:39] CALLER: Yeah. So it it can be. It’s hard because they don’t have like a lot of research on it yet because it’s like a fairly new development as to what it is. So they don’t really have like a lot of information on what your success rate is afterwards. 

 

[00:35:05] CHRIS: Wow. And how long ago did this all go down? 

 

[00:35:10] CALLER’S FRIEND: [in background] … I’m a fucking monster…

 

[00:35:12] CHRIS: Hey! What’s your friend cursing about the background?!

 

[00:35:15] CALLER’S FRIEND: [in background] [inaudible]

 

[00:35:16] CALLER: Yeah, no… I’m walking away. I don’t know. He decided to answer the phone in the same room as me. He’s probably still just little caffeinated.

 

[00:35:23] CHRIS: What? He’s doing what? He’s just shouting the F-word behind you while you’re trying to open up here?!

 

[00:35:27] CALLER: Well yeah… well so the issue is that we don’t even have the address for where this wedding is.

 

[00:35:32] CHRIS: Hey, can you put him on the phone just for a minute? 

 

[00:35:35] CALLER: [laughs] I’ve walked away from him. He’s upstairs. 

 

[00:35:38] CHRIS: Okay, that’s good. Because I was gonna tell him he can’t be just shouting vulgarities in the background while me and you are trying to have a heart-to-heart. 

 

[00:35:45] CALLER: [laughs] Yeah. So, no, I… it’s kind of one of those things that they don’t really know a whole lot about it yet. So I do have to go in for a lot of monitoring, especially for like the first five years, because that’s when… that’s like the kind of window of like, risk of it recurring is like, the largest. So I have to like… for the first two years, I think I have to go in every three months and have bloodwork and an ultrasound done. And then for two years after that, I have to go in like every six months or something. 

 

[00:36:19] CHRIS: Wow.

 

[00:36:21] CALLER: Yeah. So yeah. It like, can affect fertility. I mean, provided that like my other ovary is functioning the way it’s supposed to be, I like should be okay. I mean, it might be a little bit harder than like the average person to be able to conceive. 

 

[00:36:39] CHRIS: Have you thought about freezing any eggs just as a contingency?

 

[00:36:42] CALLER: Yeah! Yeah. So that’s definitely something that I’ve thought about. One… it would be really hard because since I only have one ovary, I’d probably have to go through like 3 rounds. So that would be like upwards of like… $45,000. 

 

[00:37:02] CHRIS: That’s a lot of money. 

 

[00:37:04] CALLER: Which… yeah! Yeah. Especially as a college student who… you know, doesn’t work full-time and… 

 

[00:37:10] CHRIS: And no offense… it takes a while to catch some momentum with a BFA, you know?

 

[00:37:15] CALLER: Yeah. Yup! Sure does. 

 

[00:37:17] CHRIS: You’re not one of these finance bros who’s going to come out and get hooked up at Goldman right out of the gate. 

 

[00:37:24] CALLER: Right! [laughs] Right. And it’s already been hard as-is because I had to basically take two full months off of work, between like surgeries and doctors appointments and recovery and everything. And it’s also taken me a while to even be able to, like work a full day just because I’ve been so exhausted all the time. 

 

[00:37:48] CHRIS: I did not see this coming. It did not see this coming. We were just chit-chatting and joking around for so long!

 

[00:37:55] CALLER: Yeah… yeah so, the other thing with like freezing eggs is they don’t have enough like, research as to what causes borderline ovarian tumors to like happen and grow in the first place. So they’d like, don’t really like… there’s mixed things, like I’ve gone to like a bunch of different doctors. And some of them say that it’s probably best if I don’t because they don’t want to pump my body full of hormones. Because that could cause another one to grow on my right ovary, and then I would basically be screwed. 

 

[00:38:33] CHRIS: Right. Right. Right. 

 

[00:38:35] CALLER: But I’ve also had some people say that like, yes, I should do it. So there’s like not really like, an answer to it. So that’s hard too.

 

[00:38:45] CHRIS: Wow. Is this something that… you think about every day? Is it something that’s… that really has… 

 

[00:38:53] CALLER: Umm…

 

[00:38:54] CHRIS: …or is it something you’ve been able to kind of get through the surgeries and move-on to a degree? 

 

[00:39:00] CALLER: I think that I’ve been able to move-on to a degree. It was really hard like, the first like two months. So this happened in… in like June. 

 

[00:39:13] CHRIS: This year? 

 

[00:39:15] CALLER: Yes. 

 

[00:39:16] CHRIS: I should be clear for anybody listening… we’re talking the first week of August. 

 

[00:39:21] CALLER: [laughs] Yeah. So I had my last surgery… like the middle of July. So like… maybe a little bit earlier than that. Probably like the beginning of July. So like probably around a month ago. 

 

[00:39:33] CHRIS: Oh, yeah. So this is very much defining your life, right now? 

 

[00:39:37] CALLER: Yeah! I would say that like… as hard as it has been, especially as hard as it was right away in the beginning because it all happened so fast… I think that it’s really given me like, a better perspective on life and like what what things actually matter and what things don’t. Because like before, I would like have a bad day and I’d be like, “Oh, like today is a really crappy day because I spilled coffee on my shirt and because there was traffic on the way to work”, you know, just those like everyday things that can make you really frustrated or just like get you kind of down about your day all together. Like those things don’t matter to me anymore. Which some of that has actually been like beneficial to like helping me with my anxiety. A lot of times those things used to like really get to me. And now I like… I’m feeling a lot better about a lot of those things. But it has made me more worried about my body and my health in general. So like anytime something small happens, I’m like worried that it’s something that it’s not. 

 

[00:40:50] CHRIS: I get what you’re saying. Like now you spill coffee on your shirt and just take a deep breath and you’re like, “Well, at least there’s not a cantaloupe growing inside me anymore, at least.” 

 

[00:40:58] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah, exactly! Exactly! [laughing]

 

[00:40:58] CHRIS: I’ll take a little coffee on the shirt… You know, I really like that because I bet… you know, there’s a little bit… I notice a lot of times when we have people in your age-range on this show, sometimes you’ll see people go, “Oh, a millennial who’s trying to be an artist. Here we go.” And it’s like, no, no, no! 

 

[00:41:14] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:41:14] CHRIS: Let’s remember, everybody’s an individual who faces things and deals with things. And here you are processing something that… really hugely impactful, really scary!

 

[00:41:23] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:41:23] CHRIS: … and just…

 

[00:41:24] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:41:24] CHRIS: …six weeks later or so you’re sitting here telling us all about it. Very… head spinning. How was your p- 

 

[00:41:32] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah.

 

[00:41:32] CHRIS: How was your partner through the ordeal? How was your family? 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

[00:42:04] CHRIS: How was your p- 

 

[00:42:05] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah.

 

[00:42:05] CHRIS: How was your partner through the ordeal? How was your family? 

 

[00:42:09] CALLER: Good. My mom has been pretty good. She’s been on top of like, like everything as far as like scheduling my like… helping me schedule my doctor’s appointments and do all those things. Because it got to the point where like, after I had my first surgery, we were still having to schedule a lot of appointments. And I went to like, a couple of different like cancer centers and things like that. And I was just like, three or four days after my first surgery. So she ended up doing a lot of those things for me, which was really helpful and really like amazing to have someone help out like that. And my partner has been great with my dog… helping like, take her outside for walks and stuff when she needs it… which has been really great. And my dad and his husband have also been like, super awesome making me food and, you know, just making sure that I don’t have to do too much. 

 

[00:43:10] CHRIS: That’s good. That’s good when you get the support system and they step up. 

 

[00:43:14] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. 

 

[00:43:14] CHRIS: [over caller] That’s nice. 

 

[00:43:15] CALLER: No, they’ve definitely been really great. 

 

[00:43:18] CHRIS: Wow! That’s scary stuff! I gotta to say, I’m a little sh… you can hear me. I did not expect it when we’re sitting here doing logic puzzles and ranting about Hawaiian Punch and Hi-C. When we were talking… when we started off talking about “Ecto Cooler”, I did not anticipate that we’d get to a mysterious growth that no one can quite explain, and how it might affect your future. 

 

[00:43:44] CALLER: Yeah, yeah, I know. But that’s kind of like, the story of my life. I have like super weird things that happened to me all the time that it’s like… why? 

 

[00:43:53] CHRIS: [over caller] Like what? 

 

[00:43:53] CALLER: Like… what…? 

 

[00:43:54] CHRIS: What else? This is not the only one?

 

[00:43:56] CALLER: [over Chris] One time I was almost… I had like, a gun pulled out on me in a Buffalo Wild Wings parking lot. 

 

[00:44:06] CHRIS: What?! 

 

[00:44:08] CALLER: Yeah! Yeah. So that was like, an interesting thing. 

 

[00:44:12] CHRIS: Was someone trying to get money?

 

[00:44:12] CALLER: We were all fine afterwords. No, he thought that we were like, yelling things at him when we weren’t. It was just like… it was my first like, weekend here in the city that I moved to to go to school. And my roommate was from around the area and she took me out. And there’s this like highway where people will like, drive around… mostly it was like high-schoolers that would do it like on a Friday night and just… you know… drive back and forth in their cars. [laughs] And so she took me over there and we’re all just standing in this parking lot, and then some of the people that we were with were like getting a little bit rowdy. So, this guy drove by in his car and he thought that we were like yelling things at him. And so he pulled up and he rolled down his window and he pulled out a gun.

 

[00:45:05] CHRIS: So you’re just trying to chill out in a Buffalo Wild Wings parking lot. Had do you even eaten?

 

[00:45:11] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah. We’re just trying to hang out.

 

[00:45:12] CHRIS: Had you eaten at the Buffalo Wild Wings? 

 

[00:45:15] CALLER: [laughs] No! We didn’t!

 

[00:45:16] CHRIS: So you’re just in the p-

 

[00:45:16] CALLER: [over Chris] He had though! He was eating there and then he left, and…

 

[00:45:20] CHRIS: So you’re just hanging out in a random parking lot. This guy’s eaten some wings. He thinks you’re yelling at him. He points a gun at… Well, I’m glad that turned out okay. What else? You say your whole life-

 

[00:45:28] CALLER: Yeah!

 

[00:45:28] CHRIS: You say your whole life… So you’ve had guns pointed at you in a Buffalo Wild Wings parking lot. You’ve had a mysterious growth that led to a couple of emergency surgeries. What else? What else? 

 

[00:45:40] CALLER: One time I had someone drop me off on the side of the road at like 3 am because we were leaving his house and these like two random girls came up to the car and started screaming at me to get out of the car. And so then we drove off and then he was like, “Oh, do you know them?” Like, “You have to have known them.” And I was like, “No. Like, I literally just moved here, like two weeks ago.” I’m like, “I’ve no clue who they are.” And then he’s like, “Well, they’re gonna like, keep looking for me. So you have to get out.” And he like, pulled over and made me get out of his car at 3:00 in the morning. 

 

[00:46:14] CHRIS: He abandoned you to the… to allow these random screaming people to come hunt you down?

 

[00:46:20] CALLER: Yeah, basically!

 

[00:46:21] CHRIS: And was this… can I ask what… you were you were with this gentleman at 3:00 in the morning. Was this friendly or was this… or was this a romantic encounter? 

Because that would be the worst way for a date to end I’ve ever heard. Getting dumped on this side of the road as people are aggressively looking for you…

 

[00:46:36] CALLER: [laughing] Yeah, no! It was kind of in-between. 

 

[00:46:38] CHRIS: So you’re feeling… it was a situ… you’re feeling… I have to say, I imagine you do not hang out with this man again?

 

[00:46:45] CALLER: No, I did not. Never.

 

[00:46:47] CHRIS: And did you ever… did the screaming girls find you? What did you do? Did you sprint home in fear? 

 

[00:46:52] CALLER: Well, yeah, but I was like… I was like four miles from campus, so… I didn’t know what…

 

[00:46:56] CHRIS: [over caller] What?!

 

[00:46:58] CALLER: Yeah! I was like four miles away because I was living in the dorms. So I called my R.A. like, crying and she came and got me! [laughs] 

 

[00:47:08] CHRIS: It’s like “Lord of the Flies” in this college town! Screaming people, and guns, and… and disgruntled service industry workers! Sounds like real chaos. 

 

[00:47:23] CALLER: Yeah, it’s an interesting place to be sometimes. 

 

[00:47:28] CHRIS: And yet you seem to have a pretty positive disposition overall. 

 

[00:47:32] CALLER: For the most part, yeah. 

 

[00:47:34] CHRIS: How do you maintain that?

 

[00:47:35] CALLER: I try to. 

 

[00:47:36] CHRIS: When you… when you’re giving guns pointed at you and you. And you’re dealing with unexpected and head-spinning medical emergencies… how do you… how do you stay positive? Because I turn negative way earlier than that. 

 

[00:47:52] CALLER: A lot of… a lot of therapy! [laughs] And a lot of medication. Yeah. But it’s still definitely something that I deal with on like a daily basis, I would say. Although some of those things are even like, that big compared to… I have actually been raped twice and sexually assaulted once. So…

 

[00:48:21] CHRIS: No… I’m so sorry. 

 

[00:48:23] CALLER: …sometimes, so sometimes like those other things don’t really seem like that big of a deal… like after some of those other things, like if I was able to like get through that and… be like a semi-functioning human being, I feel like I can kind of, you know, power through anything. 

 

[00:48:45] CHRIS: I just want to reiterate I’m feeling progressively more dumb that I brought up “Ecto Cooler” at any point in the course of this… 

 

[00:48:52] CALLER: [laughs]

 

[00:48:53] CHRIS: …there were clearly no more time to talk about.

 

[00:48:53] CALLER: [over Chris] No, it’s fine! [laughs]

 

[00:48:57] CHRIS: I’m so sorry! That’s… that’s horrible! That’s really, really horrible. And you’re only 23 years old and you’ve already been through so much. 

 

[00:49:06] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:49:09] CHRIS: That’s really, really… that’s… I would imagine there’s gonna be times where you just feel like the world’s trying to break you and I’m glad…

 

[00:49:21] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah. 

 

[00:49:21] CHRIS: I get the sense you’re not letting it, and I’m very glad for that. 

 

[00:49:25] CALLER: Yeah. No, I’ve been doing fairly well provided like, the situations that I’ve been through in life. But again, lots of therapy and lots of like super awesome [inaudible] supportive through everything. Yeah. And I actually just like recently opened up to my dad and his husband about it, which like felt really good to talk to them about it. Because my mom at the time, when I told her that it has happened, she didn’t respond very well and basically told me that it was my fault that it happened to me. So that was like, something that was kind of hard to deal with for a while because I… I didn’t even really like, come to terms with the fact that it had happened to me since like, the first like trusted adult I told told me like, “No, that didn’t happen.” 

 

[00:50:30] CHRIS: Yeah… yeah, that’s… you can’t… I hate that idea that you go to somebody and that they… close… that they they can’t figure out how to open the door on offering the support you need. That’s, that’s a bad feeling. 

 

[00:50:50] CALLER: Yeah. No, mom and I have always had kind of like a tough relationship, but I have come to realize that I think some of that like, stems from like her own… like personal issues of her upbringing as well. Like it’s not like anything to do with me, it’s like, to do with her. 

 

[00:51:10] CHRIS: Yeah, but it sounds like you’re dad… so your parents clearly separated at some point. Your dad now as a husband, as you’ve mentioned a couple of times, and it sounds like they were able to step in and provide some of that safety net that you needed. 

 

[00:51:23] CALLER: Oh, yeah, they are awesome. They are both like, the most supportive people and they both just like, want me to do what like makes me happy and what will like make me feel fulfilled in life. So they both are… they’re both great. 

 

[00:51:45] CHRIS: Wow. You’ve been through a lot! 

 

[00:51:51] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:51:53] CHRIS: Been through a lot… I hope that the… I find myself really wishing, that for all you’ve dealt with in 23 years, that… you have a lot of peaceful times ahead of you. Although I know that that’s not… that’s not always how life works that you… 

 

[00:52:14] CALLER: [laughs] [over Chris] Yeah… yeah I feel like there’s some people that just always… there’s always something happening. 

 

[00:52:20] CHRIS: Yeah. But I mean, that’s… I certainly went through… I will say, I went through stretches in my life where was convinced, “Okay, I guess I’m just this type of person and I just need to grin and bear it.” And it’s just how it is. And… and, I can just tell you on my end that… you know, life… I don’t think it ever stops being difficult, but… you also find… more, more people who get it. And more people who believe in you, and more people you can trust. And as those things start to happen, you start to meet those people along the way. Maybe some of those are people who have been through something similar or something… you know, their own traumas, so that they can really provide some empathy, whatever it is. But, what I found over and over again in my life is that even though the hard times don’t go away, the good times do exist to balance them out and… and that life for me has actually felt much easier, and more pleasant the older I’ve gotten. And I’m glad that when I was younger and kind of similarly, convinced “I guess I’m just this type of person”, I’m glad that wound up not being true, at least in my case. 

 

[00:53:39] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. 

 

[00:53:41] CHRIS: And I hope you get… I hope you get to have some similar… some similar experiences along the way…

 

[00:53:46] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah. Yeah. 

 

[00:53:47] CHRIS: …these clouds break and…

 

[00:53:48] CALLER: [over Chris] I agree. 

 

[00:53:49] CHRIS: …and you get a little sunshine. Because it sounds like these clouds have been pretty… 

 

[00:53:53] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah, I mean… it’s all been stuff to, like, positively influence my art. Which is a good thing! And also to…

 

[00:54:00] CHRIS: Oh I can’t imagine! Some of these prints, some of these prints must be very psychologically… No wonder you lock them up in the basement, huh? You don’t wanna be looking back at these… 

 

[00:54:09] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah, yeah that’s true! [laughing]

 

[00:54:10] CHRIS: … you don’t wanna be looking back at these prints all the time. You got a lot to process! [laughs] You have a lot to process.

 

[00:54:17] CALLER: Yeah. 

 

[00:54:23] CHRIS: So you’re 23. Does that mean you’ve graduated or you… are you on your way to graduating?

 

[00:54:29] CALLER: I’m on my way. I think I have like three semesters left. 

 

[00:54:32] CHRIS: Three semesters left.

 

[00:54:33] CALLER: Yeah, I had originally gone to a college… originally went to school for music therapy. But then I kind of realized that like, it wasn’t for me, and the program they had was like, kind of unorganized and the head of the department was like, kind of a jerk. So I decided not to go that route, and then I decided to do psychology instead. But then I actually ended up needing to take a semester off of school just to take care of myself. And during that time, I started doing a lot of photography. So that’s why I decided to pursue a BFA. 

 

[00:55:20] CHRIS: Wow. Can I ask sensitive question? I don’t need to know all the details because it’s… as far as the, you know, the assaults you suffered… did any of them happen in the town that you’re in college… the college town or the area that you’re in now? 

 

[00:55:38] CALLER: Yes. One of them did. 

 

[00:55:40] CHRIS: So you’re in this town… you’ve been assaulted. You’ve had a gun pointed at you. You had a 19 inch growth removed. That, that one of your ovaries and fallopian tubes had to go away… I’m gonna go ahead and give you a very simple piece of advice, which is let’s finish-up these three semesters and get the fuck out of this town forever! Huh? Let’s move the f-

 

[00:56:00] CALLER: [laughs] [over Chris] Yeah. That’s what I’m planning on… I’m ready…

 

[00:56:02] CHRIS: [over Caller] Let’s move the fuck out of this town and never look back!

 

[00:56:06] CALLER: Yeah, I’m ready to get out. 

 

[00:56:08] CHRIS: I feel like you should move out of that town and then like… make sure you never even take a plane flight that goes over that town again!

 

[00:56:14] CALLER: [laughs] That is probably a better idea. And I do feel like, I really wanna live… somewhere where I could live on like a small, like hobby farm or something. I’d love to have just like, a strange assortment of like rescue animals. [laughs] That would be like my favorite. Just freelance, and work-from-home graphic design, and just have like, an alpaca and like… a cow… [laughs] 

 

[00:56:40] CHRIS: Yeah. And then find some comedian whose got money to burn… and start, [laughs] giving him invoices that make his goddamn jaw drop…

 

[00:56:46] CALLER: [over Chris] [laughs] Start doing all of his graphic design…

 

[00:56:50] CHRIS: [over Caller] Yeah. Give him invoices that make his goddamn jaw drop! So you just want to go live someplace quiet, with a bunch of animals… 

 

[00:56:57] CALLER: [over Chris] Yeah, I really do. Yeah.

 

[00:56:58] CHRIS: [over Caller] … have some peace… have some peace in your life. 

 

[00:57:01] CALLER: Yeah…

 

[00:57:02] CHRIS: I hope you get it. 

 

[00:57:03] CALLER: That would be ideal. 

 

[00:57:04] CHRIS: Alpacas? People really love a good alpaca… 

 

[00:57:07] CALLER: I wouldn’t really know because I’ve never had one actually… but, I feel like I would just like, take them where they needed to be taken. 

 

[00:57:16] CHRIS: Mmhmm…

 

[00:57:17] CALLER: [towards friend] Am I dressed up enough? Okay. 

 

[00:57:20] CHRIS: I don’t know, we’re on the phone… Oh! You were asking him. 

 

[00:57:22] CALLER: [laughs] Yeah. I was asking my friend! 

 

[00:57:25] CHRIS: Can I talk to this guy again real quick? 

 

[00:57:28] CALLER: Yeah! 

 

[00:57:31] CALLER’S FRIEND: All right… I’m back and significantly less stressed out, so I probably seem a little bit better now. 

 

[00:57:36] CHRIS: What’s up, “captain homie”? How you doing, “chieftain”? 

 

[00:57:39] CALLER’S FRIEND: Oh, I’m all right. I’m glad we’re finally on our way. We’re running a little late now. Just like… the oddest thing was, no one knew the address of my friend group, so I just started like a nineteen-person Facebook Messenger group. That’s like “where the F is this wedding right now?”, and so we just got it. So we’re gonna drop off my dog at daycare and head out on our way! 

 

[00:58:00] CHRIS: Now, can I ask…

 

[00:58:01] CALLER’S FRIEND: [over Chris] So I feel… much better now that we’re done with this stuff. 

 

[00:58:05] CHRIS: I’m going to ask you two questions… gonna ask you two questions…

 

[00:58:08] CALLER’S FRIEND: Sure.

 

[00:58:09] CHRIS: One… How was that dumpling soup? 

 

[00:58:13] CALLER’S FRIEND: I didn’t eat it. We’re just going… [laughs]

 

[00:58:16] CHRIS: You didn’t even eat… after all that? You didn’t eat the dumpling soup?!

 

[00:58:19] CALLER’S FRIEND: No. I took too long getting ready, so it wasn’t worth it. It was a time constraint issue at that point. 

 

[00:58:25] CHRIS: So you put it in the fridge? Because your friend doesn’t eat meat, so… it’s just gonna go…

 

[00:58:28] CALLER’S FRIEND: I did put it in the fridge. Yes. [laughs]

 

[00:58:31] CHRIS: [over caller’s friend] Okay good. Question two… question two…

 

[00:58:31] CALLER’S FRIEND: [over Chris] Yeah. I’ll eat it when I get back. 

 

[00:58:33] CHRIS: Good. Question two… Can you please make sure you show your friend a fun night tonight? Because it sounds like she’s been through some tough stuff and I think she deserves a fun night. 

 

[00:58:45] CALLER’S FRIEND: That’s 100% why we’re going… to go explore what this event is going to be, and everything that they want it to be and, where it shows up and what… it’s going to be so much fun. 

 

[00:58:54] CHRIS: That’s good. 

 

[00:58:55] CALLER’S FRIEND: It’s going to be one of those moments where you get out there and, it’s going to be a new environment for her… like people that she hasn’t traditionally hung out with. So, I think it’s gonna be really interesting for her. For me, I’m just going to enjoy seeing a lot of my old friends and whatnot, that I haven’t seen and very, very, many months…

 

[00:59:09] CHRIS: That’s good.

 

[00:59:09] CALLER’S FRIEND: Yeah, I’m extremely excited. 

 

[00:59:11] CHRIS: Good! Good! I want… I want your friend to have a fun time. She deserves it. She deserves that. 

 

[00:59:18] CALLER’S FRIEND: [laughs] Absolutely. 

 

[00:59:18] CHRIS: All right. Let’s get her back on the phone, “chicken dumpling”! Thank you for your contributions. 

 

[00:59:22] CALLER’S FRIEND: Okay. [laughing] Bye.

 

[00:59:27] CALLER: Hello?

 

[00:59:28] CHRIS: I threw a couple nicknames back at him so that I didn’t… so that I felt like we evened the score up a little bit. 

 

[00:59:34] CALLER: [laughs] You evened it out a little bit?

 

[00:59:35] CHRIS: I called him “chicken dumpling”. 

 

[00:59:38] CALLER: [laughs] 

 

[00:59:40] CHRIS: He didn’t really react. He didn’t give me the satisfaction I was hoping for. He didn’t react at all.

 

[00:59:45] CALLER: Yeah… [laughs]

 

[00:59:49] CHRIS: I want you to-

 

[00:59:49] CALLER: [over Chris] Got where… we know where the wedding is at least.

 

[00:59:51] CHRIS: That’s good. That’s good. And you’re headed there… that’s nice. Are you dressed up enough? The question had been, “Are you dressed up enough?”, what was the answer? 

 

[00:59:58] CALLER: He said, yes. 

 

[00:59:59] CHRIS: Good. Feeling good. Listen, we got one minute left and I want to thank you. This one took a lot of twists and turns that I didn’t expect. I thank you for trusting me with your stories. And like I said before… I hope that in the coming years, you don’t have to go through a half as much as what you’ve been through in the first twenty-three. 

 

[01:00:18] CALLER: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it has to get better at some point, right? [laughs]

 

[01:00:22] CHRIS: It will! There will be ups and there’ll be downs. And I’m… I tell you, the older I get, the more I’m realizing there’s not some moment where everything’s fine. And then the credits roll. There’s times that get tough and there’s times that, that feel a little easier, but… there’s definitely gotta be some easier ones on the way for you. And I hope you enjoy them because you deserve to.

 

[01:00:42] CALLER: Yeah. If you ever need some design work done… let me know.

 

[01:00:45] CHRIS: Okay. I can’t imagine you’re gonna… yeah. And then it’ll be like, “Hey! I’m gonna make you a thumbnail… a little thumbnail-sized thing for you… thing in Buffalo… for $3,200.” 

 

[01:00:56] CALLER: No, definitely not. [laughs]

 

[01:00:58] CHRIS: I’m just kidding with you. Thank you so much for talking. 

 

[01:01:02] CALLER: Yeah. Thank you. 

 

[ring]

 

[01:01:07] CHRIS: Caller, thank you so much for calling! This one really blew me away! I have to say… I didn’t see any of it coming, but you’re such a resilient person and I really hope you have fun at the wedding. And I really hope you graduate soon and get out of that town, and that you’re able as best as possible to move on… a lot of what has been thrown at you. And I’m glad you got your dad and his husband helping you out. Because they sound like good people, good support system. Thank you so much for calling. Thank you to Jared O’Connell, and Harry Nelson in the booth. Harry is in… a little bit of a cranky mood today everybody, so I want you all to send some good goodwill towards good ‘ol Harry Nelson… because he’s being a little crank over in that studio… in that booth, and we’ve got to help him out. He’s the best. Very good guy. I wanna thank Shellshag for the intro music. You wanna know about the dates… the tour dates are out there. ChrisGeth.com, I’m hitting the road. Come hang out. Say “Hi”. I might be in your city soon. Go to ChrisGethard.com and check. If you like Beautiful Anonymous, go to ApplePodcasts Rate. Review. Subscribe. It really helps when you do. Thanks so much for listening! See you next time. 

 

[00:00:18] THEME MUSIC: Kiss me… face-to-face.

 

[NEXT EPISODE PREVIEW] 

 

[01:02:17] CHRIS: Next time on Beautiful Anonymous, we have a young person whose been through a lot, whose in the middle of a lot right now, and does not know what to do. 

 

[01:02:30] CHRIS: What is this guy giving you? What is this guy giving you?!

 

[01:02:34] CALLER: A headache? I think a headache probably. 

 

[01:02:41] CHRIS: [laughing] You and I both laugh through the pain! But I got to say, you nailed that. What did is this guy giving you? “A headache.” Over the years. Have you felt joy in this relationship? Or, is it more… “I fell into this when I was young, and it’s something, and I have it, and for the sake of the girls, it should perpetuate”? 

 

[01:02:59] CALLER: We definitely have our moments that are better than others. You know. Where like, I look at him and I’m just like, “This is it?”, because I don’t know if they outweigh the moments that I look at him and think, “What am I doing here?”.

 

[01:03:11] CHRIS: That’s next time on Beautiful Anonymous.