Armchair Anonymous: House Sitting

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Buck Henkley, and I'm joined by Monster Mash. Aw. 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's impossible.

It was so funny, and it's so well told. It is. Left hook. Oh, my God, is it good?

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

It's safe. Give it a shot. It's been a while. You probably haven't listened in a couple months, so please enjoy Crazy House Sitting Stories.

All times, come and go. Good times, take them slow. Phoebe, can you hear us? Can we get this fork?

I know. It looks kind of like a wooden ship. Those are windows. Yeah, it does.

Can you hear us? I can. Can you guys hear me? Yeah, it does.

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

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

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 a 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, and 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 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. So I said, absolutely, happy to do it. I should also introduce, too, there is one more character to the story, and we'll call him Chandler. I see what's happening.

Oh, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. 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 again. It would get confusing. We can't have Monica as a character in the 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. 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 like 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 a little bit more confident, a little more settled in, and wouldn't you know it, 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.

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? Right.

Do we think about how they were all different kinds of beers? If there were several different brands? Oh. No, why would I think about that?

So we're feeling good, having a couple beers apiece, 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 kind of secrets are in here. For sure.

We start systematically going room to room, kind of looking through closets and drawers under beds, and really did not find anything too interesting. Kind of winding down, like, okay, this is fun, but not really, when we decided to 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. Oh, God. And you know immediately what it is? Immediately.

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. Right where you hide in the room.

Exactly. So many logistical issues. I'm just thinking to myself, I'm not thinking about ethics, but I'm like, this one's done. So I'll spare you the gory details, but the box was opened.

Oh, my God. What could be more exciting for a couple 18-year-olds and stumble upon the rabbit and incorporate it into their brand new experimenting? 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 kind of 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? Like, how are we going to tie up some loose ends and make sure no one ever finds out about this? I'm hungover. Did Chandler spend the night?

He did spend the night. We just go into, like, 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, like, six to ten 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, Chandler should have fucking shown up with a 12-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 would I go that far?

Well, no, not of you, but of the situation where he's like, I could buy a romantic, but there's free beer, so of course I'm going to do that. It is his fault. I've always felt that. I appreciate that validation.

We probably spent about $60, and then we're like, we can't buy any one 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, come 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 connect at a later time, and she would pay my money out. This whole span of time, I'm just like 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 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. I have a stomach, I'm sweating, I'm ruminating, 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 lift this woman in both of her eyes right now?

Knowing what you've shared. You've shared a lover. I'm really telling myself 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 at me in the eyes, paid me my money, and left.

And I never heard anything else about it. I was never asked to house it 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 caught Emma's email, I was like, all right, well, cat's out of the bag. I got to tell her, so I picked Mother's Day to let her know.

Oh, good. Did you all the way? Did you talk about the rabbit? Oh, yeah.

Oh, wonderful. What a moment to share on Mother's Day. It was. It's 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 right. And just like, yeah, and it's so amusing and, I think, relatable.

Yeah. We're curious creatures. We're curious cats. If she didn't look at you, I wonder if you didn't put the rabbit box back in its spot, so she felt embarrassed that you found it.

Maybe she was like, oh, no, she found this. If she would be embarrassed that you drank some of her beer. I think that would be best-case scenario. That's great.

Not take the vibrator. No one wants anyone to use their fucking vibrator. You're in a monotonous religion. 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. 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. This is amazing. I do have to just say, Monica, 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? You 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, here you are. Oh, hello. Hi.

Wow. When we could only just hear you, it sounded like her, the movie. Oh, my God. 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.

That's why you might be interested in where I am right now, because I think you visit this area quite a bit. Austin? San Luis Obispo. You go to the dunes a lot, right?

I have been to Pismo, to those dunes, but my dunes are glamorous south on the Mexican border, but I do love that area. But you're Cal Poly? Whenever I hear the dunes, I just assume you meant Pismo. You know why I spend a lot more time writing about you as Atascadero, 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 Atascadero, 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 Obispo?

I have a house-sitting disaster story, and it took place in Berkeley, California, in 2012. Okay. 12 years ago, Berkeley. Hippies.

Well. So I'm going to start off strong with Monica here by telling her that I was house-sitting for a college professor. Oh. Oh, 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. Okay. 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. If they ever get outside, they're never coming back. They're kind of captive cats.

He very graciously adopted feral cats. And if they smell freedom, they're going to sprint. 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. No, 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. 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's 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's going to show up.

We find the source of the smoke. It was me. I caused the fire. What was it?

After I'd showered before we went out, I took my bath towel, and I threw it on top of the furnace. And 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, right.

The furnace 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 needs 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-sized 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, for real. Of course, we are freaking out.

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

Was it wall-to-wall carpet, or was it a rug? Oh, no, it was wall-to-wall carpet. Okay, so yeah, we've 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.

Peace, yeah. 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.

Like, 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. Wow.

Wow. 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 of the five cats. Yes, yes, 80%.

Oh, 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's very obvious that we got to Kitty City because there had to have been like 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 is 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 and feeling with his own tragedy.

Yes. So I make it back to the house and I'm going to the bedroom. 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 look everywhere so i close the door back up and i'm like are there other cats in here so i start looking in the closet 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 gonna leave the house but no they hid in the box right thank goodness that's what it wasn't it's friday joe's supposed to be back sunday we have that much time to figure out the rest of this mess so it's probably like 3 p.m 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 eight oh 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 they've 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's not gonna work this carpet's been in here for years there's foot traffic there's sun damage there's five pets in here it's not gonna match up it's gonna stick out like a sore thumb but i can take a piece of carpet from somewhere else in the house i can put your strap of carpet in that place where it's less noticeable and 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 didn't make a job you could not tell whoa that's genius oh i would not expect that out 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're taking sandpaper to it we did that until it matched the surrounding carpet oh wow congratulations and it worked so perhaps the craziest part of the story that guy refused our payment he's working on black friday at night out of pity would not take because he had so much like did you talk about the cat he 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 saint 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 resourceful 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 oh 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 to attach it from the gas line brought it outside put it on a tarp sanded it down resurfaced 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 resurfaced it it looked too good so again we're soiling it and aesthetically you could never tell anything happened congratulations 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 account yeah yeah 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 let it fly to ourselves and think joe's listening but i think it's a 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 good way too i think he would be delighted at your resources this is impressive so the only thing you really screwed him over on is he was missing a towel i guess oh yeah you know i think you 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 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 to be house that friend's other teacher oh wonderful yeah yeah 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 allie that was great thank you and i do want to mention stewart 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 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 so now she's gonna hear it for the first time and i called myself before i even knew that yeah yeah yeah well it's so nice meeting you hallie it's so nice to meet you too thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my disastrous story we loved it all right take care hello hi yes is it melanie melanie why'd you think that i have to defer to people okay 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 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 couple boots sure yeah yeah omaha is the city well in lincoln lincoln nebraska i've driven through a couple dozen times have you ever driven through it in your lincoln no but that would be great 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 that and dog sat a ton and back before i had my own home i would probably have like 15 families at a time who would schedule me out and try and get me for their summer vacation were you with an agency like how did you cobble together that many clients great question i traveled to malawi africa every summer i helped run a non-profit there when i didn't have money i threw 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 and i was like that sounds really cool can i move in though i don't want to just come back and forth and like yeah of course move in so i moved in at the beginning of 2014 and the story takes place in june was it a nice house was it like 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 a college world series it's in june and so that kind of 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 this is really peculiar game plan but alas yeah well i've heard it can be pretty bad at sporting events and are we calling disprostitution with adult sex trafficking i just want to be clear on what do we even know what it is minors being held captive i believe it was minors specifically on i-80 that's where omaha is so it's like a big road across the united states so he shows up to our group he does like his whole spiel and 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 like 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 and i know who it was but i would say you should have hosted him so i was like i've got beds you're a complete stranger but i'm sure it'll be great so i give him the directions to the house and i get there and he bikes over so he's like 30 minutes later and 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 gotta work early in the morning were you hoping for a meet you secretly no he wasn't attractive okay got it to me to someone yes so i go upstairs get ready for bed and i lay down and i immediately i'm 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 you don't make it love you love a fan oh god got a rando in the basement right and she doesn't answer it's like well you know here's to open wake up in the morning and i get up super early because i'm anxious that someone's in the house i get ready for work and i hear him leaving at like 6 a.m it feels really early and so i pop my head out i was like hey are you leaving already and he was like yeah thanks so much and like he lines 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 like good luck thank you yeah like you're doing such a good thing and i wave him goodbye and he's like yeah maybe i'll catch you down at a game and i was like maybe and so like 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 yeah two months go by and i move out and the family comes back it was probably a week later i did 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 like an orange cutoff 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 i was like no do you think it could be your brother like he can order and fix something while you're gone is it your son's and he was like no you just not thought it might be the bicyclist it's not that you're probably totally forgot we should name the bicyclist let's call him john a week later we're out again hey mommy we found this grungy old wallet it's empty but we found it in such a random spot downstairs like 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 like your son's or your son's friend i'm as 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 out a pair of chop tailors 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 chop tailors where are my shoes and who has been in this house oh my god his time has changed i was like oh my god and you at this point you now realize all this 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 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 think it ends there oh no so brad is like kind of fired up so he's like give me his name give me the organization i'm gonna sign up i didn't even have his last name just the first name and this organization i don't know if it's real his foundation is a sex trafficking warrior i don't know bicycle connected to the sporting community when you say it it really and so i give him the info and he finds them on instagram and facebook oh wow in the instagram photos he is wearing no 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 ransacked yeah he revamped his wardrobe but everything looked normal like it didn't look disheveled or anything and you look wow this is so out of my character i was like 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 and 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 kind of 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 so he starts reaching out and it's like did this guy stay with you has anything gone missing like 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 organizations i'm gonna research 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 kind of give up because there's no money there's nothing getting sent back and 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 ben most brad 500 no way 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 it all worked out in the end they were rightly so very angry with me well hold on rightly so brad sure he's a wonderful guy but also my god let go of the altar you have made so much work for yourself i know i agree and you got 500 and the guy's 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 at 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 flooded three times so then i took care of that we weathered a historically bad hailstorm that totaled their car oh my god 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 wow this was karma going like you want some real problems i know she had to deal with all of them yeah that's true yeah i probably feels like that like this is karma for the last time melanie oh okay he may i doubt it melanie oh wow well you're so sweet that's the headline of the story and trusting i'm too trusting and you didn't have to feel as guilty as you did i agree you should not be guilty about this this is all brad's fault you're like yeah this should happen and everyone's alive i understand he felt violated he didn't know how to handle it that's a fair assessment but it all worked out melanie you're delightful i don't want you to house it for us me too anytime i've 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 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 like i think i'm divorcing you right ready for brad his terrible house sitting story is when you left someone's in his chuck taylor's we're gone tyler hi yes how are you doing i'm doing really well it's really great to meet you right now yeah where you at i'm in palatine illinois right next to where i grew up oh robbie ron said that's right where he grew up neighbors i'm high school at friend where friend friend friend you know friend to 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 woppy wop yeah maybe one day you'll have children that'll end up going to friend that terrible name for school yeah it's like is it friend what do you think it's spelled last name william friend friend it's terrible how do you spell that woppy wop f-r-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 sugargrove illinois that's really close to naperville illinois if you're familiar with that i know very well bob odenkirk's from there perfect so sugargrove just 15 minutes less 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 a.m. I had woken up. And to explain a little bit of the layout of the house, it is an open concept living room and it's a conjoined dining room and kitchen. And I had the dog with me on the couch.

So I wake up and I see that the dog is kind of going crazy. She's a small shih tzu. 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.

I look at the appliances in the kitchen and where the dishwasher is, it's just pulverized. The door's like 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 that has happened in this kitchen. And I'm immediately curious how the fuck you slept through whatever happened. It's like a demo. Yeah, they're demoing the kitchen.

Oh my god. Okay, wait. Okay, 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 kind of sleep through whatever the initial noise was. And 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.

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

Tyler, what honor are you going to tell them? Tim's the friend. Yeah, okay. Look at these pictures again.

We're gonna have to somehow post them or something. There's no explanation. You gotta 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's going well. Things are getting weird here.

So 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.

It's 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? Like a car went through your house.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Look in the garage. There's a fucking car buried in the corner.

Okay, 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, no, it's a car through your garage. And so 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, I 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. And 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.

And so 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, like right there is a huge hole behind the bush.

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

He 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 trash in 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.

Like, I even wonder if the dog hadn't been barking, if you would have just woke up for the next day. I usually tell the story as I had the movie up very loud. There was an action movie going on. Okay.

Watching dying hard. 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 gotta 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. The 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's going another 30 miles an hour. Still wouldn't have woke up. The shrapnel definitely hit the back of the couch, 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, and 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. Oopsies.

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. 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.

Hopefully he ended up in treatment. That's a pretty good love. It's a good story in an AME. 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 when I thought it was an earthquake. That was actually the kid trying to get out of the car. Reverse out, for sure.

You've 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.

Yeah, I think you've 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 sense of the kitchen that literally just self-detonated. I'm really sad we didn't have the voicemail.

We got that voicemail that I had left to my buddy Tim for about a year or two, but when he changed phones, he forgot to keep it. Damn 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, that's great. Oh, Tyler, that's a fucking home run of a story.

Yeah, man, all the drawers are thrown out. The island's been shoved forward. It would be so confusing, because it's not like a Robert. There is no way to piece together what could have happened.

Your explanation was smart, which is like, oh, there was 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. I love that you were relieved that it was a car. Oh, thank God. Just a car drove through the house.

There is Stephanie Tanner from Full House. She drove the car into the home. On Coke and drunk? No, unfortunately, just childish.

Old-fashioned way? Yeah. Oh, 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 years ago. She was listening for this prompt specifically.

I said, if there's a house-sitting story, I will submit it, and I will try to tell it. And what's her name? Her name is Zoar. Well, thank you, Zoar, for turning Tyler onto the show, and I'm so delighted you guys listen.

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. Love 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.

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, you know, this garage is only like 10 feet wide. Exactly. And there's a whole car in the side. Yeah, I couldn't see a copy on that.

I was 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, 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?

Okay, great. We don't have a 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 journey, give us some suggestions. On the Flyer Rindish. On the Flyer Rindish. Enjoy.