Lots of great real-life stories this episode: Bobby’s son dares his brother to eat dog food. Elliot loses his pants. Colleen and her sister play in the mens room. Emma shares how her mom handles bad drivers. And Lonnie proposes to a clown.
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Transcript:
Welcome to That Story Show where we put your hilarious real life stories in the spotlight. Hey podcast people, I’m your host. My name is James Kellison.
And I am Jon Steinklauber. This week on that story show, we got Bobby’s son who dares his brother
to eat dog food. Elliot’s gonna lose his pants.
Yay. Colleen and her sisters are gonna play in the
men’s room.
Naughty. Emma’s gonna share how her mom handles bad drivers and Lonnie proposes to a clown.
Ooh, it’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be a good show, John. It’s gonna be a great show. I know we’ve been down a few weeks and the people were wondering if we were coming back. We’re always coming back. You’re never getting rid of us.
Right. So like a bad rerun, we always show up. Yeah. Except it’s a good rerun when it’s us. I don’t know where I was going
with that. It’s okay. I like that this is not a rerun. We did a couple of those, you know, but we’re gonna have fun. We always start with an opening story. This one’s called Dog Food Dare from Bobby in Arizona. When my 2 sons were teenagers, They were always plotting and scheming new ways to troll each other. So 1 night they came in the kitchen while I was eating a bowl of cereal. And there I overheard my youngest son issue a challenge to his older brother. He says, I bet you $10 you won’t eat a piece
of dog food.
That’s an easy 10 bucks for me.
My older son definitely accepted the challenge. He fished a kernel of dog food from the bag and before I could say anything, he popped it in his mouth and started chewing. Took a little time and a few weird faces, but he finally choked it down. You know the problem with that stuff, and I’ve done it, is it’s dry.
It is quite dry. Yeah. And I can’t lie, James, and you didn’t ask me this, but I’m gonna go ahead and offer this information up to you. I have eaten dog food and cat food.
Yeah? Wet and dry. Oh, that’s what I was gonna ask next. You’ve done it wet. I’ve tried them all. And I’m gonna say, if I had a preference, like if I was going to be relegated to pet food for the rest
of my life, I would probably opt for the dog food.
Yeah. What’s the difference between cat and dog food dry? The cat food was just
a little bit more bitter.
Oh really?
Yeah, it’s just a little bit more. Huh.
If I remember correctly, it was Meow Mix. What? There’s a bland of dog food out there that’s really hit the social media world. And I think it’s called farm dog or something like that. And it’s really advertising real food for real dogs. And it’s basically like a food delivery service, except it’s for your dog. And Like it’s real food. It’s not like, like, I don’t know what it’s in it, but it looks like stew. Okay. Like it’s like, you could eat it yourself kind of thing. And it’s probably super expensive, but they, they really push it
and they’re pushing against a processed dog food. Sure. Yes. And how dogs have to eat the same thing 3 times, you know, 2 or 3 times a day. And they’re really trying to make people feel guilty. And so the level of guilt that they’re throwing on people, to me just translates to your stuff is very expensive. Yeah, yeah. That sounds about
right when it comes to marketing, huh?
Yeah, Yeah. If you’re having to lay it down thick like that, your crap is…
You wouldn’t kill your animal with a knife, would you?
Then why give him bad dog food?
Well, it made me question. I’m like, my dog does eat the same thing every day. And I’m like, you know what? And he doesn’t know any better and he’s fine. Yeah, he also eats poop, right? Yeah, he does. I mean, come on. Yeah. I think people that can afford it, go for it. Your dog’s pampered, that’s great. My dog is not pampered. Some people have hobbies. Other people just have pets. Yeah. And some people have kids that they call, or pets that they call kids. Yeah. You know what I’m talking about? Those people can get a
farm dog. Farm dog, yeah. Yeah, or whatever it is. Not sponsored. Not sponsored. But you could be. Yeah. And if your food’s good enough, I’ll try it. I just wanna know someone that feeds their dog probably more expensive food than they eat themselves. Think about it. You’re buying it by the case, probably. There’s probably, you know, say a week’s worth or a month’s worth of food in the box. It’s got to be kept in the fridge. But you’re eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to balance out the budget. So your freaking pit bull can eat good.
Have a good steak every now
and then.
Yeah, yeah. Bone in rib eye, you know? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m old school and my dogs all lived under the trailer. Yeah. You know, mine lived in the backyard. Their dog bowl was a pie plate, you know, like an aluminum 1. Didn’t have their names on it. No, it was so thin that they would push it along the ground as they ate out of it, you know, yep My dog drank water out
of a 5 gallon bucket.
There you go That’s you know And we
would have to change the water every now and then because it sat so long, the mosquitoes would lay their larvae in it.
It’s terrible. Whatever. Maybe in heaven they get farm dog food, in dog heaven, just to make up for it, you know? They get fresh water and- I feel like a bad guy now. I know, I kind of did too after those commercials. I’m like, Am I a bad person for not even caring about the things you’re talking about? Like they were like laying it on thick and I had no issues with the way I’m doing things now. You know? Yeah. It’s no problem. Anyway, so he choked it down With a final grimace and a shiver of
disgust, he held out his hand for his brother and he said, pay up, dude. Then his brother produced the $10. Older brother snatched the money, stuffed it in his pocket and strutted out of the kitchen satisfied with his bad self. My youngest son didn’t say a word for a while or even flinch. He wasn’t the least bit put out by losing the bet or paying out the money. I was kind of thinking about that and After a long moment of absorbing what I just witnessed, I said, I’m guessing you won’t make another bet with your brother
like that again. And my son shrugged matter of factly and said, oh, it’s okay, dad. It was his 10 bucks. No. That deserves a hand clap. Sorry. Bobby in Arizona. Great. That guy’s my new hero. I gotta think of ways that I can just pay people back. I know. I want to take money from my son’s room and then dare him to do something stupid You won’t you don’t think I’ll do it do you I know you won’t do it son
You won’t you won’t eat the dog’s food. That’s crazy and ridiculous.
You won’t give the dog an open mouth kiss. Everybody, all these dog lovers talk about how clean dog’s mouths are. I never bought that crap. Have you smelled a dog’s breath recently? It’s never good. Yeah. You know, it’s gross.
I, no, no. I’ve heard that before, like dogs mouth have less bacteria in them, But dogs also eat their own poo as we’ve all…
Yeah, and they reach around and when they can, they lick everything that they shouldn’t. You know, that’s something that God has gifted them uniquely to do. And, you know, I could say I’m jealous, but I won’t, but it’s not, it’s not right. And, and if they have less bacteria, it’s probably a different kind. You know what I’m saying? A butt, a butt flavored, but bacteria And I would rather not have that in the mouth. Yeah. Yeah.
No thanks.
So anyway, we got a review brought to you by podgagement.com. 2 minutes in, I was hooked, says the potassium queen. The stories are great and the hosts are amazing James that’s us that story show is so funny and entertaining I can’t get enough of it thank you so much for making this podcast James and John, it turns my frowns upside down. Mommy, wow, I’m a big kid now. People like our show.
Yeah, that’s like a really nice review.
I know it’s a 5 star. We’re good enough. We’re smart enough and doggone it. People like us.
At least the potassium queen likes us.
No. Where do you get potassium from? Is that bananas?
Bananas,
yeah. Some reason I was thinking it was potatoes and so I had her Envisioned as a potato queen, but she’s a potato queen potato potatoes don’t give you potassium. They give you carbs, right?
Yeah, they’re starchy
start carb II and But she’s a banana queen. So Specifically the potassium part of potassium Banana very healthy queen of potassium So if you haven’t guessed leaving a review on iTunes is really fun for you to do. It’s fun for us to read and it really helps the show. So. It does. You know, wherever you can, iTunes primarily. Leave us a review, it’d be great. Spotify, we’ll take them all. We’ll get to more of your hilarious real life stories right after these messages. Let’s do some featured stories. You heard it. Let me tell y’all a story.
Let me tell y’all a story. Let me tell y’all a story. Let me tell y’all a story. Let me tell y’all a story. Well, his first 1 is a middle school drama. Move out of the way, stupid. Elliot from Illinois writes in, it’s called Sleepwalk Shiver. The first thing you need to know is that I am a sleepwalker and this is my best sleepwalking story. Oh man, there’s more? We’ve had quite a few sleepwalking stories.
This is the best 1.
And most of them involve somebody waking up peeing somewhere they’re not supposed to be. I mean, it kind of never gets old. But yeah. Did I tell you about the time in Mexico? All right. We were an urban church. So we brought mostly black kids to this missions trip in Mexico or out in Texas actually. And then this group from Arkansas came and they were mostly white kids. And 1 of those white kids got up sleepwalking, walked over across the room, because everybody was sleeping on the floor in this big room together, our team on 1
side, their team on the other. And he just happened in his sleep to go up to 1 of the biggest kids that we brought and started peeing on his feet. Oh no. And dude, that place lit up, lights were turned on. People were like, Arkansas was ready to start the war over again. Our kids were like, what the freak is going on? Where’d you bring us here for? And so there was this big conversation that happened the next day. And the guy from Arkansas was like, he was like, I know, I know that there may be
some hostilities because we used to, I don’t know, own you and stuff. What? He was trying so hard to reach across that barrier and our kids are looking at each other like, what’s he talking about? David’s my boss and friend who was a youth pastor, he’s like, he’s talking about slavery. And they’re like, oh, 0, cause they didn’t expect him to come at them like that. You know, cause they don’t think that way. You know, it’s not everybody, especially since, you know, we were very diverse, you know, and, and, we’re used to messing with people, but
yeah, the guy, he happened to be the biggest dude that he got peed on, but he’s also was the nicest guy, you know? So, but the dude that peed felt like absolutely horrible. Wow. I mean, how could you not? Yeah. I would be scared for my life. I would not go to sleep for the rest of the trip. Well, they say that You’re not supposed to wake up people that are sleep bonking, but. Well, it doesn’t say anything about people that are sleep peeing though. Yeah. I would just imagine it would be a lot of dancing.
Like you wouldn’t know to crimp it off until well, how long does it take to wake up? You know, while you’re, I don’t know, a few seconds. So he stopped. Stop. What? What? What am I doing? What’s going on? Olympian. Yeah. Why are you looking at? Why are you in the bathroom? Why did you just jump out of the toilet? So I don’t know what they were expecting, but they, they, there was no need to bring racism and the dark history of America into it. Yeah. Anyway, so here’s the sleepwalk shiver. The first thing you need
to know, I’m a sleepwalker. When I was 8, I suddenly woke up in the middle of my slumber 1 fateful night and I felt a little chilly from the waist below. Did you pee yourself? I stood up out of bed and saw, I had no pants on.
Hey, how did that happen?
So I’m assuming underpants because that’s how, FYI, that’s how I sleep. I don’t wear pants to bed. No, I wear jeans. You’re never nude. Yeah, we’re like arrested development all the time. So I’m going to join the Blue Man Group later. I do keep a pair of shorts nearby if there’s a family emergency, but yeah typically So I’m assuming you know, he is a kid that wears branch and he’s not wearing a branch So confused I walked out of my room and walked down the dark hallway to my parents bedroom where they were peacefully asleep Peacefully
asleep standing in the doorway. I woke up my mom Standing in the doorway you you woke up your mom. That’s pretty loud. Where’s my parents? And my mom looked half asleep and just I said and she just said go find them and I beat my kid Yeah, they’re your pants What did you do? I don’t know what you did with your pants. I’ve been sleeping Reminds me of kids camp, dude There was always a kid that couldn’t find 1 sock and they’d be like, somebody stole my sock. That was always what they said every year. Somebody
stole it. I’m like, I’m looking at the sock they have. It’s black, you know, it’s a white sock that used to be completely white. It’s all yellowed and browned and nasty. I’m like, nobody, nobody stole your nasty stank Sock.
Trust me. It’s all standing up by itself because it’s got so much sweat and dust in it. It’s got
a little face like it’s in Pixar. It’s got a life of its own. Anyway, where’s my pants? Please throw me away. Mom says, go find your daggum pants. Leave me alone. So now I realized this was a stupid question because there was no reason for my mom to know where my pants were. So now I’m walking to the bathroom hoping my pants are in there. And once I stumbled into the bathroom, I finally saw my pants lying on the floor in front of the toilet. So apparently I had previously sleptwalked into the bathroom, lowered my pants,
taking a pee and just stepped right out of them. That’s my sleepwalking story, and I hope it makes it on the show. Elliott from St. Louis. Wow. Or from Illinois, I’m sorry. I’m thinking about St. Louis because it reminds me of a story. That happened in St. Louis. Yeah, sorry. It’s 2 people, 2 people’s story that I heard individually and I was able to put together. So my wife tells me that she went out to take the trash out and there were a pair of pants and a shoe, pair of shoes out by the dumpster. Oh.
Okay. Okay. Your wife saw a pair
of pants and shoes out by the dumpster.
Like somebody got a resurrect, no, what is it called? Raptured. Raptured. That kind of just imagine, just dropped it. Were they folded? No, no, they were dropped. They just like straight dropped. Jumped right out of the pants. And the shoes. Okay? And she’s like, that’s so weird. And then David tells me, because we used to live next door to him. He tells me, you know what? The other day I saw a dude walking around with, you know, like a button-up shirt and a tie and no pants and no shoes. He was just drunk off his buddies.
He’s like, Hey, can I use your phone? And I’m like, Jen, I have the answer to your mystery. Some dude was drunk off his butt, probably peeing in the alley, did what this kid did, dropped it, stepped out of his shoes and his pants, and then went on a little adventure through the alleyway. Sobered up enough, he probably slept a little while, sobered up, and asked my friend David if he could use his phone. So,
Hey, a little awkward, but somehow my pants and shoes are missing.
At least he didn’t ask. Elliot asked his mom, You know, hey, do you know what my pants are? You know, at least this guy wasn’t going around asking, hey, excuse me. Have you seen my pants? Hey, crazy theory here. What if Elliot, like, traveled? Yeah, this is his future. Some vortex happened. And yeah, he’s like, maybe this is like his life. Elliot, do you live in St. Louis buddy? Are you a drunk? No, not to cuz you sound like a good kid
you sound like a good don’t grow up and abuse alcohol,
that’s right That’s right. Yeah, I don’t want to I don’t want to do that man St. Louis is a weird place though. Tell you what, It’s a million stories. It’s a
very interesting place.
This one’s called Wrong Racing. It’s from Colleen. I had the unique and totally awesome experience of being raised part-time at a racetrack.
Ooh, really? Yeah. Part-time at a racetrack. How does that work?
Well, my dad was the caretaker of a dirt track where stock and late model cars raced. So apparently it was a part time. Well, he probably had a full-time job, but part of the time they got to go with dad and hang out. So in order to spend time with us, dad would often take my older sister and I with him. We started going probably 3 or 4 years old because I can remember riding my tricycle around the track while he worked.
That Sounds like that’d be fun actually.
Really fun, especially a little, this what, derby? No, destruction derby with the tricycles, you know? Okay. Bring it
on sis.
Yeah. What do they call those derbies? Just demolition derby. Yes, thank you. I knew
it had some kind of alliteration.
I was wrong. I was wrong before. Anyway, my sister and I were about 6 or 8 when this particular incident happened. This is so good. The men’s restroom was always kept unlocked because there was male workers around most of the time. And we had taken some of our Hot Wheels cars with us and we would make little dirt tracks and have our own pretend races. That’s awesome. While having wandered into the men’s room 1 afternoon, I discovered the best drag strip racetrack ever. It was a metal trough attached to the wall with just enough of an
incline for gravity to pull our cars downward, making racing a breeze. We must have played in there a couple of hours until my dad came looking for us. And as soon as he saw what we were doing with this thing, he grabbed us by the collars and abruptly escorted us out. A firm tongue lashing followed about how filthy that was. And for us to never play in that again, Since we had no brothers and we were very innocent little tomboy girls, we had no idea that we had been playing in a rain gutter attached to the
wall that was used as a red neck urinal. No, It was the ultimate clash between a dad’s creativity and a child’s creativity. I think I got a way to figure out how to get 10 guys to pee at once. We’ll make a racetrack out of their pee trough. I’m just gonna put a pee trough up and then… Yeah, the girls didn’t know. They had a gutter. Well, in the girl’s defense, I mean, yeah, I don’t know, even
in my defense, if I were to walk into a bathroom, see, I think, well, that’s a perfect racetrack with my.
So here’s the question. Where would you pee along the gutter? I would have to go to the highest point. Yeah. Yeah. So it would go the furthest.
For some reason, someone else’s urine passing before me as I go
that. Oh man, I wasn’t even thinking about sharing it. I was thinking about being by myself, but you’re right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I gotta be all the way to the left. Well that’s
how I envision this. Yeah.
I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m picturing a gutter hanging on the wall at a
bit of an angle.
Dude, if you’re the last 1 in line, you’re peeing into like a stream. And you know, those racetracks get busy sometimes. That beer. Yeah. It’s going right through them. You know, it’s weird. And this is a weird time to bring this up, but I used to do children’s ministry and we would buy rain gutters to make the world’s biggest banana splits. You just ruined it. We buy them and then put them on stall horses and fill them with ice cream and bananas and hot chocolate and chocolate syrup and the whole thing. So yeah, it’s kind of
weird how you could use 1 thing for 2 extremely different Yeah, but you know the rule of the show No, no, no, I it was new It wasn’t I didn’t go to a racetrack and say hey, do you happen to have any
I know but now
any gutters? Gotta fix that in my brain
That’s a weird taste in Sunday
Yeah, well yeah if you’re ever I don’t know if you’re ever peeing in a gutter and a cherry rolls pass, I don’t know what’s going on. Something’s wrong though. We mixed up our days. You should have gone all the way to the left. As the thing starts. Somebody took our ice cream trough. Oh, gosh. Colleen would have come to my children’s ministry and been like, That’s the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. No, she would have said, she would have
said, that’s a great racetrack from Hollywood.
What are you using my racetrack for? Why are you using it for Ice Cream Sunday? Yeah. I don’t know where Colleen’s from, but she’s from the cell now. She is now. Yep. Anyway, Emma from Utah writes, “‘Extreme excuse. “‘Hey guys, I’m Emma from Utah.'” See, I told you. “‘And recently I’ve realized something funny “‘that me and my mom both love to do “‘and it’s probably not the most common thing, “‘but I thought I’d share it anyway.’ “‘It’s not a specific story that I’m going to share. It’s just a funny thing me and my mom do in
the car. So maybe it’s something we could add to our lives. You know, that’s kind of what I figured when I put this in. Sometimes it’s hard to contain your anger when people cut you off or honk at you, maybe just speed by you as if you’re not going the speed limit already.
Trying to pass you on the wrong side of the road when it’s not a passing lane or some nonsense.
St. Louis, dude, there is no rules. The cops never pull anybody over. So there’s literally the people that obey the rules and the people that don’t. And it is nothing to get past on the shoulder, on either side of the road with people with no tags, no insurance, no registration, probably no driver’s license. It is crazy. So I need something. I need what they’re doing. So I’m going to read in.
Well, let’s see what happens.
I’m, I’m, I’m, my interest is peaked because
you know, I need to know how to deal with some of the drivers around here too.
So something me and my mom like to do when this happens is to make up an excuse. This sounds like something you would do actually, make up an excuse for their being annoying on the road. Okay. So like giving them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s make up something that would make what they did excusable. Okay. So here, Here’s some examples. Oh, wow. Their grandma probably just called to let them know she needs help with her knitting. Or I bet their wife is probably going into labor right now. Oh, man. Or even maybe they just got
a call that their favorite cow escaped.
Ah, okay.
But my mom’s absolute favorite excuses are always, they always have to do with poop. She’ll say things like, oh, they got the diarrhea or, oh no, another brown out. Or I’ll but they’re baking a keister casserole. I’ve never heard that 1 before. Keister casserole?
Where do
you get those from? So now I just have to imagine that everyone in St. Louis is in a hurry because they got to take a dump. Like a hundred people I see a day are overdue for a bowel movement. They’re all going to the same alley. They got to get to that trough. They got to find it. There’s a trough hidden around here somewhere. Somewhere. I left my pants and shoes in front of it last time. I know it’s somewhere. Something’s going on. All these pants-less people. They need to quit worrying about the fact they don’t
have license and registration and the fact that they don’t have license and registration and the fact that they don’t have anything to keep license registration in. They’re left in those pants I left in front of the dumpster. So those are just some of our favorite excuses but there are tons more where those came from. Thanks for reading my story. I hope it makes it on the show. You guys are the best. Bye. Oh, thanks, Emma. You and your mom are the best. You know what, James? This happened to me just 2 days ago. OK. I’ve talked
about the stupid roundabout that we have in my town. I hate those things. It’s the worst. It’s the worst. And they’re actually making it into a
real roundabout because it’s a sorry excuse for
a roundabout right now, but I’m not going to get into that. But what people do typically is they forget the laws of the roundabout, which is you yield to
the person on your left. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That’s always the rule.
Well, the person coming into the circle yields. Always. What? Person coming in. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s another way of saying the same thing.
Yeah. So if I’m if I’m pulling into the circle, the person that’s in front of me, right? They need to yield to me, right? That’s the way that I understand the rules. And I hope that I’m right on that because I’m embarrassed
if not. But anyways, I was going in the roundabout, had the right of way, and this person who apparently was baking a Keister casserole pulled right in front of me and I had to slam on my brakes. And James, you know what? I don’t typically use my horn. But I did this time.
I pushed all my aggravation and frustration. I held it down longer than I should
have. Yeah. I did. There’s a point where you just come off like a maniac. And I’ve crossed that line so many times. Yeah. Like to the point that my wife’s like, James, he’s going to kill us. Like, I’m making him so mad. Is that what they call blind rage? Yeah. Yeah. Cause I’m not going to lie. I have the thought of just pressing the gas instead of the brakes. Pretty sure. Traffic circles will make you want to do it though, man. And nobody in the city knows how they work. To them, it’s just an intersection that
has no rules, no red lights, no stop signs. It’s just, it’s just my way or the highway. And yeah, that’s apparently what you’re running into too. But you know what Emma from Utah? Thanks for the Way
to look at it with a new perspective is that might help.
Let’s try out some of our own like, okay So next time somebody passes on the on the right in the shoulder. I’m gonna be like man, they’ve got tough tires, first of all, because that’s where all the nails are. Secondly, when I look at the, they have no tags or anything, I’m gonna think they their wife just called and They’re having a baby and that baby just died. Oh
That really does make it like yeah, you go ahead and do that. Yeah that was
that a good try
100% empathy for that person now I was gonna go the other way and say that they were like testing out the tires to see if that-
I don’t know that I did the right thing because maybe I’m really wishing that on someone and that’s wrong. Yeah, I think I overstepped, I’m sorry. Let me try another 1. Okay, so this time somebody zooms their motorcycle between the lanes and is doing some kind of fish tail zoom up, you know, pop a wheelie deal with about 5 other dudes that are taking up both lanes. I will think Instead of thinking those guys are jerks and I hope they have an accident. I will say those jerks, I hope they have an accident in their pants.
Those jerks must have had an accident in their pants and they need to go take care of it right away.
That’s why they’re doing weird tricks to keep their butts off the seat. That’s right. You know, trying to stand up. I can’t help what has happened in the seat of my pants. So I must go take care of it. I think that’s good. I think, what about you try 1.
Ah, okay. So I’m driving down a country road and the fellow redneck behind me with the truck that is being held together by duct tape rides my tail going,
I’m going 35 like I’m supposed to, but he apparently thinks that there’s a race somewhere And I’m going to have
to assume that his gas pedal is stuck and he’s actually in
big danger. That’s nice. And the only thing keeping me from him from a
major accident is my slower car keeping him safe.
Yeah, and he’s just pumping that brake pedal and he’s trying as hard as he can. He can’t do it. I mean, he got his catalytic converter cut off at some point, but he still got a brake pedal working.
He did. But the brake pedal’s not working very good because he’s right on my tail.
Barely holding it in there. Wow. Barely. Wow. And so what about those middle fingers that you’re seeing in the rear view? How do you explain that? Oh, well, he’s missing his first finger, his ring finger and his pinky. Poor guy.
Yeah.
It must have been due to an accident, like rear-ending somebody, and he’s trying not to do that again. Yeah, and he’s like, so like, whoa, wait up. I only have 1 finger on each hand and a thumb. But if he’s saying, whoa, wait up, why are his hands facing him? Instead of… Because he broke his wrist. When they had that accident.
And he can’t turn his hands around
because they both got broken when he was. All right, I’m not buying it anymore. You’re too nice. How about this guy that cut you off in the traffic circle? You didn’t do any of that then. What would you do next time? Just a friendly little horn honk like beep beep. Love you. Oh, no, I’ll still honk my horn,
but I’ll smile at him When he looks over at me incredulously, like why
are you honking at me? I’ll just be smiling like, hey buddy. Yeah, and then when he gets out of his car, you just plow him down. My brakes are broken. You’re the only thing keeping me safe from running off the road. I’m trying to get home. My baby died. Cats. They tore up the house. I don’t know. This is an ironic story from Lonnie Arlington called Clown Crush. Here we go. Unlike John, I have never broken up with anyone while wearing a clown costume.
All right. That’s fair.
Go go listen to the episode called Clown Let Down. If you’d like to hear that story about the time John broke up with a girl in full clown costume.
So I still, I still get sad when I think of
that story. I’m so sorry. He says, but I did promise, I did propose, however, to someone who is wearing a clown costume.
That’s an ironic twist. Yeah.
I met my wife the day before classes started at my second freshman year of college. Second freshman year. Is that like second breakfast? I guess. Yeah. Or breakfast. A hobbit sits, if you’re a hobbit or a loser, You get to go to freshman year twice.
Second freshman.
What? Second freshman year? Yeah. Lonnie, that sounds like a story in and of itself. Yeah, we got to hear what happened that first year.
Yeah. What happened the first freshman year?
How did you become a second freshman year? Maybe he met his first wife that first year. He’s like, well, that worked out good. Try again. Second freshman. Yeah, for a second wife. Anyway, that’s another story. Oh, Why do you need to write back in? We went from not remembering we had met earlier in the day to being annoyed with each other that afternoon. And by the end of the day, we had pretty much agreed that we had found the person we’d been looking for all along. Goodness gracious. That is a roller coaster ride right there. That
is.
Is he implying that marriage is intended to be stressful and rough?
But this is all in 1 day. Yeah, it’s 1 day. This is all happening 1 day. Not remembering they met earlier. Like they weren’t even memorable enough to remember each other. Being annoyed by each other that afternoon. So obviously they hung out somehow in some context. And by the end of the day, somehow the miracle happened and they’re like, this is the 1.
You’re the 1 I’ve been looking for my whole life.
Maybe just-
At least my first freshman year.
Maybe that’s because they just stuck around or maybe he cut her off in traffic and she, he’s like, I bet she loves me. She’s just trying to get my attention.
He used Emma’s approach or she used Emma’s approach.
And I need to be careful how I handle this cause her baby might’ve died. So I was a theater and music major. I don’t recommend it. Dog on. Do you want a job? Theater. Is that why you started over and you picked theater and music? Let’s see. What’s I do like theater music. Let’s see if I can make this employable. Yeah, you could take tickets for a living, I guess. I don’t know, she was early childhood education major. See, I know who’s making the money in that family. Yeah, it’s true. And she was busy joining 1
of the service sororities on campus. Wow. I didn’t even know there was a service sorority that almost redeems the concept of sororities.
What is a service sorority?
I don’t know. Maybe, Maybe you
help people. It’s a sisterhood of service.
Yeah, it sounds redeeming. Like I said, instead of getting drunk with frat guys, you’re maybe out petting service dogs. Maybe you’re the only person allowed to pet service dogs. I like that. I don’t know. That’s kind of cool. Seems like they should get petted at some point. It’s right. It’s gotta be, you know. Maybe that’s what you do. Hey, let’s meet up Thursday. We’ll go over to wherever they keep these guys and we’ll pet them for a while. Yeah. While they’re not in service. Anyway, so she was in early childhood and a couple of months into
the semester, there was a fall festival at the student union building helping to promote and raise funds for the student organizations on campus. So the theater fraternity, which I was a member of, is getting deeper and deeper. There’s a whole fraternity for theater. Theater fraternity. So they could get together later and ask if they have jobs available. You know, who’s collecting garbage? I mean a job. I don’t know. I don’t know, going to college for theater, really? You know, in the defense
of theater, Josh Groban recently has been noted for, you know, Josh Groban is the musician singer.
He said, if you want to
get something done, ask a theater kid.
If you want to get something done on no budget, ask a theater kid. He said, he needs the money because he had no job. I think he was implying that he will become your indentured servant. He won’t do whatever it takes to feed his family. Because he’s running around quoting Shakespeare and starving to death. That’s what’s happening. Oh man. I didn’t look at it from that light.
Maybe we need to put Emma’s approach back on there.
Anyway, the theater fraternity, of which I was the only member, no, I was a member of, they had a booth taking pictures of people wearing period costumes from our costume shop. Now that’s a good idea. It’s quite interesting. Yeah. It’s cool. Yeah. So my wife, Chris, had created a clown character in high school named Melody. Oh. So she and some of the other girls from her sorority were in clown costumes selling helium balloons. There you go. It’s the context, it’s everything. You better have a daggum good reason. I hate clowns. So you gotta have a good
reason to be in a clown costume, in my opinion. You need to be the Joker or you need to have a real purpose. Otherwise, you know. Or you might be in a college ministry, perhaps that entertains young people and tells them about Jesus through funny clown sketches, maybe. Christian clowning is of the devil. Here’s why. Here’s why. Okay. I was raised in church. We had alternatives For the things of the world. Like we had Christian rock and roll, you know, Christian rap, you know, and DC talk and stuff like that. They were alternatives for stuff that
was worldly, right? Right, that’s right. Things of this world. So what is so bad about clowning that we need a Christian alternative? We need a Christian. Because regular clowns can be scary. I guess. So, I don’t know, Jojo would say the things that separate Christian clowns from regular clowns is we do the same stuff, but we do it with a little cross on our face and that makes all the difference. So is that how Jojo would say that? Not exactly, I don’t know exactly how he talks. So I don’t know. I don’t know how he talks.
You’ll have to go listen to the archives.
Yeah. So he said, I bought 4 balloons from 1 of the other girls and I wrote, will you marry me on them? 1 word per balloon. I’m assuming some time passed because there’s a huge gap between that 1 day. Unless he did it all in 1 day, maybe this is that night, I don’t know. I don’t know. But will you marry me on each balloon? I asked her to give them to Chris, who’s the wife to be. I waited for a reaction and none came for a while. I was wondering if I should take it as
a no. When I heard a scream from the other side of the room, apparently she was busy selling balloons. So when she got the ones I sent to her, she just tied them to her wrist and never actually looked up at them. So in other words, this was a bad idea. This is not an Instagram moment. No, this is not how we would have done it in the day of multimedia, of social media rather.
Yeah, right.
Yeah. The lighting had to be just right. Plus, these are 4 balloons. It could just very well say, marry me. You will, you know? Yeah. So like Yoda, marry me. You will. That was a demand, not a question. Yeah, not a question. I don’t know. I don’t understand. I wonder
if there’s a question mark on the me balloon.
But she had several people that told her congratulations as she was selling them balloons, but she didn’t know why. So she just figured maybe my costume is cool and they’re jealous of my job. I don’t know. So- Thank you. Someone finally told her to look up. And that’s when the scream happened. She made her way through the crowd to where I was and I got my yes. And that was in 1987. So yeah, definitely, definitely before social media came in and screwed everything up. You couldn’t even text that,
I mean, with a pager.
No, you had to use balloons or a paper airplane or 1 of those notes that said pull, had
a little tab. And no kids know what that means these days.
See, I would send 1 balloon over at a time in the right order from 4 different people. Can we admit that’s a small improvement? Will, and then a little bit later, she’s got no contact with you, and then Mary Me comes in, right, 2 people right in her row. 2 people are on the same plane. The fifth guy with the question mark is you, right?
Yeah, yeah, right, right. Yeah. I think that’s brilliant.
See, see, see how the wheels are working.
Man, that is, that’s pretty genius. James, what we need to do is find that time machine that Elliot was using earlier to go pee on people’s stuff. And then we need to go back and find Lonnie in 1987.
Okay. And just give him some tips. Yeah. First of all, let’s change your major. Secondly, do it before you ask. Before, yeah. And then that’s probably how they don’t remember meeting each other. How? Because we’ve apparently already done this and they’ve forgotten
about meeting each other. And then like, whoa, wait, we don’t
like each other. That’s what’s going on. That’s it. There’s some sort of, what do they call it when time gets screwed up?
A rip in the time space?
A paradox. A paradox. There’s a paradox in their story. There is. So anyway, we were married the weekend after classes were out the following semester. What? Dang, they didn’t waste any time. No. Well, I mean, look how fast they got together. You can’t critique it though, because as of May 28th, they’ve been married 36 years. Wow. And that’s no laughing matter. That’s true. That’s
true. That’s a testament. I applaud you both, Lonnie and Chris.
Not all those years are happy years as James and I share the fight with anxiety and depression, but I don’t think there is anyone I would rather have shared them with. Good job. Good job. By the way, I created a clown character of my own. Oh, God. Did it have to end this way? Now you bring it up. It was a good story, wasn’t it John? That was. Now you gotta ruin it. I created a character. Let’s just see how cheese this is, okay? I created a clown character of my own when we worked with the
youth. She was named Harmony. Oh, no, no. He was named Harmony to compliment her name, Melody. Oh, that’s, that’s awesome. I mean, okay. So they’re working with youth and probably the early 90s, right?
I
don’t have a sound effect. You don’t have a sound effect?
I don’t. I got 1 for you. Do you want me
to play it? I want the trombone, dude. Where’s my trombone? I’ll just do it myself. I’m melody, I’m harmony, A good name for a dude. Oh, wait. Isn’t there a song? Harmony and Melody? Oh, no, it’s Ebony and ivory. That would be just like them to rip that off though, you know, and change it, change a story about race relations into their little harmony and melody. Oh my gosh, this is why I don’t like clowns, John. James, you just have to imagine that the clown has a reason for being a clown. And I’m old. So this
was I hated them before it got popular. I hated it before Stephen King ruined clowns. Clown hater hipster. Dude. I don’t know. I hated clowns before they were hateable. I had I was in I was in a there was a parade going past me. I wasn’t in the parade, but I was watching a parade and I had my hands on the rail of the guard rail, right? Keeping me back from getting out into the, there was a bunch of clowns. And I just remember, oh, here they come. And 1 of them came straight at me. And
before I pulled 1 hand away, I was about to pull it. He grabbed my hand and he kissed it. What? He kissed it like I was a lady. A clown kissed your hand? Well, here’s the trick though. He grabbed my hand, pulled it up to his mouth and flipped it over at the last minute and kissed his own hand on the back. But my little brain didn’t process it. It was a joke. I hated him suddenly because I’m like, you tricked me. You made me think you were going to kiss me on the hand, which I
would have hated. And then you didn’t, which was fine, but it was in a very dumb way, which I hate. Now I hate your dumb, stupid clown face. And you’re painted on smile. It makes you smile even when you’re not smiling, which is fake. And I hate your shoes. I hate your dumb fingerless gloves. I hate your hobo hat. I hate everything. And your red raggedy in-hair. Yeah. It was a guy clown though. It was a guy clown.
Huh.
And that must have made him… He must have thought I was a girl, which makes me hate him even more now. James, this is so much to unpack. I know. I know. Can I tell you a story which might make your day a little bit? Okay.
So, When I was a kid in Florida, we had this place called Circus World.
Oh, do you remember Circus World? No, where was it? It was in Orlando. Circus World. I’ve never heard of it. Disney World and Sea World, they had Circus World. Look it up. I’m sure it’s still… It’s a theme park. It was a theme park, a little theme park. It was circus themed. Okay, so when I was, I think I was in third grade. We took a field trip to Circus World. It later turned into Boardwalk and Baseball.
I don’t know why.
Oh, I’ve heard of that. Yeah, so Circus World was
the predecessor to Boardwalk and baseball.
Okay. Anyways, as a third grade kid,
I had the opportunity, this is a great memory flashback, I love this, it’s all coming back to me. So,
we had the opportunity to go to Circus world and see some behind
the scenes stuff and they had clowns and all that stuff. And
so they were they were they took us backstage. We even got to go through a little a parade kind of
thing and we’re like we were the people who are special, you know, we got the wave and all that fun stuff. It’s real weird. Anyways,
we went backstage and there was a clown boss
and he was not in makeup. He was just all, you know, he was explaining things to us, stilts and how the clowns use the stilts. He was very serious. But
he had clowns with him. And there was 1 clown. He was just being a clown. And he had 1 of the stilts and I remember it like it Was yesterday he had a hammer and he was pounding on those stilts like trying to make them like fixed or something. OK. And the clown boss slicked over at him and said, stop it. You’re doing it wrong. Do it right. In an angry way. In an angry way, like it’s like Mr.
Cranky Clown.
He’s scolding the other clowns right in front of us. And I just remember the feeling as
a young third grader feeling, this
is, this is awkward for me. I should be enjoying and laughing at these clowns. Right. This moment felt like getting yelled at by my parents. And I don’t know how to handle a process. This be like if you were sitting in Santa Claus’s lap and he took a phone call. What do you want wife? I got brats on my knee. I can’t bring home milk and eggs tonight.
I’ve got a game
after this. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that was so. So. Cranky clowns exist. Circus World was originally the property of Ringling Brothers in Barnum and Bailey Circus. Did you know this? I did not. I don’t recall that. Yeah. They had plans that were announced in 1972, which included a 19 story elephant shaped hotel.
Whoa.
And Barnum City, which was going to be a state of the art residential community. You could live at the circus, dude. OK. What the heck? What the actual heck? No, that was the see 1972. That would
have been post Walt Disney World opening his stuff there.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But they never, they never did that. They never did that stuff. No. Cause apparently Mattel got a hold of it and then they sold the park too. And so the park’s been through several people’s hands, but Barnum Bailey Circus, man, they would have, they would have still existed if they had made this work. Maybe. I don’t know. Circuses. I was thinking about that today. Circuses don’t exist anymore. Do they?
Oh, they don’t.
Well, they kind of do through Cirque du Soleil, but that’s
kind of…
But there’s no animals, are there anymore? Like training animals is passe. You don’t you don’t make animals ride each other’s backs and stuff, do you? Yeah, I don’t.
I’ve never seen animals at a Cirque du Soleil. It’s just people dressed up as animals sometimes.
Yeah. So yeah, I think that time is over. Me and when I went to the zoo, I know we’re talking about circuses, but you could ride a freaking elephant. And Now you can’t even go to the circus anymore. Too many lawsuits. Yeah. You could ride camels and you could ride elephants, like a freaking huge elephant.
Yeah. I did that
once. I think I did it. I feel like I
had a memory of it.
I had his pelvic bones jutting up into my back is what happened. You sit on the pelvis of, upper pelvis of an elephant. You’re gonna know it. Elephant pelvis. Dude, look up the bones of an elephant pelvis and you will see they are like razors and those things crisscross and your backside just gets bombarded. You would think there’d be padding, but it’s bones and skin, wrinkly skin. That’s it.
I just remember feeling like I was going to fall off and it was going to be a long fall because the Elephants were kind of big.
Well, we were in a cage, like a little seat that was strapped to the animal. And you had to get up on a platform and then spread your legs and, you know, mount this thing. And there were like 5 kids in this, in this thing. They would lock it up and then they would lead it around the circle, you know? And this poor elephant, his whole life, you know, was just that sucks. Yeah. Can I say that on the show? Can I say sucks on the show? I don’t know. Like I’ve ever said that. I don’t
know. Nate, Brighetti doesn’t say sucks.
That’s right. He doesn’t. I saw that episode.
Did you? He, he, he, he’s like, he’s super, super doesn’t say any swear words. He says, I don’t even say sucks.
So yeah, grew up in a Christian home.
Yeah. So anyway, those are our stories for today. I hope you enjoyed them. I did. Thank you for sending them in everybody. You’re the best. Yeah. We do have a couple of announcements. I’m going to keep pounding this until They’re all gone. Hats are still available. Hats, how many you got? 6, I wanna say 6. The 6 last hats
are available on Etsy.
Etsy.com slash enilcats. They are great. Go look at them. They’re charcoal gray dad caps, pre-washed, 100% cotton. They look good on everybody. Even ladies can sport. Yeah, I was
gonna ask, can ladies wear dad caps?
Absolutely, man, get that ponytail through that strap on the back. It’s awesome. It’s great.
I bet you it’s cuter on a girl than it is on a guy.
Oh, every day of the week, every day, every day. Also this podcast is possible because of our supporting listeners on Patreon. And you can get that story show premium. That includes ad free listening, swag and a weekly bonus podcast that we’re about to record right after this. Try it out free for 7 days at patreon.com slash that story show. Now recently, because we weren’t doing shows, I released a couple of episodes that were just a bonus content.
Bonus.
Yeah. 2 episodes of it. And a lot of you guys came on over to Patreon and signed up and I, I appreciate that. They enjoyed that content so much. They’re like, yeah, I want this after every show. And so give it a shot. It is free to try out, patreon.com slash that story show. Go there now and try it out. Try it out. If you hate it, you just, nothing happens. If you love it, you give us a few bucks a month is great. Yeah, we want a cup of coffee. We want to thank our some
of our new sponsors, our new members, Shane Waters, Chris Gonzalez, Sean, Elizabeth. Is it Sean? Sean. What did I say?
You said Shane.
Oh, it’s close. Okay. Sean Waters, Chris Gonzalez, Elizabeth Hintz, and Keith Hesley, the Innal Cast grandpa. Thanks for our producers, James Spangler, Carey Wright, and Christopher Tynan. And thanks to you for listening. Guys and girls, that’s us. We are about to get out of here. Do you have a story that you’d like featured on a future episode? I’m sure you do. Submit your story today at thatstorieshow.com. Just click on submit a story. And remember when something weird, annoying, embarrassing or painful happens to you, don’t get stressed, don’t get depressed. Just think, hey, this belongs on that
story show. We’ll see you guys next week. Thanks, John. Thanks, James. Yeah, there are 2 ways to submit stories. One’s audio and one’s through the form. So I like audio stories. I like both. It’s great. All right, here we go. I grew up part time at the dirt track scene riding bicycles around I was barely a teen dad the caretaker making the play shine me and my sis we were racing all the time metal on the wall the trough best race we ever saw Zooming down like we were breaking the law Hours flying by, then Dad
came through And he grabbed his body, the college said What did you do? We’re innocent girls just trying to have some fun. We didn’t know the track was for the number 1. Dad laid it out, he said never again. Turns out our drag step was a urinal, my friend. Imagination’s wild. Dad’s wisdom was the key. What looks like a ray track just might not be. I’m out. Thank you. Thank you. That’s all I got today. That was nice. Appreciate it. Thanks! Appreciate it.
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