Armchair Anonymous: Family Secret

Well, come on, welcome to "Arm Jaranonymous.

I'm Dax Shepherd. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Family secret. Family secrets are dangerous. One so juicy, they didn't even show up. So juicy, they pulled a nose show up.

That's right. The others. Yeah. Family secrets are fun.

“There's a really fun one in here, I've retold.”

Yes, there's a really repeat word of the one. Yes, one. Please enjoy, because your own are hard to enjoy. So enjoy other people's family secrets. ♪

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♪ Hello. You seem to be at work, are you at work? I am at work. Today is, of course, of all times.

It's like an annual huge celebration where I work. And so it would be noticed that I wear a mask. So we're making it work. An annual celebration. That sounds like a fun place to work.

It is a great place to work. I'm keeping it kind of vague there. Yeah, it's a big annual celebration kind of celebrating how well we did the previous year. And yes, they treat it very well. As long as it's not to honor the founder,

that kind of yearly celebration may be the best. The founder's birthday. Yeah, yeah. Everyone is a celebrate the founder. It's about the people that work here and nothing but good things.

It's so beautiful. Lovely. And are you allowed to tell us what part of the country you're in? Absolutely. I am in Arizona with Justin Sedona.

I thought of you guys and your love for that space as well. I have a lot of affinity for Tucson as well. We used to have a lot of car shows out there.

And we would always stay at the same hotel.

It was very desert landscape in the back patio. And then we said in the rest of the mountains in the background is lovely there. Most things I can agree with you on that one I'm not going to. If you're a native to Arizona, which both my husband and I are, you're not usually a fan of of Tucson unless you want to go away.

“Then you have to get like indoctrinated into saying good things about Tucson.”

Right, right, right. Okay, so you have a family secret story. I sure do. So first I have to go credit to my niece, Jossie. Way back when she used to do my lashes of like non-consentially sitting there listening to you guys.

So anyone that's that in her chair is an armchair. But over the years, hearing all of the prompts and the stories like, "Oh, God, you open pops up for this because it's such a thing." I think bizarre stories, at least it's felt bizarre for me because it's like an onion and I've peeled back the layers starting at like age 12 to even like as of a year ago.

Oh, exactly. Oh, wow, wow, wow. Late 1900s are really 1997, 1998. I'm in middle school biology class and we're learning about dominant recessive traits. Big our little R, you're doing your pun at square and the assignment is to go home and find out what your mom's

blood type is, your dad's blood type, put yours in there, it should all make sense. The math didn't math on that for me, which probably teachers hadn't thought about that in this age of like, what happens when my kind of case comes up. So as an only child, two older parents, my first thought was like, "Maybe I'm adopted." I go to my mom and I ask her, "Hey mom, curious my adopted."

Can I have a quick question? When you asked dad for his blood type was like, "Oh, yeah, oh positive." And when you asked mom, mom was like, "Um, did you detect any hesitation on mom's part with cooperating with this?" Great question.

So I think she was the first one to be like, "Oh, Nick." And then my dad came on and he just didn't really think much of it just set it really quick. So when I asked my mom that question, she like paused and then she started to cry, which literally freaked me out and she goes, "Why would you ask me that?" And I was like, "Well, it's either that or you cheated on dad."

So I was just going with the best of two. Okay. Yeah. She starts crying and tells me, "You're done." And I had fertility issues and we ended up going to a sperm donor.

And she was like, "You know, your dad just was never very interested in sex."

And he was done with doctors touching him. So we went to a sperm donor route. But we were assured that it was a credible donor. They were medical resident. Like all of this stuff.

Spoiler alert. That wasn't the truth either because it was the 80s. And it was the Wild Wild West with fertility, which I'll get to that too as another part of it. So I was happy with that answer.

I actually never approached my dad ever and ever told him I knew. And it just stayed between my mom and I because as far as I was concerned, that's my dad. Fortunately, I look almost identical to my mom. There's pictures to come later.

But then I start noticing other things as I'm getting older.

“Like you're going to sleep over as I can remember.”

A group of girls complaining, "Oh, my God. I totally heard my parents doing it the other night." Like gross. And my first response was, "Oh, my gosh. You're getting a little brother, a sister."

Because in my mind, I had never seen like a faction between my parents.

I just associated sex with it's when you have a baby. Still dealing with unraveling some of those pieces too. But kind of just notice some different things about my dad, one of his best friends. And then flash to, I'm now like 19 and moving out.

And I'd come over for dinner like after moving out. And my mom pulls me a sign.

It was like, "Hey, I came around the corner to your dad's den.

Like his little office area. And he was looking at gay porn." And his response was, "I was just trying to access a link. That was the men's health magazine to take a quiz." That's a pretty good excuse.

It's not bad.

There's always a men's health magazine.

Yeah. I could see it. Which since she's like, kind of makes sense. You know, I always wondered if something happened to him growing up or when he was in the army. It just makes sense a lot of these things.

So it's like, "All do some digging. I'll look in the computer for ya. I'll let you know I find." And just pause for half a second. It's crazy to me.

But of course, I've never been in this situation. I'm in no position to judge. But it's wild to me that it took your mother, minimally 19 years, that she needed something that concrete. To start questioning.

Right.

“Or is she fibbing you, either, or those are interesting?”

I think that there's other pieces to that. Probably deep down she knew. Definitely had some self-esteem issues. And you know, at that point, they'd been married so long. It was almost just like this mutual understanding.

Our agreement, like, they're just good partners. They were tired before her.

She was still working at that point.

It was just kind of fine how it was. And they were just also the mind, which is better to have two parents in the home than not. And so like that kind of drove a lot of them making their own sacrifices. Come to find out.

Like, guys, I've gotten older. Really the sacrifices each one of them made. Not having true love, not being there on that take self. But when I got on there, definitely wasn't him trying to get on to mental.

Definitely had a type big Heath Ledger fan. Oh, okay. Like the robot. Yeah. Not judging.

He was in the 90th, 90th percent dial. So I put everything on a desk, gave it to my mom. I just kind of said, do what this, what you want. Ultimately, she decided number to bring it up. She was really afraid.

He might harm himself. He was just from that era. It wasn't going to happen. He ended up passing away in 2017.

And still never said anything.

I hope he came to peace with it. And just shift from like sad to funny again. We had him cremated in between like moves. And we had my mom move in with us. We lost dad for a few years.

Uses ashes. Oh, okay. Little mix up. Turns out when we were trying to look for a very obscure object. And the guestroom closet.

It was in there. So even then death. My dad is still in a closet. Oh, it is said. It is said he didn't get to live his life.

But then it was just maybe a year ago. That his only sibling his brother was in hospice. And I was visiting with my aunt and telling her. It was the first time I talked to anybody about the sperm donor about losing dad's ashes and finding them and like the stuff about my dad being gay.

And she was like, honey, I knew your dad was gay. I thought he was with, I don't want to say this person's name. We'll just say Sam. I thought they were partners. It was my dad's call of roommate friends to the end.

And tell him he brought your mom over for dinner. And I was like, oh, but I'm like, if you knew, how come my mom didn't know. So like, there's other things to confront my mom. Like, how did you not know? And so they also went on to ancestry after my dad passed.

“I was like, what if there's other people in the world that looked like me?”

Also would love to know like about health concerns. I think between 23 and me and ancestry. There's like 18 habsies. Oh, no regulation. And to boot this donor was not a thatted donor.

He was just a friend of the doctor who was getting like 20 bucks. A dixie cup. Sure. This has come from back then. It's so interesting.

You're lucky. It wasn't the doctor. That's very common. Yeah, it's common. And this guy didn't tell his family either.

So like I guess some of the early folks that had gone on to ancestry reach out. Which is you can message people on ancestry. I guess I got like a nasty grandma back like you're making this up. This is a conspiracy. So that's his family's secret.

I want to expose that for them. But like he did not tell his family. I'm even a few months older than like his oldest biological son. So you were out there shooting a dixie cups before. That's a young man's game for sure.

I had to look up to say like what would 20 bucks be in today. It's like 61 bucks. Like that's a great gig. Yeah. I tried it.

You see, I feel blessed that I didn't have a good sperm count. I know. Because I would now have all of you. I'd be fine with that. If you ever meet a bunch of people.

Would you really tell you to keep my feel?

“Well, I think I'd have to support all those people that would be that.”

I'm not looking to go to anybody's Christmas is or be written into the well. Just wanted to know some health stuff. So the pictures that you have there. There's going to be one. I don't know what older they're going to be.

There's one of my mom and dad like way back when. Well, your mother's so cute. She was a hotty. She still is. Now as I've taken my rose colored glasses off and like he was in a macula dresser.

I was just going to say. Very stylish. Once I married my husband, the in-laws all were like, yeah, he's got a Lord Farquard hair. I think I saw my dad's ears once in my entire life when we were on a boat. And the wind blew his hair back.

But like he blow dry that every morning. And I did include a picture of the donor in there too. Just approved like I do not look like him. But there's this pictures of my dad over the years. He maintained that look, man.

Yeah, it was like writing on the wall. Everyone but me. And even worse, like I get it. I was a kid. I didn't know any of it.

But my mom, I'm like, what the hell, mom? She was probably just in denial. Or even maybe sad or like, I'll take whoever loves me.

I just want to be loved.

Yeah. Is this gentleman with your father in this photo? Is that the presumed? Yes. That's the college roommate.

They would go to dinner and be gone for like five, six hours. Yeah. And I hope they were. And did that man have a family? He did. He also had a wife and one child one daughter.

It was like a mirror. Wow. How ironic your father loved Heath Ledger. Because he was living broke back Mountain. Oh, uh, maybe that's part of that.

I never thought about that.

Okay. And now here's your biological father. He looks so different than your dad. Woo. I just like continued to find. Think like that was a new one.

Just even last year talking to my aunt. We were like, you mean you knew. And you just assumed like how we never talked about this. Like I'm 41 years old. And like we're just talking about it.

I'm delighted that you had that moment with her. Because that makes me less sad for your dad. It makes me feel like he did have some kind of outlet. Yeah. And one or two people that really saw him.

Wow. Wow. It's a juicy one. Thank you for the donor in the end. Thank you for my dad.

All the things. Yeah. Great story. I get to come meet you guys. Well, Ashley, we're so grateful that you were willing to take a little time out of the celebration

to join us. Absolutely. I'll get back to those free food trucks downstairs. Oh, wow. This is a good one.

They have to truck. Yeah. Not like a little hot bar with fucking catering. Microwave nuggets. There's a couple of times.

What else? I can 80's time with some ski ball down there. Oh my god. Well, so nice to meet you again. You guys take care.

All right. Bye bye. These genetic ones. They're a dime. It doesn't these days.

Well, the lesson that should be learned for anyone who donated sperm. Whatever take a 23 and me or genealogy or at least minimally don't check that box. Definitely. They're coming. They're coming.

It's a really interesting thought experiment whether I'd want to know. So that was in 2000 or 99 in 2000. Yeah. So my child would be 26 years old. Yeah.

Do you think you would think of it as yours?

“If you thought of it as yours, I think that'd be hard for you.”

Well, I know me. Yeah. I would have to get super involved. Right. Yeah.

And yeah. So for me, it would be a bummer because I mean, I wouldn't have picked a half ten kids. Because I know I have limited bandwidth. And yeah, I would be like, if they were struggling or are you kidding me? And they're struggling with addiction.

I gave them those fucking chin. Oh, that's not. I would feel like I need to help them because I gave it to them. Well, no. You jerked off.

And then someone else picked out of a binder. I remember filling out that question here. You know vaguely. You just want to make money. I don't want to make money, man.

I don't want to make money, man. I don't want to make money, man. I don't want to make money, man. I don't want to make money, man. I don't want to make money, man.

I don't want to make money, man. I don't want to make money, man.

“I think I left out some health because I was like, I need this hundred bucks.”

Well, it worked out. You didn't get it. By the way, so they told me, right? Because I gave him a sample. They're like, yeah, you don't have a high enough sperm count.

That was that. But what if I do get a knock knock? I don't see LA medical campus. But I don't really know if they were officially affiliated with the school or not. I guess you can rent space.

Should I sue UCLA, which is suing basically a state of California, which is suing the tax pay.

The way to the news gets out that I had the taxpayer give me ten million dollars.

I'm sure America's going to love that story. It'd be for those fucked up kids. Oh, give them to all those ads. It'll be the fun to support all these kids I have that are at. [laughs]

Hello. Hello. Hi. Is this Shane? In quotes.

This is Shane. Shane, where are you? So I'm located in Vancouver, Canada. Oh, our second Vancouverian today. Yes.

What do we call people from Vancouver? Vancouver, right? I hope that's right. Oh, can't move. Oh.

Can't move. Right. And if you've been in Vancouver your whole life, I have. I've moved around to a few different cities when I was younger. So Australia and out East Eastern Canada.

So yeah, I've been to a few places.

But Vancouver has always been my home.

“Was it parents job taking you to Australian Eastern Canada?”

No, I did a university exchange. So I did a semester out that way. In Australia? Yeah. Did you have so much fun?

I had a great time not so much studying. But lots of time on the beach. Did you have an Australian lover while you were there? I did not know. I was in the relationship.

Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So you have a family secret.

I have a family secret that's still a secret to this day.

Oh.

“This story takes place way back in 2008.”

I was just 22 years old.

And I just graduated college.

I was also recently single. And so before entering the working world, I wanted to just have some fun. So I thought, okay, I'm going to go do a solo backpacking trip through Europe. I thought that would be a great idea.

It just so happened that a cousin of mine was getting married in London. So I thought, okay, normally I wouldn't go to this wedding. But I thought the timing aligned. I'll go for a week with my family. And then I'll go off.

So leading up to the trip. I was seeing someone casually. And did see this person a few days before the trip. Didn't think anything of it. But it does become a little relevant later in the story.

So it's the day of the trip. I'm on the plane. I'm in the middle seat. It's my mom to my left on the window.

And there's a stranger to the right.

And about halfway through. I just start to feel this. Itch down there. Okay. Great.

Okay. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch.

Itch. Itch. Itch. Great way to start your trip. Yeah.

And I'm just like worst place because there's no privacy. It's my mom and a stranger. And I'm right in between these people. And so I realize if I put my hands in my pocket. I can briefly, you know, just subtly relieve myself.

If I put the tray table down, pull it out. That gives me a little cover. And I just figure it's like dry irritated skin. Wishful. Thank you.

Oh no. After a very difficult flight. We make it. I'm okay. I survived.

I'm just relieved to be off this plane. And just for context. I'm of Indian heritage. I'm pretty Western. But my mom's side of the family, which this wedding is is a lot more traditional.

We're staying at the Brides house. So there's a week long of things going on every day. Yeah.

“These Indian weddings where people don't know are the most spectacular events on planet earth, right?”

A buddy of mine went to one in Chicago and there's like elephants and stuff. They go hard for weddings now. It is a big, big life event. It's a little much for me. But I was doing my family obligation and you know, going to this wedding.

And it's a typical London home pretty small. There's going to be 15 people in this house. So mattresses on the floor, one bathroom. There's just no privacy, right? And so the next few days go fine.

And we're about two days before the wedding. This is just getting worse to the point now where I'm realizing I won't be able to survive for the wedding day in this state. I decide I'm going to go have a look. So I go to the bathroom.

I locked the door and that's when I discover it's crabs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my god. He bet your ass it is. Okay.

So crabs are actual. Lys. Lean on there like that. Yeah, but yeah, yeah. Is it an STD?

Well, you just get it from the pubic care of your sexual partner on to yours. And then you lie in a very communal bed. But you can get it even if someone's sleeping on the bed. He is. Let's find out.

That's my home. That's my home. No, no, no, no. Okay. But do you realize it is crabs?

“I mean, do you know enough to realize that's what's happening once you look?”

As soon as I saw that, it just clicked. Yep, this is crabs. Knowing who I was with, it all kind of kind of shocked me.

I was panicked and I never had this happen before.

And in my mind, I'm not the type of person to be in this position. Like, I don't contract crabs yet. I'm just in complete shock at this point. I'm really inexperienced with these sorts of things. I don't know what to do.

And there's just a few problems that I'm faced with. I want cannot confide in anyone. My cousins are all just younger innocent teenagers. And I don't really know them that well. And then everyone else older.

There's no way I'm going to be telling them. There's no smartphones. There's no car where we are is not super walkable. And probably the biggest issue is no one can leave the house without it just becoming a field trip. So I couldn't just say, hey guys, I'm going for a walk to go find a doctor.

Like, there's just no way anyone would let me leave for you. So I need to come up with a plan to get this solved at this point because I'm really starting to have a hard time.

I'm just feeling completely trapped.

So I come up with a plan that I think is going to jump over these obstacles.

So I decide to go to the bathroom. I find one alive. I relocate it to my arm.

“I would say that they're similar to lights, but just more crappy looking.”

So now it is on my arm. I go down to the family room where there's a big group of people. And I just yell, oh my god, it's lights pointing to my arm. Oh, wonderful. And then there's just a media panic.

The bride is panicking. I just say in my head's been itchy, little kids are being checked. Everyone freaks out. And then things just kind of get out of control out of my control. So by that takes the specimen and puts it in a jar. No.

Of course, no one finds any lights. Right. Right. Oh, no. What if they were like, there's one here.

There's one in my hair. It's kind of like a hat. So my pubic hair. They're just looking in the wrong place. So the reaction was just so much bigger than I anticipated.

I thought there were like, let's get him some treatment. But it was like, because nothing could be found. We're in close quarters. People are already stressed because of this wedding. It was like, we need to hit this with everything we got.

And get this under control because people are coming over. There's all sorts of stuff happening. And so luckily no one pursued trying to ID this thing. And the plan was after things settle down. Let's go to the pharmacy.

And this is perfect. Because this is what I wanted. I needed something to fix my problem. So we need a mission to the pharmacy. This is the most pivotal moment for me.

Because I need to get something. I'm completely panicked. And I've raised the stakes so high now. Putting my family through all this chaos with wedding events. And people are trying to sort out their outfits for the wedding.

And I'm just trying to treat my crabs here. So I just need this to work. And so we go to the pharmacist. And the pharmacist brings out your standard life shampoo. And I just think to myself, this maybe could work.

But I don't know if it will. It might it might not. I couldn't walk away there with the maybe.

“And was any family member standing directly next to you as you were interacting with the pharmacist?”

There is about five of us. It was a group effort. I'm just sitting there thinking, I got to do something. So I asked the pharmacist. I say, do you have anything else?

And he says, yeah, there's this. It's just a little more expensive. I look at the bottle. And it's labeled for headlice and general crabs. Oh, let's go, Shane.

Just so relieved inside. But I need to play the act that we're just shopping for headlice. I asked for both bottles. I just stare at them discerningly for about 30 seconds. Comparing and trusting really putting on this show.

Like, I'm really trying to decide here. Isn't it fun? Everyone gets to be an actor at some point. You're like, we've all like long before I got to Hollywood. I was doing bullshit like this.

Oh, man, maybe I'll get you going. You're acting like you're on the fence. You're not on the fence. Exactly.

After that few seconds, I just point to the one that was labeled first crabs.

“And I just say I think this one is better.”

No one questioned it. Oh, nice. And we bought enough for the house. Wonderful. So we went back.

I got myself. I was totally relieved. Everyone else is getting shampooed. Thatting is being washed. In a panic.

[laughing] Up until that point, I was a trap animal. But at this point, I now like feeling guilt. Because I look over and the brightest stressed. The mother of the bride is literally like scalp massaging my 78-year-old grandmother.

[laughing] Listen, it's not going to do anything bad. No. Maybe it's good. Maybe one of them did have lives.

Or crabs. So in the end, everything worked out. The wedding went on. I had a great trip. And we were all free of any bugs or insects going forward.

[laughing] Oh, it's like crazy. They never found out.

They never found out, although I will say about 17 years later now.

So my wife knows this story and some of my friends. And my daughter who's in elementary school, there was a recent life outbreak in the classroom. And we were telling my mom about this. And so my mom decides to retail the London life story to my wife.

She's hearing it for the first time. She just says to my wife, "And these weren't normal life we have here in Canada. They had bigger legs than much stronger." They almost look like crabs.

[laughing]

You're also so lucky.

And I'm surprised that none of those Indian people were doctors.

Shocking, actually. Yeah. And that would have been like, that is not a lie. No, that is a sexually transmitted disease. [laughing]

And they were shouting in the door. Shame. Shame. Shame. [laughing]

Oh, wow. Oh, I like that story. It's also very cute and sweet. It is.

“When you got home, did you ever share what had been passed on from your previous lover?”

Did you let them know? I did. Oh, okay, sure. [laughing] Well, listen, you got it from them.

And not the other way around. So I feel like you're less inclined. But the other thing is to go like, "P.S. ear passing along." You need to get this. So although, I guess the nice thing about crabs.

Like, you could have Clementia, especially if you're a dude, for years and not know. Which is really bad. Oh, yeah. Maybe even vice versa. You're not missing crabs.

You probably didn't need to tell her. She probably figured that out. That's what I figured. Oh, man.

Well, this was the life story.

Oh, yeah, I love it. Thank you so much. And what would it be possible for my wife to say, "Quick Hello?" She's a huge fan. Yeah.

Hi, guys. Oh, you remind me of Elizabeth. Oh, yeah. Elizabeth Lane. It's a compliment.

It's a compliment. It's a compliment. It's a high praise. This is so surreal. Oh, my gosh.

That was a great story. I'm glad he submitted it. So that's good. Me too. It's so innocent.

It is. I know. And it's funny. I was at work today. It left at lunch to come home.

“And my coworkers are like, "Oh, what's the story?"”

I'm like, "Oh, no, it's kind of personal." Until next Friday. Exactly. Well, so nice to meet you, both of you. You too.

Thank you. Yes, thank you, guys. Have a good day. Okay, you too. Right, take care.

Bye. Have you read lies? No.

You know, my thing with lies, though,

is they would come check in my room. They would come check in my room. They would come check in my room. They would come check in my room. They would come check in my room.