Armchair Anonymous: Waterparks

I'm Jack Shepherd, I'm joined by Lily Padman.

- Hi. - And today we have crazy stories from the water park. - You think you're gonna get E. Coli.

“You know, that's what you think you're gonna get.”

- Did anyone get that? Well, there was some kind of a path again. - Because there wasn't E. Coli. - That was confirmed, yeah. - Yeah.

- But anything that could go wrong does go wrong in our crazy water park episode, please enjoy. ♪ All the time ♪ ♪ Come and go ♪ ♪ Good times ♪

♪ Take 'em slow ♪ ♪ My life ♪ ♪ I had a move ♪ ♪ But the one thing ♪ ♪ You got to know ♪

♪ I'm gonna keep on shining ♪ - Hello. - Hi, Josh. - How are you, guys? - Good, we just noticed that on your little zoom log-in, you have a still from the claymation,

or stop motion, I guess it's not claymation, the stop motion Christmas. - Yes, it's one of my favorite Christmas time movies, and clearly I'm behind on updating my profile picture. - Which one is it?

Is it Rudolph? - No, so that's Santa Claus is coming to town. - Ah, that's the one that got you. How do you feel about Rudolph? Is that in the running?

“- That one's good, year without a Santa Claus.”

- Oh. - Not a big frosty, the snowman guy. - That's a pass for you, you like stop motion. - I do, yes. - Yeah, and where do you live, Josh?

- I currently live in Connecticut.

- Oh, okay, was our first call from the East Coast today.

That's a sighting. Did your story take place on the East Coast? - It does. My story takes place at Lake Cal Pounce amusement park. - Oh, well really quick,

were you close to New York or far from New York? - I'm pretty much like dead center. - Is ESPN around you? - Yes, actually, ESPN is in the same town as Lake Cal Pounce. - Oh, okay, great.

I just found my bearings. - That was good, yeah. - Thank you. Yeah, it was one time to bore you in New York, and we had to do a bunch of press.

And then one of the things is like getting the car at six, and then I got in, we went over on ESPN, and I think it'll be in Times Square, or whatever, Rockefeller Center. - Yep.

- No, three hour car ride. We're going to mid-state Connecticut. You don't soon forget that. But what was this theme park?

That was the big summer destination.

“Was it just water park or was it everything?”

- So it's everything. It's actually the oldest continuously operating amusement park in the country. But yeah, it's really great. It's kind of a quaint place.

It's right on a lake, and they have some really awesome sprawled of coasters and amusement park rides, and then I actually worked in the water park, and that's where my story takes place. - Oh, okay, great.

I do love how all of us feel so much love and affinity for whatever amusement park we grew up with. So of course, if I were mine, I would know that it was the oldest, that would make claim. Yeah, and I'll tell you, like,

O Cedar Point has the most roller coasters. - Yeah, they come out, it also has one of the best wooden roller coasters in the world. It's so, I worked at Lake Count Pounds. My wife also worked at Lake Count Pounds at the same time,

and she was the one that operated that ride. - Oh, okay. - Oh, okay. - So if you're ever in Connecticut, definitely try to go on Boulder Dash, that's the ride.

- Oh, okay, I do love a wooden roller coaster. - Yeah. - And that's my favorite. Okay, but alas, you were working there. What grade were you in?

- So I had just finished my sophomore year of college. This was a summer job. I was a water park attendant. I was the guy on top of the water slide, helping people go down the slide,

making sure they get out okay and sending the next batch. I had nowhere near the responsibility that the lifeguard's had. I was just sending people down the slide. - You're in charge of the gap, too, yeah, to imagine.

- Yeah, I make it small talk with the guests. There was a lot of fun. - I hate to be a perv, but you're talking to chicks and bikinis and stuff, that's gotta be fun. - Maybe a young man.

- Maybe a young man. - A man, operating the wooden roller coaster. - You still see the girls and bikinis even you have a girlfriend. - It made me realize, replaying the story in my head,

the water park is such a vulnerable place for things to go wrong. - Oh, yeah. - You're pretty much naked and things are going wrong. - Yeah.

- And so it adds this whole crazier element. - You're wet in naked. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - And I'm just up there with like a whistle,

man like, okay, next, yeah. It was a beautiful summer day and I was working, what I think is probably the biggest and the most popular water park right at the compound's called Mammoth Falls.

And it is a huge green tube. Six people sit in a big yellow raft. The queue line for this ride can be like an hour, two hours long, especially on a busy day.

- Whoa. - And when you enter this ride, you kind of walk down a path almost in the woods and then there is a like four or five story tall tower of stairs.

You climb all the way to the top to get to the top deck. And so that's where I am. And everything's going smooth. A family of four comes up. It's their turn to get to the raft.

And I'm all alone up there, so I'm helping this family, everything's normal, but then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a little bit of a commotion. And it was a woman and an eight year old girl

In the moment, I didn't really think much of it

and I usually didn't intervene

“when people were cutting the line unless people around them”

started to really make a stink about it. But no one was saying anything. They were kind of just letting this happen. So I just ignored it, it was focusing on the family. It front of me, getting them ready to go down this light.

Next thing I know, let's say their mother and daughter, they are jumping into the raft. They have made their way to the top. And now they are inserting themselves with this family of four.

And again, I wasn't really thinking much in that moment and there were two open seats. And I think if it was at capacity, I would have been like, please wait. But there were two open seats.

And they just jumped in and I thought, maybe they were confused and they can join. Now, to try to be really generous to them and make a good argument form, do you think it's possible that they were operating

under the protocol of like a ski chair lift? Or it's like, if you're a single, you know, you can get in that single line there. Like, well, we're not six. So clearly, there's gonna be a gap for two.

Is that possible? They were just assholes. Well, it's kind of part of the stuff. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Usually it's the stairs and then right at the top of the stairs

where you enter the top deck. There is kind of a barrier that is set up so that people aren't just flooding this top deck. 'Cause also at the top deck, there's a pretty large pool

with about a foot of water and that's where the raft goes. And then it just filters down the tube. So usually most of the people are all on the stairs. So we really didn't experience people kind of going past that until it was their turn.

Gotcha. And so I am ready to send this group of six down the slide and it was almost as like just as I let go of the raft, I get a better look at the mother and daughter and they were completely covered in vomit.

Oh, no, as you really enter the tube, there's like a waterfall that kind of splashes you. And I just remember seeing the vomit splashing off of them and filling the inner part of this raft. Oh, it was bad and then they just disappear into the darkness

they're on their way.

And so I start panicking because my first thought is,

oh my God, we're gonna have to close down this slide.

“And the line is long and that's the worst thing”

to have to do to people is be like, you've waited all this time and now we're shutting down the slide. So I quickly go and grab the phone that is at the top of this deck to call down to the lifeguard. I don't know if this is a universal thing,

but I let count pounds any kind of vomit situation. We call that a rainbow. Oh, all right. And so I called down to the lifeguard and said, hey, we got a rainbow.

I don't know what's about to come out of this slide, but we're gonna have to shut down the ride. I'm gonna close the queue line. I'm gonna call the manager. What is protocolic when happens when that's flagged?

Usually it's scooping it out. It kind of depends on the severity of the situation. Sometimes it's kind of a temporary pause. I'm gonna let's clean it up, make sure it's okay. I remember being told that the raft at the bottom was covered.

So that raft had to get pulled. Fuck. Oh yeah, we did end up shutting down the ride. But I'm on the phone talking to the lifeguard and I'm kind of looking down.

I'm away from the queue line and I get a tap on the shoulder. And I turn around and there is a large gentleman, shirtless standing in front of me. He is covered in vomit.

What the fuck is going on? This is a horror movie. He's very distressed and then I see a few more people start to push their way on this staircase onto the top deck. What?

With some amount of vomit. Oh, oh, oh. What is going on? I'm panicking everyone looks horrified. And I asked the guy, like, what happened?

What's going on? And all he said was, it came from up above. Yes, it was booting over the side. Oh. What happened was this little girl waiting,

whether it was a heat-related thing or feeling sick. She pretty much made it to the top of the deck. Thought sick leaned over throughout all over everyone below her. Oh, me and my God. Dad surpasses.

I've been pooped on by a bird. I'm Santa Monica Promenade. That's rough, but I can't imagine getting hit in the face with vomit from a dog. A stranger's vomit.

No, no, no, no, no, no. And helps out with a little girl. If I got a pick who I'm getting vomit at home, I think that's my pair.

“And I think for those folks, it was either,”

let me leave this line and go to the bathroom or I'm coming to the top to try to watch the water. And that would be my instinct. I need to get in the water now. Was he really covered?

Like it sounds like it was a tremendous amount of cute.

He was covered. Oh, my first thought was maybe this girl

But no, he was covered. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

“And then of course, he wants to jump in the water.”

Yeah, so I have all these people. They're jumping into this little pool with a foot of water. Splash, I'm so impressed. I'm probably trying to get it off.

Let's get my first response was to be like,

you gotta get out. It's not safe. You're gonna fall on the slide, but they didn't care. They were like, I need to clear myself off. Also, there was vomit in the water already.

So it's like the top of the deck was a mess. So I ended up having to clear the whole line, shut down the ride. Oh, my God, what a disaster. Do you think people got free passes for that? Circumstances like that, there would definitely be

some sort of voucher that people can receive. You would. Oh, yeah, I kind of ruined the trip to the water part to get thrown up on. Oh, it's disgusting.

What a wonderful mystery, though. The first one's like, oh, what's going on there? They're pushing. We think something's wrong with that. Yeah, they're bitchy.

And then also, oh, they've puked. So they just want to get down before she puked. Again, still not the right.

“I'm surprised they didn't say, like, hey,”

there's a situation. Someone's puking from above. Yeah, the mother and daughter when they got in. That's what was strange to me, too. It's not like the gods at the top of the deck.

And they're like, it will really sick. We need help. I'm getting on the slide, and I'm leaving. How am I going down? Fuck decorum.

Do you think they were the cause of it? One of the guests said that they saw the girl throw up over the edge. That's all the girl who ran to the deck. Yeah, it was not good. And the worst part is that ride is so fine,

because working in this water park, he had a rotation of rides you worked. And so once you were done with your hour block of working on a ride, you go to the next one.

And I would always hop on the raft with a family

and ride it down to go to the next one. Yeah, but that line had to shut down the ride. I had to get a bag of cat litter, go down the steps, clean up all the spots that had vomit on it, and make my way to the next ride.

That slide was probably down for the day, yeah. It was. We didn't get that back up and running. Take a minute. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, grody.

“I hate thinking about what goes on in these public environments.”

Into Josh's first point, they were exposed. They were nude. So it was getting all over their skin. It wasn't like on their shirt that they could take up. It was on their thigh.

In the mouth, maybe. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, how long did you work there? I was there for two summers.

Did you want to work there forever? No, it was just a summer job. OK. There are so many stories at this water park. Were there poop incidents?

Did people have unauthorized vacuations?

I never actually saw or dealt with that.

Oh, that's good. That's encouraging. Because that's E. coli, that's me coli scare. That's a mess. There would be a few times where that would happen in the pools.

That's when you really have to drain the whole pool. But I never dealt with that firsthand. I went to a water park on the outskirts of Seattle. And I was wearing a pair of shorts that I had been wearing way too many summers. I was wearing my fifth summer in these shorts.

So they were my friend Colleen. Yeah, they were really kind of thin. And we went down. And he's really tall, like 45 degree angle. Really fast, cross your legs, type slides, and dueling slides.

We're next to each other. We go down, and then we get into the water, and then we come out of the water, and we're getting the water out of our hair, and then we just start walking. And then all of a sudden, and we walk for a minute. And she goes, oh my gosh, my entire butt cheeks were out.

It had ripped the whole back of my fucking shorts off. And again, I left all my clothes in the car. I don't want to get a locker or anything. So I entered in and just that swimsuit. So I had to walk through the park with my hands over my butt crab and go back out to the

car. And you're pretty self-conscious about your butt crack. Yeah. So if that happened to me, I can only imagine, but there's a ton of swimsuit disasters there.

Oh, all the time. Oh, yeah. Thanks, John. Of course. You mind if I bring my wife on to say hi.

Yeah, let's talk to her. She's the one that got me into the podcast. She was a listener away before me. Oh, she's wearing a robot. Hi.

Hi. Hello. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.

The tallest fast is wooden roller coaster. That's right. I sure did. Yeah. Anything exciting happened there.

I mean, people must have come back in all kinds of states of mind. Oh, absolutely. We saw a lot of things on that roller coaster. Because that was the destination for the park. So you got a lot of people who would travel from across the country.

We'd have roller coaster enthusiasts that would come to ride this particular wooden roller coaster. So it was cool. You got to see all different types of people. I'm having really great days, not so much, because they were very scared.

Did you get promoted to that position like that's like the best position you can have in the park? No, that's the first one I had. Yeah. The first and last.

Yeah.

But it was fun because we were working there at the same time and we were dating.

“And so we sometimes would get lunch together or he'd wave at me.”

Oh. And then you get PQs. Oh, I like it. Well, it's nice meeting both of you. Yes.

Likewise. Thank you guys so much for having us. Take care. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Hi. Hi. Oh my gosh. So nice to meet you guys. Abby, where are you?

So I am in Boston right now. Okay, that feels right for you. Yeah. That would have been in a top three guests for me. Yeah.

You look Irish to me. Are you Irish? Definitely. Yes. Yeah, definitely.

Very good. Yeah. Plays into the story. Just the tiniest bed. Oh, that is funny.

Okay. Well, please take us through your water park experience. Okay.

So first I want to say I was born and raised in Wisconsin.

So I really hope you guys get some story from Wisconsin Dells because it is the water park capital of the world and sadly my story is not from there. Oh, okay. Now we did just talk to someone from Wisconsin, but they had pooped their pants. That's why we talked to them.

That was different.

“On a tubing trip, did you ever go tubing in Wisconsin?”

Not in Wisconsin, but lots of good water adventures there. Okay, great. Wisconsin is what I would have guessed. Okay. Well, you would be right.

It would make sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should have said that first. I know, but I'm just so shy. Yeah, she's so timid and afraid.

Yeah, I've noticed that about you. Okay. So not in Wisconsin, though, this water park story. Yes. So my story takes place in Bali, summer of 2019.

I just finished my freshman year of college. And so I got the opportunity to work in a lab in Singapore with a bunch of other university students. It was like the opportunity of a lifetime. So I was like, okay, if I'm going to be in Singapore all summer and being paid to be there,

like I wanted to travel every single weekend. And what kind of lab are we talking about? It was antimicrobial resistance bacteria kind of lab. One of the places that we went to was Bali. I did the long weekend girls trip there.

And it was, as fun as you could possibly imagine, assayables every day walking on the beach,

surfing, hiking, all the amazing things you imagine about Bali.

That's what that trip was. Was it so hot though? I went one time.

“And I think it is in the top three prettiest places I've ever been in my life.”

And also, it's the hottest place I've ever felt in my life. Well, so since I've been living in Singapore for a few months at that time and kind of like acclimated, it didn't feel too bad because Singapore is like 100% humidity every day. Wow.

Yeah. I was at a cruise ship. And when we got off the cruise ship to get on the little tender to go over to Bali, it was like walking into a blast furnace. It was just like, oh my god, this is overwhelming.

Yeah, that's about right. So the first day we went surfing. And this is important because I got sunburned over like my entire backside, 50% of my body was completely sunburned. For the listener, Abby is very first in blonde hair.

In my defense, I did put on sunscreen, but I think I wasn't that good at surfing. So I did a lot more like tumbling than riding the waves. And I think that may be contributed to the sunscreen coming off a bit too quickly. So then the day that the story takes place, we had a driver because that was cheaper than having like a taxi or anything and he suggested this kind of like cool slightly off

the beaten path, little water place for us to go to. And so we drove through the rice paddies and these like pepper fields and stuff. And all of a sudden you are in the Indonesian jungle and it's like so beautiful and green all around. And there's this huge gorge that goes through.

And the gorge is two to three stories high. The walls for most parts and this black gray stone. So it's a super cool shady vibe where like the vines are hanging down onto the rocks.

And then they basically have it set up as a natural water park.

Like a foam, like you're going through like carved out a volcanic rock. Yeah, exactly. And there's like water flowing through there. Made for Instagram. Yes, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, I was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt because I was too sunburned. So no good Instagram fix that day, but it was so fun on the less. Our guide was super nice and we were walking through and there's some places where the water's like ankle deep and you're kind of just hiking and there's some places where

it's like chest deep and so you're kind of grabbing onto your friends, pulling them through the current and like climbing over the rocks and some places where the water's like deep enough for you to climb up the rocks and like jump into the water and like cliff dive kind of. Oh, this is a heaven.

It was heaven and our guide was really encouraging us to be brave and jump and have a good time so I really appreciated that and then the other part that I thought was really cool was that the water inside the gorge was all fresh water and having spent the whole summer in

I really like that fresh water feeling.

It just feels nicer on my skin. I like it. It feels like at home for me.

“So I remember that being distinctly nice about being there.”

Yeah, yeah. I'm a fresh water guide to the fresh coast. I love it. So now we fast forward six years and this Bali trip and the time at the natural water park are just kind of like a distant fond memory and I think about the water park.

Oh, like that was like such a cool little adventure that we went on whatever. But so in 2025 and I was having really bad issues with pretty constant stomach aches like every single day, I have a stomach ache, I'm curled over, I feel so bad, I'm going to work pretending everything's fine, but it's really not, I feel horrible. And so I'm seeing my PCP, I'm seeing a GI doctor.

What's a PCP? Primary care physician. Oh great. So I'm seeing them, I'm doing so many blood tests, I even got a colonoscopy, so kind of crazy that I can relate to your colonoscopy stories at age 26.

So we kind of did everything and eventually we were sort of like grasping for straws in my GI doctor asked me if I'd ever been to South East Asia or Africa. Oh, I said I had been, but it was like six years ago, so probably irrelevant.

“And then she asked if I'd ever been in fresh water there and now I think back to the water”

park. Oh, no. And it turns out I for six years had had microscopic parasitic worms in my sister. Also, the irony that you were there doing the antimicrobial work in Singapore, the microbes were like, oh, you want to fuck with us?

Wait, what does the microbes actually got in from the lab? It's so gross. They literally swim into your skin in the water, really? So wait, did they, okay, I have a lot of questions, and you've seen perfectly suited to answer them on a biological level.

Do you think the people that live there and interact with that water all the time? Are they all just infested with these worms? Are they somehow have some other microbe in their body that's keeping that in check? What's going on with those folks?

Yes, so I did some research on it, and there's at any given time, like 200 million people

in the world that actually have this. So it's super common, but it's not common for tourists because you're not usually in that type of water, but like a lot of the young kids who are like bathing in that water drinking from that water like using that water for different things, they're getting this parasite. And there's an anti-paracet drug to get rid of it, but for me personally, I didn't have

the early signs that I had the parasite because the early signs are fatigue, rash, and really itchy skin. But I had a rash over 50% of my body from my sunburn, literally it was so gross all of my skin peeled off within a few weeks because it was so badly sunburn, and so I was super, super itchy after I'd gotten this sunburn.

So I had kind of like rashes, and I had really itchy skin, but it didn't really tip me off that it was something like that. I was like, well, obviously, I just got a sunburn. It should be in the textbook for correlation versus causation. Definitely.

So I need to know about the treatment, but was your first that was like, okay, all the girls

on the trip, I need to call them and find out if they have this. Yeah, I was actually having like a college reunion with them a few weeks later. So it was kind of the perfect opening line conversation starter with them being like, just say, you know, like I've had this parasite for six years. Oh my God.

If you think you might have it, talk to your doctor.

“Did anyone say they were having stomach issues or no?”

No one else said that they ended up getting it, but I might have also been more susceptible like with the sunburn because it really hurts your skin barrier. So probably wasn't as good with my defenses as they were at that time. And what's the name of the actual parasite you had? Oh, I'm going to butcher the pronunciation, but it's like, shishto shimaiuses something

like that. Oh, shishit, shimaiuses. No, exactly. And what's the treatment? There's pills you take, but it's very specific the amount of pill you take, too.

So I had to go to the doctor and get weighed before I got prescribed the pills. And I had to take exactly 3.75 pills. Wow. And so like the pharmacist gave me four, and I literally had to like chip off part of one of them and take the exact right amount for my body weight.

So how long did it take before you felt better? And then I'm really gross question. Do you pass them? Are they in your stool? Can you see them?

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So I got better like pretty much immediately after you take the pills. It's like pretty much done within the next day or so, which is really nice.

But yeah, you kind of like pass it through your stool and the crazy thing is they can live in you for way longer than six years. Like it could live in you for up to like three decades. What? Oh, I know.

It's so crazy. So I think I was probably hoping some out over time, but they just keep reproducing and stuff like that. So I didn't really like no to look for them.

Last question.

Just because I'm a little too into the microbiome, did the treatment also kill off

“a lot of your good microbes and did you have to repopulate?”

Is there collateral damage in this? I didn't have to like do anything. I wasn't recommended to do anything and you maybe don't want to know if you're like damaging your microbiome. Just be happy with the fix that you got.

Like don't worry about the water leak of the roofs on fire situation and you got to get rid of these worms that entered through your skin. As soon as you say worms, it takes it to another. I was preparing myself for a tapeworm story. Once you said six years later, I'm like, okay, she got some.

I thought you had Zika. Oh, no. Thankfully, no. Isn't that from mosquitoes? I don't know, but it's in those areas.

Uh-huh. Scary. But you're now healthy as a horse. Thankfully, you don't knock on wood. God, I'm trying to decide how I move forward.

I mean, heard this story. How many other gals were with you in this excursion? Three other girls. So 25% chance. Yeah.

And I'm trying to think about it. Still do it. Go there. Yes, I want to see. It sounds so fun.

Was it so fun? It was so fun.

“And honestly, it seems like they sound the number of people that get it every year, you probably”

would get it. Oh, my God. If you get a rash and you get itchy and it's not from a sunburn, then that's like a good tip to like go to your doctor. It's worth it.

I think it's worth the risk. Guys. No. Yeah, I recommend it to you. To be on record saying I do not recommend doing this.

Well, Abby, what a story. I'm so glad you figured it out. And I guess the Irishians did come to play in the sunburn. Yeah. How do you do with anesthetic, any wild experiences?

Oh, my gosh. It honestly is so bad. I've had issues with like a gum graph, where it wasn't in a precise enough and post colonoscopy. I like threw up everywhere.

Oh, no. Wow. So you can't. It's not good for you. That's good.

But maybe you threw up because worms were in your body. We could start looking back and worms could be caused. Have everything. Yeah, if you didn't file your taxes in 2022, could have been the worms. It could have.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, Abby is so delightful to meet you. Thank you. Well, I really appreciate it.

And I just want to give one quick shout out to my fiancée Ethan.

He is the funniest, kindest, most handsome, amazing cat dad ever.

Oh, we love you too. And exactly one month from today, he is going to become my husband. Yeah. Happy shouting out for you. Congratulations.

April showers bring me wedding. Exactly. That's the same. Well, congratulations. And we wish you a ton of luck on this union.

Yes. And he sounds like a babe. And I'm happy for you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Abby.

Bye. Bye. Hi. Hi. Didri, where are you in the country?

I'm your Lake Norman in North Carolina. Okay. Is that closer to Raleigh or to Charlotte? Charlotte. Ask our people live on that lake.

I've heard NASCAR basketball, country stars. Nice. Nice. Nice. I've heard NASCAR drivers, and I see them on their cool boats on the lake.

And I bet it's that lake. Yeah. They have helicopters on some of the houses around here. Little planes. We just have an SUV.

Okay. That's all one means. Because you have a water park store. It's taken me a lot of years to tell it. So 2013, we're all family vacation.

My kids were six and ten. They're now 19 and 23. They big dust can be go to a water park.

“It's not my husband and my favorite thing to do, but we thought, you know what?”

What the hell? Bot tickets went. So we're about halfway through the day. It's time to go to the tallest, biggest, darkest water side they have. And I want to talk about the version of myself at that point in 2013.

This is very important. I'm thick now, but I was an extra extra thick piece of bacon. That's very important. Okay. We climb up the 17,000 stairs.

We get to the top. There's about five families in front of us. And I get instant diarrhea. Oh. I look at my husband and I am like, I've got to go.

I've got to go now. So I'm going down the stairs. I'm going to go down the stairs as fast as I'm like peridogging the whole egg. We do not let me shit in this swimsuit. We'll ruin the whole egg.

I get to the bathroom. We walk in. And it is like a watery grave in there. They have not taken care of the floor. Oh.

It's good. It's crazy. So I'm carefully trying to get to the stall. But at that time, and you may remember this. It really wasn't sour.

My husband is six five. I'm five seven.

Kind of always trying to be a little taller.

I have that on. I have a cover up and a full piece bathing suit. You guys, I get to the stall. I walk the door. I'm like.

Go. You can serve this point into the side because of what a panic. Like, I feel like having to get out of a one piece versus just pull it to the side. I actually had that thought. And I was like, if I get shit on myself, I won't gag.

Okay.

You're sensitive to this whole.

“Also, yeah, it does run the risk of getting more places.”

Yeah. And you want to be clean. So took it off to down. Like, thank God. Did what I needed to do.

Yeah. Really quick. I do need a little more detail on for a little bit. Do you think all the motion of the day? Did you drink some pool water?

Had you eaten something dicey? Was it a flu? How do we explain this? I think it was what I chose to eat. Mix with an alcohol beverage.

It doesn't take me a lot. Okay. One drink. I'm done. So it's time to lean it.

Now let's talk about the size. Okay. I want to get a clean white, guys. I have a long torso short arms. So I am now on my toes.

Leaning forward. Go to get a great white. You guys. When I do, I slip. I follow.

Oh, oh. I'm like, it's worse. Yeah. And you're bare naked. Bare naked.

Okay. But behind us all. Huh. There's nothing grosser to me in the world than a wet fucking bathroom floor. When you go to a public floor or campground, it is the worst.

It is disgusting. So I'm on my knees and a prayer. But my legs are wide open. As the universe would have it. There is a woman walking on the other side of the stall.

Who falls? No. What on her back? No. Her foot comes up underneath my stall.

And her toes go into my vagina. No. No. No. No.

No. No. Oh. I swear to God. Oh, my.

Correct. I mean, she was barefoot in the bathroom. Ah. She knows what she touched. I know what she's touching.

Oh. And we're in shock. I'm getting up. And I'm like, oh, are you okay? Oh.

Yeah. Are you okay? We're just talking through the door. She leaves. And I'm like, I don't even fucking know what just happened.

Yeah. I would go to car if I were you. That'd be a wrap on the day for me. I just almost shipped my suit. I fell on a wet floor.

Yeah. A stranger's toes. When am I my vagina? I mean, this is impossible. It isn't possible.

And so I do what I need to do. I clean up. I get my suit back on. I'm like, I'm not coming out of this stall. Like, I don't want to see her.

I need to be like far, far, far away from the bathroom. And all of a sudden I hear, man. We're going to need you to come out. The other party.

“And you need to fill it in into your report.”

And I was like, no. Oh, no. I was like, I'm glad. I don't need to follow. Yeah.

For liability reasons. You need to fill it in into the report. Oh, you're going to be on record. A paper trail of this. I would come.

I see the lady basically.

I just had sexual relations with. Yeah. What kind of girl is she? What age was she? In her 40s.

I would get a little older. Okay. She had her whole crew there. I was so low. I have to tell my story.

She has to tell her story. I finally get out of the bathroom. 30 minutes. My family is waiting for me. waiting for me to have that hell happen. He's like, you look traumatized. I was like,

fucking think. I tell him he dies laughing, but instead of converting me, he said, oh my God, I hope she didn't have athlete's feet. Sure. I across my mind is a guy. I didn't say it. I'm already concerned about a possible use of the same TI. Right. I had him swear to secrecy that day, do not ever, ever tell this story. I got you got about three years and we're at like a cookout on July 4th. And he's all tipsy. Yeah, he's like, you do want to tell you water parks.

Sure. That was in 2016 and it has been told so many times. I hope the lady who's put one of my vagina hears this and call as you go. What could be better? Like, we have one last caller and it's from Madison. It could be. I mean, I hope, fingers, fingers crossed. Please message me back. We started off on the wrong foot. I got to her. I knew I could. On the nice little day or something.

“That's insane. I don't know how I would recover. Honestly, God, the foot in the vagina to me is”

so secondary to being on the wet ground naked in a bathroom. It's been that she was on her feet were that long. Her feet were on it. What are the chances? Hence the title of when I wrote in, I was like, I was towed at a water park. But it's like, how does that happen? I have tried to figure out just how in the world that timing. It might be a glitch in the same. It does. It sounds like something sort of possible, like a true glitch. A true glitch. Yeah. They happen sometime.

See, if you overheard it. Sorry, my dad. I'll talk about it. You're kids, where they aware of the story. Not if that age, but as I got older, they did and it's been repeated. I meet my daughters a adult friend and they're like, "Can you please help a lot of our story?" Well, they owe you. You didn't want to go to the water park. You win and then you got footed. I got towed. Wow. Wow, what a banger. That's fantastic. You know, we thought we were getting water parking. It was an authorised

evacuation. Yeah. Slip and fall. Tell us about the time you got the strangers foot in your vagina.

It was the first time I'd ever had a foot in my vagina. Wow. Wow. What if you ended up really

you. Hey, great to meet you guys. Thanks for having me. You're clearly a lot of fun. I'm happy for

your kids. They got a clearly a very fun mom. We like to have fun. My husband's not too bad either. Six five. He's got no choice. You can be a wallflower at six five. You got to own it. He owns it. Monica, your podcast best dead best thing ever. I just want to tell you that. So happy you liked it. It was the best thing ever. Thank you, Liz. I said no, I loved your family. All right. Great meeting you.

“Great to meet you guys. Hi. Hi. Is this Madison? It is. Can you hear me okay? Yes, how did you pick Madison?”

It's an old to a good friend that I hope she appreciates it. Oh, that's sweet. Where are you at? I am in Massachusetts. Great. That's our second one today. Oh, yeah. You want to know if it's the same water park I wouldn't be surprised. What was the name of this one? This is called water was on Cape Cod. No, no, that's new. This is novel. Okay, set the scene for us. What year is it? Walk us through it.

All right. The year is 2007 and I'm an awkward 15 year old girl, which is really crucial to this

story. So I was at water was near Cape Cod with my best friend and her family. And I was wearing this like cutesy bikini. And in the middle of the water park is this giant black enclosed slide. It's like at least 50 feet tall. It's known for giving notorious wedges. And if you've ever seen

“the movie grown ups with Adam Sandler, then like you've seen it. Okay, okay. And this one you're in”

an entirely enclosed tube right in your flint turning and then the fiberglass with the seams are cutting your back. All of the above. Are you on a mat? Nope. Straight body down. And there's always teenage boys, you know, at the bottom, look into a sneak peek of someone's butt cheek because the wedges are part of the ride. Also, people are probably losing their tops occasionally. Absolutely. Also, some people just take them off in there. Well, I'm maybe.

Okay. So I go plummeting down the slide and I get more than just the wedgie I bargained for. I get to the bottom and I immediately know something's wrong because I have this intense pain in the bottom area of my bathing suit and I can barely stand up. Oh, no. Okay. Now, really quick is the pain in your butt or your vagina. So that's the tube be determined. So I go to the bathroom and there's like some blood. Oh. Monica's very sensitive to these vagina stories. Like the woman who fell in

“the mood. I know I think about it all the time. Being 15 is really like a crucial part of this story.”

And I had no idea what was happening just like this general throb and I was like a very inexperienced 15 year old girl at the time. So I laughed to my friend and tell her that I popped my cherry. Okay. Sure. Sure. And we're just like convinced because when you're 15, you hear it can happen like riding a horse or like other things. So I was like, this is my experience. It happened on pirates plunge. So I tell nobody except her. This is like our little secret that I popped

my cherry on pirates plunge at water was really quick Madison does the bleeding stopped or did you have to put like a bird's nest to toilet paper in there or were we out with the bleeding? I definitely put some toilet paper in there but it's not like a heavy bleep. Okay. At the time. So I tell obviously no one. And days later I can tell that it's definitely my asshole that's horrible. You popped a different cherry. As a 15 year old girl, I don't just go home

and tell my mom like, oh my butt hurts. Never. I would never exactly like not something you do.

So days go by weeks go by and I'm an excruciating pain. And in the meantime, I'm going to school. I'm dancing. I climbed the statue of Liberty. Oh. Wait a minute. How does one climb the statue of Liberty? You come in. You used to be able to do that. Yeah, there were stairs. So I resorted at this point to only going to the bathroom at my own house because I would literally need to bite on my family's hand towels that were hanging next to the toilet because of how much pain I was

in. And would you bleed every time you had a ball movement? Not really, probably like streaky but like not like heavy. Finally, after like shooting myself, I decided I told my mom that something is going on. It's the end of November at this point and this had happened in middle of July. Oh my. You are a trooper and also we just need to be able to talk to our moms. I know since giving birth, I would say this talked it. Imagine the feeling of like acid pee on an open wound.

and I at this point won't let anybody like touch me or like do like an internal or external exam.

“So they tell my mom that it's like most likely a hemorrhide. And after several more weeks”

of no relief from like this or the counter hemorrhide cream that they kept saying, oh it's going to take time and I'm like well don't you think slowly over time it should be like getting better? So at this point, my mom's like sick of hearing that my pain is like a 10 out of a 10 and it doesn't help that I'm the middle child who's kind of like, how's the reputation

for being a dramatic one always looking for a little attention? Like my mom's like, what do you

mean it's a 10 out of a 10? If that's serious, then we're going to go to Boston Children's Hospital. So I'm like okay, we do. We got through a furl we go. And during the first visit in Boston, I met with this really amazing doctor who I would say this was non-consensual, but definitely being a minor, my mom knew what was going down. He told me he was going to just take a look, but instead he stuck several fingers up my assholes to determine the size of the hole he would be

working. So he determined that I had tore about 80% of my tissue from a female fisher and had exposed nerve endings. They had only seen one injury like this before and it was someone who actually fell off the back of a jet ski and had like the water pressure like blown into their whole

basically interview some of that happened to it. Yeah. So I was like the number two situation

“for one this bad. Oh. And what did they do? Do they have to put stitches in there somehow?”

Yes, but a week later started, what ended up being three surgeries to like have to go in and repair all this damage. Oh. As a result, I had to be on a no-food diet because they had to prevent me from like evacuating to help with the repair process. I literally was a zoo animal with like a sign on the door that said do not feed. Oh my god. Chip only died. It was awful for how long. I believe like three weeks. We're getting into Christmas now. Yeah. Oh yeah, we're past Christmas. We're starting

second semester of high school where I don't return back for second semester and that's kind of where this story goes. This is so severe. Did the doctor theorize on had the water ripped the inside of your ass or the fabric hadn't gotten up there or anything? No, it was definitely water pressure. Yeah. You never think that you could get that kind of pressure from a water. Wow.

Okay. I never returned back after Christmas break for second semester in my sister who is two

years older than me at my same high school, returns back to school and she was told by my parents that she was like sworn to secrecy that she couldn't tell anybody what was going on to protect my

“privacy. Yeah. So I don't remember exactly what she would tell people but she was clearly my sister”

and I don't know if it was that she told people I don't know what's going on or I can't tell what's going on but like it was obviously sketchy. But it turned into like she's in Boston getting help for something. Oh, geez. It's like you were at a rest facility. A bit. So then I finally returned back to school three weeks later. I'm down 20 pounds from this liquid only diet and have to now deal with this rumor that the reason I've been out of school is because I was at treatment for an eating disorder.

Oh, yeah. Now it looks obvious. Yeah. Wow. Are you like I'd rather it be that? That's exactly what I was going to say. The sad part is like the fragility of this situation that it was just easier to go along with that than for anybody to know where I really was for the past three weeks. Wow. How's everything now, Rectaly? We're good. Great. We've done my child birth. We've done other things. We've used it. You know, it's working. And you don't want PTSD when you're doing a number

two. I don't know, but I would say for a while, it was hard to trust. Yeah. There was no stool softener that would make it soft enough. You know, in the beginning. Oh, boy. That was a doozy. Before we are done, I need to tell you that I am not a lifelong armchair. Okay. And a few months ago, my friends Lindsay, who's here with me right now to babysit my two-year-old while I could come into this fort for 10 minutes. She's here watching him. She a few months ago was like,

I need you to listen to this podcast because I've been listening to it for the past five years.

In the past four months, I listened to 80 episodes. Like, I've become strongly addicted.

“Okay. Isn't that a week ago, you post this prompt. What is the chance?”

Sam, we call that Sam. If you listen to the show, I mean, yes. I became a fan just in time.

She could not be more proud that this is a comfortable circle. Oh, I'm so delighted. Nice meeting you.

“Nice meeting you. Bye. Thank you. Wow. I'm kind of shocked in this litigious country.”

We live in that they exist. Yeah, I'm almost happy. It feels like they couldn't even exist here,

but yet they do. Yeah, they do. Some of these huge places they figure out how to navigate

“all the life. I think you sign, a waiver. I bet when you buy the ticket, it's like our asshole tickers.”

Don't come, not again. From, come, run to me. That your asshole's fault, not ours. Oh, blood. I mean, when there's, okay, I just really don't like when there's random blood. Should we do a blood prompt? No, I'm good. Accidental blood stories. Those about a time there was blood in your blood. Do you want to sing a tune or something when you're with him, son?