Armchair Anonymous: Mall Stories

Dax Shepard
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Monica Padman
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Dax Shepard
Welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax shepherd. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. This was fun.

Monica Padman
This was for you, my old stomping ground. This one specifically was for you. It's crazy mall story. I love the mall boy. One of these had me laughing.

Dax Shepard
A little tiny thing got carried away. Someone lost control of a little tiny thing, and there's nothing that's funnier than that. This is so fun. Oh, it was a really good one. And some bonkers ones, too.

Now let me see if you can. I'm just looking to see if you can listen to this one. Yeah, this is fine. There's blood. Yeah, there's some blood and there's some poop.

And there's some pooty and there's some theft. Please enjoy. Mall stories hard times come and go good times take em slow my life, I had em both remember one thing you gotta know I'm gonna keep on shining hello. Hi. How are you guys?

Oh, good. And you? I'm very well. Thank you for joining me at my work in the supply closet. Wait, okay, you're at work in a supply closet?

Does the supply closet always have this very light ocean spray green blanket? No, I got the directions and I put up these lovely sound barriers. So I have this blanket and behind me there is a water heater, which, while I was waiting, I heard it tinkle a few times. So I was like, well, that's just great. Hopefully it's not going to be doing that throughout the recording.

Monica Padman
I hope it does. I want a coworker to walk in and go, what in the fuck are you doing? Cause this would be like a. Oh. No, she already knows.

Dax Shepard
Oh, she knows. Okay. She helped me put the blankets up this morning. So it's been a very productive day at work. Where are you at, in the country?

Michelle
I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. Wonderful. Okay, so you have a crazy mall story. I do. So I saw this prompt and I was like, wow.

I had honestly forgotten about this story, but here we are. This prompt brought me back to the late nineties. I'm sorry. Actually, it was the early nineties. Early nineties.

Dax Shepard
Prime mall time. I was gonna say that about late nineties. Guess what? It was pretty good in the eighties. Too, I hate to tell you.

Monica Padman
It was up until, like, five years ago. Indoor mall in Michigan. Like 20 years ago. Yeah. Okay.

Dax Shepard
Okay. Sorry. Sorry, Michelle. That's okay. Sidebar.

Michelle
So I was 17 and I worked at a mall in the suburbs of DC in Virginia. It was a very, very high end mall. The anchor stores were Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's. When Macy's was actually a thing, it had a bunch of luxury fashion brand stores. There was a Ritz Carlton.

Well, there still is a Ritz Carlton attached to the mall so that people could exit from the hotel into the mall and do their shopping. So, I mean, the clientele was very, very affluent. There was middle eastern royalty, and there were actors, sometimes musicians that were on tour that would stay at the Ritz. This is a dream, Michelle. And you were in high school?

I was 17. And, oh, my gosh, did I ever feel so sophisticated. I was working in a card store, so it wasn't like I was working at the Versace, but it still made me feel very worldly and sophisticated. Yes, of course, it wasn't very busy. I mean, I went up there one night to visit a friend and see if we could hang out after her shift.

I walk into the store, and the manager's son and her are standing behind the counter smoking a bowl. Oh. Oh, wow. In the store, very lax. All this to say, the mall that I worked at, it was not really busy at night.

And I think if I worked at the mall across the street, this probably wouldn't have happened. It was a weeknight, and I was working with a girl who was 16, and I took my customer service duties very seriously. This guy comes up to the counter and he asks for some help to pick out some gift wrap. So I follow him over to the gift wrap wall, and the gift wrap is not really in plain sight of the cash register. It's about 10ft away.

So we get over to the gift wrap, and he looks down, he sees my boots, and he says, oh, gosh, I really like your boots. Now. These boots were everything to me when I was 17. They were suede. They had this fringe that encircled the top.

They were amazing. I wore them into the ground. They were my absolute favorite boots of all time. So anyway, this guy, he looks at my boots, and he's like, wow, I love your boots. And I'm 17.

So I was like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, I love them too. They're great. And I kind of popped my hip out and tilted my knee in, and I kind of swiveled my heel out so he'd get a really good look at my boot. Were you in a pant or a skirt?

I was in pants. Okay. He's looking at it. He says, can I see them? I was like, okay.

So I took off my boot, I handed it to him. Oh, jesus. And I'm thinking, maybe he's got a girlfriend and he really likes these boots, and he wants to go and see if he can find a pair. He's holding my boot, and he's kind of turning it over in his hands. He puts his hand into it, and he says, these don't really offer much arch support.

And I'm just like, yeah, okay. This was the early nineties. Sweat wicking technology wasn't really a thing yet. So I'm sure that his hand in there was probably met with all sorts of swampy sweaty mess. It was gross.

I'm sure it all happened really quickly, but also it took long enough that my coworker decided to come and find me because we had been over at the gift wrap wall long enough for her to be, I guess, concerned. Or maybe she saw immediately that this guy was a creepy. But she comes around the corner and I hear this gasp, and she exclaims my name because he is crouched down on the ground, and he has every single finger interlaced with the toes of my right foot. Wait, hold on a second. You didn't feel this happening?

Dax Shepard
It took your coworker to alert you to this? He was feeling the inside of the boot and the arch support, and then all of a sudden, he finds his hands down to your feet. He somehow talked me out of my sock. Okay, great. So there were some steps between feeling the inside of the boot.

Monica Padman
Was he standing upright holding the boot, or was he down by your foot. Looking at the boot? Yeah, he was standing up. And then he eventually made it down to my foot, where, if I remember correctly, he actually took my sock off. Yeah.

Michelle
And so he ended up with his fingers in between every single one of my toes on my right foot. Oh, boy. And he briskly stands up and walks out of the store, and my coworker is just looking at me like, what in the actual fuck? And I am just kind of like, customer service. I really don't know how it happened.

Dax Shepard
Is it fair to say you had, like, the freeze response? Frozen. You were nervous, or you just literally didn't even really notice what was going on? I was aware that he was asking me to take off my sock, and I was kind of like, this is weird, but it was crazy. How old was this person?

Michelle
He was probably late twenties, maybe early thirties. When you're 17, everybody who's over 20 looks old. What would be the worst age for you, Monica, to hear? I was expecting, like, 53. 53, okay.

Monica Padman
That felt really bad. For whatever reasons, there's stratas in this. Cause if it was, like, another 17 year old boy. Yeah, that's hot. Well, I would argue 53.

Dax Shepard
You can't make it that long in this game. No, I think you can. You think you can? Yeah. There's a lot of older creeps out there.

Michelle
Listen, if you come across a naive 17 year old like me, he probably totally could have been older than that. What's the worst age for you? 40. Interesting, I guess. Cause I'm on fifties backdoor, and I know I'm not as sexual as I was ten years ago, so I feel like I would be more dangerous at 40.

Dax Shepard
You have to wonder how many young women's feet he held. Ooh. Because he had obviously a well rehearsed approach and technique. And you're starting with some flattery, like, oh, I love those boots. Right?

Monica Padman
Oh, great. Me too. It's a whole system. It was weird. You would think that somebody who's gonna try to pull something like that would go to a shoe store.

Maybe they're a little more on top of it on the feet for. Is this too dangerous for us to explore the hierarchy of fearful interaction of this nature? Yeah, I do feel like this is the lowest harm rate. Like, let's just say a deranged lunatic at 711 was going to touch a body part of mine, and I got to pick, yeah. Foot.

Dax Shepard
I go, yeah, if this guy's got to touch something, I'll let him touch my. I agree, actually. So it's, like, the preferred body part. Yeah. Because I would not want them to touch my hands.

Monica Padman
Too intimate. And germs and phase. Definitely not phase. And definitely not, like, private parts. Right.

Or lower back, even knee feels a. Little inside of the knee. No, that's way too intimate. I'd prefer to have my foot touched than to see a flasher. Right.

Dax Shepard
Yeah. You know, we just go through all of them. I feel like this is maybe the only one we can laugh about. I mean, it's still because it's a stranger. Yeah, the guy's deranged.

Monica Padman
He's obviously deranged. But if I was in a relationship with someone and they had a feet fetish, I'm into it. It doesn't creep me out. Unless that person's fetish is so strong that they're doing what this person's doing, like going to malls and touching strangers feet. Underage fetch.

Michelle
Yeah, that's bad for the rest of the shift. My coworker made fun of me relentlessly, and we never really talked about it again because she was 16, I was 17. It was something that I realized now that I have really talked with anybody about it. I was talking with a friend of mine. I sent her a text.

I was like, hey, do you remember the time that I got my foot fingered at the mall and she said, no. What? Right. You know, I don't think I really told many people because I recognized that it was kind of skeevy on some levels, and I didn't really want to be like, yeah, no, I'm the girl that took my sock off. Right.

Monica Padman
You felt shame. Great. Yeah. You're answering my question, I was wondering if you didn't talk about it. Cause on some level you felt like, how did I let myself get to a point where my sock was off?

Like I participated. Exactly. Classic victim 101, where if I'd gone to mall security, they would have been like, well, why would you do that? Yeah, exactly. Also, early nineties.

Absolutely not. What do you expect when you wear boots that nice? Your fault. You were asking for it with the fringe. The fringe was an invitation.

You might as well be topless. Oh, man. That was one of my weird long stories, but I can laugh about it now. Do you catch anyone stealing from this place? Not the kind of products that thieves are drawn to.

Dax Shepard
Stationery and wrapping paper. I think that's a misnomer. You do? Oh, you're right. They like to see them.

Kleptomania. Yeah, maybe even more than that. I always want to call them narcoleptics. They go nighty night. Yeah, sleepies.

Michelle
There was an employee that actually stole and we found out that he was stealing, like, a bunch of expensive figurines. He was giving himself credit on his credit card with the charge machine. That makes sense as long as you're getting money out of it. But just to be stealing and have a gorgeous set of stationery, it seems a little bizarre. Oh, well, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing that story with us.

Thank you. Hope you have a great day at work. Yeah, there's that. I'll try. All right, well, have a great rest of your day.

Dax Shepard
Nice meeting you, Michelle. Nice meeting you guys, too. Bye. Bye. I used to love that kind of storehouse.

I would walk by and go like, what the fuck is that thing doing in here? Like, who's buying paper? What? It was a great place to get gifts. No, AJ voice was or whatever.

AJ novelty shop. Oh, like where you get the wet Willie. Spencer's. Spencer's. Yeah.

Spencer's gifts. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's the difference between. Boys went to Spencer's to get well.

Cause there was, like, sexy stuff. Boys went to Hallmark. Yeah, there was, like, dildos. Yeah, there was sexy stuff in there. Oh, my God.

Monica Padman
Here's Jacob. Or J. Speaking of feet, I need a pedicure. Hmm. Hi.

Oh, hello. Hi. Is it Jay or Jacob? My full name's Jacob, but you can call me Jay. Okay.

Dax Shepard
I'm gonna call you Jay. I like that. Where are you, Jay? I'm in Denver, Colorado. I'm from San Diego originally, and that's where this mall story takes place.

Do you have an expert shirt on? I do. It's my Monica Monsoon shirt. Oh, Monica Monsoon. Oh, great.

Monica Padman
It was given to me by my wife, who's also named Monica. I love that for all of us. She wants to come meet you guys in a little bit. Of course. And you're in what I presume is your basement where you do music.

Yes. I have a drum set behind me. I mean, it's a pretty big room, but I have all this sound buffering already. Oh, we love that. I was, like, stressing all morning, so hopefully it sounds okay.

Dax Shepard
You sound glorious. It's really good to meet you both. You were my two favorite people that I've never met. Oh, thank you. That is so flattering.

Okay, so take us back to San Diego and what year? And also give us a loose description of mall culture in San Diego, because for Monica, and I think what's unique is outdoor probably is the norm. Aren't there a lot of malls in California where there's no roof? That's kind of actually how this one is. So it's a mall called Horton Plaza, and essentially, it's like a five story mall with, like, a canyon that goes down the middle.

Oh, wow. You can see all of the stores on one side and look all the way down to the first floor when you're on the other side. But one thing about it is it's absolutely super confusing. So, like, you can, like, take a staircase from, like, the second floor and get to the fourth floor. It's like an MC Escher drawing 100%.

Monica Padman
It's like the end of Labyrinth. Like, trying to find David Bowie up in there. Even, like, the parking lot's a double helix, so if you get in the wrong area, you just get lost. So I was probably 13 or 14, so, like, 8th or 9th grade. So this would have been in 2003.

Dax Shepard
All right, great. So this was at the peak of malls when people were starting to trust buying things from the Internet, but it was like everything was in there. You have all the food shops and the game stores and go there for anything you need type place. God, I miss it. It was really fun.

Monica Padman
I went with my dad just to do some shopping, and we basically went to go hit up the stores that I knew. It was, like, the GameStop, and it was hot topic at the time. So I'm walking around with my dad, we do some shopping, and then we decided to stop for lunch. They have all these options, but my favorite place was mongolian barbecue, where you, like, fill up your bowl with meat and veggies, and then they stack a bunch of noodles on it and then make it on that circular grill with a bunch of, like, big chopsticks, you know? Oh, yum.

Dax Shepard
Industrial chopsticks. I was of age where I could crush the whole thing, so I ate the entire meal. And then right afterwards, I got a feeling in my gut. Immediate, immediate. I used to get this thing.

Monica Padman
It was like, one in, one out, where I'd, like, put a meal in my body, and then I'd instantly have to go to the bathroom. Wow. So I look at my dad, and I'm like, I gotta go to the bathroom. And he's like, okay, I see ya. So we start, like, looking for a bathroom in this mall, and we're stopping at stores, and they're like, we don't have a bathroom.

Other stores are like, it's employees only, and I'm starting to really feel it. Jay. I don't wanna be critical of you guys, but of course there's no toilets in the stores. We noticed this was a total waste. Of time, but it was such a confusing mall.

They couldn't find the regular painting. We know it's fair, but you just. Know that hot topics is not gonna let you take a dump in there. They should have said, the bathroom is around the corner. Can you guys are going into a foot locker room.

Dax Shepard
You're like, where's your bathroom? They'd be like, are you fucking high? Have you ever been to a foot locker? Buy a fucking hat and get out. No one could even tell us where one was.

Monica Padman
So we finally find a security guard, and he's like, there's a bathroom down there at the far end. And we're like, okay, sweet. We're trucking it to get there. I see the bathroom, I go to open it, and it's just deadbolted. Oh, this is a nightmare.

And I'm like, this is getting kind of bad. And my dad looks at me, and he goes, there's a bathroom in Nordstrom. Can you make it? And I was like, yes. And internally, I'm like, I fucking hope I can make it.

Dax Shepard
Internally you're like, maybe God. Also, your dad knew there was one in Nordstrom the whole time. Come on, dad. Go straight to Nordstrom's. At least some of the stores have bathrooms in them.

Monica Padman
So it's like, you know, they trek across the entire mall to get there. My dad runs ahead and, like, opens the door so I don't even have to, like, open the door for myself. Poor dad. We instantly get into the women's shoe section, and we were on a level that was just all women's clothing and stuff. So it's like my dad, who's like a six six dude, and me in the 8th grader running through this section and I'm slowing down my pace, you know, starting to, like, squeeze the butt cheeks.

Yeah. And I get probably 20ft from the bathroom and just start running and lose. It as you take off running. Oh, boy. I mean, it was gonna happen.

It was like, as I was opening the door, it just started leaking everywhere. And I was wearing khaki shorts and, like, the tall white socks that were. Pulled at the time. And it was just, like, all down everywhere, almost into my shoes. I made it into the stall and I'm sitting there just awkward as fuck with acne and shit.

And I'm like, where do I begin? What do I do? There's the single ply toilet paper that just doesn't clean anything. My dad just opens the door and he goes, are you good? I just go, no.

Yeah. So he leaves and I'm just cleaning up everything. I throw away my underwear, I throw away the socks. I threw basically everything away. Then this other dude comes in and it's a single stall and two urinals.

That type of bathroom? No, this old guy's just sitting. Standing outside of the urinal, waiting for me to be finished. I'm just sitting there smudging shit around, getting cleaned up as best as I can. So my dad finally shows up and basically acts as, like, bouncer.

We got an issue. Go use a bathroom on another floor. He's like, do you know how many bathrooms there are in this mall? None. Yeah, just one.

On every floor of Norsemen, there's five of them. Go find your own. So over the top of the bathroom stall just comes a pair of Tommy Bahamas bathing trunks that are, like, green with orange and pink, you know, flora on it.

It has, like, the netting in it, which, like, at the time was not cool. So I throw them on and throw my poopy khaki shorts into the bag that the bathing suit came in. Like the paper bag from Nordstrom's. Do the walk of shame back through the women's shoe section. A kid goes into the bathroom and comes out wearing something different.

So I'm just mortified. Does anyone know where the pool is? Exactly. He should have bought you a towel too, to sling over your shoulder. I thought there was a top floor jacuzzi up here somewhere.

So we finally make it out of there to the car. I don't know what to say. My dad just leans over and he goes, don't worry, it happens to the best of us. And then he proceeded to just tell me a story about when he shit his pants in public to make me feel better. Dad.

So, yeah, that's when I poop my pants in Nordstrom. So sweet. It does make me wonder why we don't ever see people actively pooping their pants. Cause we all have these stories. We talked to tons of armchairs who have done it.

Dax Shepard
Why haven't I ever been looking at an 8th grade boy and just see shit dribbling down his legs is he sprints through his shoe section. I have an eleven year old stepson and I can tell you, I've seen that look in his eyes before. Wow. It's always been at home. Luckily.

Yeah. I mean, have you ever seen someone dealing with shit actively in their pockets? Well, what time were we together? When we were on an elevator and there was someone in front of us who definitely had soiled their pants. I've seen a couple people and I sent you some photos.

Ones from Rite Aid. Back when it was on the corner. I was behind a woman who had totally shit her yoga pants. Okay, that may be, but there were. No lumps, so I couldn't decide if it had been washed and it stained.

Monica Padman
That must have contained it, right? Yeah. That's a good outfit to have. Well, I'm gonna be on the lookout for more shit on people's legs and shoes and stuff. I just feel like, shocking we don't see it.

Dax Shepard
And Jay, you really scratched an itch. I've had. I was just lamenting to Monica a couple days ago. I'm like, we have not had a poop prompt in way too long. It's time.

Yeah. And so I love that this one snuck in or snuck out. I'm just happy to be here. If you need other poop stories, I'm sure we can find some. I'm sure we'll talk to you again.

Yeah. Let's meet the wife. Monica. Monica. Other Monica.

Monica. One point out, she's probably old. No, you guys may be the same age. I have wanted to be the significant other that comes in at the end of the story so bad. Yay.

Well, you have a big, big leg up that you're Monica. I'm so excited to meet you guys. Oh, us too. What year were you born? 1990.

Monica Padman
Younger? Years younger. So you're 1.89.0. We're just babies over here. I was hoping I would have the mall story cause I used to work at limited two, but Jay's sort of beat mine.

I loved limited two. What year did you work there? I was in high school, 2008 minus three years. Okay. Zero five to zero eight.

Dax Shepard
And you were in there a lot in that period? No, I was late nineties. Early 2099 to zero four. Yeah. Okay.

Monica
Yeah, by the time I worked there, kind of aged out of dressing there, unfortunately. And limited's brothers store was structure, or am I confusing what structure's sister store was? Yeah, I think it's express. Did you see anything bonkers while you worked there? Well, I was telling Jay.

I was like, I didn't think about this until this prompt came up. We did have someone who pooped in the dressing room. Yeah. And they were definitely sitting because the poop was shaped like this, and they asked me to clean it up, and I'm like, I make $10 an hour. Right.

Dax Shepard
My cousins worked at gap, and it was a pretty regular occurrence that someone would sheepishly come in, they would take an outfit off the rack. They'd go in, and they would change into it and come out and pay for it. They would have their old clothes wadded up in the bag. No. Yeah.

This happened weekly at the 12:00. Oh, my God. So you're just a dime a dozen. That's kind of what happened to me. What if we found out there's a broad study and, like, 5% of the clothes sold in a Nordstrom's was just people dealing with having shit themselves?

Monica
It's that Auntie Annie's and Tabaro that really gets you. Yeah, well, let's be honest. It's more that korean barbecue is not the safest bet there. Jay and Monica, it's so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you both.

Monica Padman
Thank you. Yeah, our pleasure. Have a good rest of your day. Yeah. Take care.

The mall. You're getting itchy, aren't you? Yeah, I want to go, but you. Want to go back in time. I do, yeah.

I want to do the impossible. The Yankee candle store candles. I loved it. Let's get in the car and drive all the way up to the mall to get some candles. What's wrong with that?

You're so judgmental. I'm just so male. Oh, my God. Bath and body works. There we go.

You liked it? I mean, I didn't like it, but I get it. Did you have to buy any or. I bought a few of those packages for Christmas for moms and girlfriends. Exactly.

Dax Shepard
It's just like the flower shop for dudes on Valentine's Day where I walk in and they're like, what's the thing my mom would like. Moonlight path was my scent. Do you ever go in there and take a sniff on it and get nostalgic? No, I haven't seen bath and body works in a while. Cause you know, a few years back, I ordered my high school cologne.

Monica Padman
You did? Yeah. And it sits in my medicine cabinet. And then every once in a while I just smell it and it takes me back. Oh, that's nice.

I should say Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit by Dior. Oh, I thought you were mispronouncing pheromones. No, no, no. Fahrenheit was the title of it.

Dax Shepard
It was by Dior. Dior? That's advanced. Well, my dad wore obsession for men by Calvin Klein, and I think all dads wore. Yeah, that was common.

Monica Padman
I was into Ralph Lauren blue. Cause this popular girl had it and she smelled so good. And so then I got it. It didn't smell as good on me. Well, that's what's funny, is however she would have smelled would have been good.

Dax Shepard
Oh, that's probably how you're supposed to smell. Cause she's popular. That's true. Michael Jordan had his own cologne. That was mine.

Monica Padman
Oh, really? What did it smell like? What was it called? Michael Jordan Cologne. Oh, hi.

Dax Shepard
We were just talking about popular colognes and perfumes from our youth. What's your favorite? We just found out. Cute. Wabi wab was wearing Michael Jordan's signature cologne, which is super adorable being in Chicago and all.

But you seem to still be in your youth, so you're not yet nostalgic. I mean, I'm 28, so you could say that, but I feel like I've lived many lifetimes already. Well, and you're ten years out from high school, so you could be reflecting back. Did you have a fragrance you wore? I don't think I had a go to when I was young.

Kayleen
I remember we used to go to Montana when I was younger and there was a store called Roux 21. They had signature fragrances. So I remember one of those and I actually had a hit of it recently and I was like, where is that from? Nothing makes you more nostalgic than a fragrance. It smells.

Dax Shepard
Where did you grow up that Montana was a regular vacation destination? I am in Alberta, Canada. Oh, you would be coming south? Yes, it's about 4 hours away. Okay, so tell us about mall culture in Canada.

Kayleen
So I live in Calgary and then edmond, which is 3 hours away, there's west Edmonton mall, and that's a super popular mall. And last year I spent a semester in Edmonton. I was surprised to see the number of malls that they have, considering that West Edmonton mall is their main attraction. Oh, so there's been an explosion of malls since. Yeah, they're not small malls.

They're all dramatic big malls. Oh, wow. I definitely spent a lot of time at the mall when I was young. I don't even want to know how much money I spent just on jeans. What was your store?

When I was younger, jeans were definitely like american eagle. Classic. Okay, so where and when does this mall story take place? Ironically, there's a lot of, like, sim things in this story. We love sim.

So this story happened in 2018, and it actually happened in May. We're on the anniversary. We're celebrating the anniversary together of this story. Six year anniversary. And it happened here in Calgary.

So we don't have, like, a lot of malls, but it was one of the bigger ones. Little bit of backstory. My dad, who's kind of the main character in this story, is estranged now from everybody. He is a pretty volatile addict with some mental health issues, and that plays into the story a little bit at the time. Within a year, my parents had split, so my mom and my sister were living elsewhere, and I was living at my dad's house.

My dad was out a lot. He was dating, keeping himself busy, and he was in a relationship at the time. I had never met this woman. Don't know her name. Don't want to know her name.

Just minding my own business. Did you stay with him while you were going to college or something? If this was six years ago, I. Was still living at home while I was in university, and my mom left and took my sister and didn't tell me. Oh, my gosh.

So I was just left at home. That's really intense. So I was basically his babysitter, for lack of a better word. On this particular day, he was home. And second sim thing, me and my friend, who's now my roommate, we were actually planning to start a podcast of our own.

Monica Padman
Wow. Oh, wow. Okay. Inspired by what? What were you listening to then?

Dax Shepard
Anna Faris or something? Us. Oh, us. Oh, wow. It sounded like you were fishing.

This story feels too long ago for us to play a role in. It just started. Yeah. A couple months in. So I'm listening to you guys, and I'm going to her and I'm having all these conversations and I'm like, oh, this is my jam because I'm a literary theory major.

Okay. I had just graduated. I just got my ba at the time. I'm like, okay, we're gonna start a podcast. We had a name picked out.

Kayleen
We're ready to go buy the equipment. I'm about to walk out the door, and my dad is like, I want to buy you a grad ring right now. What's a grad ring? Graduation ring. Oh.

Dax Shepard
For having just graduated college, a piece of jewelry. Jewelry. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Kayleen
And he had never mentioned this to me before. Never knew that this was a thing. But he's probably an impulsive guy. So you're used to this. Yeah.

And I'm like, okay, well, I don't know what else he's gonna get up to. So I guess we're going to the mall. Yeah, yeah. So I call my friend, and I'm like, okay, change of plans. We'll pick you up.

We're going to the mall, and then on our way home, we can go and pick up the microphone. It never ended up happening. We have not purchased the microphones. Completely fell through. So this is the sim part.

Dax Shepard
This is sad. The story made it to a podcast, so we've come full circle. This is like a life altering story. It was. I don't even know how it threw absolutely everything out the window, but it did.

We might have been calling into your show today. Yeah. We're going to the mall, and he drives us, and he parks in the underground parquet. We end up shopping, and the mall's about to close, so it's like 30 minutes to closing, and we got to make our way back to the parkade. And we're on the second floor.

Kayleen
So we walk to the elevator, and we're waiting at the elevator, me, my friend Kayleen and my dad. There's two other women who are also there waiting for the elevator. Now, the three of us are relatively tall, especially me, like 6ft. Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Yeah, these ladies are pretty petite. And so they go into the elevator first, and then the three of us follow them in, and both of them push the buttons on the elevator. So there's an older woman and she pushes p two, and the younger woman pushes p one. Quick question. Are they together?

They're not together. Okay. Okay. So the younger one pushes p one, which is the level that we're going to get off on. We don't end up having to push it.

So we get down to p one. This younger woman walks out of the elevator. When you exit, it's like a lobby. And so she goes towards the doors that are on the left, and then we walk in a line, so it's my friend, then myself, then my dad. And we all walk out to the right hand side, and you walk out these automatic doors, and then you have a couple steps down to be level with the parkade floor.

So we're chit chatting as we're walking. Then all of a sudden, I get this yank on my sweater from behind, and I'm like, what the hell? So I'm like, I don't know if my dad's trying to roughhouse me. So I, like, go to turn around, and I see him just standing there frozen. And the woman is standing at the top of the stairs.

So then he starts kind of stammering. He's like, why did you do that? What the fuck is wrong with you? And I'm like, what just happened? And he turns around and he faces me, and he goes, she just fucking stabbed me.

Michelle
What? What? Wait, what? What?

Dax Shepard
And he was yelling, why the fuck did you do that to her? Not you, obviously. Yeah. What?

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Monica Padman
I'm really looking forward to it. I had therapy this morning. Yeah, you did. Yeah. And it put me in the greatest mood.

Dax Shepard
We had a long, big day, and I just felt much better for having. You work not to out you. You were a little grumpy going in. I was. I was.

I was the best. And I received some text. Yeah, I was locked out of my therapy setting, which is this attic. But then you felt much better after. I felt much better, and I even made some apologies.

Talking things out can be so helpful. And if you want a safe space for that conversation, I recommend therapy. Check out betterhelp. If you've been thinking of trying therapy. It's entirely online, convenient, and flexible.

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That's betterhelp. H dash e dash p.com dax. We are supported by wayfair. Home should be your happy place, a space where you can relax and just enjoy yourself, whatever that looks like for you. Whether you want the ultimate man cave, a cozy, victorian inspired nook for reading, an area for family movie night filled with all things retro or something else.

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Monica Padman
And I'm helping a friend redo his living room, and we just. You're just on Wayfair non stop? Yep. Yeah. It's one stop shop.

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Dax Shepard
Every style is welcome in the weberhood. Visit wayfair.com or get the Wayfair mobile app. That's wayfair.com. wayfair. Every style, every home.

The little gal who had gone to the lab and she was young, came and stabbed your dad quickly and then ran up the stairs. I think she was on the stairs the whole time. And so, like, as he's walking down the stairs. Cause she's small and he's tall, so it's like the longest. Oh, just the two little stairs.

Kayleen
Yeah. He kind of, like, touches his neck and looks at his hands, and I see the squirting out of his neck. Of the blood. No. And she's still there.

Monica Padman
She's staring. She's just standing there completely unfazed. And he's starting to get hysterical. He's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you do that?

Kayleen
You just stabbed me. What the hell? Oh, my God. So he holds his neck, and then I turn around to look at my friend. She looks shocked.

And then I start feeling more shocked. So we're all hysterical at this point. Yeah. Can you see the weapon or object? Well, she's standing with her arms down, so I think it was like a pocket knife.

It wasn't anything huge. Okay. She just turns around and walks away. Oh. What?

Dax Shepard
Oh, my God. Then my dad gets really angry, and he was like, you're not getting away with this. Come back here. And he starts running after her. He chases her back into the lobby.

Kayleen
They go down the stairs into the lower parkade. Okay. And we're like, dad, stop. Like, he's bleeding everywhere. And I'm trying to call the cops, but I just keep hitting, like, call dad on my phone, because I don't know what I'm doing.

We get down to the lower park aid, and we're in the lobby, and the woman runs out into the parkade. And finally my dad stops. We end up seeing the older woman who was in the elevator with us, and we're like, get out of the parkade. There's a stabber on the mad woman. So she comes back in with us.

We go up to the original floor, and I'm finally able to call 911. And they arrive pretty quickly. Within a couple minutes. The ambulance takes a little bit longer to show up for us, and I think there's, like, at least two or three cop cars who show up, and one of them goes down into the lower one. They take off on their bikes, and they end up catching her down in the lower parket.

Dax Shepard
Oh. The bike cops have been living for this moment because they're so dorky. They've relegated to bicycles in a mall, and they don't get any action. And they. They finally got to tear off on their bicycles.

Big day. And I think, too, when they came up to say they got her, the cop had, like, dust on his knees. And so my dad's like, did she fall down? And he's like, a little bit. They kind of, like, tackled her.

Yeah, of course. All that adrenaline after pedaling those bikes. What if really he just fell off his bike? That could have happened, too. Yeah.

First time in a high school, he's. Like, no, I tackled her from him really high. Definitely wasn't that. I just fell. So at this point, my dad's fine, aside from actively bleeding.

Kayleen
Take his phone. And I'm like, I got to start calling people and telling them to meet us at the hospital. And he forbids me from calling my sister or my mom. And they're the only two people that I want to call. You're not going to call his bar buddies or anything?

No, but I did. Oh, okay. I call his friends and I call my grandma, and I'm like, okay, everybody, meet us at the hospital. The ambulance shows up. My dad's about to leave, and he's like, one more thing.

You got to call my girlfriend. So. So I call, and I'm like, hi, I'm your boyfriend's daughter, and he just got stabbed in the neck, and he would like you to come and meet us at the hospital. See you soon. Yeah.

Monica Padman
Oh, God. Wow. Wow. Nice to meet you. Luckily, she was a lovely lady, and we're still friends to this day.

Oh, that's nice. Good. Yeah. So then he gets taken off in the ambulance. Me and my friend drive his car to the hospital.

Kayleen
My dad's in the ER. He didn't end up needing any surgery, but the knife just nicked his jugular. Oh, my God. Wow, wow, wow. And then at this point is when we get a full update from the cops.

And the reason that they were there so quickly is because he wasn't the first victim. He was number three. Number three of a stabbing spree. And second, location. What?

Dax Shepard
What the fuck? Wait. This is comforting because it's always a guy. I'm almost relieved that there's finally a woman out there stabbing people. And she was tiny.

Yeah. Although she may be tiny, but mighty. My God. And she was aloof. Something was obviously.

Can you describe more things about her? The only two things that I remember in the elevator, she was in sandals, and she looked a little dirty and something. Tie dye. So hippie vibes almost. Yeah.

Kayleen
Her history, come to find out after, is, like, ten years long of other assaults and violent things, and she's just found not criminally responsible because she's not mentally well. But we don't have the resources to actually provide proper housing and care and support. So it's like. Oh, sounds like schizophrenic. Where she thinks she's fighting for her life, like, paranoia.

Dax Shepard
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What actually happened? She's at a plaza across the street at, like, a vietnamese restaurant. Uh huh. Vietnamese.

Kayleen
I don't know, the actual backstory of. Of how it all happened, but she stabbed, I think, a waitress first. Jesus. And then walked out into the parking lot, stabbed some guy. Oh, my God.

Dax Shepard
Wow. She's ballsy too. So then she walks across the street to the department store of the mall, somehow comes upstairs, walks through the mall and to our elevator. And then, like I said, she pushed p one. I don't know where she was going.

Right. So it wasn't like she had necessarily targeted your dad initially. Totally random. And I mean, all in all, afterwards, we're like, that was best case scenario. Had she stabbed myself, my friend, or the other older little woman, I don't think we would have made it.

Kayleen
We've all got tiny necks. He's got a big neck. That's so true. Oh, my God. Talk about wrong place, wrong time.

Dax Shepard
Okay, so I feel a little bit vindicated because my first reaction is like, if I'm your dad and I get stabbed by her. Yeah. I'm going after her right away, and I'm gonna kick her in the back as she's running. Cause she's holding a weapon. I'm gonna kick her in the back and knock her down, and then I'm gonna stand on her wrist that she's holding the knife and her back neck.

So the cops get, no, no, no. Cause she'll die if you stand on her wrist. Because if she's so small, first person who dealt with this had done that, they would have saved two more stabbing. But don't you think if you just stood on her wrist, like, that'd be enough? No, I would stand on her body too.

Monica Padman
Really? She deserves that. Yeah, she just stabbed me in the neck. Lay on her body. No, I don't want.

Dax Shepard
I don't want my shoes to touch her. Okay. You know, you could say, like, well, you're nuts to go after somebody, but you could also prevent two more people. It's true. It's true.

Kayleen
Now there's one more twist. Your dad had been fucking her for a month. I did at first. I did at first think it was a scorned girlfriend. The new girlfriend that she hadn't met.

Dax Shepard
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad, when we're in the ER, he starts talking about what the experience was like and what it felt like. And he said originally it just felt like a really hard punch in the neck. So he didn't realize immediately. That's why he was like, what the fuck did you do?

Kayleen
Why did you do that? Yeah. And then he stopped and looked at me and was like, I've been stabbed. So the reason he knew is because 50 years ago, my grandmother lived alone with my dad when he was really young in an apartment. And in the middle of the night, one night, somebody broke into her apartment.

She woke up, not while this person was there. And she was like, I'm all wet. And she gets out of bed, and she looks down, and she's been laying in a pool of her own blood. Oh, my God. Luckily, she had a neighbor who was a cop.

So she goes to the neighbor and is like, I need help. And he jumped on his bike. Sorry, not a good time for you. Someone had broken in. They never caught who did it, but they had cut her neck.

Dax Shepard
No fucking way. No wonder your dad's struggling. That's really traumatic for a single mom. She gets her throat slashed and you walk out of it with no problems. Honestly, I'd never heard him talk about seeing anything.

Kayleen
I'd heard the story from her and I think she asked the cop to take care of my son and get him out of here. And she ended up needing reparative surgery. Cause hers was much more severe. But she described it as having air flowing through her neck. So when my dad, like I said, he felt the punch and then he just felt air and he was like, that is how I knew.

Dax Shepard
That's what clued him in. Oh, my God. It's hereditary. You gotta wear a neck guard. I need you to be careful.

No, I mean, truly, the odds of two family members both getting stabbed in the neck in a lifetime, they might be the only mother son. Knock on wood. The wood I like. But how? Who's gonna just.

Monica Padman
I don't know. Okay. Just knock on. I'm knocking on wood. Yeah.

Dax Shepard
That's impossible. Yeah. Wow, that's really traumatic. What happened with the lady? Did she go to jail?

Kayleen
No, they arrested her and held her for the minimum amount of days. But again, not criminally responsible. So put her back to her group home, I think, and carry on. It's not the most comforting thought. Mental illnesses aside, if you're committing assault because of the mental illness, you still gotta be away 100%.

Monica Padman
You're dangerous. Like, I understand the concept. Like, you can't try them for first degree. Cause it's not premeditated. It does not meet the requirement of first degree.

Dax Shepard
I get all that, but there has to be still some lengthy sentencing for non premeditated. The whole point is to protect the masses, and that's not doing that. This person has a problem. There's just not enough resources. Edmonton holds all of the NCR, not criminal responsible beds for all of Alberta and all of northern Canada.

Kayleen
So they just don't even have the capacity to keep everybody. Oof. If I had a single wish of this whole story is that your father had been super canadian about it and said, like, oh, it appears you've stabbed my neck. Sorry, I got in your way. Oh, sorry.

Monica Padman
What a story. You had a very Detroit reaction. Well, a very human one. Yeah, Jessica, thanks for telling us that. Yeah, that was wild.

Kayleen
Of course. It was so lovely. To meet you guys. I'm so excited to. I'm really sorry the podcast never got up and running.

Monica Padman
All you were trying to do is make a podcast. But I got on one, so it's okay. It all worked out. Yeah, sort of. I admire you both so much.

Kayleen
Like, your honesty and your humor and everything. And I said to myself, I hope that you guys are doing this in five to ten years, because I'm very hesitant about pursuing my ambitions. But the idea of potentially making it to the attic to be an expert is like a big incentive. Oh, you must do it. That'd be sim.

Dax Shepard
On top of sim. On top of sim. And we live for the sim. Thank you, Ashok. All right, Jessica, so nice meeting you.

Take care. Oh, my gosh. Randomly getting stabbed in the neck. Jeez. By a little old lady.

Monica Padman
I mean, little young lady. Little mighty little. You might do that to somebody. Yeah, let's call it what it is. A Monaco type that came full circle.

Dax Shepard
And the woman that was stabbed at the vietnamese restaurant had just served a young boy, Jay, some tainted noodles. Oh, my God. And he was, like, independently out shitting his pants. I would love that. Hello.

Jade
Hi. You're, like, in a proper sound booth. I work at an art college, and so they have a sound booth. Students have been leaving, so I was able to sneak in here. I just dig this environment.

Dax Shepard
I want to sit in that room, kinda. It's really warm. Oh, it's maybe 90 degrees. Oh, boy. Okay.

Okay. Where at in the world? In the Boston area. Okay. And we're gonna use a code name for you.

Monica Padman
Yeah. So I was hoping that you could come up with a name. What do you think? What happened? Jade.

Michelle
I like that. Can you live with Jade? I absolutely can. All right. You look like a jade I knew from high school.

Monica Padman
Same. No, I'm serious. Oh, my God. Did you meet her at the mall? Yes.

Dax Shepard
So, Jade, where and when does this story take place? So it takes place north of Boston. It is 2003. So I was in, like, my mid teens then. Plucked eyebrows.

Jade
It was low cut jeans. Like, it was tap. Monica. Oh, I know it. I know it.

Monica Padman
Well. You were 16 and zero three. Yeah, I was probably 15. The story is, when I was 15. What kind of mall?

Dax Shepard
Big mall, small mall, fancy mall, shitty. Mall, mid level mall. There was a gap. Abercrombie wouldn't go into it. But there was a hollister, a victoria secret.

Jade
And Macy's and Sears. Classic JC Penney's. No, they had Sears, Sears and Roebuck. Great. Trusted brand.

Monica Padman
Okay, so what happened? Okay, so I was sort of the teenager that wasn't really cool. I was a little quirky. So I really wanted to work at the mall, because working at a mall is, like, every teenager's dream. And I had jobs in the past.

Jade
I was a babysitter, and I worked at an ice cream shop. But the mall, it was fairly new at the time. That was the cool place. Like, we used to go as kids and just walk around in circles and circles. So getting a job there was amazing because I wasn't super cool.

I was really boring. And I almost was, like, to the point that it was annoying. I ended up getting a job. Not at college, aeropostale, which were super cool at the time. I worked at a greeting card store.

Dax Shepard
Hold on a second. The second person we've talked to that worked at a greeting card store, which is hysterical. And you are pointing out that I think those shops and the malls were, like, casting. There was definitely a mandate, like, hire cute girls. Cause girls are coming in and they want to see something aspirational.

Like, they're definitely casting. Yes. You're not going to be seeing a lot of cute boys. They're not going to be running through looking for stationery. If they did, it was for their girlfriend for Valentine's Day.

Jade
So it was a fun job. We weren't busy because it's a car shop. And the only time we were busy was during holidays. And it was, like, four days before the holidays. And then the store was completely empty.

I actually got two of my best friends from high school jobs there. So it was a really good time because we were always working and we were in high school, so the night and weekend shifts were for us. So, like, we were always there, always together, closing. We made friends with some of the employees and, like, the stores in the circle that our store was in. So it was this really cool place.

And so I was 15. There was no responsibilities. Things started to go downhill at this job when they made me a key holder. Oh, fuck. I've been there.

Yeah. So there's power in it, Monica. And, you know, because I was 15, and I think that this could also be sort of a warning. Don't give a 15 year old responsibility of an entire store. Okay, sure.

Dax Shepard
The key holder is responsible for opening and closing the store. Yeah. So I was sort of in charge of the shift, and then I had to cash out at the end of the night, count the money, deposit the money, closed the shop. So I had a key to the store. Basically, I was the person in charge.

This is so comical. It does remind me where I'm from. Cause we live in LA and young kids don't work. There's a huge workforce here, and you just don't see young kids running places. But I'll go back to Detroit and go into a gas station at 02:00 a.m.

and there's a 14 or 15 year old child running the gas station. And so that's this. A 15 year old shouldn't be counting the till. Or maybe they should. I'm not actually saying that.

I just think it's funny. But it is a lot of responsibility. It's a lot of responsibility. And I didn't really know what responsibility meant. I was kind of sheltered.

Jade
I didn't have that experience in the world yet. But because it was a slightly small store, I was working shifts with my friends. So it was like, me and either one or both of them on the shift because nobody else wanted to work the nights and weekends. So it was us. They were like, okay, these kids want to work, fine.

She seems the most responsible, so we're just going to let her be in charge. So this store also sells candy and trinkets and all of these small things. So it's not just greeting cards. I had been working there for a little while, and at the beginning started taking greeting cards every once in a while, and there was a candy kiosk, and I was like, swedish fish. Sour ropes.

Dax Shepard
Yeah. Yeah. It starts small. Really small. And so that was sort of how it started.

Yes, of course. It evolved, and it really evolved in a way that I'm still horrified by. And I can't believe I get, like, nuts in my stomach when I think about it. But our back room, sort of for context, and this adds to my decision making process, was so messy. So they had collectible dolls, and I can't remember what they were called.

Monica Padman
Precious moments. Yes. Yes. Oh, my gosh. In addition to a couple of the other ones, it looks like wooden carvings with wings and stuff.

Jade
So they had those, but when we put them on display, the boxes were just tossed in the back room. So there was a whole section that was just piles of boxes on the ground. Like, there was no organization to it. I will say you are culpable and responsible for your theft, but there's a chapter in a Gladwell book about this, or maybe it's freakonomics about cleaning the graffiti lowers crime all around because you know you're being watched. Right.

Dax Shepard
There's, like, subliminal signals you receive, so the management is not taking care of their business at all. The place is a fucking mess. They're letting 15 year olds run. Yes. You're subtly receiving that.

The culture of this place is that no one gives a fuck. Yeah, that's really true. If there's piles of boxes, they're not gonna notice that a few trinkets go missing. Of course. So I start taking things that are bigger than a card or candy, and it's the collectible items, the trinkets, the things that say mom and dad and brother and stuffed animals and, like, excessive.

Jade
There's, like, music boxes and jewelry holders and blocks and display things, and it's constant. It's like a disease I can't stop doing. Every single holiday, whether it was a birthday, Christmas, or St. Patrick's Day, I would give my whole family gifts from this store that I just stole. And so they were like, you're so generous.

This is amazing. My mom is really sentimental, so she loves them. They all say these wonderful phrases. They still have them. Oh, no taunting you.

Dax Shepard
This could be like a Todd Saulandan's movie or some really artful director movie. Happiness. Okay, so I'm taking stuff left and right. My friends who work there also do it, but not to the level that I did. I was like, I'm in charge.

Jade
I can do whatever I want. They would take a piece here or there, but we would also have friends into the store, whether it's like boyfriends or good friends or people from other stores, like visitors, that we would sort of let them take stuff from the shop. Yeah. Okay, I have a question, because you gave a lot these things away as. Presents, but did you also return them at different locations?

Monica Padman
No, no, no. I mean, were you getting high off the stealing, or were you doing it to give presents? I was doing it to give presents. It's mother's Day. I need a gift.

Jade
It's readily available right here. And it happens to be free, right? Yes. So it wasn't like you just in your closet at home, had so much stuff that you had taken. Cause you wanted to take.

Monica Padman
Cause that's a big narcolepsy slash kleptomania thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just the taking. This is reminding me of another armchair anonymous we had, where somehow a kid got, like, a code for shoes to order, and he gave it to people, and people wore, like, a thousand pairs of shoes. Okay.

Dax Shepard
These things get out of control quickly. The notion that all your friends are coming by to steal shit, too, is fucking hysterical. I think there was no responsibility understanding. It was just completely out of my head. So that wasn't where it ended.

Jade
And, Dax, you mentioned returning it at other places, and I never did that because I had a limit. But I eventually started making fake returns. I think something that's important. I don't know what the consequences were. I was 15.

I didn't understand what was happening. The back room was a mess. We had fake cameras. Nobody had ever been in to check on me and my 15 year old friends when we were working there. Like, there was no oversight.

Nobody distinctly said, don't take these. Listen, you're talking to the wrong guy if you think I'm going to be judging your morals right now, being 15. Mortar on. Don't even worry about that. Cash registers were not advanced.

It was not computerized. It was a handwritten return. And so what I would do is I would do a fake return. If you didn't have the receipt, you had to fill out a special form. At the time, I didn't know that you were supposed to use people's driver's license.

So, like, if you did a return without a receipt, I would take your driver's license information, and then you would get the cash back. I would fill out the form without the driver's license information. I would take an item from the shelf, mush it up a little bit, and put it in a different spot to make it look kind of real. But I was also using names of boys that I went to high school with, and I don't know why I was using these boys who were in my class. That was the name of all of the people that returned stuff, because I also thought it was funny that they were returning stuffed animals of, like, Disney and Hello Kitty figurines.

Dax Shepard
You're living in your own little world. Yeah. A lot's happening. I really, really. Of all the things I've ever heard that I think this could have happened to you, I feel like this is the 100%.

Monica Padman
It could have gotten out of hand quick for me as well. My friends knew that this was happening because sometimes if I were by myself, it wouldn't be a big deal. But if my friends were there, we would return enough to get money. We would buy food from, like, a pizza shop. It would be like, a feast of mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, and we would just eat it behind the counter.

Jade
We weren't doing this to make a profit, but we would also buy pot from the guy that worked at the Sunset glass kiosk out front. And then we would all just leave. Our stores and smoke behind. This should be a tv show. That's what I'm saying.

Dax Shepard
There's, like, a really funny movie here. And so it was, I guess, a little exhilarating at that point. So, like, because I wasn't cool, maybe this made me edgy and cool in a way. I was sort of living off of that. We did that for a while.

Jade
Like, I would say longer than I probably should have. One of my shifts happened to be during inventory, so the district manager was there. There were a ton of people counting items. They were cleaning up the messy back room. And so I go in for the shift and I say hi to everybody, and I'm like, just acting like nothing's wrong.

Dax Shepard
Are you nervous? Or you're like, they're never gonna discover this. They don't know what the fuck's happening here. I think I was nervous because I knew I was doing something wrong. But to me, how I had done it was foolproof, right?

They could have never discovered I did. It the right way. But I made this stupid mistake. Everybody was in the back room counting, and I was like, I'm still gonna do a fake return. Oh, ballsy.

Yes, yes. It was just stupid. Yeah, well. But also ballsy really quick. You always read the headline of things, or you hear about the headline of things, like, someone will go like, yeah, they were having a fair.

They were having sex on the bed of the thing. And you're like, well, I promise you, it didn't start there, right? Like, it's just these little baby steps. And then these thefts are little baby steps. All these little baby steps.

And then you end up at a place where it is a shocking. I'm committing the crime while they're there. Yeah. There was a big hello Kitty doll directly in view of the cash register. And I had been working there enough that I knew the codes and whatnot.

Jade
And so I quickly did a fake return for that hello Kitty doll. I didn't move it. I didn't touch it. I just did the return, pocketed the cash, and that was it. And then the manager came out, and she just happened to look at the receipts, and she was like, well, what happened?

Did somebody do a return? And I was like, yep, it was really fast. They came in, and they returned it. And so I just made up the worst excuse. Like, if I ever heard what I had said, it was just nonsense.

My shift goes, and then the next day, they're still doing inventory. I have another shift. And I go in, and within minutes, they're like, jade, your mom's on the phone. You can take it in the back room. No worries.

And so I was like, okay, I'll go talk to my mom. This place is just your clubhouse. It's not your job. I'd be so scared if I was, like, my mom's calling. I'm also naive and gullible.

Like, I just walk around in life with no clue. I go in the back, and the phone's off the hook. And there is somebody on the phone for me, but it's the loss prevention guy from this company who was there to talk with me. And next to the phone was a stack of all of the fake returns that I had done. And so I sat on the phone with him for an hour, and we had to go through every single one, and it was like, did you make this fake return?

I had to explain who the person was, which was like all of the boys from high school. I had to explain they didn't exist. They weren't real. I was just using fake names. You were being honest.

Dax Shepard
You came clean immediately. I'm a bad liar. There was no way I would have been able to ever continue this ruse. So we went through all of them, and at some .1 of the slips, I was like, this isn't my handwriting. This wasn't me.

Jade
But it was a fake return. And it turned out that it was my assistant manager. And so they then caught him doing a number of fake returns. Oh, my God. It's all five.

Dax Shepard
One. I wish they were losing a month. So I was immediately fired, obviously. And I really just remember, like, running across the hall to the TJ Maxx. I went into the bathroom, and I called my two friends who worked there, and I told them the story.

Jade
I was panicked. I was like, if you go in, you're gonna get in trouble, and you're gonna get fired. And they're like, well, we're just never going back to work. So they just never showed up for another shift. And it turns out the entire store was fired.

Dax Shepard
Page one rewrite. They should have shut the store down. The crime ring, I mean, it was enormous. Well, it's metastasized. We gotta cut out the whole organ.

Did they give you a grand total? Cause the other thing I think would be shocking is, like, in your mind, you probably thought you had sold $600, but I bet it was, like, 1300. It was like, four or $5,000. Wow. Wow.

Monica Padman
And just you and all these other people were doing it, too. At a card shop. They are not making enough. They were not making enough to pay for. For what the employees were taking out of the place every night.

Wow. Using it like an ATM. I'm kind of hung up on that. The manager lied to you that it was your mom on the phone. Really?

Kind of. That's so passive aggressive. The manager should have said, like, hey, we need to talk to you about what's been going on. Maybe they were afraid that she would run out the front of the store. Maybe.

Dax Shepard
Maybe just fucking split. Were you able to never tell your mom why you were no longer working there? 100%. They never called her? No again.

There's no due diligence at this fucking meeting place. I mean, minimally, it's nice enough they didn't press charges, but then they didn't even call your parents. They were minor. I don't want to say they deserved it, but I feel like they deserved it a little bit. I mean, I had a punishment, and so basically, because I was so young and because, essentially, it kind of was their fault, because I should not have been in a leadership position to begin with.

Jade
I wasn't even old enough to drive a car. So they basically were like, okay, we're not going to tell your parents. We're not going to get the police involved. We're not going to press charges is as long as you pay the money back over time, that's totally fine. And so I had every intention of paying the money back.

I was going to do it. And so I went and I brought $100 cashier's check. Like, a few weeks later, I had made money. I had gotten another job in the same mall.

I ended up having, like, four or five other jobs in that mall. Did you steal from all of those as well? I haven't stolen at all since then. That was, like, the one and only rebellion. You had to get it out of your.

Dax Shepard
Well, good. I'm glad you didn't. Cause you got a taste for it. So I brought in $100 cashier's check, and it didn't seem very serious. The woman who took the money was like, hey, I'm really sorry this happened to you.

Jade
I'll see you soon. And so I was like, this happened to you? Okay. And so I just stopped going. Yeah, I am surprised you don't keep stealing.

Monica Padman
Cause it went really well for you, actually. Oh, yeah. They didn't even want the money back. Probably the same reason I started stealing was the reason I stopped giving them money back. And then, like, because I knew it was wrong and it was scary, and I felt really guilty, and I've been haunted because eventually that store and the whole company went bankrupt.

Jade
And I was like, it's my fault. Well, their management is their fault. They do not have a good system in place. That's the thing, is, they cut a corner. They're like, we only want to pay dollar four an hour instead of bringing an adult in there with some experience.

Monica Padman
It's illegal to have a kid as a key holder. I mean, that's probably why they couldn't really do much about it. And so then they were just like, just pay it back. And they can't really track it because they were doing something. Well, they all left and they went to another and figured out it was happening at that store, too.

Dax Shepard
I mean, everyone was overwhelmed with how unsalvageable this whole place was. I still have never told my parents. If they found out, like, I'm in my late thirties, then I would still die. I would be so horrified if they ever found out. They might like it.

Jade
No. Okay. They wouldn't. You know em better. Yeah.

Dax Shepard
Yeah. They still have them displayed as these. Sweet mom, still wearing the mom walking jade delight meeting you. That story was wonderful. God, did that amuse me.

Thank you so much for telling us that. Take care. Bye. That's so funny how out of control it just got. Yeah, I get it.

Monica Padman
That was great. That was wonderful. Malls. Everyone go shopping today. It does make me really want to go to the mall.

Dax Shepard
Hearing these stories. And even though you hate shopping, you know, quickly. My brother, he worked at a toy store, and he closed. You would pull a gate down, like a garage door, but it was a grid. And next to the toy store he worked at was a record shop.

Monica Padman
Oh, yeah. And so the toy store, I already told you this. They sold train track for hobby trains. It was flexible track. And he would tape a bunch of masking tape around the end, and he would put it through the grate and everything that was in, like, the discounted tape bin.

Dax Shepard
He would just grab tape after tape and he'd steal, like, a dungeon 20 tapes. Really, really smart. You can't resist. No one's there. No one's looking.

You're like, let's be naughty. I hate to encourage people to steal. No, we're not encouraging people to steal. You might take down a business, so just be careful. All right.

Love you. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? When I'm a theme song. Oh, okay, great.

We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna end, ask some random questions, and with the help of arm cherries. We'll get some suggestions on the fly. Rhyme, dish. On the fire.

Rhyme, dish. Enjoy.

Armchair Anonymous: Mall Stories

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Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Michelle's Foot Fetish Encounter

3: Jay's Bathroom Mishap

4: Reflections and Wrap-up

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