Before You Cut Bangs
Hosted by Laura Quick and Claire Fierman, “Before You Cut Bangs” is full of hilarious conversations about real life, common and uncommon crises, and possible cosmetic errors that come along with it. Through storytelling and therapeutic wisdom, Claire and Laura share how to NOT fuck up your hair (and life) while walking through similar situations,
Produced by Will Lochamy
Before You Cut Bangs
2.10 Who To Travel With and Who To Leave Home
Should you only travel with tier-one friends? How are you going to decide on who plays the music in the car? Most importantly, who will be there to talk Claire out of going to live with the monks? Those questions are answered this week on Before You Cut Bangs.
Welcome to, before you Cut Bangs. I'm Laura Quick and I'm Claire Fehrman. I am a professional storyteller and I'm currently working on my first book.
Speaker 2:I have worked in mental health for many years in lots of capacities and this is a really important time to tell you our big disclaimer this is not therapy. We are not your therapists or coaches or anything like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you shouldn't really trust us very much at all, unless you want to and it turns out well, then you can trust us, that's great.
Speaker 3:Where in the United States would you like to go that you've never been? What's a bucket list place in the United States?
Speaker 1:Montana. I want to do a dude ranch in Montana. I want to go pretend like I'm a girl who wears boots and jeans and rides horses and lives on the land, but only for a couple hours, to get some good photos and see some mountains.
Speaker 2:I could help accommodate that.
Speaker 1:I'd like, I'd like to do that. You're invited, Wilbur.
Speaker 3:Uh, the Redwoods it's like the that and Napa are the only I swear like because of touring like over and over. Those are the two spots. Everyone else I'm like oh yeah, at least I've been there for a day.
Speaker 2:I've never done Redwoods either, and I'd love to do it. What about you, great Lakes? I want to sit in like a little cabin with a lake view and you know I want it to be warm but not hot. Maybe it never gets hot, I would know. I haven't been, you know, but I have some visions of mahjong and knitting and outdoor time and I imagine there's quaint cafes and bookstores yeah, I've never been to the UP as I say right Claire just wrote a uh, a romance novel like setting like I just took this girl's trip and I was knitting and all this.
Speaker 2:I would have had to like lose my bakery business first, you know of course, you're on the heels of a tremendous loss.
Speaker 1:You have only just the amount of money it will take to, can I?
Speaker 2:escape to the UP UP when a shirtless angler came.
Speaker 3:Named Bobby.
Speaker 1:Even though it is still cold outside. This is the time of year where people are thinking about the trips they want to take with the people that they love, they want to make memories with. It's like bucket list time, like are you going international? How many times are you going to the beach, like you know? Is there a mountain trip on your radar? Are you hanging out at the lake for a weekend or a long weekend, like with great friends? And we're going to talk about how disastrous it can be if you just have one person, oh god, who just doesn't travel well with you and your crew I um would like to say that the first born females of a family I would say are typically pretty good travelers, according to themselves.
Speaker 2:I am the first born female. I love an itinerary, I love a plan. Oh, if y'all can stop.
Speaker 3:No, no, you're good. What we love that Y'all are all moaning.
Speaker 1:Like ugh, ugh. I was silent. I was giving feedback. You were making faces, faces moving were making faces, faces. Maybe I was silent. This is an audio platform. I saw you through my little ring over here go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we get a bad rap because of our um, maybe I would call it decisiveness and enthusiasm, and that's been perceived as controlling, oh and bitchy, and I disagree with that. I have learned to relax a lot over the years, but I do love a plan. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 3:I feel like a lot of times your trips are with a lot of people right, Like y'all do big family vacations.
Speaker 2:That's a lost fucking cause.
Speaker 1:You might need an itinerary. You've had to really go and let God on those trips, those I let go and let God on Fairman family vacations. I just like she tried for so long to just be defeated and beat down, so she had to let it go and let God yeah, and of course my mom's gonna come up in this.
Speaker 2:She, she, just my mom's a step worse than me, only child female. So she's like what we're eating for lunch today is this. I've already packed 17 sandwiches and you're like, yeah, that's what I'm eating for lunch today, you know. So there's like a nice quality, you don't really have to do anything. I'm talking like, maybe a girl's trip, here's my, my thing. If I, if Laura, was like, hey, let's fly to New York for the weekend, I wouldn't be like, okay, from 8 to 8 50, we're gonna do this. I like to budget my time because it is valuable to me to make sure I get the most out of it, and some of that might be scheduled time of doing nothing. I'd like to move on from me. Scheduled time of doing nothing.
Speaker 1:I'm a pick a destination, like have a flight in, have a flight out, figure out what happens when we get there. I treat every place I go whether I've been there a hundred times or I've never been there before like I'll come back, because if I like it, I'll come back. You're so relaxed.
Speaker 3:No, I'm, I'm that's, that's surprising, that's truly surprising.
Speaker 1:I'm a flexible traveler. I I don't so much of my life has to be scheduled that when it comes to travel, I just like. I'm such a curious person that I kind of like just letting whatever's gonna happen happen. So it's not that I don't look and you don't make a dinner reservation, not until, like I'm like we want to do dinner in two hours let's see what's up.
Speaker 1:That's so brave. Listen. Shane and I went on a honey, our honeymoon. We only had a flight in to Paris and a flight out of Paris three weeks apart. We had no reservation anywhere. We made everything on the flight there, like hotels and like where we're going to hop, and we loved it so much. Again, so much of our life has to be scheduled because of work. That is kind of this like fun, like whatever, but that's one side of me. I also. I am cool with a Claire in the group. That does not bother me, I actually like it. I like for you to have done the research, you plan the things, as long as you're not like whipping me, I'm very adaptable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know we have to leave in five minutes to be at so-and-so. That's the kind of shit that makes me fall for radar. Okay, yeah, you would do that. I will say in regards to just like a not my favorite experience and now, if you're listening, I love you so much. So just know that my sister, who is an angel, like a literal Disney character level human we traveled a couple years ago to St Thomas and all I wanted to do was eat tacos and like they have this like beach and on St John's where you can like swim with the big turtles and like hang out, and like I just wanted to eat tacos, drink margaritas, swim with those turtles, take a couple pics, get the hell out of there. This bitch pulls up all trails and she's like I feel like what about? Like a quick hike?
Speaker 2:like just a quick hike, and I was like remind our listeners you chose to hike 18 miles in alaska because oprah did it all right. Well, that is different.
Speaker 1:That was a because Oprah did it All right. Well, that is different. That was a Oprah did it. I didn't know. It was 18 miles. I would have never agreed to that either. With this, she said a quick hike. She promised it would bring us back to the beach with the tacos and the turtles, when I tell y'all it was 9,000 degrees, it ended up being five miles across the island. We never saw that beach again, ever. We hitchhiked because I was so mad and hot and disgusting looking. I also had a little Elizabeth in my hair then when we went a couple years ago A couple crises I've had over the years, anyways and she was so chill about it.
Speaker 1:And what I need y'all to know is this is the the thing about my sister. She is so laid back, she's not going to push, she'll go with the flow, but she will fucking close those rings on her little Apple watch. There will be a ring closing and when I closed the ring I don't have an Apple watch anymore because I hated it so much but when I had to close it, you know I was like closing that thing with 400 calories, you know, like a couple thousand steps. I wasn't trying to be ambitious. Sure, when she closes it, like she, she 15,000 steps.
Speaker 1:Not 150 miles. Like is the kind of bike rides she does in like one day or two days or whatever. I'm like who are you? You psycho anyways. So to sum up our trip, I remember this moment while I'm watching sun set on the the patio of this, overlooking St Thomas really mad. Never saw the turtles, never got the tacos, went on a long ass. I'm sure my body appreciated it, but I was pissed and I look back in the room while I'm journaling about the day and this bitch is doing squats and lunges across the hotel room and I was like we're not the same.
Speaker 3:You got to close those rings.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're just not the same and I love her and if you're listening and I know you probably are I love you so much and I admire your passion to health and you will be 85 and can still open a jar of pickles and climb 30 steps stair cases.
Speaker 2:Well, I bet you're a really easy traveler.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're well I mean in the sense of, in the sense of here's the deal. I Well, I mean in the sense of here's the deal I'm not going to travel with a big group, I'm just not. Yeah Right.
Speaker 2:Just because I want to, even if you're related to them, oh, yeah, oh especially if you're related, I mean you know how much I love my family.
Speaker 3:We just don't, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:Okay, some stuff.
Speaker 3:The. Fairmans are special I get it and stuff, but we haven't. We've all been so busy. We haven't done that in a few years. So, generally speaking, like we are, I think, going to Alaska in a few months, she's got a hike to recommend I've got you covered. We are going to do some hikes. But we're not going to plan any of that. We're going to plan our flights and our first night hotel and that's it, and then it's going to be wherever we end up.
Speaker 1:Hotels tonight.
Speaker 3:My friend, nick, and I do these trips where we go fly to a city. The last one was Denver and we're going to end up in LA and we have seven days to do it on these motorcycles and we only plan the first night's hotel, that's it, and that's it. And then every day it's like all right now, where do we want to go? And if we can't get there, it snows or rains or something we can change. So that's generally.
Speaker 2:If we go to the beach, uh, we go once a year for seven days we book one dinner and that's it, and the rest of it we cook it's the only place I'm relaxed.
Speaker 3:What's that? There's no other plan. And if people want to go somewhere that we are with, let's say there's like four of us or five, and the final one is like all right y'all have fun.
Speaker 1:We'll see when you get back I think that you know there is the non-plan plan when you go to the beach, where you don't really have to have a plan because the plan is we're going to the beach and then you know everything's accessible, whatever. I think what is really interesting to me is in my 20s and 30s, when I'd plan, like a girl's trip, there'd always be the girl. I had to explain to the rest of my friends Like're always. I cannot think of one time where I didn't have to be like listen, she's going to complain about every food item that hits the table. She's going to like taste the tea in front of the server to make sure that it's good.
Speaker 3:It's like a bachelorette trip.
Speaker 1:No, like well, I mean, I had several, obviously, but there's just girls trips where everyone's not tier one.
Speaker 3:It's good. Is it like a bachelorette trip? No, like well.
Speaker 1:I mean, I had several, obviously, but there's just girls trips where everyone's not tier one In my early. That's a great question In my early 20s and 30s 100%, and I learned a lot from that. Now, when I plan a trip, I don't ever have to worry Because, like everybody is.
Speaker 2:Tier one. Well, and most of them are connected enough to know whether or not they would say yes or no to a trip only travel, it's here 100 like oh, we're blood relations in the same place, definitely.
Speaker 1:But like, if we're like meeting up in a city and like you're there and I'm there and we have our own accommodations, yeah, whatever, yeah, that's fine. I also had a girlfriend say, like I think what's important is to know the people, to know who you can trust and who you cannot trust with accommodations, Because this is a big deal. Shane went on a guy's trip and Shane bougie, so he needs to like, he's got to have control of like where somebody's staying. So there's this group of guys that goes to this one game I think it's like the Texas Alabama game or I don't remember what game it is like every year and he finally like, he's like, yeah, I'll go. He said there were roaches in the Airbnb and it was like a disaster and they were like well, it was only $28 a person. And he's like well, no shit.
Speaker 2:It was so like there's that too, like who's in charge of accommodations, I can literally eat dinner at a gas station, and I mean that my favorite one is the floor alley gas station, where they have fried chicken, livers and gizzards. Delish they run out fast on a sunday though, um, but I have to sleep in complete cleanliness.
Speaker 1:It is the thing that I feel like I would rather invest in. I'd rather only eat one cool meal a day and like kind of skimp on everything else, but I want to stay in a nice hotel. I just want to stay in a nice hotel. I want the bed to be comfortable. I don't want to ever have to worry about cleanliness like that Cannot be a thing. Um, and I want the mattress to be comfortable. Like Don't want to ever have to worry about cleanliness that cannot be a thing. And I want the mattress to be comfortable. We too old to be getting kinks in our neck.
Speaker 3:What's up. I can agree with that For sure. Even touring when we were not making a ton of money, we would still. It was a hotel. We didn't sleep on people's floors, we didn't crash or find a place. No, that was the agreement. We didn't care on some of the tours, like we bought clay. Clay slept in vans like he's like yeah and then the other tours was like nicer and like whatever.
Speaker 2:But on the, the indie tours or whatever that was, the goal was to everybody gets a hotel every night, and then we're good I don't like to stay at other people's houses unless we are like incredibly close, and even then I would prefer just to like kind of do my own thing. I get a little bit of anxiety. Um, when bobby and I started dating, we went to stay with his really good friend and his girlfriend in pensacola and, um, I was really anxious, like I did, I'd never met them.
Speaker 2:Can we just say how brave that or maybe maybe had a beer with them or something, but it was very light. They're amazing people, so this has nothing to do with them. Um, but in their guest room, the um, the bed I don't even know how to describe it other than like the center of the bed was up and the longer we slept each side was was going in. So we're like rolling, rolling, bleep it. Bobby's rolling into the wall and I'm rolling onto the floor and so we're like fuck it. So like we flip to the other side. We just are trying to sleep like the wrong way. Whatever Bobby is like is like well, like no conflict, like he will just deal with it, you know, so I have to. I don't barely know these people. So like I am also going to sleep sideways for the next few nights.
Speaker 2:Um, and they eat dinner like nine or ten grandma eats, like I was asleep, sitting up when they were like dinner's ready. No, I heard them in that like half wake, half sleeping, like I bet our guests are getting hungry, and I was like sleep laughing, and I'm like I'm so hungry I'm not hungry anymore, like I'm past, so we, we leave, and I'm like I was like I can't do it again. I love them, I want to be friends with them. I will travel with them. I cannot sleep there again. And Bobby's like I think that the uh box spring was upside down, oh yeah. And I'm like how, how do you do that? So we go back like six months later and I'm like I, I'll give it one more time, like that. That's it. You're so brave. I would be like no, we're gonna hotel, it was everything was like now.
Speaker 3:There's a mystery to solve well, bobby's so funny.
Speaker 2:He's like, hey man, uh, just so, you know, last time we were kind of rolling away from the bed and the guy's like you know, my mom or dad or whoever said the same thing and we're like we think your box spring is upside down and he's like there's no way. And then he lifted up and so like the mattress was just like curling up into this thing. So after like those instances, I'm like I will pay whatever I have to pay. I will use whatever Marriott points I have stashed away, just so I have control over my bedtime, my dining rituals and my skincare routine.
Speaker 1:It's true, I have a thing Staying at people's houses. I've got to know you deeply know you Stay at my sister's house. I obviously would stay at best friend's house. Tier one, Tier one.
Speaker 3:Top of tier one.
Speaker 1:Top, top, top, top, top, top of tier one, Top of tier one, tier one, top of tier one, top, top, top, top of tier one, top of tier one. And it's funny because, like, even, like, even in my, like, obviously, shelly tier one I stay with her and, like you know, we're like slumber party because we don't get to see each other like all the time. So I'm like in her bed, like we're like what are you doing? What's been up? We're like scrolling through whatever that's tier tier one, top of the top, top, top. And she's got like 700 kids over there. But, like, even with my family, I'm getting a hotel room.
Speaker 3:Especially.
Speaker 1:Definitely getting a hotel. Not me, not this girl oh no, you're like pile them all in here. We are making a Griswold family situation out of this.
Speaker 3:There are only four or five adults that I can think of, that I will ride in a car with for longer than 30 minutes or something. Oh, I want my car for sure, yeah, but like even just in the same car for a long period of time, me and Shane will drive separate to Nashville. Oh, I like Danielle.
Speaker 1:No, no, listen, but I love him, but if it's work time when we're leaving, I'm not listening to have 30 like his business? Yeah, it's like and then I have a business call and then it's a disaster. There have been times where I've had to crawl to the very back of the car to try and like, huddle down and be on a call. While he's on a call, I'm like never again.
Speaker 2:Bobby doesn't even like like. If I'm at my office he's on a call, I'm like never again. Bobby doesn't even like like. If I'm at my office and he's at the house, I'm like hey, do you want to meet to eat dinner? He's like well, I mean, will you at least pick me up so we can ride together? He does not like to even drive 10 minutes alone.
Speaker 3:No, I'll drive alone all day.
Speaker 1:Same.
Speaker 3:I love alone time in a car, my friend who lives right here across the street, who's my best friend.
Speaker 2:Did you just move in yeah.
Speaker 3:I did just a week ago, two weeks ago.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Do you all spend the night each other? We don't have to.
Speaker 3:But he owns an insulation business, right, and so he's the only one of our friends who has to make work phone calls on trips. And it's really funny because when you do an insulation job, the spray foam that's called giving a blowjob. And so he just constantly on our beach trips, is telling people and they just skim right over it Like all right, so you have two blowjobs here today and it is the best, we just all giggle.
Speaker 1:We got 13 blowjobs on the schedule for today.
Speaker 3:You think they would change what that's called, but they just call it that and that's what it is what would you call it? Um, yeah, that's great. Uh, a job, a job beat.
Speaker 1:No, I don't know see I think blowjob is the only way to go.
Speaker 3:I like it.
Speaker 2:That's what it is I'd maybe just say insulation installation, I don't know.
Speaker 3:A spray job, a spray job which also has connotations. That also sounds pretty, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:I actually think I like blowjob better than spray job. I guess we want you to do 12 spray jobs today. I think you can get that in. It's definitely not as bad as blowjob yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a little softer.
Speaker 3:The first thing that came to my mind when you started this episode was like one time someone brought a date, like a new person, on our big beach trip.
Speaker 1:The Karen of the group. Oh, just a disaster. Go ahead and tell that story.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean I don't know that, I want to get into specifics, but this could be somebody who definitely listens.
Speaker 2:Same with the one I have.
Speaker 3:Well, my sister's going to hear same with the one I have, um, yeah, just new people. So so one of my big things is I'm just done with new people coming on trips. We're past that now, like you're too old for that yeah, we're just done like, if you have someone new, y'all do a trip. You guys do a trip, we're not gonna do that as part of our one beach trip a year yeah, yeah, okay, okay yeah I think what's the rest of the story?
Speaker 3:yeah, every time I'm like oh, because I, because here's what I can. Then I'm like no, I can't say that publicly. No, I can't say that bachelor.
Speaker 1:I planned a bachelorette party for a young woman. I was also young. I was in my 20s, she was in her 20s, she was younger than me and she had so many friends. One of those things where she's just like, oh my god, there's gonna be 47 people there and I'm like, great, so we just take this is when I lived in savannah, planned a trip to atlanta. When I tell you that there were legitimately 15 women. Okay, we had like four hotel rooms at the west end. She wanted to do the whole strip club situation well, this all of sounds like my.
Speaker 2:If you're like here's the worst trip you could go on, yeah, no, no, it was 15 women in Atlanta.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, calm down. I was in my 20s and this was like a big deal to her. This is what she wanted.
Speaker 2:I am only just delivering a thing she wanted, and I'm just saying you're describing my worst nightmare.
Speaker 1:Continue, it is a nightmare as I look back at it. When I tell y'all that half the group got roofied I was in charge I thought you were going to say food poisoning. Nope, Roofied. I definitely think it was roofied. Maybe it was food poisoning. Let me tell you why Different symptoms.
Speaker 3:That is a very ambitious rapist Half the group.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let me keep telling you about the group. So it wasn't all women. There were two gay dudes in the group and they were having a great time at the male strip club. Like inappropriate. The girls didn't know what they were doing. The bride forgot to wear panties, but she was pulled on the stage so it became super explicit, like quotey fingers forgot to wear, but you don't forget to wear.
Speaker 3:You just didn't.
Speaker 1:You just didn't wear, okay well, I was trying to be nice. Maybe she listens to this. I'm not sure it's a long time ago, but what I can tell you she probably does. Um, what I can tell you is that the two dudes got roofied like for real roofied, and the van the driver of the like party van was homophobic. We didn't know that, but because the gay guys were like really, really, I thought they were just really drunk and I'm like God and this is the kind of thing where I was mother hen, so I had like all just really drunk and I'm like God and this was the kind of thing where I was mother hen, so I had like all the dollar bills and I'm like you can't sit next to the stage unless you're giving money. Like it's like a whole thing, okay, and we're talking about like a different lifetime for me.
Speaker 1:But we leave the van driver's homophobic, he starts cussing out the gay guys and I'm like, hey, man, we're not doing that. Like, just take us to our hotel. We get out. One of them gets what I thought he was. He got sick on the on the elevator going to the like top of the thing. I'm dying. All the girls go to their room. I wake up in the middle of the night and one of the gay guys is peeing on the window. Like this was like a disaster and I thought to myself even in my mid-20s. I was like never again, I will never do another trip like a disastrous, quintessential first marriage. Like I wanted this trashy whatever and not to say she was, she wasn't, she was just young and wanted that experience. I've never wanted that. I don't have been married sometimes.
Speaker 1:I just never wanted to do this, never, never. But that is what happened. It was a disaster. And the other one locked himself in the bathroom and was in the shower for like forever. But I definitely feel like at least the two dudes were roofied. But two of the girls also said they felt like because they, like couldn't keep their crap together. They only had three drinks like over the course of not the guys, come with the girls the guys only had three drinks that you know of I I
Speaker 3:we. I used to have a guy that I worked with but he was also a friend, but we knew each other through work who had a drinking problem. But he would just routinely be like, yeah, somebody put something in my drink and he was the kind of person who would pee in the corner of the room at the hotel and stuff. And it was always like, yeah, I got roofied I don't know what. And it's like, no, dude, you just have a drinking problem. But it was all the time he got roofied I was like no, no, he didn't.
Speaker 1:I definitely knew these guys very closely and had never seen them behave this way Ever.
Speaker 2:Look, whatever Y'all need to tell yourselves for this story.
Speaker 1:But that just sounds really awful. The reason I'm telling the story is because it was really awful and I think, like if you're in your 20s, I don't even know if those are things people still do it feels kind of like I don't know, Like is that a thing that people do for bachelorette parties now? Like, do they even do that? I don't think so.
Speaker 2:Oh, I haven't been to one in quite some time and I declined most of them, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:But I think, like when you think about when you're traveling in your 20s, it's different than when you when you're in your 30s or your 40s, I do think, because it is a little bit more like you made every mistake you could possibly make in college and in your early 20s by saying yes to a trip where you didn't know everybody. That's a disaster, I think. Saying yes to a trip where there's that one person that's just high maintenance and the worst and complains about everything, like you've already done that trip, you know how it is, you know what it's like to let the control freak on your trip the one, not the Claire, not the good one, not the one that you're like. Oh, she was so thoughtful, she thought of all the things we didn't think about. See, you're welcome, I would travel. I have traveled with you and I loved it. It was very relaxed. But anyways, I 100 would not go back and do what I did in my 20s ever again how did we get to california on that trip?
Speaker 2:where did we fly to?
Speaker 1:what were we?
Speaker 2:doing was this a dream no, I remember it happening in like 20. Who are we meeting with? Were we on?
Speaker 1:site. Oh yeah, okay, I. You were already there for work and I flew in and ubered to the place where staying, before we went on site in california the hotel, the hotel got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, you had a hotel and I just came and crashed with Place where I was staying before we went to on-site in California. The hotel, the hotel Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, got it. You had a hotel and I just came and crashed with you the night. Yeah, that was fine.
Speaker 2:This isn't like gross, horrifying or drugged, but I remember two of my friends were doing internships in New York when we were 20. And so I went and stayed with them and it was like they came of age in Manhattan without me. It was just the weirdest thing. They were so cold. They put me in the bunk room, which I say that it was a stunning apartment in Columbus Circle. It was crazy nice. But they just didn't want to do these things that I wanted to do and I had made some plans.
Speaker 2:They mean-girled you because they mean-girled me Because they were just New Yorkers and you know when you switch from calling it Like they really were New Yorkers or they were pretending to be New Yorkers.
Speaker 2:No, Once you change from calling it like Manhattan or New York to the city you've turned on me Okay so there's, there's the city and um, so I made us this was wicked, had like just come out, so because we I know we couldn't drink, so like wicked was still really new and my dad knew somehow somebody. We had some crazy connection and we just got like crazy good seats at wicked and then we just like don't really do shows until, like I have and.
Speaker 2:Wicked's like new and exciting at this point. And then there was a restaurant it's probably still there, I think it's in Chelsea called the cafeteria, and it was this like 24-hour diner, but they had really good food and so, like I get us a reservation, or that was my plan and they're like so. So like right before the show I'm sure I had on like a nice little outfit and I was ready and they were like we're just not going to go. So they've just like I've done that. I learned a lot about how to get around New York I'm sorry, the city, that trip. Like I learned how to use the subway. They like wanted nothing to do with me, it was, I know.
Speaker 1:I do not like this story. Kill me their names and phone numbers.
Speaker 2:Well, wait, there's a funny part to this story. So I sell the other two tickets because I'm like, well, I got them for free, I'll get some extra cash. And I sold them for a lot I mean fair, but they were expensive tickets. So I get this cash and I go see Wicked next to the people I sell the tickets to. And the last scene before intermission is defying gravity, okay, and I guess I like blacked out. I don't know what happened. You were refeed, I was refeed, nope Sober, wasn't even old enough to drink and could not pass with the fake ID. But like it ends and I had like tears streaming down my face and I look at the guy and his wife. I was like that was so good and they're like you aren't so bad yourself. I had been fucking singing like right there the whole time, I don't fucking know. But then I was like I, I want to go home I need to beam myself out of here as quickly.
Speaker 1:It's where you want to melt into the floor. You pretend pass out after something like that, so I sang.
Speaker 2:Defying Gravity, unbeknownst to me because I'd had a very emotional experience. And then I go to that restaurant by myself Totally fine to eat alone, still love eating alone and I get back and they're like we went and tried that restaurant and I'll never forget what they said. It actually was really good and I was like fuck all of you people, but I really was independent in the city.
Speaker 1:I'm mad at them right now. I do not like this at all.
Speaker 2:While we're on the city, take it or leave it. A few years after that, I was on this kick of just really finding myself and instead of maybe, like I don't know, reading a book on it or something, I decide I'm going to go to a Buddhist monastery of course, in New.
Speaker 2:York, as one does go on. It's 25. It was my 25th birthday and my mom was in New York first, and so we met in the city and it was the best. We had like the best few days shopping, eating. It was so fun. Um, she took me to Tiffany. I still wear it. She bought me this pretty little silver band at Tiffany's for my 25th birthday. It was just a precious trip. And then I was supposed to get on a bus, not supposed to. I did, so I get on a bus and I forget the bus station in New York. It's disgusting. Anyways, I was like this is a mistake Immediately.
Speaker 1:I'm like who am I?
Speaker 2:When you said bus, I was like no, oh, but I was like full 20-something hippie kid going to take my bus like a bat.
Speaker 1:You were a pretend hippie, totally 100% so.
Speaker 2:I ride this bus and I will never forget turning around and seeing the skyline behind me and being like this feels so wrong to be leaving this. So Woodstock's gorgeous, by the way. I'm like this will be fine. So I get to this monastery. It's also stunningly beautiful and it is led by Zazen monks and they can be male or female and, uh, the first day I'm still super excited. And then I'm put in like a bunk room of these, like wooden bunks with mattresses as thin as paper with tons of not getting a good rating on airbnb.
Speaker 2:I can tell you that right now no so bad, and the first part of the retreat was a silent retreat where you did all of the chores of the monastery in silence as a form of meditation oh, uh-huh, I see what they're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, see yeah, uh-huh.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is a great rite of passage for you.
Speaker 2:And I'm like I'll never forget. I had to chop like 50 pounds of basil and I was like this is what it takes to like find out who I am. And then you would meditate for hours and hours in this like sanctuary, for lack of a better word. If you slouched or looked like you were falling asleep, a monk would pop you on your shoulders with a stick so you would straighten up. I could like sense them coming, so I would just always be like I never got popped, but everyone around me got popped see, I'm mad at the monks, like you were mad at the mean girls yeah, but poor like yeah, I had a cell phone.
Speaker 2:I guess iphones were out. But because people, when I've told that story, they're like why didn't you leave? It didn't occur to me that I could just be like this isn't for me. It was like I gotta get through this.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen, you don't know that when you're 25, you actually don't. I'm telling you, no one does. I feel like if you're 25 and you're listening right now, it is totally okay. If you still think you have to finish bad books, stay for shitty movies, eat a crappy meal, stay at a monastery with monks who beat you, like it is okay If you're that person. I was also 25 and believe those things.
Speaker 2:I have night terrors, not often, but when they happen. And if you don't know the difference, it's atrocious to be next to the person. Wait, is this like?
Speaker 1:will ferrell and like stepbrothers, night terrors, where they get up and they're like making a bunch of food and throwing it at each other I did that, but, um, mine's usually really scary.
Speaker 2:Sometimes my eyes are open and I'm seeing a dream, but I look like I'm present with you, so it's very scary for people that are with me, so possession.
Speaker 2:It's really unpleasant okay, I have some funny ones, which this isn't we'll do a dream episode or sleep study episode, but point being, they're really, it's really loud. When this happens to me and it happens when I'm in high stress times in my life well, I had one at the monastery, in the bunk room and I was and when I wake up I'm usually like, or I'm usually woken up because I've scared the shit out of somebody. Um, when I awoke or was shaken by this really nice lady, I was shaking the um ladder of the bunk bed saying I've got to get out of here, I've got to get out of here, and that sweet lady like tucked me in and put me back to bed. But you know, the other women in there were just like laying there, like what the fuck.
Speaker 1:Well, they definitely were like she's demon possessed. She needs to be here, so I was like yeah we're not letting her leave. Let's put her back to bed happened, wicked too maybe no, I was wide I was passionate and wicked, so passionate so those are my sad, sad travel stories I don't know, those are pretty great.
Speaker 1:I do think we everybody has to give one piece of travel advice, like, as people are planning, you're planning your travel for with your tier one friends, hopefully, okay, unless you're young and you're going on the silent retreat which obviously is going to be great for you. You're going to chop lots of basil and probably get beat by a monk, but what's your piece of travel advice for people who are planning to take their trips this year?
Speaker 2:Keep it simple. When you're in the new place and you say to your friend or spouse or partner, I could totally live here, that's not true, you're just enjoying visiting there. And I'm going to say, for me personally, tier one only just makes it easier and you don't have to include everybody, that's okay, or you're going to end up with the Bachelorette.
Speaker 1:Oh God, Let us rest in peace.
Speaker 3:That version of me all that and go ahead and preemptively download all the podcasts you want to listen to, and then some to have all that stuff in case you have bad reception or whatever, because yeah it's just a nice little escape in case you need it traveling.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, podcast is one of the best parts about traveling I don't know if we should put this in or not, but I forgot to mention that, um, we took our boys on an international trip like two years ago and we were like, wow, this is going to be the greatest gift ever, and they were actually just little assholes who totally did not appreciate it at all. So traveling with family can be like really tricky. The other thing is Shane asked me to make all the reservations because we were with our kids, so we needed to have a place to stay in every city we were going to and he Clark have a place to stay in every city we were going to. And he clark griswold that thing and drove 1200 miles from paris to italy so exciting in the worst little station wagon situation of all time, and he'd be so mad. He'd be like the swiss alps and the kids are like sleeping in the back seat, like totally not giving a shit, and he'd be like these assholes. I'm like I know, um, but we, every time we got to a new place, without fail, every time we get there, and I'd be like, oh my god, so charming, like in this great little village, whatever. When I tell you, shane would immediately open his laptop and start looking for a better place to stay, because he didn't believe that the place that I had gotten us and I was like you will be murdered. On this trip. You will be you approved all of these places. You will get murdered.
Speaker 1:So my travel advice is to let the person who is the most picky for sure Make the decisions, because that way they cannot bitch, because they will bitch. If they're picky, they will find a reason to bitch, and it's okay If you're traveling with someone who's particular, normally it's better for all of us. They make those decisions in the control. Give them the control, let go and let god, as I say. So I will say that would be one piece of advice. The second piece of advice is tier one. I'm with y'all on tier one. Only I'm old enough now. And, by the way, if something sucks, just leave. You can leave leave, leave.
Speaker 2:I left for my honeymoon, the first one I hated it.
Speaker 3:Last thing, and I'll make it so quick, but when I was in elementary school, this friend of mine invited me to go to Six Flags for two days. Who does that Like? Now? That's so weird looking back. So it was a hotel. We're going to go for a a day, then spend the night at hotel do it again the next day, but they were like uh like he got limousines every uh birthday and stuff in elementary school.
Speaker 2:Fancy loves those. Yeah, sure uh.
Speaker 3:So they probably had a garage fridge probably you know they did so the mom it was just me and him and his mom and of course she like found all the stuff wrong with the hotel and I was looking around like what this is great, what are you talking about? And so we upped and just came back to Birmingham. Now we did come back to make him happy, so he wouldn't throw a fit, she got a penthouse at Winfrey or something for us for a night, but then that just meant the next day we were just heading back to their house and my parents were going to come pick me up. We were just heading back to their house and my parents are going to come pick me up. But, boy, the dad did not expect that. He thought we were going to be in Atlanta for two days.
Speaker 3:And, holy moly, talk about walking in Like as a kid. I don't even know what. What did you see? Well, the lady wasn't there any longer. But all of the evidence of the lady was there All of the underwear, the all kinds of stuff. Yeah, Whoa.
Speaker 3:Disaster.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Third grade.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's kind of like a. That's that age where you go. Oh shit, it's not a fairy tale, something very bad and there's no cell phone.
Speaker 3:So I have to wait for her, for, like, she's using the phone calling all these people and whatever and I have to sit through all of it before I can be like can I use the phone now? Can I call my mom? Do you think maybe my mom could? Come pick me up, because this is weird, for me Unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Okay, so definitely make sure that you're strategically planning to do whatever kind of shady shit you might be doing too I'm just kidding. Don't do anything shady. Be good to people, be good to each other.
Speaker 2:Before you Cut Bangs is hosted by Laura Quick and Claire Feerman and produced by Will Lockamey. Follow along with us everywhere.
Speaker 1:Please subscribe to the podcast. Find us on Instagram. We're constantly doing polls. We want to know what you think, and I know that you probably know this, but reviewing us and giving us five stars matters more than anything, and we are so grateful to have you here.
