Host: Meg Bowles
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Meg: [00:00:13] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles.
The Moth was born out of an idea that everyone has a story. In the early days of The Moth, our founder liked to complain that people talked in sound bites. People didn't actually listen to each other anymore, because they were too busy thinking about what they were going to say next. So, he decided to organize an evening where people could take the floor and share a story from their lives with a captive audience.
Over the years, and with the help of many, many people, volunteers and staff alike, the evenings have grown and taken on many different shapes. We have an open-mic StorySLAM series where you can put your name in a hat for a chance to tell a story, curated Mainstage events where storytellers are invited to work with a Moth director to craft a longer story. We also have programs in communities and in high schools, and our live events are now produced all around the world.
One of the ways we find is through our pitch line. I'll tell you more about that later in the hour. But basically, people call in and leave a two-minute pitch of a story they'd like us to consider.
That's what our next storyteller, Ali Abdullatif, did. We heard his pitch and invited him to share his story on our Mainstage in New York. Here's Ali Abdullatif, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Ali: [00:01:31] All right. So, it's February 1st, 2015, and I'm on the green line on the T in Boston, heading home after a Sunday brunch. And I was doing what anyone else on the T would do, which is just daydream and try not to make eye contact. [audience chuckles] I was just off in my own little world, and then suddenly I notice a screw that pops loose and falls on the seat in front of me. I decide to be a good Samaritan, I pick it up and put it back in just with my fingers, and go back to contemplating my own existence.
And then, my concentration is broken a second time, but this time by a man yelling from behind me. It takes me a second to realize that he's yelling at me. So, I get up and I look him in the face. And he goes, "I saw what you did there. I saw." I don't know what he's talking about. I wonder if he's drunk or crazy or maybe a little both. And then, he says, "I saw you plant a bomb on the T." [audience chuckles]
Yeah, my heart immediately drops. I've never heard these words before, and no one's ever said them specifically to me. So, I don't know how to respond. While I'm trying to formulate a thought, he's already off to the front of the train. We come to a stop, two stops away from my apartment, and a bunch of people hear the word bomb and yelling, and they decide to leave.
And the man comes back around with a conductor. He tells the conductor what he thought he saw, and then the conductor takes a look at the situation. A couple of guys get up, and they tell him that I didn't do that. He realizes that there's no way for me to physically plant a bomb just on the seat. [audience chuckles] So, he decides to tell the men to take a seat, tells me to come to the front of the train, sit behind him, and when we get to my stop, I can get off. I thank him. I feel better. I try to relax, and I just process it as I move to the front of the train.
I turn back, though, and I look at the man that just accused me, and apparently, he wasn't satisfied with what just happened. So, he picks up the phone and calls 911. And apparently, calling 911 activates some sort of MBTA protocol, because I'm not allowed to take a seat anymore. I have to stand as the conductor puts one arm on me and controls the T with one arm, and takes us down one more stop, one stop away from my apartment. This is when the train is pulled off of service. Everyone's asked to step off and step back onto the next train, with the exception of me, the man that accused me, and a female officer that was waiting at the station.
We waited outside in one of those outdoor platforms in the coldest winter Boston's seen in over a decade, just waiting for the police to show up. I start to panic. I don't know what this means at all, I don't know if I'd have to go down to the station, if I'd get detained for a day or two, if they have to search my apartment. I'm here on a student visa, and I don't know if this means I get deported or if I have to leave immediately. So, I panic, and I take my jacket off, I throw it to the ground, and I walk up to the female officer. I tell her to frisk me, to check, like, “I don't have tools or anything.” And she's like, "Calm down. Put your jacket back on. Just wait.”
30 minutes of being out in the cold, the man starts to realize that he might have made a mistake. He turns to me and he says, "I'm sorry." But then, he pulls back a bit. He decides no, and he goes, "I saw you do what you did, though. Yeah, you did it." And I immediately am filled with rage. I just want to yell at him, call him an idiot, and tell him he's wrong. But I realize that's counterproductive. So, I just relax and I tell him, "I understand why you did what you did. You just got the wrong guy." That's when he reacted negatively. He took a step towards me and immediately the officer separated us. She put him back on the T, and told him to go home, and the police would call him later. And me and the officer waited another 30 minutes out in the cold.
30 minutes in, the officer gets another phone call. Apparently, the police had showed up to the wrong Harvard Ave station, and it would be another few hours before they were able to get to this one. So, she decides to take down my number, my address, and tells me I can go home as long as when they call me, I head down to the station to talk it out with them. So, I agree. She asks me if I want to get back on the train, I don't feel comfortable just yet, so I tell her I'll just walk home. And I do.
And during my walk, my mind begins to spin. See, I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, but I didn't always feel like I belonged back there. It's a very conservative country, and I was a very liberal minded kid. Most people want to talk about religious ideologies or traditional family values, and I just wanted to talk about who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman. [audience laughter] So, when it came time to decide where to go for college, I wanted to find my people, so I knew I wanted to come to the States. And I did.
It took me a while and eventually I did find my people. And it was the Dungeons and Dragons players, the Halo video gamers, the Saga comic book readers. [chuckles] It was amazing. It turns out the people I was looking for all my life is what you people would call nerds. [audience laughter] So, I immediately felt like I belonged. And it was amazing.
And then, the spring of 2015 came, and I realized my new status quo was about to change again. I was a senior and so were all my friends. And that meant that when we graduated, everyone would go home. I'd have to go home, too, unless I was able to find a job, which at the time I wasn't. And now, I was struggling with the larger question of race. I mean, I'm no stranger to the topic. I've been randomly selected more times than random would allow, and held at the airport for far too long. I've also heard my fair share of inappropriate racial slurs or comments, but I've never had to confront something so immediate, something so real like this was.
I didn't know what it meant. And if I didn't feel like I belonged back there and-- If I don't belong here, then where do I go next? I got home that night, and I was reeling. I was not in an okay headspace. I didn't know if I'd have to leave as soon as the police called and if I'd just get deported immediately. So, I called my friend Jackie to calm me down. Jackie was one of my few friends that was thinking about staying in Boston post-graduation. So, I clung to her. And immediately, she answered the phone, reaffirmed my situation, told me that it was messed up and it was not okay what happened. She slowly calmed me down, and then reminded me that February 1st, 2015, was the day of the Super Bowl. I was invited to a party at her place, and our New England Patriots were set to play the Seattle Seahawks.
At first, I told her I wasn't interested in the game, but it was just me being afraid of the phone call. And she felt it, so she insisted, and eventually I gave in. I decided I'd go to her party. But as soon as I hung up, I put my phone ringer on the loudest setting. I put it in my pocket, put my coat on, and went out into the cold again. I decided that even though I could have taken the 15-minute T ride to her place, I didn't know if I was even allowed back on. I wasn't comfortable. So, I decided to walk 40 minutes in the cold.
I walk to her place, just questioning everything, not knowing what comes next, and then I get to her apartment. I can hear just a sports party going on inside and everyone yelling. It takes me a second to prep myself to walk in. And then, I do. The party had a few of my friends, but it was mostly friends of friends or loose acquaintances. And immediately everyone fell silent. It turns out Jackie had told them all what just happened to me. [audience chuckles]
I got an immediate rush of hugs from some of my close friends, and they all told me that they were sorry. But pretty soon, the party went back to normal, and were all just watching the game. Every once in a while, though, someone would sit next to me, someone I hardly knew, and they would tell me that they don't think I was capable of something like that, and that they're sorry this happened to me. And I mean, I know they were sincere, but I couldn't feel it at the moment, because I was just too distracted. I had my phone out most of the time. I kept checking for that phone call.
And then, at some point, it rang. People were yelling. The game was a close game. So, I turn to Jackie, I make eye contact, and she gestures for me to head out into the hallway to take the phone call. So, I do. I answer the phone, and a deep voice on the other line introduces himself as Jim. Just Jim. And it turns out Jim had dialed the wrong number. [audience laughter] So, I let Jim know, [chuckles] and I hang up. It takes me a second to compose myself a second time, and I head back to enter the party. And this time, when I walk in, everyone was standing up, putting their coats back on. So, confused, I asked them what was going on, and they told me, "Oh, we're coming down to the station with you."
And apparently, in their minds, I was just going to head down to the police station with an army of nerds in Patriots jerseys [audience laughter] that would, one by one, proclaim my innocence until they let me free. [audience laughter] I thanked them all. I told them that it wasn't necessary. [chuckles] We went back to watching the game. The Patriots won that day, and it was amazing. We ran out into the cold again, but this time celebrating and yelling and cheering. It really felt amazing knowing that I had this group of people that were supportive and had my back. It took just one person to alienate me and make me feel completely alone. And it took 14 people to make me know that I belonged.
Now, I didn't end up getting the phone call that night or any other night. Till today, I still haven't gotten it [audience laughter] For a while, anytime a strange number would call me, I'd get really nervous and I'd clamp up. Till today, I honestly don't know if it's on a record somewhere. Every time I'm at the airport, I feel a little nervous that it comes up on file or something. But I knew then that just having this group of people with me that night, that it was okay. They were my people, Boston's my city, I belong in this country, and I wasn't leaving anytime soon. Thank you.
[cheers and applauses]
Meg: [00:12:20] That was Ali Abdullatif. Many of the people Ali met for the first time that day at the party have become some of his closest friends. In fact, getting together for the Super Bowl has become an annual event for them. Ali has been able to study and work at Boston University since 2011, because he was granted a student visa. The recent political events in the United States targeting Muslim immigrants has made Ali nervous about his status in the country. The possibility of being deported has been a constant source of anxiety for him.
If this were to happen, Ali would be forced to leave behind his job working in the neurodegenerative laboratory in the Pharmacology Department at Boston University, and relinquish his PhD position. It would mean leaving his friends, his belongings, and his dog, a five-year-old Border Collie mix named Homer, he rescued from an animal shelter.
Coming up, a young Irish boy desperately tries to hide his stammer from his classmates, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[Moon Babies by Stellwagen Symphonette]
Jay: [00:13:35] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Meg: [00:13:44] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles.
Our next story comes from comedian Aidan Greene. Aidan has spent a lifetime learning to deal with a stammer. At the age of 21, his speech had deteriorated so much that he could barely speak. He says, one of the ways he managed to get his confidence and his speech back was through standup comedy. He's comfortable as a comedian, because he can hide behind jokes and ad libs. If he stammers, he just makes fun of it.
He said, “Telling a story at The Moth was very different, basically terrifying.” He compared it to his early days at school, and he thinks that's why he stammered much more than he usually would when he shared this story at a SLAM we produced in Dublin, Ireland. You'll notice Aidan's nerves in the beginning of the story.
[cheers and applause]
But once he warms up and gets going, he leaves his nerves behind. Here's Aidan.
Aidan: [00:14:33] Hello. So, for as long as I can remember, I've been in love with one thing. Speaking. Since I said my very first word, I just didn't want to stop. So, it was a mild inconvenience when at the age of four-- when at the age of four I-- at the age of four, I developed a stammer. And that isn't a joke, because back then I barely knew I stammered. Sometimes I would just-- I would just repeat the first sound-- the first sound-- the first sound of-- the first sound of a word., okay? It was totally-- totally, totally innocuous, okay? So, then when my speech therapist said to-- said to-- said to my ma’am that I would never lose-- that I would never lose my stammer. That was no big deal, okay? And then, shortly after, that became a very big deal.
So, I just finished my first year of secondary school where I was a very happy kid. I was very confident and very good in school. And so, it was the first day of summer holidays. And I was-- I was at home on my own, okay? And the phone rang. So, I picked up the phone and I tried to say hello. And nothing came out. And then, they said, “Hello.” And I tried to respond and nothing came out. I kept trying and forcing and forcing until eventually I ran out of breath and they hung up. And five minutes after they phoned back and I was too scared-- and I was too scared-- and I was too scared-- I was too scared to answer it, because suddenly, this innocuous stammer had become totally-- had become totally-- become totally debilitating.
So, that September, I went back-- I went back into school, and things had changed completely. I was never happy. I seemed as if I was really unintelligent, because I'd lie the whole time. Say that the teacher asked me something, I'd say, "I don't know," because-- because I just couldn't say it, or say if the teacher asked me for my homework, I would say, "No, I don't have it done." Because the fear of that was way less than the fear of speaking.
So, in my head I thought, no, this is fine. I'm getting by. Nobody knows I stammer. And clearly, everyone did know. But I thought, it's fine, because nobody knows and I'm getting by. And then, one day I stopped getting by. It was in English class. We were reading a book. I think it was Carrie's War. There was a character which was called Hepzibah, which I maintain to this very day is the stupidest name in the world. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
Like, there's too many sounds in one word. It was just stupid. [audience chuckles] So, on that particular day, okay, I think he started from the top-- from the top of the list. So, I knew I was going to have to-- so I knew I was going to have to read, okay? So, I looked down and found my paragraph and there she was in the second sentence. Hepzibah. [audience laughter] So, as all the people before me read, I got filled with such a sense of fear and dread and a sense that in no circumstances would I be able to say this word. And then, it was John Farrelly, the person before me. I was shaking, and I was already quite short of breath, and then it was me.
And so, I mumbled and bumbled through the first sentence. It seemed like an age for like seven words. And then, finally, there she was. And I tried to say it and I said, “Hep”, but I couldn't get past that first sound. And I tried again, I went, “Hep, Hep, Hep.” I kept trying and trying as I got shorter and shorter of breath, until eventually there was no sound coming out of my mouth whatsoever until eventually, I put my head in my hands and I started to cry. I could hear all of the chairs turning. I could feel all of the eyes on me, until eventually the guy sitting beside me said, "Sir, he just can't say it." And then, the next person read and then the bell rang and people just streamed out. I had reached my lowest point, because what was the point of being alive when I couldn't do the thing I love, when I couldn't speak.
So, I think it was around then-- around then -- I think it was around then that my mum, she was taking me all around the country looking for a cure. She took me to reflexologists, she took me to some hypnotherapists. I think that I got the Catholic cure for a stammer. [audience laughter] Surprisingly ineffective. [audience laughter] [audience applauses]
Who would have thought it? So, then one day, she said, "Aidan, there's this thing I found, and it's called the McGuire Program." And straight away, I was like, "No, I don't want to do it. All of this is bullshit." But she was like, "No, Aidan, you have to." She brought me up, okay, and she made me do it. The first thing they said was, "This is not a cure." And so, over the course of a weekend, they entirely broke down the way I spoke, and they built it back up from the ground.
So, afterwards-- so clearly afterwards, that wasn't a cure. But I had a way of being-- of being in control of-- I had a way of being in control-- in control of my speech for the first time in ages. So, the next Tuesday, I had English, and I went in. And that day, same book. He started from the top of the list. I'm like, “Yes, I get to read.” So, I looked down and I found my paragraph, and it was a big, juicy paragraph. And there she was. [audience chuckles] First word, first sentence, Hepzipah.
And all of the people, they read before me. I got filled with nerves, but also excitement, because I knew that I could do it. I knew that I could say it. John Farley was reading, and he had a huge paragraph. But I steeled myself, and I told myself that this was it. I was going to prove everyone wrong, I was going to prove all the people who saw me cry wrong, I was going to prove my speech therapist wrong. And eventually, it was me. So, I paused for a moment. I took my time. I took a really deep breath, and then I went to say that word as fluently and as beautifully as I could. As I went to say it, the bell rang, [audience laughter] and everyone just stood up and walked out [audience laughter] as if nothing had happened.
And so, that is not the point of this story, okay? [audience chuckles] The point is I love speaking, and I loved it so much as a child. But that love that brought me the greatest pain I will ever experience in my life. I'm so glad I have it, because now I can appreciate my love of speaking so much more. And that's it.
[cheers and applauses]
Meg: [00:22:31] That was Aidan Greene. Aidan still experiences a lot of fear when it comes to speaking. Though he says, as he's grown older, he's accepted his stammer and the fear has become less intense. The more he embraces his stammer, the less it affects him. If you go to our website, you can see pictures of Aidan and find out about his one-man show entitled 500 Days of Stammer, where he talks about perceptions, facts, and myths around stammer, and the day-to-day struggles of living with a speech impediment. That's on our website, themoth.org.
Our next storyteller Chris Herbert is a twice Grammy-nominated classical baritone who performs concerts and operas around the world. But along the way to finding that success, his career took a slight detour down another path.
[cheers and applause]
Here's Chris Herbert, live at The Moth.
Chris: [00:23:22] On the first day of my new job as the vice president of a public relations firm in New York City, the office manager showed me to my new office. I had a view of Broadway, and I could even see a sliver of Central Park. My colleagues, they all sat in cubicles outside my office, and they had degrees in things like Communications. I was convinced that they thought of me as a fraud, which I was.
During my job interview, I'd explained to my new bosses that I had absolutely no public relations experience. In fact, I had written my master's thesis on the Italian colonization of Libya. [audience laughter] But my new bosses explained to me that they had found my resume and they were interested in me, because I had experience speaking Arabic and experience living in the Middle East. Although the only reason I had that experience was because when I was in college and I wanted to take a new language that wasn't European and Japanese and Chinese were at 08:00 in the morning, Arabic was at 1:30 in the afternoon. [audience laughter]
But I started to realize that if I kept my studies up, there would be some job opportunities for me, although I had never considered public relations. But during my interview, my new bosses were selling me on the idea that I could create more positive change through public relations than I could through policy making or politics. So, I'm at my new job and I'm called into my boss's office and I'm told what my first task is going to be. I'm in charge of the United Nations visit of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. [audience laughter] And that visit is in about six weeks.
So, just to back up for anybody who isn't intimately familiar with global politics, [audience laughter] Muammar Gaddafi was the dictator of Libya for 42 years. He rose to power in 1969, and he quickly became an international pariah, because he used his nation's oil and gas wealth to fund international terror organizations like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, and the Irish Republican Army. He was also closely linked with the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombing, in which 273 people were killed.
So, positive change through public relations, [audience chuckles] Muammar Gaddafi. They didn't quite fit in my mind, but I asked my boss what he thought I should do first, and he said, “I should go to the Libyan mission.” By that, he meant the Libyan mission to the United Nations on East 48th Street. So, I make my way across town, and I enter this drab concrete building. And looming above me is this massive portrait of a young Gaddafi atop a magnificent white stallion. [audience chuckles] He's glaring down at the lobby, and it looks like it's been transported right out of the 1970s. It has low orange couches, and plastic tables, and a green carpet that's bordering on shag. [audience laughter]
My contact at the mission is an American woman named Nicole. She has on these large dark sunglasses. She looks a little bit like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis until she takes off her glasses, and I realize that she's probably even younger and less experienced than I am. And she tells me three things. First, this is very important in all situations, I am to refer to Gaddafi as His Excellency, Brother Leader Muammar Al Gaddafi, Leader of the Revolution. [audience chuckles] Next, I am to find a place for Gaddafi to stay in New York City. And any luxury hotel suite on the east side of Manhattan will do. And third, I am to find a place for the tent. The tent.
Well, I'd actually heard about the tent. It was a bit of a gimmick, and it played to Gaddafi's roots. It was a large Bedouin tent, and he would meet with dictators, sorry, meet with dignitaries when he went to-- [audience laughter] He would meet with dignitaries when he went to foreign countries. For example, when he went to Italy, Berlusconi allowed him to erect his tent on the soccer field near the Coliseum. And when he went to Russia, Putin allowed him to erect his tent in a park next to the Kremlin. So, I thought, well, how hard could this be in New York City? [audience chuckles] I asked Nicole if she had a particular location in mind, and she said, "I don't know, Chris. Just rent Central Park." [audience laughter]
Well, I'm able to take care of the first task pretty easily. I book the presidential suite at The Pierre Hotel. Done. And a few days later, I'm back at the Libyan mission for a meeting with Nicole, and the Libyan head of protocol, and the secret service agents who were assigned to Gaddafi's detail. Now, the Libyan head of protocol was a man named Noori. He looked like he'd walked out of a budget 1970s gangster film. He had on a maroon three-piece polyester suit, and he had high-heeled boots, and a glass eye that stared at me [audience laughter] from behind his blue-tinted glasses. When I went to shake his hand, he patted me on the stomach instead. [audience laughter]
Now, the secret service agents, by contrast, were very quiet and professional. And we all sat down at the table, and the first thing that Noori said was that The Pierre Hotel was no good. Apparently, Brother Leader was afraid of heights, and he wouldn't go in elevators. And he said that I had to find a ground-floor luxury suite [audience laughter] in Manhattan. I tried to explain that that wasn't a thing here. [audience laughter] And Nicole interjected, saying, "This is why we're paying you, Chris. Make it happen."
Well, it was during this meeting that I learned some of the details of the tent, specifically that it was 23 feet by 39.5 feet and 10 feet tall at its apex. And that allowed me to fill out a special events permit application with the New York City Parks Department. [audience chuckles] So, there are a number of boxes on this permit application, like, yes or no. Will you be using open flames? No. Will you be amplifying sounds? No. Unfortunately, there was no question like, will you be erecting a structure for dictators to meet with dignitaries? [audience laughter]
The next day, I get a phone call from the New York City Police Department. Apparently, the Parks Department was a little uneasy with my application, and they'd passed it on along to the police. [audience laughter] And the sergeant on the other end of the line informed me that he had summarily rejected my application. So, my boss and I decided we would look a little farther afield, perhaps just north to Westchester County, where there was privately owned lands and we thought maybe we could rent a house and Gaddafi could stay in the house and then pitch the tent on the lawn.
So I call around to some real estate agents and one of them calls me back. She tells me that her client is getting cash poor and knows that we're in a bit of a bind, so he's probably going to charge more than we have in our budget. But the house is perfect, so we should check it out. So, Noori and Gaddafi's son Mutassim, and I, we make our way up to Bedford, New York. The house is perfect. It's a beautiful, magnificent stone mansion with large, thick stone walls, and a huge lawn that has plenty of room for the tent.
The real estate agent pulls me aside and she wants to know who I'm working for and I ask her to show her cards too. So, I start and I say I'm working for His Excellency Brother Leader Muammar Al Gaddafi, leader of the revolution. [audience laughter] And she tells me that she's working for Melania and Donald Trump. [audience cheers and applauses]
And I have to tell you, my initial reaction was, “But this house is so beautiful.” [audience laughter] Well, the next day, Trump's lawyers fax me the contract. It's about $100,000 for a week of rent. I sign it and I'm thrilled, because I have accomplished my two impossible goals. Ground-floor luxury with room for a tent. [audience chuckles] And a week later, I'm at the JFK Cargo Terminal. I'm unloading Gaddafi's tent from a cargo plane and we're putting it into a U-Haul. And by this point, I knew the press was onto us, so I arranged for a decoy U-Haul to leave the airport first, so the press would follow that one. So, we went unharassed up to Bedford. When we arrived at Melania and Donald's house, there were 20 Libyan workers waiting to erect the tent. They had even purchased a baby goat for the celebration when Brother Leader arrived.
So, that night, I'm trying to go to sleep, but my BlackBerry starts exploding because apparently somebody had tipped off the press. There were all these aerial shots of Gaddafi's tent in Donald Trump's lawn. [audience chuckles] Trump was denying knowing anything about it. The town of Bedford didn't want Gaddafi in their backyard, so they were threatening to issue a criminal summons against me, because my name was on the lease. And the next day, I'm at the office, my phone rings. I say, "Hello," and the voice on the other end of the line says, "Yes, this is Donald Trump."
My initial reaction was one of panic because I thought he was going to sue me, like this was a landlord-tenant issue. And instead, he continues and he says, "People are saying there's something huge going on at my house. [audience laughter] But listen, we can put this all behind us. I just need you to set up a meeting with me and Gaddafi. I'd like to discuss real estate and business deals with him in Libya." So, I freeze. [audience chuckles] I had been arranging the most intricate details of where to put an international pariah in Manhattan, and what to do with this superfluous tent. And the addition of Donald Trump to the equation was more than I wanted to handle. [audience laughter] So, I passed the phone to my boss.
Well, in the end the tent came down and the town of Bedford retracted the criminal summons against me, thankfully. And Gaddafi ended up staying on the ground floor of the Libyan mission, where a luxury ground floor suite was hastily put up for him. The next day, he gave a 100-minute-long speech at the United Nations where he listed off a number of illogical demands including an inquiry into the assassination of JFK, and then he gave a frustrating interview with Larry King that, well, I arranged that. And the next day he flew off to Venezuela where he met with Hugo Chávez. I am told that there was no problem erecting the Bedouin tent in Caracas. [audience chuckles]
Donald Trump made off pretty well with a six-figure sum for the use of a house that we barely spent time at. I think the goat was the biggest winner of all, because when Gaddafi never arrived at Trump's house, the goat was donated to a petting zoo. [audience laughter] As for me, I lasted only three more weeks in public relations. [audience laughter] I decided it was probably time for me to find a line of work that didn't involve tents or dictators. Thank you.
[cheers and applauses]
Meg: [00:35:44] Chris Herbert still lives in New York, but he left the world of public relations behind and went on to become a very successful musician. He says, he now finds it baffling that he once rented a house from a future American president and sublet it to one of the world's most hated dictators. He says, “There's just so much wrong with that picture.”
Like Ali, the first storyteller in this hour, Chris also submitted his story to us via our pitch line. If you have a story you'd like us to consider, I encourage you to pitch us, too. Go to our website, themoth.org, and look for Tell a Story, and you can find out all the info for how to do it. And while you're there, check out our radio extras where you can see pictures of Chris and find out more about all of our storytellers.
Coming up, a woman is forced to make a huge decision in the face of a health scare, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
Jay: [00:36:40] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
Meg: [00:36:52] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles.
And our last story comes from Rachel Ogilvy. Rachel shared her story when she threw her name in a hat at a Moth StorySLAM in London. In fact, she won the first ever StorySLAM we produced there. We worked with Rachel to expand her winning story for a Mainstage show we produced at the Union Chapel in London.
[applause]
The theme of the night was Coming Home. Here's Rachel, live at The Moth.
Rachel: [00:37:17] I'm not a cat person. [audience chuckles] I've never been a cat person. In fact, I'm always the kind of person who says, “I don't have room in my life for a cat.” Living in a city like London, it just takes all your time and energy just to survive. I'm self-employed, so I'm either looking for work, preparing for work or traveling to work. So, I'm busy.
But anyway, one day back in October 2012, this wee furry-faced grey kitten astray comes to my back door. She decides that she likes me. And over a large tin of tuna, we become firm friends. However, as I say, I'm not a cat person, but that is chiefly because I'm just hugely allergic-- I mean, sneezing like a trucker type allergic, a sort of scream and sneeze at the same time. It's really quite alarming. So, I knew that I'm not going to be her forever home. But I had a lovely Danish friend who was living in London at the time, and she said, "Well, I'll take her," and everybody's happy.
So, time passes, Christmas comes and goes, and it comes time for my mammogram appointment at the local hospital. Now, for those of you who've never had the pleasure, [audience chuckles] it's like having your breast squeezed between two plates, a bit like Play-Doh in a trouser press. [audience chuckles] But it's fine. But I had to go, because I had to fight for this test. I was below the age that testing begins in this country. And unfortunately, my sister had a mastectomy about 10 years previously. So, I'm going to go.
But it's just routine. So, in my head, I'm just ticking those boxes, go to the hospital, tick, have the test, tick, forget about it for another year, tick. So, imagine my surprise when the phone rings, and it's the hospital asking me to go back for another mammogram appointment. I don't even think to ask why and they don't ask me to bring anyone with me. So, I find myself back in the hospital, and I'm thinking how lovely everyone is. But I did think it was a bit strange that they only looked at my right breast. I even remember I make a joke with the radiographer about doing a handstand to get a better angle. [audience chuckles] She just looks at me and she says, "Oh, we need to do an ultrasound." And I think, “Okay, brilliant.” I'm really getting the five-star treatment here.
So, half an hour later, I'm lying on a bed in a darkened room having this ultrasound, and I'm feeling all impatient, and I'm thinking, just tell me it's nothing to worry about. Just tell me it is a cyst. But it's taken a long time and I'm thinking, I just want to go home, I've got work in the morning. And she says, "There's a thing. It might be nothing, but there's definitely a thing." So, she says, "We'd like to do a core biopsy. We can send you out an appointment for another day if you like, or we can do it now." My wee brain is struggling with this like a fly caught in a spider's web, and I'm, “Yeah, yes, do it now. Thanks.”
So, this time, when I go for my results, I take my sister with me. Of course, the clinic's running late, and we're sat outside eating really cheap chocolate and drinking bad coffee from one of the machines, and we're moaning about NHS together, "Bloody NHS," we tut together. Eventually, we go in. I'm still blissfully unaware. And the doctor says straight away, "Rachel, we have your results here and we have found cancer cells." And then, he starts to go on about the size of the tumor, that we've caught it early, that you're to have a lumpectomy followed by radiotherapy, but no chemotherapy if we're lucky. I don't understand a word the man's saying. I've just got like a buzzing in my ears. I'm in shock.
And then, I become aware of this thud, thud, thud in the middle of my back like I'm a giant baby needing burped. I turn around, and it's the breast care nurse, and she's trying to comfort me. [audience laughter] I just want to shout, "Get off me. I don't even know you." And the doctor very quietly says, "I'll just go and get a date for your operation. The sooner the better, eh?" And off he goes. My sister decides to take charge. "You're going organic, Rach," she says. So, we end up in my local Sainsbury's. It's taken all my strength just to stand up, but I just want to cry.
I'm standing in my local Sainsbury's in the fruit and veg aisle, thinking, I don't want to be here. This is not fair. I don't want to be standing in flipping Sainsbury's looking for flipping organic fruit and vegetables.” And the weird thing is, this whole time, I don't even feel ill. And two weeks later, I have the operation and it all goes well. And when I wake up, I'm just obsessed with finding out if I have a chest drain. Now, this was important, right, because the doctors had told me. I had what they call a sentinel node biopsy. So, if your sentinel nodes are all clear, you can hang on to the rest of your lymph nodes. And that's really good, because they do a really important job.
But if the sentinels show cancer, then the whole lot's got to go, and a chest drain's put in. So, I wake up and have a quick feel and I can tell there's no drain and I am ecstatic. I'm just over the moon. I'm also completely off my face on morphine. [audience laughter] I have to tell everyone the good news. So, the lovely recovery nurse comes over. I have to speak to her, I have to tell her. I've got an oxygen mask on, and I do that thing that you always see people in films and on TV, they always do, you know, they try and take the mask off, talk, and then she puts it back, take it off, she puts it back.
I'm determined nevertheless to tell her what I know. It takes three attempts. I'm completely incoherent. I'm just mumbling and I'm like-- muster all my strength. And the third time I say, "There's no drain." [audience chuckles] And finally, she understands me. "Yes," she said, "There's no drain." I felt like the Berlin Wall had just come down. [audience chuckles] Once I've recovered from this operation, I need to start my radiotherapy treatment, which is completely painless. But it's every day for four weeks. And the first time I have the radiotherapy session, I just want to cry, because I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. It feels like I'm being microwaved from the inside out. But I know it's my best chance.
So, I'm having my treatment, and I'm thinking, you can't possibly ignore the radiotherapy machine. Trying to ignore the radiotherapy machine is like trying to ignore the International Space Station if it was parked right in front of your nose. [audience chuckles] They paint flowers on the ceiling and they play music to try and relax you, but it strikes me there's some songs you really don't want to hear when you're in there. I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor, [audience laughter] I'm a Survivor by Destiny's Child, and Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. Maybe that's just me.
But after my radiotherapy, there comes a regimen of five years of a drug called tamoxifen, which is designed to suppress my estrogen levels. And the added bonus, is that actually sends me into early menopause. Yay! You know, the thought of being rendered infertile, of that choice being taken away from me, has really shocked me. I'd always done that thing where I thought, well, maybe one day I'd have a child, but the right guy just hadn't come along. I'd always read these articles about people who'd had their eggs frozen just in case, and I thought, well, why not me? And it seemed really important at the time to stay positive and think about the chance of life that could grow inside me when I'd been thinking all the time about death.
So, I decided to take myself off to a fertility clinic. It was just a very strange experience, because it turned out I had one egg, one chance. But it's a chance, I think. And then, the lovely doctor, in the face of my obviously rampant optimism. [audience laughter] He goes and gets the head of the clinic. Now, she's quite a famous woman. She's very, very busy, so I know something's up. She very gently and very kindly explains to me, "Rachel, if we take your beautiful egg-- We're very willing and very happy to do that, we take your beautiful egg and we froze it and later thawed it, fertilized it, impregnated you, and you carried that embryo full term to a live birth, you would be the first person on the face of the planet that had ever happened to." [audience awe] Huh. [audience chuckles]
So, my sister and I head round the corner in the pouring rain to the local Starbucks to try and think this through. Now, honestly, I have never, ever seen so many babies and small children in one place at the one time. [audience laughter] It was really crammed, literally crammed with these gorgeous families, the type of families that I'd hoped that one day I might have. I just thought, I've had enough of operations and tests. The blood test had to happen today, right now, and we sat there for about two hours trying to think it through. I know that seems like a long time, but how do you make a decision like that in just a couple of hours?
So, in the end, I decided I'd had enough of these operations, and tests, and hospitals. As I look around me, I'm thinking, there's enough children on the face of the planet already, isn't there? Children can come into your life in so many different ways. So, I let go. I started to let go of the things I couldn't change. I've had tremendous support from my fantastic family. My fantastic family, and my wonderful friends, and my beautiful Danish friend. Well, she had to move back to Denmark, and she couldn't take the cat with her. "I'll take her," I said, "till we find her forever home." Well, that was about three years ago, and she's still with me, and I adore her.
She's taught me so much. She makes me laugh, she shows me how important sleep is [audience laughter] and to always, always be curious. Now, I know what you're thinking. Crazy cat lady gets a cat, because she can't have a kid. [audience chuckles] Well, I never wanted a cat, I never wanted cancer, but I ended up with both. [audience chuckles] I think I'm a better person because of it. And thanks to the NHS, I'm healthy and I couldn't be happier. Even my allergy seems to have disappeared. So, it turns out I am a cat person, [audience chuckles] I am her forever home, and I am a survivor.
[cheers and applauses]
Meg: [00:49:07] That was Rachel Ogilvy. Rachel's a writer and comedian. She now lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with her husband Colin, and of course, her cat, Nana. Rachel continues to be cancer free, and only has to go back for regular checkups once a year now. She says, the shadow is always hanging over her, but she's just embracing and enjoying life day by day.
That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us again next time for The Moth Radio Hour.
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Jay: [00:49:45] Your host this hour was Meg Bowles. Meg also directed the stories in the show along with Maggie Cino and Kirsty Bennett.
The rest of The Moth’s directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, and Jenifer Hixson. Production support from Timothy Lou Ly.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Stellwag Symphonette - Moonbabies, Ondatrópica, and Lemon Jelly. You can find links to all the music we use at our website.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Viki Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour is produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.