Host: Michelle Jalowski

Michelle: [00:00:02] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Michelle Jalowski, a director at The Moth, and your host for this episode. 

Human bodies are amazing, but let's face it, they're also weird. On the one hand, our bodies are this incredibly resilient collection of bones, organs, arteries, nerves, tendons, the most complex machinery around. On the other, there's hiccups, blushing, goosebumps, wisdom teeth. Our ears never stop growing, and we're the only species that has chins. Our bodies can help us out, but they can also do us dirty. 

On this episode, two stories that have a little bit of fun with the human anatomy. First up is Jason Schommer. He told this at a Twin Cities StorySLAM, where theme of the night was Tests. Here's Jason, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause]. 

Jason: [00:00:48] She looked at me and said, “See that red light in the corner? Just ignore it.” And I looked at her and I thought, “What?” And she looks at me, “Yeah, it's just a video camera. It's going to record you when you sleep.” I stood there and I thought to myself, “Oh, my God, you cannot have the Ricky Martin dream tonight.” [audience laughter]

See, I hadn't really been paying attention when they explained the sleep study for sleep apnea to me, and I didn't know that I would be actually recorded while I slept. I knew that there would be sensors set to my body, but I didn't know that there'd be actual video footage. Now, my love for Ricky Martin is a tale as old as time. Boy sees boy on TV, boy buys boy's records, boy goes to New York to meet boy at record signing, boy meets boy makes ass out of himself, boy is ripped away by security and never sees other boy ever again. [audience laughter] [audience applause]

Now, years later, Twitter's invented, and I seize it as an opportunity to reconnect with the love of my life. [audience laughter] So, I follow Ricky Martin on Twitter religiously. He always tweets in Spanish. I don't know Spanish. My Spanish is limited to the lyrics of Madonna's, La Isla Bonita. [audience laughter] But I would see his tweets, and I would love them and like them and retweet them, because my heart was translating what he was writing. [audience laughter] He would write, “Yo voy a la tienda, yo compro Doritos y leche.” My heart would translate it as, “Jason, I'm in Miami. Come find me.” [audience laughter] But in reality, he was tweeting, “I'm going to the store to buy milk and Doritos.” 

Finally, one day I tweeted, “Oh, my God, I need to take a Spanish class, so I can learn what Ricky Martin keeps tweeting.” Within an hour, he sent me a direct message back saying, “Ha, ha, ha, I always tweet Spanish to English, English to Spanish, and sometimes in Portuguese.” [audience laughter] That was a DM to me, and only me. Ricky Martin knows I exist, and my heart translated it to as, “Jason, we're getting married.” [audience laughter]

So, I'm now at the sleep study, and the images of Ricky Martin shaking his bon-bon singing He Bangs, He Bangs is dancing through my head as I'm trying to not sleep. It was the longest night of my life. When you're trying to sleep but you can't, but then you're paranoid and you're scared and you're being recorded, because I just keep thinking, this footage is going to end up on YouTube. Sleep apnea is either going to kill me while I'm asleep or while I'm awake by embarrassment. [audience laughter]

Two weeks later, I have to go back and do the test again and then we go over the results of the grid and the printout with the doctor. It's this weird printout, and there's 13 categories, and they got all weird acronyms and weird titles and whatnot, and then spikes and lines and dashes. The doctor's looking at me. She's starting to go on about, number one, snore. Number two, REM. Number three, [unintelligible [00:04:10] And I'm like, “Oh, my God, I'm so bored. Just stop.” Like, I'm wishing I had day apnea at this point. [audience laughter] Like, “Oh, take me now. Awake apnea. I can't get through this appointment.” [audience laughter]

So, I get bored and I start skipping ahead down the line. And all of a sudden, I see number 13, and the word is arousals. And I'm thinking, “Oh, my God.” And so, I start following the line behind it and the spikes, and it's like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. What? 8 and 9 are back-to-back. And I'm like, “Son of a bitch, I have the Ricky Martin dream.” [audience laughter] 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 16 arousals. [audience laughter] I was impressed. [audience laughter] I sat there and I thought, “Damn, son, play on, player. Like I was, “I'm a Superman.” [audience laughter]

So, she's going down the list. As she's getting closer to 13, I start panicking because I don't want to talk about my arousals with this doctor. Sometimes you use comedy as a deflector, kind of break the ice. And so, she gets to number 13, and she goes, “13 arousals.” I looked at her and I said, “[chuckles] Clearly, I had the Ricky Martin dream.” [audience laughter]

She stared at me, [audience laughter] and, I grinned [audience laughter] and she stared at me and I let out a little [chuckles], and she stared at me some more and I thought, “Oh, God, do I got to do jazz hands, like oh, 16 arousals? Ha, ha. Ha, ha.” [audience laughter] And after an awkward lengthy pause, she looks at me and she goes, “Arousals. That's the number of times you will go.” [audience laughter] And I was mortified. [audience laughter] And then, I was really sad, [audience laughter] because then I realized, “Oh, I'm not a superhero down below with 16 arousals in one night. I'm just an overweight guy whose body's trying to kill himself while he sleeps, [audience laughter] who will always love Ricky Martin. But if that isn't Livin’ la vida loca, what is?” 

[cheers and applause]

Michelle: [00:07:08] That was Jason Schommer. Jason is a standup comic and storyteller from Minnesota. When Jason is awake, he watches Palm Royale starring Ricky Martin and loves every minute of it. 

Up next is Caroline Connolly. She told this at a Boston GrandSLAM, where theme of the night was Blessings in Disguise. Here's Caroline, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause]

Caroline: [00:07:30] I have always been a little afraid of my mother. She was born in Cuba when Fidel Castro was in power, and immigrated to the United States at the age of five. At the age of 15, she was accepted into college. And at age 21, she graduated law school. By the time she was my age now, she had three kids and worked full time as a lawyer. In contrast, I have a medium sized dog. [audience laughter]

Now, my mom was not the kind of mom who volunteered at our school bake sales, but she was the mom who forced my school to create an entirely new Spanish curriculum for just me, because she didn't think anyone in our small Massachusetts town could properly roll their Rs. When my older sister wrote a particularly dark personal essay that prompted a teacher to call a meeting with the dean of students, my mother blamed the teacher for making the class read Ethan Frome, which she said would depress anyone. [audience laughter]

At home, her parenting tactics were unique to her Cuban upbringing. So, sleepovers were considered dangerous activities, and therefore were strictly prohibited. In her mind, it was like, “Why would I give my child away to another family? If Jessica's parents want to neglect her, that's fine. She can sleep at our morally superior home for the night. We will teach her Spanish.” [audience laughter] She would often punish us in Spanish with phrases like, “Quieres [unintelligible [00:09:01],” which means, “Do you want me to slap you?” [audience laughter] Or, “Quieres un bofetón?” which also means do you want me to slap you? [audience laughter]

By the time I was in high school, I really could not stand my mother into all of her rules. I thought she was pushy and overbearing. She thought I was difficult and disobedient. And we were both, frankly, thrilled when I finally left for college. And I then spent the next decade working all around the country. I loved the freedom from family that came with that. But just before I turned 30, I moved back to the area for a job. The timing proved serendipitous when I got a call from my doctor that there was a concern. 

A recent biopsy of my skin had found melanoma. While it was caught early enough and removed, my lymph nodes were enlarged. My doctor was worried that cancer may have spread. I was admittedly shaken up, and I thought of all the times my mother ordered me to put on sunscreen, how she warned me that while Cubans have incredible skin, I am also half Irish. [audience laughter]

And so, when I called my parents to tell them, I braced myself for a lecture. My mom let out this big sigh that I had heard so many times in high school, but all she said was, “I will call you right back.” Now, my mom had always cultivated close friendships with a group of women who were all from somewhere else, Spain, Colombia, Pakistan. I think in our largely white community, that is where she really felt most at home. And within minutes, the friend from Pakistan, a doctor, had booked me an ultrasound and scheduled an appointment for me to review the results with her later that day. 

When I arrived at the hospital, I turned into the waiting room, and the first person I saw was my mother, already there waiting for me. As soon as the nurse called out my name, I remember she jumped up and charged for it, as if there was no question she would be accompanying her adult daughter into the room. And the news was good. There was no sign of a problem. My lymph nodes were enlarged, but my doctor said that could be due to something as simple as shaving in the bikini area, which I had recently done. [sighs] I know. [audience laughter]

I felt this huge sense of relief wash over me. I was okay. My mom was there, which was actually really comforting, because while I am still a little afraid of her, she's also still my mom. Just as I was about to respond to my doctor, my mom looked me in the eyes and said, “I can't believe you don't wax.” 

[cheers and applause] 

Michelle: [00:11:55] That was Caroline Connolly. Caroline grew up in Massachusetts and spent the last decade reporting for news stations across the country. Her work has been featured on NBC's American Greed and Access Hollywood. She lives in Boston with her partner and their dog. That's it for this week. If you like the stories in this episode, be sure to share this podcast with a friend and tell them to subscribe, so they can take a listen as soon as it comes out. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week. 

Marc: [00:12:23] Michelle Jalowski is a producer and director at The Moth, where she helps people craft and shape their stories for stages all over the world. 

This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Solinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rest, Brandon Grant-Walker, Lee Ann Gullie and Aldi Kaza. 

The Moth would like to thank its supporters and listeners. Stories like these are made possible by community giving. If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org/giveback. 

All Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org. 

The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, The Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.