Transcript

#65 Meredith · Heavyweight

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. We have quite a story for you today, But
0:21
Speaker 1: before we begin, a warning. This episode contains themes of
0:26
Speaker 1: drug use. Listener discretion is advised. Yeah. Oh, finally, I
0:39
Speaker 1: wanted to tell you about my billboard in Times Square.
0:43
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you're jelly. You want to billboard too?
0:47
Speaker 2: I feel like you like it.
0:50
Speaker 1: What gives you that impression?
0:52
Speaker 3: Your relationship with being you know, famous, I'm sure is
0:55
Speaker 3: something as an artist that you use.
0:56
Speaker 1: Wait, hang on a second. Did you just say that
0:58
Speaker 1: I was famous? It sounds like you did and something
1:02
Speaker 1: of an artist?
1:03
Speaker 4: I said, you.
1:04
Speaker 3: Wanting to be famous and your relationships are wanting to
1:06
Speaker 3: be famous?
1:07
Speaker 1: Do you remember you?
1:09
Speaker 3: Are you recording?
1:10
Speaker 1: Because I said, do you remember asking? I'm recording you
1:14
Speaker 1: in my memory?
1:15
Speaker 3: Am I going to hear this on the radio?
1:17
Speaker 1: You're definitely not going to hear this on the radio.
1:20
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Actually just got a radio the podcast, right?
1:23
Speaker 1: You know that I do a podcast? Am I on speakerphone?
1:29
Speaker 5: No?
1:31
Speaker 1: Because you know when you put someone on speakerphone, you're
1:33
Speaker 1: supposed to tell them From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein
1:46
Speaker 1: and this is Heavyweight Today's episode, Meredith. Right after the break,
2:06
Speaker 1: I consider myself a fair person. If a plumber enters
2:09
Speaker 1: my home, I offer him or her a cup of
2:13
Speaker 1: coffee when presented with a bowl of restaurant mints, even
2:17
Speaker 1: when unobserved, I make sure to leave a few for
2:20
Speaker 1: the next guy. And if you have the good fortune
2:23
Speaker 1: of eating tapas with me, you should know right now
2:26
Speaker 1: you'll be eating at least half the plate. So in Meredith,
2:30
Speaker 1: a fellow Minnesotan, asked me to weigh in on a
2:33
Speaker 1: matter of fairness. I was raring to go. And so
2:39
Speaker 1: it is on a sunny day in late March that
2:42
Speaker 1: I find myself pulling up to Meredith's Hi. Yes it
2:47
Speaker 1: is hello. Nice to me, Hi. Meredith ushers me inside.
2:52
Speaker 2: I thought you'd have like bigger hair.
2:54
Speaker 1: I have no hair?
2:55
Speaker 2: Really? Has it always been that way?
2:57
Speaker 1: Have I been? I was born bald. Yeah. As Meredith
3:04
Speaker 1: acclimatizes herself to my unexpected baldness, we settle in.
3:09
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm got to get some coffee.
3:10
Speaker 2: Have I gotta have cup?
3:12
Speaker 1: How much coffee have you had today?
3:14
Speaker 2: Can you tell?
3:16
Speaker 1: Meredith fetches her fourth cup this morning, and I have
3:19
Speaker 1: a look around. She just moved in here three months ago,
3:23
Speaker 1: but the house is already feeling homie. You have a
3:25
Speaker 1: quote from the Dali Lama on the This was a.
3:28
Speaker 6: Gift to me from my Gallantines party. There are only
3:34
Speaker 6: two days in the year that nothing can be done.
3:36
Speaker 6: One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow.
3:39
Speaker 6: So today is the right day to love, believe, do,
3:42
Speaker 6: and mostly live well.
3:45
Speaker 1: No offense to the Dali Lama, but I've built a
3:48
Speaker 1: career on the idea that something can be done yesterday,
3:52
Speaker 1: or at least about yesterday. And so I have Meredith
3:55
Speaker 1: tell me about her past misfortune, which all began, she says,
4:00
Speaker 1: three years ago on a Saturday morning.
4:02
Speaker 6: You have to understand that a I'm a sweet tooth, okay.
4:07
Speaker 6: And the second really important piece of information is that
4:10
Speaker 6: my sister in law owned a candy store.
4:13
Speaker 1: This sister in law routinely sent boxes of candy to
4:16
Speaker 1: Meredith's three children, and because of the whole sweet tooth thing,
4:21
Speaker 1: Meredith would tell her kids to keep the candy in
4:23
Speaker 1: their room. That way, she'd only have access when she
4:26
Speaker 1: was in their rooms tidying up. The agreement even had
4:30
Speaker 1: a name.
4:31
Speaker 6: I would take what I would call the candy tacks
4:34
Speaker 6: as a price of me helping them clean up their room.
4:38
Speaker 1: And cleaning up is what Meredith was doing on the
4:41
Speaker 1: Saturday morning in question. She was in Aidan's bedroom. Aidan
4:45
Speaker 1: is her son seventeen at the time, and Meredith was
4:49
Speaker 1: hunting for his leftover cereal bulls.
4:51
Speaker 6: When I saw on the table some peach rings, you know,
4:56
Speaker 6: those like little chewy gummy candy.
4:58
Speaker 1: I know them well right, They're.
5:00
Speaker 6: Really tasty, and I shoved them in my mouth like
5:04
Speaker 6: num num numb.
5:06
Speaker 1: Meredith finished Aiden's entire bag of peach rings candy tacks.
5:10
Speaker 1: From there, she moved on to her daughter's room to
5:13
Speaker 1: continue cleaning.
5:15
Speaker 6: And it was about thirty minutes later when I started
5:19
Speaker 6: to feel a little bit, you know, like a little
5:21
Speaker 6: bit oh, something's not quite right.
5:24
Speaker 1: At that moment, a thought popped into Meredith's mind. What
5:28
Speaker 1: if the peach rings weren't just peach rings?
5:32
Speaker 6: Maybe a small detail. Most times peach rings look like
5:36
Speaker 6: orange and white. These were purple and blue. But I
5:41
Speaker 6: didn't think anything of it other than, oh, it must
5:43
Speaker 6: be a different version of peach rings.
5:45
Speaker 2: Maybe they're flavored blueberry.
5:47
Speaker 1: Sure, those blueberry flavored peach rings. Then there was also
5:52
Speaker 1: where she'd found the blueberry flavored peach.
5:54
Speaker 2: Rings in a ziploc bag.
5:57
Speaker 1: They don't usually come in a zip block.
6:00
Speaker 2: They don't usually come in a ziplock.
6:01
Speaker 1: How big was the ziploc bag? Like those little like
6:05
Speaker 1: the kind you would put drugs in.
6:06
Speaker 2: No, Jonathan, the kind you put a sandwich in.
6:12
Speaker 1: Meredith just thought Aiden had put the gummies in a
6:15
Speaker 1: ziploc to, you know, preserve freshness. But now, as her
6:19
Speaker 1: head began to swim, she thought a new thought.
6:23
Speaker 6: And in the moment of time it took me to
6:24
Speaker 6: think that thought. My knees buckled. I dropped on all
6:29
Speaker 6: fours because whatever was coming for me hit me like
6:32
Speaker 6: a freight train, a.
6:34
Speaker 1: Freight train freighted with box car after box car of
6:37
Speaker 1: gelatinous marijuana.
6:44
Speaker 6: My son comes running up the stairs and I yelled
6:47
Speaker 6: to him what was in those gummies? All he says
6:52
Speaker 6: is what were you doing in my room? I then
6:56
Speaker 6: say what was in those gummies? He says how many
7:01
Speaker 6: did you eat? And I was a member trembling. I
7:04
Speaker 6: was said all of them? How much was in those?
7:10
Speaker 6: He's like, mom, twenty five milligrams each.
7:15
Speaker 1: Meredith had eaten four peach gummies. That is one hundred
7:19
Speaker 1: milligrams of weed.
7:23
Speaker 6: I'm the person that takes the gummy that somebody gives
7:26
Speaker 6: you at five and starts shaving it down.
7:29
Speaker 2: So I knew, like two and a half is my limit.
7:33
Speaker 1: She'd ingested forty times her limit.
7:36
Speaker 2: And then I start yelling, well, you just killed your mother.
7:43
Speaker 6: The next several hours I can't only describe as kind
7:47
Speaker 6: of coming floating in and out of consciousness. I mean
7:52
Speaker 6: I have moments of sort of dream like I was
7:56
Speaker 6: in a forest running and then the tree roots started
7:58
Speaker 6: coming up and grapping around my legs.
8:01
Speaker 2: I mean, that's not fun.
8:02
Speaker 6: Trees twist around your legs and are trying to like
8:04
Speaker 6: suck you down to the earth, Like what is that?
8:08
Speaker 1: Meredith didn't if she needed to go to the hospital.
8:11
Speaker 1: She wondered if she would die. She phoned a few
8:13
Speaker 1: friends to ask them to check up on her throughout
8:16
Speaker 1: the day.
8:16
Speaker 2: You know, by like boy style.
8:18
Speaker 1: Because you weren't even capable of using the regular dialing.
8:22
Speaker 6: Jonathan, I couldn't move my fingers enough to get the
8:27
Speaker 6: right buttons. It's like laying there with a piano on.
8:35
Speaker 1: You, her friends later told her. She kept repeating things
8:47
Speaker 1: like am I going to be okay? And God helped me?
8:53
Speaker 2: All in all, twenty three hours.
8:57
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's like longer than labor.
9:00
Speaker 2: It felt, it felt in some ways eternal.
9:06
Speaker 1: Sometime around ten am the next morning, Meredith finally began
9:10
Speaker 1: to feel herself coming down, and with that the anger
9:13
Speaker 1: set in. Anger at her seventeen year old son, aidan.
9:18
Speaker 2: Well, now we got to deal with the problem.
9:20
Speaker 1: You didn't know that he kept drugs in the house.
9:22
Speaker 2: No, I did not know.
9:24
Speaker 1: Meredith says she'd always had open conversations with her kids
9:28
Speaker 1: about drugs and alcohol, but for the kids to keep
9:30
Speaker 1: drugs in the house was not allowed. And on top
9:33
Speaker 1: of that, leaving them out in the open when he
9:36
Speaker 1: knew about the candy tacks, how could Aiden have been
9:39
Speaker 1: so careless? And what made it all the more upsetting, Well,
9:43
Speaker 1: Meredith was on all fours.
9:45
Speaker 6: Aiden flees, He's like, I got to go to work,
9:49
Speaker 6: and I'm just left here having to somewhat fend for myself.
9:53
Speaker 1: Was a part of you proud that you had raised
9:56
Speaker 1: a son who honored his work responsibilities.
10:00
Speaker 6: He was so committed to his work at Piepchang's that
10:04
Speaker 6: his mom took the back burner.
10:09
Speaker 2: You know, I probably did writ as a kid with
10:11
Speaker 2: a good work ethic. I'll give him that.
10:13
Speaker 1: But here's the thing that three years later, Meredith still
10:17
Speaker 1: can't get over. Aidan refused to apologize. Instead, over and
10:22
Speaker 1: over he uttered the same refrain.
10:25
Speaker 2: This is not my fault.
10:26
Speaker 1: Aidan felt like this was on you.
10:29
Speaker 6: Aiden one hundred percent felt this was on me, and
10:33
Speaker 6: that no other parent would be that clueless.
10:38
Speaker 1: Meredith admits she is the sort of person who often
10:41
Speaker 1: gets herself into these kinds of noodles.
10:44
Speaker 2: Oh, I've got a feel.
10:46
Speaker 6: I rescued a stray dog that was loose from a yard.
10:52
Speaker 1: What happened was Meredith's dog was routinely escaping her yard,
10:56
Speaker 1: and people around the area would post about it on
10:59
Speaker 1: next door, writing comments like who can't control their dog?
11:03
Speaker 1: And Meredith, your dog is out again. She felt publicly shamed,
11:09
Speaker 1: and so when she saw someone else's dog that was lost,
11:13
Speaker 1: it felt like a chance to reclaim the respect of
11:15
Speaker 1: her neighbors.
11:17
Speaker 2: And I proceeded to pick it up.
11:19
Speaker 6: You know, it was a portybound dog, and I took
11:22
Speaker 6: it and really thought that.
11:23
Speaker 2: I was doing a good deed.
11:30
Speaker 1: As Meredith started walking home, the dog started jolting spasms
11:35
Speaker 1: of gratitude. Perhaps she got the dog home safely, made
11:39
Speaker 1: a post and waited. Finally the owner showed up.
11:44
Speaker 6: And I was expecting to be met with like, oh,
11:47
Speaker 6: I'm so happy that you got my dog.
11:49
Speaker 2: I've been worried sick about it.
11:52
Speaker 6: Well, it turns out that I had taken a dog
12:00
Speaker 6: from a home that had an invisible fence.
12:03
Speaker 1: Oh that's why it was jolting.
12:05
Speaker 6: Yes, it was jolting. Yes, And instead it was cause
12:10
Speaker 6: you took my dog from our yard and you shocked
12:14
Speaker 6: it and thinks.
12:17
Speaker 1: Is this why you had to move?
12:19
Speaker 2: It's probably a consideration.
12:27
Speaker 1: As for the drugging, However, Meredith doesn't think it was
12:30
Speaker 1: all her fault.
12:31
Speaker 2: This could happen to any of us.
12:34
Speaker 6: I even googled, like looking for validation of like, oh,
12:37
Speaker 6: this happens all the time, right.
12:40
Speaker 1: Sadly, Meredith didn't find the validation. She was looking for.
12:44
Speaker 2: A lot more stories about dogs.
12:46
Speaker 6: But you know what, I think this has probably happened
12:49
Speaker 6: to a lot more people. But there's maybe they're harboring
12:51
Speaker 6: some sense of shame about it.
12:53
Speaker 1: You're just not talking about it.
12:55
Speaker 2: If it happened to you, you are not alone.
12:58
Speaker 6: If it could happen to you, beware, Okay, maybe assess
13:03
Speaker 6: the color of the gummies.
13:04
Speaker 1: Maybe assessorry to interrupt, but who do you think you're
13:07
Speaker 1: talking to right now?
13:09
Speaker 7: Parents like me that wouldn't think their kid would have
13:15
Speaker 7: gummy candy in their room.
13:19
Speaker 1: The thing about people like Meredith, people who can laugh
13:22
Speaker 1: at themselves, is that it can be hard to know
13:25
Speaker 1: when they need to be taken seriously. Beredith can joke
13:28
Speaker 1: about the gummies, but it doesn't mean it wasn't scary
13:31
Speaker 1: at the time, or that she doesn't want some acknowledgment
13:34
Speaker 1: from Aiden.
13:35
Speaker 2: I keep waiting for this moment.
13:38
Speaker 6: When he comes through the door, he says, Mom, I've
13:42
Speaker 6: been reflecting a lot, and I thought about that time
13:45
Speaker 6: when this happened, and I just want to say I
13:49
Speaker 6: get it.
13:50
Speaker 1: I'm sorry because he never apologized.
13:54
Speaker 2: He's never apologized.
13:55
Speaker 6: Ironically, of my three kids, he is probably the most
13:58
Speaker 6: sensitive in terms of care and concern, so it was
14:02
Speaker 6: somewhat surprising to me that he could dismiss that experience
14:09
Speaker 6: so flippantly.
14:13
Speaker 1: Meredith has tried to draw the apology out, bringing it
14:16
Speaker 1: up once or twice a year. She tells herself it's
14:19
Speaker 1: an important teachable moment. She tells herself that Aidan's refusal
14:23
Speaker 1: to apologize reflects poorly on her parenting, so she keeps nujinghim,
14:28
Speaker 1: most recently in a canoe.
14:31
Speaker 2: Just the two of us.
14:32
Speaker 6: There was no escaping, and I went so far as negotiation, okay.
14:38
Speaker 2: I started at fifty to.
14:40
Speaker 1: Fifty, meaning percent of blame, fifty percent on her, fifty
14:45
Speaker 1: percent on Aiden. Aiden is an econ and computer science major,
14:49
Speaker 1: and Meredith was trying to speak his language.
14:51
Speaker 6: I went down to eighty twenty okay, twenty percent on him,
14:55
Speaker 6: twenty percent on him.
14:57
Speaker 1: You wouldn't accept that, would not accept that.
14:59
Speaker 6: At this point, I was like, well, now what do
15:01
Speaker 6: I have to lose? I went all the way down
15:02
Speaker 6: to ninety nine to one. I'm looking for a shrapnel
15:06
Speaker 6: okay of accountability, but.
15:08
Speaker 1: She had hasn't even gotten that. For three years, Meredith
15:17
Speaker 1: and Aiden have been at a stalemate in terms of
15:19
Speaker 1: who should be held accountable. It keeps popping up and
15:22
Speaker 1: nothing gets settled. Meredith has tried recruiting friends to adjudicate,
15:27
Speaker 1: but Aiden has always questioned their impartiality.
15:30
Speaker 6: So I thought a real, independent, objective third party might
15:37
Speaker 6: be the ticket to finding our path here, someone that
15:42
Speaker 6: could see both sides and talk empathetically with my son
15:47
Speaker 6: about accountability.
15:49
Speaker 2: Do you think it's something you could be able to,
15:50
Speaker 2: like broke her.
15:52
Speaker 1: While we're all familiar with the idea of a claim adjuster,
15:56
Speaker 1: what Meredith needs is a blame adjuster, someone who can
15:59
Speaker 1: adjust some blame onto her son and make him apologize.
16:04
Speaker 1: I accept the job, beg forgiveness once more for my baldness,
16:08
Speaker 1: and myself to leave when you want to take it. Yeah,
16:13
Speaker 1: Meredith's phone rings. Hey, Hey, on the phone is Meredith's
16:18
Speaker 1: eldest daughter, Quinn.
16:20
Speaker 2: I'm here with Jonathan.
16:21
Speaker 5: Hi.
16:22
Speaker 2: Hello.
16:23
Speaker 1: The Quinn was out of town during the weed dosing catastrophe.
16:27
Speaker 1: She remembers it. Well, oh, right, as long as we
16:33
Speaker 1: have her on the line, I asked Quinn if there's
16:35
Speaker 1: anything more I should know about. Quinn pauses, then asks
16:39
Speaker 1: her mother a question, was this before or after your
16:42
Speaker 1: airplane incident?
16:44
Speaker 4: Oh?
16:44
Speaker 2: My god, Quinn, the airplane incident?
16:47
Speaker 1: What's the airplane incident? Enter Exhibit B the airplane incident.
16:57
Speaker 8: I'd need to have my side of the story on
16:59
Speaker 8: this because there's some definite biases from my mom.
17:03
Speaker 1: This is Meredith's son Aiden, and when I phone him
17:06
Speaker 1: up at college, he tells me that the gummy incident
17:09
Speaker 1: is only one of two accidental druggings in this family.
17:13
Speaker 8: My mom was on a business trip out to the
17:16
Speaker 8: UK and Scotland, and then as a birthday present I
17:18
Speaker 8: had just gotten to go with.
17:20
Speaker 1: Three months after the weed gummies, Aidan went on a
17:23
Speaker 1: trip with his mom. They were in the Amsterdam airport
17:27
Speaker 1: about to board the nine hour flight back home to Minneapolis.
17:30
Speaker 8: I knew she had like some sort of like sleeping
17:33
Speaker 8: aid and I was like, oh, maybe I could like
17:35
Speaker 8: have some for the flight.
17:37
Speaker 1: Aiden's about twice Meredith size, so when he asked, she
17:41
Speaker 1: figured it couldn't hurt to give him half of what
17:43
Speaker 1: she normally took.
17:44
Speaker 8: And then I just remember like being in the Amsterdam
17:47
Speaker 8: airport and I was like, man, I feel really gross right,
17:51
Speaker 8: and like I felt like pretty nauseous.
17:53
Speaker 1: When boarding started, Aiden was having a hard time standing straight.
17:57
Speaker 8: Like right as I hand them my passport and ticket,
17:59
Speaker 8: I just completely pass out.
18:03
Speaker 6: He's behind me, and then I hear a crash as
18:06
Speaker 6: Aiden has collapsed into the stanchion.
18:09
Speaker 8: Basically what I remember was kind of just like half consciousness.
18:12
Speaker 8: She had just like kind of grabbed me by the
18:13
Speaker 8: shoulders and she was like, we need to get it together.
18:15
Speaker 1: You need to get on this flight.
18:16
Speaker 2: He look at me.
18:18
Speaker 6: They're like, there's no way you are going on displight
18:22
Speaker 6: and you need to go to medical emergency or whatever.
18:26
Speaker 8: And I remember they like ran tests and like kind
18:29
Speaker 8: of contact, like poison control.
18:35
Speaker 1: Just like Meredith. Aiden was fine eventually, but also like Meredith,
18:40
Speaker 1: Aiden was disappointed by his mom's reaction. Does she accept
18:45
Speaker 1: blame for the incident? Has she ever apologized to you
18:50
Speaker 1: for that?
18:52
Speaker 4: I don't know.
18:54
Speaker 8: I don't want to fly out to say no, but
18:56
Speaker 8: I'm like leaning more likely.
18:58
Speaker 1: Not, Aiden says. When he first collapsed, Meredith was mostly
19:03
Speaker 1: focused on getting him onto the plane, even if it
19:05
Speaker 1: meant dragging his still limp body down the jetway weekend
19:09
Speaker 1: at Bernie's style, I would.
19:11
Speaker 8: Have expected that the priority is that I'm okay, not like, oh,
19:14
Speaker 8: but we need to get on the plane right.
19:17
Speaker 1: Meredith wanted to keep things on track, which not so
19:21
Speaker 1: different from Aiden, who hurried off to pf chains. And
19:25
Speaker 1: to top it all off, when they eventually were rebooked
19:28
Speaker 1: on a new flight, Meredith's ticket got upgraded. And guess
19:32
Speaker 1: who didn't offer that upgraded ticket to a certain somebody?
19:35
Speaker 8: I remember asking her Oh, did you ever consider, like
19:38
Speaker 8: maybe if I got the seed for that.
19:40
Speaker 1: Point, that you had been the one who was drugged.
19:42
Speaker 8: So yeah, And then she said I was supposed to
19:44
Speaker 8: be home ten hours ago, which, like that behavior in
19:48
Speaker 8: that scenario was uncharacteristic.
19:55
Speaker 1: They're very good pals, this is Meredith's daughter again, Quinn.
20:00
Speaker 6: But I think they have a harder time like being.
20:04
Speaker 2: Soft around each other.
20:06
Speaker 6: When they get in disagreements, both of them just like
20:09
Speaker 6: hoard it up really quick.
20:11
Speaker 1: Quinn says. Aiden and Meredith are both similar in their stubbornness,
20:15
Speaker 1: to which regarding the gummy incident, Aiden holds a hard line.
20:20
Speaker 1: He says Meredith is wrong about basic facts, like, for
20:24
Speaker 1: one thing, the drugs weren't out in the open, but
20:27
Speaker 1: rather stashed in an old iPhone box on a shelf.
20:30
Speaker 1: Andy says he would never have left the house while
20:33
Speaker 1: Meredith was still panicking on the floor. It was only
20:36
Speaker 1: once she was panicking safely in bed that he went
20:39
Speaker 1: off to his job, of which.
20:41
Speaker 8: I never worked at Pfchain's.
20:44
Speaker 1: Aiden briefly worked at a Panda Express, but that was
20:47
Speaker 1: months earlier. The job he was rushing off to was
20:50
Speaker 1: his caddying job at a golf course. My son had
20:53
Speaker 1: to head off to go serve Chinese food. Does that
20:56
Speaker 1: sound like more egregious than so my son had to
21:00
Speaker 1: leave to hit the golf course.
21:04
Speaker 8: I mean both of those. When you say it like that,
21:07
Speaker 8: that just sounds like self.
21:09
Speaker 1: When I first got into this, I was certain that
21:13
Speaker 1: Aiden and Aiden alone was to blame. But now that
21:17
Speaker 1: I've spoken with Aidan, I'm not so sure. I'm still
21:20
Speaker 1: willing to adjudicate, but I'm starting to feel a bit
21:23
Speaker 1: out of my depth, which drugging was worse. I don't
21:27
Speaker 1: know much about drugs. I couldn't tell you the difference
21:30
Speaker 1: between happy dust and happy powder. Lucky for me, though,
21:35
Speaker 1: I know a medical expert. After the break, a very
21:40
Speaker 1: special guest, A very special doctor guest.
21:45
Speaker 9: It's Jackie.
22:08
Speaker 1: Hello Jackie. No, this isn't a glitch in your podcast
22:13
Speaker 1: app The episode is not starting over. But this is
22:17
Speaker 1: indeed my friend doctor Jackie Cohen. Doctor Jackie Cohen is
22:22
Speaker 1: a doctor, and I'm phoning her today in her expert capacity.
22:27
Speaker 1: I start with the airplane incident. So what do you think?
22:30
Speaker 8: Like?
22:30
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
22:31
Speaker 4: Like?
22:31
Speaker 1: Is that a reasonable like? Would you do that? Would
22:35
Speaker 1: you share my pills with my son.
22:37
Speaker 3: Of course not of course not listen. I okay, it's
22:41
Speaker 3: not the worst, it's not the worst thing she ever did.
22:44
Speaker 3: It's not the worst parenting moment. But it's certainly not
22:47
Speaker 3: up there. And the reason it's not up there is that,
22:50
Speaker 3: I mean, the only red flag to me and this
22:52
Speaker 3: is coming to you with her problems. So that's the
22:55
Speaker 3: first problem.
22:56
Speaker 1: That's that's your big that's the biggest lit miss for you.
22:59
Speaker 5: Yeah.
22:59
Speaker 1: So basically, yeah, you didn't. I mean, by your logic,
23:02
Speaker 1: you think that every single person who has come to
23:05
Speaker 1: me in all these years is not well by virtue
23:08
Speaker 1: of the fact that they have to me for help.
23:10
Speaker 1: Look at our dear friend Mary Club. Mary Cloude came
23:13
Speaker 1: to me for help.
23:14
Speaker 4: She did, she did.
23:15
Speaker 1: There's an episode. Did I not help her to get
23:18
Speaker 1: her real estate license? Did I not?
23:20
Speaker 3: Okay?
23:22
Speaker 2: Yes, and it was a good story.
23:24
Speaker 3: Okay, fine, you're right.
23:25
Speaker 10: You're absolutely right.
23:27
Speaker 1: Although Jackie concedes the point that not everyone who comes
23:31
Speaker 1: to me for help is certifiably deranged, she does think
23:35
Speaker 1: Meredith is certifiably undeserving of an apology. From Jackie's perspective,
23:40
Speaker 1: it's aiden who deserves one.
23:42
Speaker 3: I'm totally with a son on this one. I think
23:44
Speaker 3: his response is is so appropriate, like, you know what
23:47
Speaker 3: it was on her to be elect fishing around his
23:49
Speaker 3: room and consuming candies.
23:52
Speaker 1: The when I tell Jackie about the seed, upgrade him right, No,
23:56
Speaker 1: she didn't. She took it herself. She does seem to
24:01
Speaker 1: enjoy Meredith's hutzba. He ain't.
24:06
Speaker 3: The myth she could do is let him sleep it
24:07
Speaker 3: off comfortably.
24:09
Speaker 1: Right, that's what the kid felt.
24:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm fowly with kids. Kit's great, by the way,
24:14
Speaker 3: it is on the ball.
24:20
Speaker 4: Hey, how are you? I'm good.
24:23
Speaker 1: As with any medical question, I need a second opinion.
24:27
Speaker 1: So after my call with Jackie, I consult with a
24:29
Speaker 1: second drug expert. Not a doctor per se, but a
24:33
Speaker 1: doctor of the streets. Are you in your underwear?
24:37
Speaker 3: Yes?
24:37
Speaker 1: Sorry, This is my friend Steve marsh. If his voice
24:45
Speaker 1: sounds familiar, it's because he was the subject of another
24:48
Speaker 1: episode of this podcast and is thus by Jackie's estimation unwell.
24:54
Speaker 1: Steve has done ayahuasca in peru Iboga in Gabone and
24:59
Speaker 1: participated in the unofficial Champions League of Ecstasy at Bergheim
25:04
Speaker 1: in Berlin. Even though I pretty much don't know what
25:07
Speaker 1: any of these words mean. I do know that Steve
25:10
Speaker 1: has been breaking on through to the other side since
25:13
Speaker 1: his teens and hiding weed from his mother since he
25:16
Speaker 1: was in diapers. So I tell him the gummy story
25:19
Speaker 1: and ask for his take.
25:21
Speaker 4: I don't think he's really understanding what his mom went through.
25:24
Speaker 4: Maybe like I've done the heroic dose of almost any
25:28
Speaker 4: drug you can name, and yeah, that's a serious dosage.
25:32
Speaker 1: So serious. Steve says, the twenty five milligram gummies aren't
25:36
Speaker 1: even legal in the state of Minnesota. Steve himself has
25:39
Speaker 1: never taken one hundred milligrams of vetibles at one time,
25:43
Speaker 1: but he's sympathetic to Meredith's plight because of the time
25:46
Speaker 1: he quote dabbed weed, which he explains is inhaling a
25:50
Speaker 1: super high concentrate of THC.
25:53
Speaker 4: I had to sit on the side of a hill
25:55
Speaker 4: and like, you know, our friend Marisa, Yeah, Marisa had
25:58
Speaker 4: to come out back and like gently rub my back
26:00
Speaker 4: if I was like having a panic attack, which I
26:03
Speaker 4: pretty much was, you know, So I like, I've been
26:06
Speaker 4: there before, Meredith. I get it, you know, like it
26:09
Speaker 4: is helpless and catatonic and scary.
26:14
Speaker 1: For Steve, it's pretty cut and dry Unlike Jackie, he
26:18
Speaker 1: believes it's Aidan who owes Meredith an apology. But to
26:22
Speaker 1: make sure he has all the information, I tell him
26:24
Speaker 1: the plane story too.
26:26
Speaker 4: I would argue that's nearly irrelevant.
26:29
Speaker 1: You know, on top of it, one of the tickets
26:32
Speaker 1: gets bumped up to first class, and she takes.
26:35
Speaker 4: It as is her maternal right. I have to say,
26:38
Speaker 4: I just think that your mom ate your drugs, man, Like,
26:43
Speaker 4: why can't you get your head around that you have
26:46
Speaker 4: to be responsible for your shit? Man?
26:52
Speaker 1: After weighing Jackie's expert testimony and Steve's sort of expert testimony,
26:58
Speaker 1: I can only come to one conclusion, King Solomon, like,
27:01
Speaker 1: and it's tit for tatnus, Meredith and Aiden need to
27:06
Speaker 1: apologize to one another. And because two apologies require two
27:11
Speaker 1: apology shamans, do you want to go there with me, sir?
27:18
Speaker 1: After the break? Apologies all around?
27:21
Speaker 4: Yeah? I want to know where this kid is getting
27:23
Speaker 4: this high powered We've got me as too, Emily.
27:53
Speaker 1: I said, there's a really good restaurant here here called
27:55
Speaker 1: Broyer's or something voters. Aiden is home from college for
28:00
Speaker 1: the week, and so on a warm afternoon, Steve and
28:04
Speaker 1: I in our capacity as independent objective. Third and fourth
28:09
Speaker 1: parties make our way to Meredith's.
28:12
Speaker 4: It's like, right, here is this the house?
28:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, that looks like it. The plan is to get in,
28:20
Speaker 1: get some apologies, and get out in time for an
28:22
Speaker 1: early lunch at Breyer's or Brothers or whatever it's called. Hi,
28:36
Speaker 1: how are you thank you?
28:39
Speaker 3: Right?
28:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been briefed. I've been briefed.
28:43
Speaker 1: Okay, Meredith welcomes us in. Aiden is seated on the
28:47
Speaker 1: far end of the living room couch. Meredith sits down
28:50
Speaker 1: beside him. Steve and I begin by trying to secure
28:54
Speaker 1: an apology from Aidan about the gummies.
28:57
Speaker 8: It's not like I started on on a silver platter.
28:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, but hiding them sufficiently means your mom didn't overdose
29:02
Speaker 4: on weed.
29:02
Speaker 1: The thing is, I think I did have them, But unsurprisingly,
29:06
Speaker 1: Aidan is defensive.
29:07
Speaker 8: I just think there's so many signs that like would
29:10
Speaker 8: have just should be red flat.
29:12
Speaker 4: But even if she missed them, all, you're still responsible
29:15
Speaker 4: for the drugs. And if you can just admit that,
29:18
Speaker 4: then you can do drugs for the rest of your life.
29:25
Speaker 4: What were I evenm just saying like I'm sorry?
29:30
Speaker 8: At that point, I don't know, I don't, I think you, but.
29:33
Speaker 2: I think you're probably worried.
29:34
Speaker 1: Are you worried?
29:35
Speaker 11: Yeah?
29:36
Speaker 8: I think that just kind of ties back to the
29:37
Speaker 8: whole thing. Like how much of the blame is that.
29:40
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know, I get I think we're caught
29:42
Speaker 1: up in like pie charts and ratios. I mean, I
29:46
Speaker 1: feel like it's just you know, my mother got hurt
29:49
Speaker 1: because of something that I was a part of.
29:52
Speaker 9: You.
29:52
Speaker 1: That's it.
29:54
Speaker 4: Do you feel like you were hurt? I don't, like.
29:55
Speaker 6: I mean you saw me basically melt and freak out and.
30:02
Speaker 1: Then you checked out, which is of course how Aiden
30:05
Speaker 1: feels about how Meredith responded to him in the amster
30:09
Speaker 1: Nam airport, a point he raises.
30:12
Speaker 8: It wasn't like, oh my god, I know you're okay.
30:14
Speaker 8: I just here, we need to get on the flight.
30:15
Speaker 8: Your site.
30:17
Speaker 6: I know, I know, I know, because I honestly I thought,
30:20
Speaker 6: you know, I love you, but like.
30:21
Speaker 2: Sometimes you like you're a little dramatic. You're a little dramatic.
30:26
Speaker 6: Sometimes you're a little dramatic, And I thought, Okay, how
30:29
Speaker 6: bad can it be?
30:32
Speaker 4: Strings right, like, how bad can this be?
30:33
Speaker 1: Mom?
30:34
Speaker 4: Well, do you guys realize that there's some stuff that's
30:38
Speaker 4: happening on both sides.
30:40
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff on both sides. But just when
30:43
Speaker 1: I'm starting to think there will be no sorries, Meredith
30:47
Speaker 1: starts inching towards the light.
30:49
Speaker 6: I just I just felt so bad. I think I
30:52
Speaker 6: did feel like shame about it, and then making the
30:57
Speaker 6: apology more grand would just be somewhat underscoring my shame
31:01
Speaker 6: about it.
31:02
Speaker 2: Sure, I just would like, just can we just move on?
31:04
Speaker 5: You know?
31:09
Speaker 6: But I think your point is I missed your suffering.
31:15
Speaker 5: And.
31:18
Speaker 6: I you know, I will apologize for not being there
31:21
Speaker 6: in the right way at the time. I'm sorry, like
31:25
Speaker 6: I should have had more empathy for you in that situation.
31:28
Speaker 1: Aiden nods, but he still doesn't offer an apology back.
31:32
Speaker 1: So Steve offers a helpful push.
31:35
Speaker 4: So maybe what's going on here is just like you're
31:39
Speaker 4: getting better at modeling apologies.
31:41
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
31:42
Speaker 4: And now Aiden will go back and think about what
31:46
Speaker 4: a real remorseful apology sounds like. Maybe that's maybe the
31:50
Speaker 4: first time he's heard like the gesture of apology could
31:56
Speaker 4: be bigger. Yeah, maybe just like is under rehearsed in
31:59
Speaker 4: the family. You know.
32:01
Speaker 1: When I spoke with Quinn, she told me that It's true.
32:04
Speaker 1: As kids, they didn't have many examples of what it
32:07
Speaker 1: looks like to say sorry and mean it, which might
32:10
Speaker 1: be why Aiden is struggling.
32:11
Speaker 4: So right now, you could acknowledge Aiden that maybe you're
32:15
Speaker 4: not good at that. Do you think you're good at
32:17
Speaker 4: apologizing from the heart?
32:19
Speaker 8: Probably not?
32:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, and maybe it doesn't have to happen today, But
32:23
Speaker 4: like it's a good thing to acknowledge that, Hey, I'm
32:26
Speaker 4: a kind person, I'm a good person, but I might
32:30
Speaker 4: suck at apologizing. Yeah, that's fair.
32:33
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, I mean, like because it's like I mean,
32:41
Speaker 11: I could just like say it and then like again, Okay,
32:47
Speaker 11: I'm sorry that my accents cause you harm and.
32:52
Speaker 4: I might.
32:54
Speaker 8: And that my irresponsibility was inflicted upon you.
33:02
Speaker 2: Thank you.
33:04
Speaker 4: You know.
33:04
Speaker 6: Maybe originally my motive or my sort of questioning of
33:06
Speaker 6: this was someday you're going to be in some kind
33:10
Speaker 6: of a relationship right with some other person in which
33:14
Speaker 6: you're going to have to see things from their perspective,
33:17
Speaker 6: and you're going to have to back down a little bit,
33:20
Speaker 6: no matter how convinced you are that you were in
33:23
Speaker 6: the right.
33:25
Speaker 1: It feels like Meredith is speaking from experience. I asked
33:29
Speaker 1: her about it later on, and she tells me that
33:31
Speaker 1: she was. She was thinking about her most recent relationship
33:35
Speaker 1: it had just ended, and she says the situation could
33:38
Speaker 1: have used an apology. She wants her son to learn
33:42
Speaker 1: from her experience. That is, after all, what good parents
33:46
Speaker 1: want most.
33:48
Speaker 6: And so, you know, part of my yearning here was like,
33:52
Speaker 6: how do I help.
33:53
Speaker 2: You get there?
33:59
Speaker 1: My hope going into this was that Aiden would accept
34:02
Speaker 1: blame for the gummies and Meredith would own up for
34:05
Speaker 1: what happened in Amsterdam. A little quit pro quo and
34:08
Speaker 1: everyone goes home happy. And that did kind of happen,
34:13
Speaker 1: sort of. In the weeks after the conversation, I find
34:17
Speaker 1: myself thinking about this business of modeling behavior that Steve
34:20
Speaker 1: had brought up. If Meredith hadn't modeled apologies for her kids,
34:25
Speaker 1: it begs the question who had modeled not modeling apologies
34:29
Speaker 1: for her? So I reached back out to Meredith to
34:32
Speaker 1: ask whether her parents ever said sorry to her. I
34:36
Speaker 1: don't think so, but at times it would have been nice,
34:40
Speaker 1: she says. By way of explanation, Meredith tells me about
34:43
Speaker 1: all the time she'd be left waiting after ballet class
34:47
Speaker 1: or school for her mom to pick her up.
34:50
Speaker 10: I just remember feeling like the last kid standing waiting
34:54
Speaker 10: like an hour outside. Yeah, and I think she I
34:58
Speaker 10: don't know what she was doing, but I kind of
35:01
Speaker 10: the message was like, well I kind of see I'm
35:03
Speaker 10: a lower priority. It's funny now I think about me
35:07
Speaker 10: picking my kids the whoror that I would if I'm
35:10
Speaker 10: late by like five minutes?
35:12
Speaker 4: Is it?
35:12
Speaker 1: Because like you remember that feeling of.
35:14
Speaker 2: Just waiting and feeling like does anybody care?
35:20
Speaker 1: And it wouldn't come with an apology. No.
35:24
Speaker 12: I wasn't allowed to be angry about it, right, you know.
35:27
Speaker 12: It was like, well that's the situation and you just gotta.
35:31
Speaker 1: Like suck it up.
35:32
Speaker 4: Suck it up.
35:33
Speaker 1: Anything other than that would be dramatic, you know?
35:37
Speaker 12: Did that somehow sort of translate down in the way
35:40
Speaker 12: I raise my kids? I mean, Aiden's reaction to me
35:44
Speaker 12: overdosing on his gummies was suck it up, right, which
35:48
Speaker 12: is exactly what I did to him.
35:51
Speaker 1: Like family heirlooms or the gene for color blindness, the
35:55
Speaker 1: value of apologizing is handed down. But if you didn't
35:58
Speaker 1: come from a family where there was space for all that,
36:01
Speaker 1: it's hard to create that space when you become a parent. Yourself.
36:05
Speaker 1: How can you give the thing you never received? I
36:09
Speaker 1: don't know the solution to that, but I do know
36:11
Speaker 1: that it can't hurt to keep trying. Do you think
36:14
Speaker 1: it's still possible to change? Like you know where you
36:17
Speaker 1: can have a relationship with the kids where you can
36:20
Speaker 1: apologize to them in the moment and they hear that
36:24
Speaker 1: feel it.
36:25
Speaker 2: Can people change?
36:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can't change yesterday, and we can't know who
36:37
Speaker 1: we will be tomorrow. No, Jesus, maybe the Dalai Lama
36:41
Speaker 1: is right. Today is the right day to love, believe, do,
36:46
Speaker 1: and mostly live. And hey, if you choose to smoke
36:50
Speaker 1: a little of the good stuff along the way, just
36:52
Speaker 1: be sure to consult your pulmonary cardiologist. First, Heavyweight takes
36:57
Speaker 1: no responsibility for bad trips, only the good ones.
37:32
Speaker 5: Now that the fern ures returning to its good will home,
37:41
Speaker 5: now that the last month's rent is scheming with the
37:46
Speaker 5: damage to possible, take this moment to dissolve if we message,
37:53
Speaker 5: if we tried to felt around for far too from
38:01
Speaker 5: things that accidentally talk.
38:08
Speaker 1: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by supervising producer Stevie
38:12
Speaker 1: Lane and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our
38:16
Speaker 1: senior producer is Khalila Holt, editorial guidance from Emily Condon.
38:20
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Ben Nattafaffrey, Daphne Chen, Alexandra Garaton, and
38:25
Speaker 1: Sam Reisman. For more Steve Marsh, you can enjoy his
38:28
Speaker 1: written work in Minneapolis Saint Paul Magazine. Emamonger mixed the
38:32
Speaker 1: episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson,
38:35
Speaker 1: Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord. Additional scoring by bobble
38:39
Speaker 1: Michael Charles Smith, Chris Zabriski, and Virginia Violet and the Rays.
38:44
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by The Weaker Bands, courtesy of
38:46
Speaker 1: Epitaph Records. Follow us on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast or
38:50
Speaker 1: email us at Heavyweight at Pushkin dot Fm. We'll be
38:54
Speaker 1: back next week with the final episode of the season.
38:58
Speaker 5: Painted in an empty road sign in an empty rope.
39:18
Speaker 5: Mm hmm