Brie

Hi.

Work stuff, podcasting. It's a work podcast. Fun stuff about history and animation.

History of animation. We focus on Walt Disney's life and history of Walt.

He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1901.

Really put her to the test there.

December 5th, 1901. That's right. It's right.

Oh, that would be so much fun.

Yeah, I live in LA, actually, in Franklin Village.

Probably not, but might have to send it to them after.

I'm originally from Bakersfield. So that's where the story takes place.

Summer of 2010, I was going into my junior year of high school. I was definitely in my mischief era. I was dating a guy who was a senior, and he had been trying to get me to sneak out of my house. And It was always a joke that you couldn't sneak out of my house. My parents had designed it. They put me on like the second floor.

And always the joke with my parents was that they added a balcony off my room. And it was like, oh, you just got to look out for the rope ladder or she's going to try to like climb down and break her neck. And we also had a guard dog. We also had this alarm system that any time a window would open or door would open, it would ding. I finally decided I was like, okay,

Today, I'm going to commit to devising a plan. I cracked a window during the day in our laundry room. This was going to be the only spot feasibly that I could actually get in and get out. So that night, around midnight, I crept down the stairs, made it past the guard dogs, locked myself in the laundry room, and was like, OK, step one complete.

The window that I was climbing out of was on top of a countertop. So I climb up on the countertop, take out the window screen. I just put it outside. And climbed on out. My boyfriend was down the street, picked me up. We went out to a party on the orchards. He dropped me back off. It was like 3 a.m.

Yeah.

Yeah. So my boyfriend had left. Once I got back to the window, I realized I had messed up. The window, I had to climb up on a countertop. So it's six feet off the ground. And I'm 5'2 on a good day. All I'm thinking of is just get my body back inside. We're not thinking about anything else. Can't get caught. So I finally hoist myself up, climb back in.

And then I look outside and realize the stupid window screen is still outside. I didn't think to keep it inside. Can't jump back out, not doing that again. And I tried to like dingle down to grab it.

I was like, you know what? It's in this garden area. There's a lot of plants. I'm just going to wake up early in the morning. I'll get it, put it back. So make it back upstairs. I remember just like laying down in my bed going like, I did it. I got away with it and was so happy.

The next morning, my sister's waking me up, and she's on the phone with my dad, and she tells me someone broke into the house. Oh.

See, I needed you, Monica, coming up with some ideas.

I think it was definitely a squirrel.

I remember sitting up and for a split second, I was like, well, maybe did somebody break in after me? But that just definitely wasn't the case. My dad is telling us that when he was leaving for work, he went to water the plants. I didn't realize that he did this every morning. And guess what was propped right up against the watering hose was the stupid window screen. Oh.

My dad concluded it was a break-in. He was running late to work. So he's like, just check all the windows, check all the doors, make sure nothing has been stolen. And so we had to check. And he's trying to work through it. He's like, but you have to take the window screen off inside. And the way our windows are, they kind of lock. And I'm just so panicked in this moment.

We're now going to get creative. I'm not getting caught this far in. Yeah. And I was like, oh my God, the burglars broke in yesterday. We're hanging out in our house the entire day. And then at night they snuck out of the laundry room.

I was like, this story makes zero sense.

Yeah. But somehow that story stuck.

I love this. My dad bought that story. He was like, you know what? I guess that probably is what happened.

That night, my family, we were talking about it at dinner. I'm still going hard on this story, trying to get into the mind of these burglars. Wow, what a crazy thing that they did. They must have just been hiding in one of our closets. Oh, you're making it so scary. And my parents are like, I think we need to call the cops. This is bad. And I'm like, they didn't take anything, though.

Maybe, like, let's not get the cops involved. They're just baffled nothing was stolen. This summer, I was getting in trouble a lot. My parents were always trying to sniff out a lie or like a cover up. And so I just figured they knew it was really me. They didn't want to have this conversation in front of my sister.

That depends on how fun your parents are. They're definitely a fun time, but during this period, I was being grounded a lot. They were really enjoying that and taking away all my things.

I think they believed it. A week later, my dad's friends are over, and one of them is a dean of a high school. He's always sniffing out suspicious shit that kids are up to. And my dad tells the story, so I'm like, okay, he actually does buy this crock of shit.

his friends this happened. And I'm just standing there like, oh my God, I have to continue to sell this stupid story. And his friend is like, wow, what a weird thing to happen and just keeps moving on. And I was like, okay. And my dad would keep bringing it up every now and then. And I just haven't said anything. So I'm like, he wanted to think the best of me. Might as well keep that going.

I guess that's the theory. Yeah, we used to leave like our garage open and someone could have. I got away with it. It's been almost 15 years. Oh, this is great.

Once I moved out of Bakersfield, left all that mischief behind.

Exactly. That's what good old suburbs are for.

Lovely meeting you too.

Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Well, have a great day. And Monica, your race to 35 changed my outlook on life. So I just want to say thank you for that. And thank you for all the work you guys do.