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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Anonymous: Stealing II

12 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.25 - 25.524 Dax Shepard

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Now, this prompt really hits home for you personally because you're a known thief.

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25.544 - 26.205 Monica Padman

No.

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26.225 - 27.87 Dax Shepard

You're a known and admitted thief.

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27.99 - 31.439 Monica Padman

Okay. I was once a thief in my younger years.

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31.499 - 32.221 Dax Shepard

Yeah.

32.361 - 34.206 Monica Padman

Particularly age six.

Chapter 2: What personal theft experiences do the hosts share?

34.473 - 42.785 Dax Shepard

Yeah, I wonder what percentage of people get through their whole life without stealing. It's got to be very low, right? Everyone's done a little.

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42.805 - 47.131 Monica Padman

I hate that I'm about to do this. This is not my normal MO.

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47.271 - 47.712 Dax Shepard

Okay.

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48.012 - 54.041 Monica Padman

I do kind of think shoplifting is— Cool. No.

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54.201 - 54.521 Unknown

Oh, okay.

54.842 - 62.654 Monica Padman

Is a female... Heavy? Yeah. It leans female heavy as far as the, like, vices.

62.894 - 69.164 Dax Shepard

Well, I think that people who have the kleptomania... Yeah. We could even look it up now. But, yeah, I do think it does skew.

69.444 - 70.666 Monica Padman

I know. It's interesting.

70.807 - 73.07 Dax Shepard

It is. There's some kink about it.

Chapter 3: How does shoplifting affect societal views on theft?

98.6 - 99.041 Monica Padman

Yeah.

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99.061 - 108.974 Dax Shepard

You wouldn't pay for them. Sure. So I think it's in you. Yeah. And like me, I have to murder. You know, people come into the village, they want to take the children and the wives who are busy taking.

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109.675 - 110.456 Monica Padman

Scurrying around.

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110.476 - 110.776 Dax Shepard

Stealing.

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111.778 - 116.824 Monica Padman

Yeah. I will be, I want to be very, very, very clear. I've never shoplifted. Never? No.

117.025 - 124.795 Dax Shepard

Okay. I have, but I really stopped young. I don't think I did it as an adult other than when it was like past 2 a.m. and I had to have alcohol.

125.636 - 127.9 Monica Padman

Oh, then you can't. That doesn't count. Yes, that counts.

128 - 129.302 Dax Shepard

No, that does not count.

129.342 - 129.883 Monica Padman

Of course that counts.

Chapter 4: What humorous theft stories do the guests recount?

146.335 - 167.256 Dax Shepard

No, I fucking got it out and drug it all the way up to my apartment. And Brie woke up, obviously, before me and said, why is there a parking with the whole cement base? Yeah. I can't believe I didn't tear any tendons getting it up into my apartment. And as I told you, there was just a scrape mark for a block where I drug it down the sidewalk.

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167.276 - 168.537 Monica Padman

You didn't do a good job hiding it.

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168.557 - 171.06 Dax Shepard

Barney Fife could have cracked this case wide open.

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171.802 - 172.603 Dax Shepard

Okay.

172.623 - 172.904 Monica Padman

Okay.

172.924 - 175.488 Dax Shepard

Without further ado, please enjoy Stealing.

177.091 - 194.198 Unknown

Hard times come and go. Good times take them slow. My life, I had them all. But one thing you got to know, I'm going to keep on shining.

196.49 - 202.259 Dax Shepard

Shelly? That's me. Hi. I'm so grateful for your headset. You sound impeccable.

Chapter 5: What unexpected consequences arise from stealing?

322.9 - 328.411 Dax Shepard

What a funny dichotomy. It is like a very childhood thing, grounding versus a very adult thing, pregnancy.

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328.431 - 341.736 Shelly

I know. So it's up to us to get her a pregnancy test. And the school I go to is down the road from the grocery store. And God forbid, a bunch of 14-year-old girls actually buy a pregnancy test. So we decide that we're going to steal it.

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341.716 - 344.559 Dax Shepard

I bet that and condoms are the number one stolen thing.

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344.579 - 362.137 Shelly

There's a reason that they store them right in the same area together, right underneath the big window where the manager can see, which you don't think about when you're 14. The three of us, my good girlfriend, Ashley, and my bad girlfriend, Jenny, we head on down to the grocery store and we're devising our big plan. We walk in the door.

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362.197 - 377.916 Shelly

They're going to do recon and I divert off to go to the deli to get a big pickle out of the big pickle jar because what else am I going to do? I love the big pickles. Yeah. And this was back when you would just get it in a bag and pay for it at the checkout. So we go to the aisle with the personal care goods.

378.256 - 396.36 Shelly

And we have this big elaborate plan where we lean in and we get it and walk down the hall a little way. And there's a pet display. And we make this big show of like leaning in to pretend to look at how cute a dog on a label is to something like, oh, how cute. While she's shoving it in her back. Yeah.

396.84 - 398.082 Dax Shepard

This is an elaborate plan.

398.062 - 422.732 Shelly

We barely make it halfway down another aisle and we get stopped by a manager. You know, you stole, you come with me right now. And we get taken back up to the back office, the three of us. Because there were cameras? I realized this later in hindsight. Literally, the back of the store had a second story with the offices and those double mirrored walls. So they were looking straight at us. Oh, no.

422.752 - 427.783 Shelly

Yeah, yeah. So we're in the office and they full-blown call the cops. This would have been 2001.

Chapter 6: How do the hosts reflect on their past stealing incidents?

504.117 - 504.778 Dax Shepard

They didn't go that far.

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504.919 - 511.87 Shelly

No, no, no. But I was very surprised to learn there's no cushions in the back seat. It's just that hard plastic, which makes sense.

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511.85 - 515.215 Dax Shepard

Because so many men are soiling themselves as they get put in there.

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515.455 - 533.72 Shelly

So we go to the station and all they're doing is calling our parents. We're not actually being booked or charged or anything. So good girl friend Ashley's parents show up and they are horrified. Poor Ashley herself is horrified. She can't believe what she's gotten herself into. Her parents forbid her from ever speaking to me again.

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533.92 - 559.223 Shelly

Jenny, being the one who actually shoved it in her backpack, may have gotten a little charge and had to stay longer. And then they call my parents and my mom and my older brother, who had gotten out of prison a week prior for robbing a bank. No. Oh, my God. Oh, no. They show up and they're just laughing. And I'm laughing because I can't take this serious enough.

559.523 - 581.714 Shelly

And we all just laugh our way home. And that was my... First and last encounter with the law because I tried to steal a pregnancy test from a grocery store. But fun little P.S. The friend that we thought was pregnant, she was pregnant, had that baby. And then the daddy left her and had a baby with Jenny, the one who stole the test. What a twist.

581.734 - 587.723 Dax Shepard

What a fertile guy this guy was. He was not as good at the pullout method as he thought he was.

587.703 - 592.695 Monica Padman

Most people aren't as good as they think they are. We should have been stealing condoms instead.

592.935 - 597.786 Dax Shepard

Yeah. Yeah. They need to be free. We're going to save a lot more money down river.

Chapter 7: What insights emerge from discussing the nature of theft?

684.521 - 686.425 Shelly

Congratulations. That's hard to do. Thanks.

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686.405 - 691.692 Dax Shepard

And last follow up, did you and Ashley abide by the edict or were you friends anyways?

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691.952 - 704.708 Shelly

It's a small school, so we certainly saw each other a lot, but it definitely stopped the sleepovers. I looked her up on Facebook a while back and she seems to be happy, married kids doing good as well. Jenny went to prison for beating up her mom.

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705.589 - 709.073 Dax Shepard

Oh, OK. You shouldn't beat up your mom. Well, I don't know.

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709.093 - 711.577 Monica Padman

We don't know. Maybe those mom asked for it.

711.597 - 729.125 Dax Shepard

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a buddy in junior high, Nick Havostick, and his father did not want Nick to be friends and told him he couldn't be. And I've always thought this was so poetic. He looked his dad in the eyes and he said a wall of fire couldn't stand in between me and Dax. Aww.

729.145 - 731.228 Monica Padman

Isn't that incredible? That is sweet.

731.248 - 731.909 Dax Shepard

A wall of fire.

732.43 - 732.51

Aww.

Chapter 8: How do personal stories shape our understanding of crime?

840.031 - 841.412 Dax Shepard

I'm kind of obsessed with going there.

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841.592 - 849.869 Jack

I imagine it's up north of Poughkeepsie, up by the Roosevelt Mansion and that area. Yeah. By the CIA, the Culinary Institute. Yeah, that sounds right.

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849.969 - 854.835 Monica Padman

It's right by First Bloom. I'm pretty sure. It's in the shadows of First Bloom.

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855.796 - 860.182 Jack

I'm pretty sure. Okay, so you have a stealing story. I'm going to call this the greatest beer run ever.

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860.482 - 862.584 Dax Shepard

You want me to say part two because I think that's a movie.

862.645 - 863.325 Monica Padman

It is?

863.345 - 864.567 Dax Shepard

Yeah, the greatest beer run.

864.587 - 865.648 Monica Padman

Oh.

865.668 - 867.671 Dax Shepard

Zach Efron. Zach Efron.

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