We Can Do Hard Things
Our Most Hilarious Episode EVER: Embarrassing Stories Comic Relief!
31 Mar 2026
Chapter 1: What embarrassing stories do Glennon, Abby, and Amanda share?
Hey everybody, welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Okay, I'm really excited about today because we need it. We have been discussing some very serious and hard things lately on the pod, as we should, but we should also laugh. So today we're restoring some balance by revisiting our most embarrassing stories.
I have to tell you that this episode is an episode that I think made the most people the most joyful. We are sharing today some of the most mortifying moments of our lives, along with your voicemail confessions that had us all cry laughing. literally peeing in our pants in solidarity. Our theory is that when we share the stories that make us want to disappear, we realize we're not alone at all.
We really hope that this hour gives you a good laugh because you deserve it. And if you've got any new embarrassing stories, please, please, God, you must tell us. We need this. If you have a new embarrassing story, leave us a voicemail at 747-200-5307. That's 747-200-5307. Here we go. we have a real experiment to do, which is so exciting and fun.
We had Jenny Lawson on, brilliant, hilarious, Jenny Lawson recently. It was our 100th episode, go back and listen to it. And she talks and writes so much about the power of humiliation, the power of sharing our mortifying moments With the goal of connecting us further and making life funnier and more universal.
And it's so funny. And clearly we could use some LOLs at the moment. But also, it made me think of the Brene Brown episode where she was talking about how she talks about all of the... horrible things she thinks to her kids because she thinks that normalization is the antidote to shame.
And it's so interesting because our mortifying stories often make us feel ashamed, but sharing our mortifying stories normalizes that. and is the cure to shame.
Right. Exactly. So that's what we're going to do. That's our experiment. We asked a long time ago for the pod squad to send us their most embarrassing, mortifying stories.
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Chapter 2: How do voicemail confessions add to the humor of the episode?
What you need to know pod squad is that Abby and sister and Alison and Dina and I have been listening to these stories yesterday. We could not, we weren't recording. We weren't doing, all we were doing was listening to your stories one at a time, peeing, like peeing. I haven't laughed. You know, that kind of laugh that just like makes you feel like you're a kid again.
And just like, you actually are not, who needs a juice cleanse when you could just laugh like that. Exactly. It's a cleanse. It's a cleanse. I do think that laughing hard can be just as much of a cleanse as crying hard is kind of what I figured out yesterday. So we're hoping our experiment is we're going to tell some of our mortifying stories.
We're going to hear from the pod squad's mortifying stories. And we want to see if at the end of this hour, you feel a little bit more connected, a little bit more joyful, and a little bit less sucky. Okay. Just a little less sucky is what we're going for.
It's a low bar people.
Yeah. Okay. So who wants to start? Who wants to share their embarrassing stories? First, sister, why don't you go?
I like how I was voluntold. Okay, so I have one that just happened a couple months ago because it's hard to narrow down my embarrassing stories. So I'm just going to go sequentially. The most recent one was I was on a call with our accountant. And what we need to know about her for purposes of this is that she and her little doggy are thick as thieves.
He has airline statuses, definitely cared for better than my children. So we're on this Zoom meeting. It was when I was in the process of adopting our dog Seamus from this rescue group that rescued golden retrievers. And so we were in the process of applying to rescue him.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of normalizing our worst moments?
But he wasn't actually Seamus. He had a different name. And she's so excited because she loves the dogs. And so she says, what's his name? And I, for no ascertainable reason, proceed to go into a diatribe in which I said, I promise you the things I said were true. Don't judge us. This is not going to be his name. We would never choose this name. It's the most pretentious name I have ever heard.
I'm mortified by it. It's dripping with waspiness. I am allergic to this name. So don't judge me when I tell you. Okay. She says, well, what's the name? I say Jeeves. At which point she pulls the dog into the Zoom screen and says, this is Jeeves. So that sucked. And so then I'm doing the thing where I am trying to dig myself out of the hole instead of just like not digging anymore.
And I, if you can possibly believe it, I make it worse for all of us, including the Jeeveses. And- That is the story of why we're getting audited this year. Because that's what John said when I told the story. He's like, why would you say any of that? Oh my God, she's your accountant. Like, that's the worst person you could have completely offended. Also, his name was not Jeeves because...
You can't fool me 350 times and I am not saying it out loud again. Then all y'all with the original name are going to call in and tell me. I think you should.
I think you should tell us the original name because I actually, it'll balance each other out because I love the original name.
Same. I wanted a name.
If I had another, if we rescue a dog, I might name it this and tell us what it was named. It was Bentley. Oh, I was outed. You're not allowed to out people. This is the 90s. The dog thing was Bentley. And I think that's the cutest freaking name. And I know it's a fancy car. That was just why you hated it. Because it was a fancy car, right?
Yeah. It sounded like a frat boy who was like, I don't know. I think it's cute.
I want a Bentley. This is Bentley. I want a Bentley car.
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Chapter 4: What mortifying moments do listeners share through voicemails?
I still think I'm a teacher just like on a very strange hiatus where I talk into a microphone. I'm waiting to get back to the classroom at some point. But- Um, I taught at a school where barely any of my kids, my students had English as their first language. So that's an important part of the story. A lot of them were very recent immigrants.
We did a lot of communicating by body language, by a lot of things in the beginning. Okay. I had this one kid. I'm going to call him Oscar. Okay. Call him Jeeves. Okay. So his name is Oscar. He was, we're definitely not supposed to have favorites, but one of my all-time favorite kids. He had barely any English. So. Valentine's day, he comes in, he walks up to my desk and he says, Miss D present.
And he's wrapped it with the construction paper from our classroom. So it's all like smushed up. And so what you need to know real quick about Oscar is that he had an older brother who I loved so much and was only a few years younger than me. He was gang involved, had some stuff going on. But you would take such good care of Oscar and like bring him to school.
Oscar was always stealing shit from his brother. So I opened this construction paper present and it's this very thick gold chain, like a rope gold chain, like heavy, heavy, heavy gold chain. And it has this huge medallion on it. And the medallion says, number one, Sex machine. Number one sex machine. Okay. Now he, Oscar, I'm looking at this gold chain.
Oscar is looking up at me with the most sweet. I mean, just precious. Like she's going to love this. She probably loves gold. The more gold, the better. He doesn't know what the hell this thing says, right? She loves letters. She likes numbers. She likes letters. Right.
Okay.
So then Oscar says, are you going to wear it?
You're going to wear it, right, Misty? You bet your number one sex machine ass I'm going to wear it.
Exactly. Nobody looks at Oscar's eyes and says, no, I'm not wearing this. So I did walk from my classroom down to PE and then to the cafeteria with My teacher dress on, my little ducklings behind me, Oscar proud as shit with a gold chain that says number one sex machine through an elementary school. Okay.
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Chapter 5: How does humor help in coping with embarrassing situations?
Oh my God. I just thought of another one. Okay. What? Um, so when I was working at the law firm, there was this huge case that came up and there were like boxes and boxes of documents that we had to review for the court case. And it was too sensitive to even send by a courier. So they sent me over to the client's office to pick up these many, many boxes of documents.
It was like a really big deal. I was like, oh, I'm being trusted with this very, you know, confidential, important thing. It was only like a mile away from my office. So I get in my car. I drive over to the client's office, walk in, meet the general counsel. He's very nervous about all of these things that are happening. I'm like, don't worry. You're in great hands.
We're going to take care of you. I have this huge dolly, like one of those, not like hand dollies, but the big lie flat has two sides dollies. And I have to take all these very sensitive documents and stack them on the big dolly. There's like 15 banker's boxes worth of documents. I have to take the elevator back down to the parking lot. I'm like, rest assured you're in the best hands possible.
You can trust us. Okay. And I get to the parking lot and I'm like, I can't find my car. That's odd. So I'm just... I'm like, I'll go look for my car, but I can't leave the dolly.
Right.
Because it's very important. So I'm rolling this giant dolly through the parking lot and I can't find my fucking car. It's not there. And I have to go all through the five levels of the parking lot. to look for my car with this giant ass dolly. I am seeing people like over and over again as I go up with the dolly, down with the dolly, up with the dolly. I did this. I am not joking you.
For two hours, two hours with the dolly. I was just about to cry because I'm like, I don't know what to do. I can't leave, but I can't stay. And I can't very well go back upstairs to the general counsel of this client that I've just told he's in very good hands and say, I can't find my car, but don't worry. I have an acute legal mind. So after a while, I was just like, I'm screwed.
There's nothing I can do. I can't call my law firm and say, thanks for trusting me with this case. Can you come help me find my car? Dude, where's my car? I just keep doing it. I just keep going up and down and up and down and up and down. Three hours later, I'm not joking. The elevator comes down to the garage. Who steps off the elevator?
The general counsel of the company stepped off the elevator. No. Because he's going home for the day. He's going home for the day. I am standing with the dolly that he has left me with three hours prior with no explanation as to how and why this would possibly be the case. Oh, no. And I just had to make some shit up. Like, yeah, I just got to do some legal things here with you. What happened?
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Chapter 6: What strategies do the hosts suggest for dealing with humiliation?
I had to wait till everyone left. I had to wait till everyone left. For what? So I could find my car. It was the only car left. There's no explanation for it. It doesn't make any sense, but I swear to God that thing happened. Okay, thanks. Every time the year hits this point, I get this little urge to reset my space. Just little changes that make daily life feel smoother and a little brighter.
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Chapter 7: How do the hosts relate their stories to broader themes of shame?
I'm like, yes, he is in your system. He was born here like two years ago. Check your system. This child was born in this hospital and they're taking so long and they're saying he's not in here. And now I'm getting pissed. Right. Cause this is the urgent part of urgent care. Like we need to get in there.
It's not just care.
Right. I'm not looking for care at your general convenience. I'm looking for urgent care.
Right.
So there's this whole line behind me. I'm like getting very upset. Like, get your shit in a pile. The people behind me are like, yeah, this is I mean, why isn't he in the system if he was born here? And I'm like, yeah. So I'm getting a little vocal and they keep looking. They keep looking. Anyway, they finally find him. And I'm like, well, thank you.
At which point they announced to me and the whole line, because obviously they're very annoyed, too, that that is not, in fact, my son's birthday. Oh my God. And that is why they couldn't find him because they didn't know his birthday. Wrong info.
That's so embarrassing. It is embarrassing. I have a doctor story. So one time when Chase was a baby, he was teeny tiny. He started to get this wild rash on his face. And every once in a while, it would actually be on his hands too. And it was like orange, like this orange rash. And it would go away and come back, go away and come back. And I was very concerned about it.
And so I finally could not figure out what it was. So I took him to the doctor. So I'm in the doctor's office and I'm standing there with the baby. I'm showing him, he's examining the orange face. I'm like, what could this be? Doctor's kind of looking at me strange, whatever. The doctor leaves, the doctor comes back and he looks very kind of embarrassed, you know?
And I'm like, what's, oh God, what's happening? And he looks at Chase's face and then he looks at me and he says, um, I just, I want to ask you a question. Do you, it looks like from your appearance that it's possible that you might go to a tanning salon. Do you buy any spray tan? Do you use that spray tan? And I'm just like. It's not... And I'm not computing.
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Chapter 8: What final thoughts do the hosts have on embracing our embarrassing moments?
I was dying my child's face from my boob with spray tan.
I know what he was doing when he left the room. He had to go talk to the other nurses and be like, she's infected her child with spray tan orange. He's like, you know that orange chick that just walked in?
You're not going to believe this shit.
She's like, you know, see that fluorescent orange that's around your kid's mouth.
Have you noticed that it's the same hue of fluorescent orange that you are? Right. So I left and I'm like, so, Craig, here's the deal. Our kid's just going to be orange for a while because I'm not ready to stop. So but we don't have to worry about it.
Well, this is a good segue because this is kind of like we're now easing into body functions, body parts of mortified stories. And we're going to hear, I think, a few of them in voicemails from pod squatters. But mine happened when I was about 14 years old. I got off the bus. Oh, God. She's going to do it. And, you know, I didn't like to go number two at school.
Like many of us don't, we got to be in the comfort of our own home. We got our one specific toilet in the house that we like to go to. And at 14 years old, I was just assuming it was going to be like any old day. But this day, for some reason, my bowels got moving faster than normal.
And so as I was walking home from the bus stop, I lived on a cul-de-sac and it was maybe a couple hundred yards walk to my house. I thought, well, I really got to go. And I can't run because I got to go so bad. Yes, that's the catch-22 of the number two. I can't run because I got to go so bad. And so what ends up happening, long story short, is I shit my pants. I shit, like, full-on shit.
In my undies. But, and it wasn't like dye or dye shit. It was like big poop.
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