March 28, 2023 • 43 mins
Matt and I are back to tell y’all our Road Stories business! This episode we talk about the marriage lessons we learned from our first argument in Chicago and how food poisoning can make you rethink EVERYTHING.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yo yo yo. We back. Mm hmm. It is spring
kind of m and I'm here with my husband Matt,
also known as dj Ope Diggy Supers. I like to
say that out loud because we get a lot of
We get a lot of pronunciations of that. I think
(00:51):
that's that's a lot of people's face. Some people call me.
I like to pretend that's short for opulence. We also
get some people trying to because some peop knew that
your name, your nickname was Opie, so people name that
is true. I encountered that with some people. So some
people go for a dj Opie diggie. They kind of
(01:13):
like pull them together there, But for everyone listening, it
is Ope diggie. I like to say rhymes with soap
diggie or hope diggie because I'm dope. That's it. People.
We just want to give you some little phonetics right there.
If you were going to chain, it should be a
(01:34):
rope oh a boy free. Two people on here who
can rhyme? I just rhyme a lot more slowly, a
lot more slowly. Welcome back to another episode of road Stories.
We have so much to tell, Like we did a
series of road Stories and still have a few more
(01:55):
episodes that we have to share with y'all, and so
many things we won't share with y'all. That's also true though,
because we went through our notes and we're like, oh no,
not going to talk about that publicly, not gonna speak.
But if you see me in the street, shout yeah,
you see me at a dinner party, there's some stories
that will not make these episodes. But if you see
(02:16):
me at a dinner party or in green room in
a public setting somewhere public private kind of like basically
like public like other people are there, but private like
I'm not talking from a microphone, you probably could get
some of the other stories that we can say names.
I'm messy because we do leave out some names here.
(02:38):
What brought this story to me? I want to give
a shout out to my friendly who was also the
production assistant on this here podcast. This also reminds me
because Lee would want me to remind y'all that there
are show notes. Lee put together show notes for every
one of these episodes. So if you ever hear me
or my guest talking about something, or in this case,
(03:00):
if you hear Matt and I are talking about something
you're like, wait, what they say? You don't have to
remember that. You can go to meta brown dot com.
Show notes are right there. All the links are there.
But this brings me back to the point. Lee and
I were talking about a trip she had taken recently
to the Art Institute of Chicago, and it immediately brought
back to me a memory that I thought would be
(03:21):
a perfect way to re enter our road Stories series.
So let me set the scene. Matt and I at
this point had only been married maybe six months. Yeah,
and I have been booked for a tour with the band.
(03:41):
I was very excited about the tour, and the trouble though,
was that the tour was six weeks long, I think,
and it had some certain, like I guess, certain segments
of it that were longer, and then it had other
ones where the breaks came in, you know, more quickly.
But the first segment of the tour, I was going
to be gone on the road for two weeks. So
(04:03):
imagine everyone that Matt and I had just gotten married,
Matt is working at a church as a youth pastor
at the time, while we're also traveling together. As we
discussed with you all, we had already started our show
that we were doing, and so we were traveling on
the road together. And now this was my first gig
that came up that it was a bus tour, so
(04:25):
that meant there were not bunks enough for me to
be able to bring a spouse. If everyone brought their spouse,
there would have to be like three buses. There was
no way. So I go on the tour. And actually,
as we tell you all this story, this is a
part of how we came up with one of our
marriage rules. This time apart was the longest we have
(04:46):
ever been apart our whole marriage, just two weeks, You're right.
We decided after this that we would not let it
be longer than two weeks that we had to be
apart from each other. And as to artists, that could
mean a lot of things. We both could have gigs
away from each other. This has happened before too, where
like Matt will get a gig and he has to
(05:06):
go out of town and I'm getting a gig, I've
got to go out of town. Or we both have
had times the other person had to travel and the
other person was home. But either way, we decided two
weeks is the longest period of time because of what
transpired in Chicago. So I feel like maybe the tour,
(05:31):
It's like, my memories of this are vague now. I
can't remember if the tour actually stopped in Chicago or
I kind of feel like I had another gig that
I had had booked beforehand. This is what I think happened.
I had another gig that I had booked before the
tour that I had to leave the tour and go
to that was in Chicago. That's it was out of
(05:53):
college in Chicago, and so we used that gig as
a way for you to fly from Atlanta to Chicago exactly.
And wherever I was on the tour, whatever city we
were in, I had to leave them and fly to
Chicago and do this gig. So let me tell y'all
something right here. First of all, those of you who
(06:15):
either have been in or are currently in long distance relationships,
or those of you who are in relationships with someone
who travels all the time, the time that you are
getting a chance to meet back up together is so limited.
I think we had forty eight hours together. You're having
to come out of the thing, the momentum of what
you've been doing. I'm flying in with the momentum from
(06:38):
what i've two hold, We've been in two whole different spaces.
Now we got to slow down jet leg and be
in this space together for a period of time. And
it's a thing where you want that forty eight hours
to go really well. Yeah, because you can't. You can't
be like, oh, that didn't go so good, Let's just
stay an extra day, let's let's let's get over tomorrow.
(07:02):
Like you don't. You don't have that opportunity, And so
there is a little bit of like internal pressure on
the time you have together because you only have two days.
You're hoping all of those two days are great times
experiences that you're having together. You're boot up, you're holding hands,
whatever that is. You do not want to what have
(07:23):
a married fight? And what do we do? Did indeed
have a married fight? First fight, our first our first
big married fight. I have to say shout out and boy,
and I want to characterize for y'all, Matt and I
are not are not fighters. I believe that every relationship
(07:45):
has conflict, and we have had that in many ways
over the years we've been together. But we are not fighters.
We don't do a lot of yelling. We don't do
any yelling, and we don't do a lot of fighting either.
I think if you yelled at me, I'd be pretty
broke down, Like I'd be shocked first of all. But right, no, no,
(08:07):
And neither one of us grew up in families that
yell like that. That's true either, So I think neither
one of us came from sort of a family of
origin space where that's what we felt like we had
to do to get our point across. So we're not
people who yell, and we are not people who have
a whole lot of fights. We have some arguments, we
have some disagreements, we have some places of conflict, right,
(08:31):
but they're very careful. I would say we're some of
the most carefulest arguers, Like we really think. Well, here's
what I meant and what I heard you say. Well,
I think because we both have been to counseling one
so we might fight too fair, right, Right, I was
gonna say that. I feel like before we got married,
we both had been in therapy. Yeah, and since we've
(08:52):
been married, we both have had times now of being
in therapy. So I do feel that gives you some
element of some communications training. So I don't know if
other people were around, they might be like what. We're
both laid back people, both kind of peacemaker ish personalities.
I ain't a killer, but don't push me no type
(09:15):
of thing. I'm working on a project right now, y'all
that I'm working with two folks who are very theater experience.
They're brilliant, and one of the things I've noticed is
when it's time to give critique about certain things, they
sort of have like a very long runway before they
get to the critique, before we move on. I just
(09:39):
want to offer a piece of feedback for consideration. These
are my thoughts as I in my own creative process
this way, while I also hold space for the other
creative processes that may be present here. And they had
(10:01):
to explain to me that in their theater environments they've
been in that you know, it's a very intimate process
to be, you know, doing theater together. You want to
make sure you're really holding close and holding tenderly all
of the people you collaborate with, from crew to cast,
(10:22):
and you know all these things. And I feel sort
of like we can be like that. So when loading
the dishwasher, those metal straws have to go in a
certain holder a certain way, or else they're going to
(10:42):
fall through. If they fall through, I think you're doing
a great job. I really appreciate m Yeah, the way
that all these years, Matt still can't get me to
understand which way the toilet role is supposed to go
on the thing, Like I kind of get it, but
(11:03):
then I don't. I'm sure I'm doing it not right,
Like every single time we have we are lucky, we
are very blessed in this house to have more bathrooms
than we have people. I think that's maybe one reason
we don't argue very much. Right place to go to
and so um, being at the three bathrooms, two people,
(11:24):
I feel like it's fair that I there is one
bathroom that you put that toilet paper, whether you like
it over the top which is the right way, or
under around the back backside of the barn, however you
do it. You know, we have one bathroom, have at it,
(11:45):
put it, put the sideways, put it, get creative with it,
whatever you do. However, the other two bathrooms, if I
see it, okay, okay, it's gonna be a you know,
we've had some times, you know, even like you know,
I'm like a big cook, especially you know at certain points,
(12:06):
certain times of the year. Man, We've had some times
when Matt had to be the one going to the
grocery store and he would come back with like the
cilantro seasoning, like the dry one, and I would be
like no, no, no, no, no no no, we need
it like fresh man. Thank God for camera phones. Now,
first of all, that's old. I just called it a
camera phone. Boy. We really try to be people who
(12:31):
are not always looking like the age that we might be.
But every now and then we do say something that's
like camera phones. Right, we're in our forties. I got it.
But like I've learned how to take a picture of
the item and send it to you and be like
this question mark. And I too have had to learn
(12:52):
to make sure my phone is not don do not disturbed,
so that all of my husband's texts do not go
unanswered while he is in a very busy store, especially
before a holiday. Bliss our hearts. So you know, these
are these are now almost twelve years of lessons that
we indeed did not have as we approached what we
(13:13):
thought was going to be a fun time in Chicago.
Time Okay. One other thing that I'm gonna tell y'all
we didn't realize is we didn't know that Chicago people
don't play about Saint Patrick's Day. Had no clue, Like,
not a clue at all. How big of a deal.
(13:35):
It's a big deal. Like like I grew up in
San Antonio, and San Antonio has like a riverwalk type
of situation, and there'll be like certain things people do
around the riverwalk different times. Okay, we were in. Lee
had to correct me because I called it Millennium Mile.
I know some of y'all from Chicago are just cussing
in your car, in your cubicle right now. It's the
(13:56):
Magnificent Mile. Thank you, Lee. Okay, we were trying to
get down to the Magnificent Mile because yes, we are
two artists who indeed wanted to go to the Art
Institute of Chicago. I'm big on an art museum, love it,
especially if you're in a big metropolitan city like that.
You're going to Chicago, you're going to LA You're going
(14:18):
to New York. I'm like, yes, this is what we
need to do. I'm in New York. It's MoMA for me.
I gotta stop up. In MoMA right quick. So I
was very excited because I had never been to an
art museum in Chicago. So we decided to be very
arty people that we were going to go to the
Art Institute of Chicago. Also, let's talk about booking hotel
(14:41):
rooms using Priceline and hot wire, because that's all you
can afford. So I'm gonna let y'all know right now
that this is how we had to book this hotel.
And I used to play big, big games on Priceline.
I'm not even sure you can hustle Priceline now the
(15:01):
way you could back then, but I'm pretty sure. I
got us a four star hotel. Maybe it was near
the airport, mind your business. I got us a four
star hotel for fifty six bucks a night, and it
was it was a very nice room. Yeah, until you
decided that you wanted to go to the Magnificent Mile,
Oh yeah, and you realize that you were going to
have to take yeah, yeah, you was about to take
(15:24):
seventeen trains, two planes, one helicopters just so you could
get back to the part of Chicago you wanted to
go to. And I feel for people when they're traveling
to a city for the first time because people give
it to us about Atlanta. People would come to Atlanta
and end up having a hotel in Duluth somewhere and
be like, oh, like, why am I so far from everything?
(15:46):
This is pretty much what happened to us, because I
had no concept of how Chicago was set up at all,
that there are these different like kind of like when
you're in New York, there are the boroughs, there's like
different sides of town. In Chicago. Yeah, like you can't
just like bring yourself down there and feel like you're
close to everything in these big old cities. So we
(16:06):
get our little hotel, which I was very proud of.
It was very cute. But then when we looked up,
how is we going to get? And I'm assuming there
wasn't Uber. No, I think this was pre This was
pre uber, pre lift, so ride share did not exist. Man,
we've been married long enough that ride share you had
(16:30):
to catch a taxi. I mean if you bother like
that service, and a taxi was like expensive. I mean,
especially because I think we were like forty five minutes away.
I mean that still would not have been a super
cheap uber or left ride. But you didn't have uber
or lift in the middle. You either had this taxi
(16:50):
ride that maybe maybe now you a hundred and maybe
you over you over a hundred by the time you
add in the tip. Or we could get on the
train and take I think we had to take the
train to a bus. Yeah, yeah, to get over to
the Art Institute, all right, and I think we had
(17:10):
to walk. If I remember, we had to walk. There
was like an underpass we had to walk in. It
felt pretty sketchy, it that's right, that's right. The way
you had to get from our hotel to the train
station was yikes. So it was it was a journey,
and in hindsight I could see what was being set up.
It was the perfect story. Boy boy, okay, So I
(17:51):
feel like we were what we just were walking down
Magnificent Mile, very boot up. You know. When we were dating,
we were people who would, you know, walk in Atlanta,
certain sides of town. We would walk around and hold hands,
you know. So one of the pluses to us being
married and in love with each other and traveling for
a living meant we could just take our little boot
(18:14):
up situation and just drop ourselves off anywhere. We just
walk down the streets of Chicago. Hold hands like it's Atlanta.
Find out we're in Wyoming somewhere, hold hands over there whatever,
we're doing it out, so we're having a wonderful time.
We're down in the area where the Eminem store. There's
like a big Eminem store down there. I remember that.
And I had been hearing about the hot dogs in Chicago,
(18:38):
and I am I'm a New York girl, not that
I was from there or raised there, but like of
the major cities in America, like New York's my place,
that's my town. So i'd I'd had quite a few
New York hot dogs and people in New York, you
know y'all, don't you know, y'all, don't fight me in
the dms. But also if you do want to fight me,
still DM me because I can know you listening, and
(18:59):
that's nice. But you know, my people in New York
were talking sideways about Chicago food. They were like, I'll
go over there and eat their lasagna pizza, and I
was like, why are they talking like that, and like
they don't know what a hot dog like they were
talking and I was like, I feel like it's not
fair for me to participate in this and not know
what it tastes like. Let me find out. So we
(19:20):
find some kind of hot dog place. I think it's
a street vendor. I remember going inside of there, Okay,
but I cannot I'm not going to start another marriage
fight about our marriage fight. So whatever you say, I
remember going inside there. I remember it was very busy, okay,
And so I assume now, now, y'all, this is partially
(19:41):
because we didn't know how big of a deal Saint
Patrick's Day was. So what we're seeing is a long
line that we're thinking is a long line because people
love this placeous hot dog. Yeah, it's really a long
line because it's Saint Patrick's Day. If it's a hot
dog pop up? Oh mmmm, a pup up. I really
(20:02):
you did that. I really like that. That's let's keep that.
Let's keep that in our in our back pockets out
you know what I mean? Make up, boy, I'm about
to say, you know, if we go ahead and get
a dog, y'all, please rescue me. Back to the story. Okay,
(20:27):
So we decided to pull up in this place. We
decided to pull up in this pup up situation and
get this hot dog now because it was Saint Patrick's Day.
I will give y'all the warning signs that the relish
was bright green, like not the normal green that relishes.
(20:50):
It was bright bright. It was it was disturbingly green. Yeah,
but did we think about that at the time. No,
We're very excited to get this hot dog, and I'm
in part happy to report to date, at that point
in my life, that was the best hot dog I've
ever had, Like Chicago hot dogs. We're gonna have a
separate episode where we're going to discuss some of our
(21:13):
food adventures on the positive side in traveling. But that
Chicago hot dog man, the Celery Salt, really that really
did some things. It went hard, like the parados hard.
Oh my gosh, like everything was so delicious. Okay, we
(21:34):
go to get our little hot dog, continue walking ourselves
over to the Art Institute, and as we are in
the Art Institute, we get into a married fight. Some
things were said, some things was misunderstood, some things was understood,
which is why it made us fight about it. So
(21:57):
now we are in this glorious art museum having a
very awkward argument trying to be like, are we people
who want to try and put this to the side.
So that we can enjoy the beautiful arts. Can I
tell you anything I saw that day? No, not a thing. Nope,
(22:21):
I can't remember anything about that. I was trying to
reel it back in says something I shouldn't have said.
I also want to say that this must have been
this was either the second day of our trip or
the hot dog we had later in the day, because
I also feel like on this same trip we had
(22:42):
Chicago pizza and there was glass in it. That was
the night before. Okay, okay, we went and got pizza
and it was you know how those big thick like
beer mugs. It was that glass. It was the biggest
thickest chunk of glass possible. And something in Chicago was
(23:05):
out to get us. Now that I think about this,
because because they like when we realized the glass was
in there, obviously they gave us the pizza. I think
they didn't charge us and then gave us a new pizza. Think.
So yeah, so mind y'all, that had happened the night before,
(23:26):
So Chicago was already like out to get us. We was.
We was on the way to down bad in a
way we didn't realize. Okay, So whatever happens we finished
up our little visit in the Art Institute. I really
can't remember if we both just got so frustrated that
we walked out of there, or if we were really
finn I don't remember, but I remember we walked out. No,
(23:50):
we were not having a good time, and I remember
we walked out of the Art Institute, and I really
strongly remember being so mad that I was like stomping
almost down the street, like a way wherever we were
supposed to be going next, because I don't remember what
our next plans where we had some stuff I think
we were trying to do. I don't know if we
were gonna go shopping. Maybe that's what it was. I
(24:12):
think we're gonna maybe go shopping or something. After we
left the Art Institute and I was just stomping down
the street. I was so mad, and you know, Matt's
trying to talk and I can't hear him, and I'm
trying to talk, and we just it's not it's not
going good. Y'all so continues to stomp. Y'all continues to
have awkward like it's almost like we got so upset
(24:35):
that you're trying to like explain to your partner what
you meant, you know, and then you trying to explain
why you don't like what they meant. Like you're trying
to do all of that while walking down a very
crowded street because reminder everyone, it is Saint Patrick's Day
and people are still runk. And as the day progresses,
(24:59):
it's getting more and more and more packed. Okay, so
now it is getting close to dusk, and we are
in considerations of the fact that we are very far
from our hotel situation, and maybe we just need to
call it on this day and head back to the hotel.
(25:21):
But as we're walking down the street, I don't know
if y'all seen the movie Alien, and I can't remember
if this was Alien or Aliens the second one, but spoiler,
there is a scene where Sigourney Weaver is laying on
a table and it looks like something is trying to
come out of her stomach, and indeed they discover it
(25:43):
is an alien, but it's a lot of writhing around
before they realize, oh, no alien inside of her. And
I want y'all to know that I felt like Sigourney
Weaver as we were walking down the street. Now, whatever
angry feelings I had are being replaced by high concerns
(26:07):
because we're in the middle of a very busy kind
of downtown Chicago ish. Somebody off in Chicago might be like,
that's not downtown. It felt like downtown to us because
we're from the country of Atlanta. I don't know. So
Matt is like, hey, maybe let's go into this subway
(26:29):
get you some seven Up, because I don't know who
decided that seven up, sprite and ginger Ale gonna solve
some stomach problems. Maybe they do, I don't know, but
that's always the go to, that's what you do. So
they didn't have ginger Ale. So I get the seven Up,
start to drink the seven Up, and I have this
(26:51):
moment y'all that I realize I'm gonna throw up. And
we're in a part of the city where and y'all
know what I'm talking about if you've been in like
these big metropolitan areas. We're in a part of the
city where places are like, you can't use this bathroom
unless you are a patron of the business, and some
businesses are like the bathroom is for employees only. You
(27:14):
don't even know there is a bathroom. So I'm realizing
that whatever this is is about to come out, and
before I know it, y'all, I am throwing up into
the streets. This has never happened to me, y'all. I
have never just thrown up in public like that. It
was rough. Even since then, I do not believe I
(27:38):
have thrown up in public like that. And y'all, because
it was Saint Patrick's day, a car full of young
white men drives by, sees me throwing up into the street,
and whatever their music was they were listening to, they
were pumping their arms. I'm yelling, drunk like a white boy,
(28:02):
Get drunk like a white boy. At which time, this
is how you know that your person is really for you,
Because at this point, all bets are off. Regarding said
fight that we've had. All I remember is you yelling,
she doesn't fail good. I I was ready to fight.
(28:25):
It was. It was one of those moments where I
was like, now, we have a rule in our marriage
that we try to keep bail money for at least
one person, but even still we try. We basically we
keep misdemeanor bail money. We ain't got federal bell money.
But like, I was ready to risk it all at
that moment I was like, oh, this is a fight
like shirt coming off. I mean, and I think we
(28:48):
still did not truly understand like how much my throwing
up was not uncommon on St. Patrick's Day. Like in
their mind, they're just like, oh, yeah, people come out here,
people have been drinking since eleven am, Like they just okay.
So once I throw up, I'm feeling like a little
bit better. But now it's really getting concerning this journey
(29:12):
that we have to go back home and a lot
of things to get us home. It's not a quick
easy you know. I had a sprite, the one that
had seven up, had the seven up in my hand,
and we had to get on a bus. We had
to walk to find out where we catch the bus
(29:33):
because I feel like wherever we arrived was at a
different spot, yeah than where we had stopped to realize
I was sick and you were also feeling sick. Yeah,
I was feeling I'm you know, I'm pretty pretty good
with food, Like I pretty much got a tank, especially
at that point in time my younger years. But I
could definitely tell it wasn't right. But I was like,
(29:54):
you got to hold it, hold it together. We were
walking as slow as need be to get to the bus,
made it to the bus, took the bus to the
proper train station, miserable, and then once we get on
that train, we're at least like on the train, like
(30:16):
we didn't have a bunch of stops to make. So
it was kind of like comforting to know that we
didn't have a bunch of stops to make, But then
it was also not comforting. And because I just threw
up in public, like I just had such a strong
urge to throw up that I couldn't stop myself. And
so the idea that now most of our journey, we've
got at least thirty minutes on this train, will I
(30:40):
not be able to throw up on our way back?
Then a man stands up on the train. Because any
of you that have been on public transportation know that
you could experience all sorts of presentations. Anything could happened.
Could be some one has a song on their heart.
(31:01):
Could be someone has studied the jabbawockies and decided that
it's a dance they need to do for you, brought
their congress. Could be someone feels you need to be
evangelized and they've decided this is the time to pass
some tracks to preach to you this gentleman. Unfortunately he
is having an even worse day than we are having.
(31:26):
But I don't all the way remember what he said
on the train, Okay, I do you know, down on
his luck? Man. I don't know the situation. I don't
know the story. I just know that he stood up
and yelled that if he didn't get enough money for
something that you know he was, he was done, he
(31:47):
was done. We'll leave it there. And I know I
reached in my pocket. I think I had a dub
in that, and I walked up to him. I said, bro,
I ain't got what you're asking for his twenty bucks, yo, man,
you can do it. Yers, the layers of us having
gotten into a married fight, having now discovered that at
(32:11):
least one of us is sick, and now this man,
in a very precarious emotional stage, has entered the train
very loudly, and then you're in the moment where you're like,
I know, I have thirty minutes on this train. Does
he also have thirty minutes? Is he gonna be on
(32:31):
this whole ride with us? Okay? So we make it
through that, make it back to the train station. But
as I explain to y'all about a price line hotel,
it's not like the train station is connected to the hotel.
We still have a long, dark and sketchy walk. See.
(32:56):
This is one of those places where early on, being
a young man who you know, was always like, man,
I bet we don't need to spend that money. Now
in my forties, I'm like, pardon to spend that money.
Don't get that car, playboy. Yeah, I think in our
forties it would have been like, let's catch a cab.
(33:17):
Like if uber and lyft were not an option, whence
they weren't, we would have been like, let's catch a
cab or bless it. We would have been like, let's
find a hotel that's down there. Now. Granted, at this time,
I don't I know. I didn't have a credit card.
My credit was trash. Yo, you might be saying something
(33:41):
right there. So we've probably just been making it do
what to do? You might be saying something right there
because I don't. I don't think I had one either.
I had had one maybe like a few years before
we got married, maxed it out, and then I had
spent like two years working really hard to pay that
credit card off and then it got paid off. I
(34:02):
let it close, let it laps. I didn't even keep
it because I was scared to even have a credit card.
So you're right, we just had our little debit cards
and whatever cash we had. That's it. That's all. It
was okay. So I want y'all to know that we
finally made it back to the hotel, at which time
I think we discover number one that it's not just
(34:23):
me that's sick, that Matt is sick. We are pretty
confirmed that we had food poisoning. So all night, this
is our last night not only in Chicago, but together
before we had to, you know, go our separate ways.
I want y'all to know that all night it was okay.
But what did you mean when you hold on, hold on,
(34:46):
like all night? So what I'm hearing you say is
that give me a woman. And I'm gonna tell y'all something.
Of all the time that Matt and I have been married,
I am the person who throws up in this family.
I hate that this started a trend because I've been
married to Matt almost twelve years and I'm I really
(35:09):
can't recall that I've ever been in your presence when
you had to throw up. We've been on the phone
one time and I was slick enough to hit mute,
handle business on mute, and I think you knew what happened,
and that that is not that feels unfair because I
have now thrown up in public. I have thrown up
(35:32):
in a hotel room after discovering that this was indeed
food poisoning. I have thrown up in another hotel room
when we ate some pizza, some frozen pizza that was
supposed to be cooked in the oven, but was sold
to us like it was microwave pizza. It was not.
It's always me though, it's always my stomach. That's like,
(35:53):
something's wrong that that microwave pizza. As kids ate, that
was nasty word. It was so bad. So we're up
almost all night off and on the night before we
had to leave Chicago, trying to rehash this argument so
that we could get to a point of just like,
(36:16):
all right, we talked it out. We're good now. We
were not good, but we were also so sick. Get
to the airport and Matt is going back home to
Atlanta because he has a job that is there in Atlanta.
He's going back home and I have to go back
to finish the tour, and it's one of those moments,
(36:36):
like I guess in a way, it makes me. It
makes me know that you know, just because you're having
an argument with you know, your partner or your spouse,
that you could still be like, oh that really annoyed me,
and oh, my gosh, I do not want you to
have to get on a plane by yourself. Feeling so horrible.
(36:57):
I felt so I remember going to I don't know
if it's the gift shop at the hotel or if
it was in the airport and buying all they had,
remember those those pepto bismols, Yes, the dry and I
bought everyone that they had in there. I was like,
just put easy gift. I felt so bad because normally
we're on the road together and whichever one of us
(37:19):
is on the other, one of us is taken care
of all the other stuff. In this case, you were
going your way. I was going my way, and this
was the I couldn't do any I was like, there's
got to be something I could do for I felt
so terrible, and we had called my mom because my
mom's a nurse, and told her like our symptoms and
she was like, yeah, that's food poisoning. And she had
(37:39):
told us like okay, she was like, try to get
some gatorade or power aid and she was like, diluted
with water, get some cracker, like she had told us
what to get. Matt went right away got the items
that she said to get and sent me with it,
and we were just sort of looking at each other
like this is not how our little romantic should cogo
(38:00):
weekend after being a part for two whole weeks, which
would be a long time to me today, but newly
wet us that was like forever an eternity away from
each other, now having to get on different planes and
just hope for the best, hoping that both of us
could make it home. Okay, so I make it to
(38:22):
my destination. I'm barely eating anything, like I can barely
keep down a couple of crackers and some diluted gatorade.
Make it to the gig. And the band I was
on the road with is really a great band. So
I would always on the tour, I would sit on
the side of stage and watch their shows. And that
(38:43):
was the one night I did. I was like because
I had to go on like you know, four or
five times during the show. So I was like going
up doing my little poem and then I'll have to
like go and sit down because I was so weak.
I mean, we're we're pushing twenty four hours now of
just me having crackers and a little bit of gatorade
(39:06):
at that point. I want y'all to also know that
food poisoning on a tour bus is one of the
worst things that can ever happen to you, especially when
you're traveling with the band but you're not really in
the band, which means you're not getting the prime choice
of the bed that you got to choose. And in
the type of tour bus we were in, the beds
were in like columns of three, and typically the best
(39:30):
bed is the middle bed, but if you don't have
high rank in the band, you taking that top bed
because that's the one that's the most challenging to get in,
the feeling that you're gonna throw up in the middle
of the night while a tour bus is riding down
the road playing games. The way your body is shaped
like an X just trying to get down from your
(39:53):
legs are on one leg, is on one person's bed.
The other leg on. Somebody just trying to see, like,
am I gonna have to go to the bathroom in
this tour bus? Are they all gonna hear me throw up? Anyways?
Whatever the next stop was. I think after I finally
got my stomach to where I wasn't throwing up. I
(40:14):
couldn't really eat, but I wasn't throwing up, we tried
to rehash our things. We came to some understanding. We
did learn some things, did learn some things from that argument,
did learn some things, and you know, in a way, y'all,
I mean lives happily ever after have not had a
green hot dog, saying, boy, I did not eat a
(40:37):
hot dog for three years after that, I just could
like the idea of having a hot dog was just
like pooh. I could not know. No. So I want
y'all to understand a few things. Number One, what I
learned after we got some friends that are from Chicago
is always double check the hot dog place with your
(41:00):
friends that live there. Yeah. It's the same way. If
somebody in Atlanta would be like, I'm traveling down to
Atlanta and I have fried chicken, new you know, I
got sick. I'll be like, why didn't you tell me?
I would have told you never never have fried chicken
at that place. Don't go to Gladys Knight's post, okay, please,
because you're in for a world of trouble. Okay. So
(41:22):
we did get to go back to Chicago and actually
have the Portillo's hot dogs after like five years at peace. Yeah,
that is a delicious hot dog and no food poisoning. Okay.
But what we have not been able to do is
go back to our museum. I feel like we need
like a redo on that we do. We need to
(41:44):
go back. We need to go back to there and
whatever things that we think we're going to argue about,
we need to stand on the steps and get it
all out. I'm smarter, I'm smiling. No, we need to
get on the steps right now and just say whatever
our things are so we can just go in and
just enjoy the art. Some thoughts just belong in your head. Mmmmmmm,
(42:09):
you know it do be like that sometimes. That's a takeaway.
That's a takeaway. Want to give you'all some takeaways from this.
Some thoughts belong in your head And you can't cook
pizza in the microway, Okay, that's all right, that's a
part of it. Also, um, don't get drunk like a
white boy. Apparently. I don't know what exactly that means,
but I'm just telling you if it means looking like
(42:30):
how I looked throwing up into the street, I think
the phrase was white boy wasted, but I didn't want
to create another marriage fight, so I just my older
smiling nod. So what were they They were yelling, get
white boy wasted? Yeah, but yours? Yours was good too.
(42:51):
Yours was good too. Well, the toilet paper can go, however, Okay,
I'm also going to say, for your takeaway, maybe don't
get wasted like a white boy. I don't know what
white boy would it means, but if it means anything
close to how I felt throwing up in the street,
I'm gonna advise you all, don't do it. Don't do that.
That's how we survived food poisoning in Chicago. But Chicago
(43:12):
owes us another romantic two days. Yeah, we need to
go back and just have pizza without glass and have
hot dog with no food poisoning, and have the Art
Institute no arguments. We're going to give it a drive
and arth Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for
(43:43):
Slow Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women
Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and
don't forget it to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
Yo yo yo. We back. Mm hmm. It is spring
kind of m and I'm here with my husband Matt,
also known as dj Ope Diggy Supers. I like to
say that out loud because we get a lot of
We get a lot of pronunciations of that. I think
(00:51):
that's that's a lot of people's face. Some people call me.
I like to pretend that's short for opulence. We also
get some people trying to because some peop knew that
your name, your nickname was Opie, so people name that
is true. I encountered that with some people. So some
people go for a dj Opie diggie. They kind of
(01:13):
like pull them together there, But for everyone listening, it
is Ope diggie. I like to say rhymes with soap
diggie or hope diggie because I'm dope. That's it. People.
We just want to give you some little phonetics right there.
If you were going to chain, it should be a
(01:34):
rope oh a boy free. Two people on here who
can rhyme? I just rhyme a lot more slowly, a
lot more slowly. Welcome back to another episode of road Stories.
We have so much to tell, Like we did a
series of road Stories and still have a few more
(01:55):
episodes that we have to share with y'all, and so
many things we won't share with y'all. That's also true though,
because we went through our notes and we're like, oh no,
not going to talk about that publicly, not gonna speak.
But if you see me in the street, shout yeah,
you see me at a dinner party, there's some stories
that will not make these episodes. But if you see
(02:16):
me at a dinner party or in green room in
a public setting somewhere public private kind of like basically
like public like other people are there, but private like
I'm not talking from a microphone, you probably could get
some of the other stories that we can say names.
I'm messy because we do leave out some names here.
(02:38):
What brought this story to me? I want to give
a shout out to my friendly who was also the
production assistant on this here podcast. This also reminds me
because Lee would want me to remind y'all that there
are show notes. Lee put together show notes for every
one of these episodes. So if you ever hear me
or my guest talking about something, or in this case,
(03:00):
if you hear Matt and I are talking about something
you're like, wait, what they say? You don't have to
remember that. You can go to meta brown dot com.
Show notes are right there. All the links are there.
But this brings me back to the point. Lee and
I were talking about a trip she had taken recently
to the Art Institute of Chicago, and it immediately brought
back to me a memory that I thought would be
(03:21):
a perfect way to re enter our road Stories series.
So let me set the scene. Matt and I at
this point had only been married maybe six months. Yeah,
and I have been booked for a tour with the band.
(03:41):
I was very excited about the tour, and the trouble though,
was that the tour was six weeks long, I think,
and it had some certain, like I guess, certain segments
of it that were longer, and then it had other
ones where the breaks came in, you know, more quickly.
But the first segment of the tour, I was going
to be gone on the road for two weeks. So
(04:03):
imagine everyone that Matt and I had just gotten married,
Matt is working at a church as a youth pastor
at the time, while we're also traveling together. As we
discussed with you all, we had already started our show
that we were doing, and so we were traveling on
the road together. And now this was my first gig
that came up that it was a bus tour, so
(04:25):
that meant there were not bunks enough for me to
be able to bring a spouse. If everyone brought their spouse,
there would have to be like three buses. There was
no way. So I go on the tour. And actually,
as we tell you all this story, this is a
part of how we came up with one of our
marriage rules. This time apart was the longest we have
(04:46):
ever been apart our whole marriage, just two weeks, You're right.
We decided after this that we would not let it
be longer than two weeks that we had to be
apart from each other. And as to artists, that could
mean a lot of things. We both could have gigs
away from each other. This has happened before too, where
like Matt will get a gig and he has to
(05:06):
go out of town and I'm getting a gig, I've
got to go out of town. Or we both have
had times the other person had to travel and the
other person was home. But either way, we decided two
weeks is the longest period of time because of what
transpired in Chicago. So I feel like maybe the tour,
(05:31):
It's like, my memories of this are vague now. I
can't remember if the tour actually stopped in Chicago or
I kind of feel like I had another gig that
I had had booked beforehand. This is what I think happened.
I had another gig that I had booked before the
tour that I had to leave the tour and go
to that was in Chicago. That's it was out of
(05:53):
college in Chicago, and so we used that gig as
a way for you to fly from Atlanta to Chicago exactly.
And wherever I was on the tour, whatever city we
were in, I had to leave them and fly to
Chicago and do this gig. So let me tell y'all
something right here. First of all, those of you who
(06:15):
either have been in or are currently in long distance relationships,
or those of you who are in relationships with someone
who travels all the time, the time that you are
getting a chance to meet back up together is so limited.
I think we had forty eight hours together. You're having
to come out of the thing, the momentum of what
you've been doing. I'm flying in with the momentum from
(06:38):
what i've two hold, We've been in two whole different spaces.
Now we got to slow down jet leg and be
in this space together for a period of time. And
it's a thing where you want that forty eight hours
to go really well. Yeah, because you can't. You can't
be like, oh, that didn't go so good, Let's just
stay an extra day, let's let's let's get over tomorrow.
(07:02):
Like you don't. You don't have that opportunity, And so
there is a little bit of like internal pressure on
the time you have together because you only have two days.
You're hoping all of those two days are great times
experiences that you're having together. You're boot up, you're holding hands,
whatever that is. You do not want to what have
(07:23):
a married fight? And what do we do? Did indeed
have a married fight? First fight, our first our first
big married fight. I have to say shout out and boy,
and I want to characterize for y'all, Matt and I
are not are not fighters. I believe that every relationship
(07:45):
has conflict, and we have had that in many ways
over the years we've been together. But we are not fighters.
We don't do a lot of yelling. We don't do
any yelling, and we don't do a lot of fighting either.
I think if you yelled at me, I'd be pretty
broke down, Like I'd be shocked first of all. But right, no, no,
(08:07):
And neither one of us grew up in families that
yell like that. That's true either, So I think neither
one of us came from sort of a family of
origin space where that's what we felt like we had
to do to get our point across. So we're not
people who yell, and we are not people who have
a whole lot of fights. We have some arguments, we
have some disagreements, we have some places of conflict, right,
(08:31):
but they're very careful. I would say we're some of
the most carefulest arguers, Like we really think. Well, here's
what I meant and what I heard you say. Well,
I think because we both have been to counseling one
so we might fight too fair, right, Right, I was
gonna say that. I feel like before we got married,
we both had been in therapy. Yeah, and since we've
(08:52):
been married, we both have had times now of being
in therapy. So I do feel that gives you some
element of some communications training. So I don't know if
other people were around, they might be like what. We're
both laid back people, both kind of peacemaker ish personalities.
I ain't a killer, but don't push me no type
(09:15):
of thing. I'm working on a project right now, y'all
that I'm working with two folks who are very theater experience.
They're brilliant, and one of the things I've noticed is
when it's time to give critique about certain things, they
sort of have like a very long runway before they
get to the critique, before we move on. I just
(09:39):
want to offer a piece of feedback for consideration. These
are my thoughts as I in my own creative process
this way, while I also hold space for the other
creative processes that may be present here. And they had
(10:01):
to explain to me that in their theater environments they've
been in that you know, it's a very intimate process
to be, you know, doing theater together. You want to
make sure you're really holding close and holding tenderly all
of the people you collaborate with, from crew to cast,
(10:22):
and you know all these things. And I feel sort
of like we can be like that. So when loading
the dishwasher, those metal straws have to go in a
certain holder a certain way, or else they're going to
(10:42):
fall through. If they fall through, I think you're doing
a great job. I really appreciate m Yeah, the way
that all these years, Matt still can't get me to
understand which way the toilet role is supposed to go
on the thing, Like I kind of get it, but
(11:03):
then I don't. I'm sure I'm doing it not right,
Like every single time we have we are lucky, we
are very blessed in this house to have more bathrooms
than we have people. I think that's maybe one reason
we don't argue very much. Right place to go to
and so um, being at the three bathrooms, two people,
(11:24):
I feel like it's fair that I there is one
bathroom that you put that toilet paper, whether you like
it over the top which is the right way, or
under around the back backside of the barn, however you
do it. You know, we have one bathroom, have at it,
(11:45):
put it, put the sideways, put it, get creative with it,
whatever you do. However, the other two bathrooms, if I
see it, okay, okay, it's gonna be a you know,
we've had some times, you know, even like you know,
I'm like a big cook, especially you know at certain points,
(12:06):
certain times of the year. Man, We've had some times
when Matt had to be the one going to the
grocery store and he would come back with like the
cilantro seasoning, like the dry one, and I would be
like no, no, no, no, no no no, we need
it like fresh man. Thank God for camera phones. Now,
first of all, that's old. I just called it a
camera phone. Boy. We really try to be people who
(12:31):
are not always looking like the age that we might be.
But every now and then we do say something that's
like camera phones. Right, we're in our forties. I got it.
But like I've learned how to take a picture of
the item and send it to you and be like
this question mark. And I too have had to learn
(12:52):
to make sure my phone is not don do not disturbed,
so that all of my husband's texts do not go
unanswered while he is in a very busy store, especially
before a holiday. Bliss our hearts. So you know, these
are these are now almost twelve years of lessons that
we indeed did not have as we approached what we
(13:13):
thought was going to be a fun time in Chicago.
Time Okay. One other thing that I'm gonna tell y'all
we didn't realize is we didn't know that Chicago people
don't play about Saint Patrick's Day. Had no clue, Like,
not a clue at all. How big of a deal.
(13:35):
It's a big deal. Like like I grew up in
San Antonio, and San Antonio has like a riverwalk type
of situation, and there'll be like certain things people do
around the riverwalk different times. Okay, we were in. Lee
had to correct me because I called it Millennium Mile.
I know some of y'all from Chicago are just cussing
in your car, in your cubicle right now. It's the
(13:56):
Magnificent Mile. Thank you, Lee. Okay, we were trying to
get down to the Magnificent Mile because yes, we are
two artists who indeed wanted to go to the Art
Institute of Chicago. I'm big on an art museum, love it,
especially if you're in a big metropolitan city like that.
You're going to Chicago, you're going to LA You're going
(14:18):
to New York. I'm like, yes, this is what we
need to do. I'm in New York. It's MoMA for me.
I gotta stop up. In MoMA right quick. So I
was very excited because I had never been to an
art museum in Chicago. So we decided to be very
arty people that we were going to go to the
Art Institute of Chicago. Also, let's talk about booking hotel
(14:41):
rooms using Priceline and hot wire, because that's all you
can afford. So I'm gonna let y'all know right now
that this is how we had to book this hotel.
And I used to play big, big games on Priceline.
I'm not even sure you can hustle Priceline now the
(15:01):
way you could back then, but I'm pretty sure. I
got us a four star hotel. Maybe it was near
the airport, mind your business. I got us a four
star hotel for fifty six bucks a night, and it
was it was a very nice room. Yeah, until you
decided that you wanted to go to the Magnificent Mile,
Oh yeah, and you realize that you were going to
have to take yeah, yeah, you was about to take
(15:24):
seventeen trains, two planes, one helicopters just so you could
get back to the part of Chicago you wanted to
go to. And I feel for people when they're traveling
to a city for the first time because people give
it to us about Atlanta. People would come to Atlanta
and end up having a hotel in Duluth somewhere and
be like, oh, like, why am I so far from everything?
(15:46):
This is pretty much what happened to us, because I
had no concept of how Chicago was set up at all,
that there are these different like kind of like when
you're in New York, there are the boroughs, there's like
different sides of town. In Chicago. Yeah, like you can't
just like bring yourself down there and feel like you're
close to everything in these big old cities. So we
(16:06):
get our little hotel, which I was very proud of.
It was very cute. But then when we looked up,
how is we going to get? And I'm assuming there
wasn't Uber. No, I think this was pre This was
pre uber, pre lift, so ride share did not exist. Man,
we've been married long enough that ride share you had
(16:30):
to catch a taxi. I mean if you bother like
that service, and a taxi was like expensive. I mean,
especially because I think we were like forty five minutes away.
I mean that still would not have been a super
cheap uber or left ride. But you didn't have uber
or lift in the middle. You either had this taxi
(16:50):
ride that maybe maybe now you a hundred and maybe
you over you over a hundred by the time you
add in the tip. Or we could get on the
train and take I think we had to take the
train to a bus. Yeah, yeah, to get over to
the Art Institute, all right, and I think we had
(17:10):
to walk. If I remember, we had to walk. There
was like an underpass we had to walk in. It
felt pretty sketchy, it that's right, that's right. The way
you had to get from our hotel to the train
station was yikes. So it was it was a journey,
and in hindsight I could see what was being set up.
It was the perfect story. Boy boy, okay, So I
(17:51):
feel like we were what we just were walking down
Magnificent Mile, very boot up. You know. When we were dating,
we were people who would, you know, walk in Atlanta,
certain sides of town. We would walk around and hold hands,
you know. So one of the pluses to us being
married and in love with each other and traveling for
a living meant we could just take our little boot
(18:14):
up situation and just drop ourselves off anywhere. We just
walk down the streets of Chicago. Hold hands like it's Atlanta.
Find out we're in Wyoming somewhere, hold hands over there whatever,
we're doing it out, so we're having a wonderful time.
We're down in the area where the Eminem store. There's
like a big Eminem store down there. I remember that.
And I had been hearing about the hot dogs in Chicago,
(18:38):
and I am I'm a New York girl, not that
I was from there or raised there, but like of
the major cities in America, like New York's my place,
that's my town. So i'd I'd had quite a few
New York hot dogs and people in New York, you
know y'all, don't you know, y'all, don't fight me in
the dms. But also if you do want to fight me,
still DM me because I can know you listening, and
(18:59):
that's nice. But you know, my people in New York
were talking sideways about Chicago food. They were like, I'll
go over there and eat their lasagna pizza, and I
was like, why are they talking like that, and like
they don't know what a hot dog like they were
talking and I was like, I feel like it's not
fair for me to participate in this and not know
what it tastes like. Let me find out. So we
(19:20):
find some kind of hot dog place. I think it's
a street vendor. I remember going inside of there, Okay,
but I cannot I'm not going to start another marriage
fight about our marriage fight. So whatever you say, I
remember going inside there. I remember it was very busy, okay,
And so I assume now, now, y'all, this is partially
(19:41):
because we didn't know how big of a deal Saint
Patrick's Day was. So what we're seeing is a long
line that we're thinking is a long line because people
love this placeous hot dog. Yeah, it's really a long
line because it's Saint Patrick's Day. If it's a hot
dog pop up? Oh mmmm, a pup up. I really
(20:02):
you did that. I really like that. That's let's keep that.
Let's keep that in our in our back pockets out
you know what I mean? Make up, boy, I'm about
to say, you know, if we go ahead and get
a dog, y'all, please rescue me. Back to the story. Okay,
(20:27):
So we decided to pull up in this place. We
decided to pull up in this pup up situation and
get this hot dog now because it was Saint Patrick's Day.
I will give y'all the warning signs that the relish
was bright green, like not the normal green that relishes.
(20:50):
It was bright bright. It was it was disturbingly green. Yeah,
but did we think about that at the time. No,
We're very excited to get this hot dog, and I'm
in part happy to report to date, at that point
in my life, that was the best hot dog I've
ever had, Like Chicago hot dogs. We're gonna have a
separate episode where we're going to discuss some of our
(21:13):
food adventures on the positive side in traveling. But that
Chicago hot dog man, the Celery Salt, really that really
did some things. It went hard, like the parados hard.
Oh my gosh, like everything was so delicious. Okay, we
(21:34):
go to get our little hot dog, continue walking ourselves
over to the Art Institute, and as we are in
the Art Institute, we get into a married fight. Some
things were said, some things was misunderstood, some things was understood,
which is why it made us fight about it. So
(21:57):
now we are in this glorious art museum having a
very awkward argument trying to be like, are we people
who want to try and put this to the side.
So that we can enjoy the beautiful arts. Can I
tell you anything I saw that day? No, not a thing. Nope,
(22:21):
I can't remember anything about that. I was trying to
reel it back in says something I shouldn't have said.
I also want to say that this must have been
this was either the second day of our trip or
the hot dog we had later in the day, because
I also feel like on this same trip we had
(22:42):
Chicago pizza and there was glass in it. That was
the night before. Okay, okay, we went and got pizza
and it was you know how those big thick like
beer mugs. It was that glass. It was the biggest
thickest chunk of glass possible. And something in Chicago was
(23:05):
out to get us. Now that I think about this,
because because they like when we realized the glass was
in there, obviously they gave us the pizza. I think
they didn't charge us and then gave us a new pizza. Think.
So yeah, so mind y'all, that had happened the night before,
(23:26):
So Chicago was already like out to get us. We was.
We was on the way to down bad in a
way we didn't realize. Okay, So whatever happens we finished
up our little visit in the Art Institute. I really
can't remember if we both just got so frustrated that
we walked out of there, or if we were really
finn I don't remember, but I remember we walked out. No,
(23:50):
we were not having a good time, and I remember
we walked out of the Art Institute, and I really
strongly remember being so mad that I was like stomping
almost down the street, like a way wherever we were
supposed to be going next, because I don't remember what
our next plans where we had some stuff I think
we were trying to do. I don't know if we
were gonna go shopping. Maybe that's what it was. I
(24:12):
think we're gonna maybe go shopping or something. After we
left the Art Institute and I was just stomping down
the street. I was so mad, and you know, Matt's
trying to talk and I can't hear him, and I'm
trying to talk, and we just it's not it's not
going good. Y'all so continues to stomp. Y'all continues to
have awkward like it's almost like we got so upset
(24:35):
that you're trying to like explain to your partner what
you meant, you know, and then you trying to explain
why you don't like what they meant. Like you're trying
to do all of that while walking down a very
crowded street because reminder everyone, it is Saint Patrick's Day
and people are still runk. And as the day progresses,
(24:59):
it's getting more and more and more packed. Okay, so
now it is getting close to dusk, and we are
in considerations of the fact that we are very far
from our hotel situation, and maybe we just need to
call it on this day and head back to the hotel.
(25:21):
But as we're walking down the street, I don't know
if y'all seen the movie Alien, and I can't remember
if this was Alien or Aliens the second one, but spoiler,
there is a scene where Sigourney Weaver is laying on
a table and it looks like something is trying to
come out of her stomach, and indeed they discover it
(25:43):
is an alien, but it's a lot of writhing around
before they realize, oh, no alien inside of her. And
I want y'all to know that I felt like Sigourney
Weaver as we were walking down the street. Now, whatever
angry feelings I had are being replaced by high concerns
(26:07):
because we're in the middle of a very busy kind
of downtown Chicago ish. Somebody off in Chicago might be like,
that's not downtown. It felt like downtown to us because
we're from the country of Atlanta. I don't know. So
Matt is like, hey, maybe let's go into this subway
(26:29):
get you some seven Up, because I don't know who
decided that seven up, sprite and ginger Ale gonna solve
some stomach problems. Maybe they do, I don't know, but
that's always the go to, that's what you do. So
they didn't have ginger Ale. So I get the seven Up,
start to drink the seven Up, and I have this
(26:51):
moment y'all that I realize I'm gonna throw up. And
we're in a part of the city where and y'all
know what I'm talking about if you've been in like
these big metropolitan areas. We're in a part of the
city where places are like, you can't use this bathroom
unless you are a patron of the business, and some
businesses are like the bathroom is for employees only. You
(27:14):
don't even know there is a bathroom. So I'm realizing
that whatever this is is about to come out, and
before I know it, y'all, I am throwing up into
the streets. This has never happened to me, y'all. I
have never just thrown up in public like that. It
was rough. Even since then, I do not believe I
(27:38):
have thrown up in public like that. And y'all, because
it was Saint Patrick's day, a car full of young
white men drives by, sees me throwing up into the street,
and whatever their music was they were listening to, they
were pumping their arms. I'm yelling, drunk like a white boy,
(28:02):
Get drunk like a white boy. At which time, this
is how you know that your person is really for you,
Because at this point, all bets are off. Regarding said
fight that we've had. All I remember is you yelling,
she doesn't fail good. I I was ready to fight.
(28:25):
It was. It was one of those moments where I
was like, now, we have a rule in our marriage
that we try to keep bail money for at least
one person, but even still we try. We basically we
keep misdemeanor bail money. We ain't got federal bell money.
But like, I was ready to risk it all at
that moment I was like, oh, this is a fight
like shirt coming off. I mean, and I think we
(28:48):
still did not truly understand like how much my throwing
up was not uncommon on St. Patrick's Day. Like in
their mind, they're just like, oh, yeah, people come out here,
people have been drinking since eleven am, Like they just okay.
So once I throw up, I'm feeling like a little
bit better. But now it's really getting concerning this journey
(29:12):
that we have to go back home and a lot
of things to get us home. It's not a quick
easy you know. I had a sprite, the one that
had seven up, had the seven up in my hand,
and we had to get on a bus. We had
to walk to find out where we catch the bus
(29:33):
because I feel like wherever we arrived was at a
different spot, yeah than where we had stopped to realize
I was sick and you were also feeling sick. Yeah,
I was feeling I'm you know, I'm pretty pretty good
with food, Like I pretty much got a tank, especially
at that point in time my younger years. But I
could definitely tell it wasn't right. But I was like,
(29:54):
you got to hold it, hold it together. We were
walking as slow as need be to get to the bus,
made it to the bus, took the bus to the
proper train station, miserable, and then once we get on
that train, we're at least like on the train, like
(30:16):
we didn't have a bunch of stops to make. So
it was kind of like comforting to know that we
didn't have a bunch of stops to make, But then
it was also not comforting. And because I just threw
up in public, like I just had such a strong
urge to throw up that I couldn't stop myself. And
so the idea that now most of our journey, we've
got at least thirty minutes on this train, will I
(30:40):
not be able to throw up on our way back?
Then a man stands up on the train. Because any
of you that have been on public transportation know that
you could experience all sorts of presentations. Anything could happened.
Could be some one has a song on their heart.
(31:01):
Could be someone has studied the jabbawockies and decided that
it's a dance they need to do for you, brought
their congress. Could be someone feels you need to be
evangelized and they've decided this is the time to pass
some tracks to preach to you this gentleman. Unfortunately he
is having an even worse day than we are having.
(31:26):
But I don't all the way remember what he said
on the train, Okay, I do you know, down on
his luck? Man. I don't know the situation. I don't
know the story. I just know that he stood up
and yelled that if he didn't get enough money for
something that you know he was, he was done, he
(31:47):
was done. We'll leave it there. And I know I
reached in my pocket. I think I had a dub
in that, and I walked up to him. I said, bro,
I ain't got what you're asking for his twenty bucks, yo, man,
you can do it. Yers, the layers of us having
gotten into a married fight, having now discovered that at
(32:11):
least one of us is sick, and now this man,
in a very precarious emotional stage, has entered the train
very loudly, and then you're in the moment where you're like,
I know, I have thirty minutes on this train. Does
he also have thirty minutes? Is he gonna be on
(32:31):
this whole ride with us? Okay? So we make it
through that, make it back to the train station. But
as I explain to y'all about a price line hotel,
it's not like the train station is connected to the hotel.
We still have a long, dark and sketchy walk. See.
(32:56):
This is one of those places where early on, being
a young man who you know, was always like, man,
I bet we don't need to spend that money. Now
in my forties, I'm like, pardon to spend that money.
Don't get that car, playboy. Yeah, I think in our
forties it would have been like, let's catch a cab.
(33:17):
Like if uber and lyft were not an option, whence
they weren't, we would have been like, let's catch a
cab or bless it. We would have been like, let's
find a hotel that's down there. Now. Granted, at this time,
I don't I know. I didn't have a credit card.
My credit was trash. Yo, you might be saying something
(33:41):
right there. So we've probably just been making it do
what to do? You might be saying something right there
because I don't. I don't think I had one either.
I had had one maybe like a few years before
we got married, maxed it out, and then I had
spent like two years working really hard to pay that
credit card off and then it got paid off. I
(34:02):
let it close, let it laps. I didn't even keep
it because I was scared to even have a credit card.
So you're right, we just had our little debit cards
and whatever cash we had. That's it. That's all. It
was okay. So I want y'all to know that we
finally made it back to the hotel, at which time
I think we discover number one that it's not just
(34:23):
me that's sick, that Matt is sick. We are pretty
confirmed that we had food poisoning. So all night, this
is our last night not only in Chicago, but together
before we had to, you know, go our separate ways.
I want y'all to know that all night it was okay.
But what did you mean when you hold on, hold on,
(34:46):
like all night? So what I'm hearing you say is
that give me a woman. And I'm gonna tell y'all something.
Of all the time that Matt and I have been married,
I am the person who throws up in this family.
I hate that this started a trend because I've been
married to Matt almost twelve years and I'm I really
(35:09):
can't recall that I've ever been in your presence when
you had to throw up. We've been on the phone
one time and I was slick enough to hit mute,
handle business on mute, and I think you knew what happened,
and that that is not that feels unfair because I
have now thrown up in public. I have thrown up
(35:32):
in a hotel room after discovering that this was indeed
food poisoning. I have thrown up in another hotel room
when we ate some pizza, some frozen pizza that was
supposed to be cooked in the oven, but was sold
to us like it was microwave pizza. It was not.
It's always me though, it's always my stomach. That's like,
(35:53):
something's wrong that that microwave pizza. As kids ate, that
was nasty word. It was so bad. So we're up
almost all night off and on the night before we
had to leave Chicago, trying to rehash this argument so
that we could get to a point of just like,
(36:16):
all right, we talked it out. We're good now. We
were not good, but we were also so sick. Get
to the airport and Matt is going back home to
Atlanta because he has a job that is there in Atlanta.
He's going back home and I have to go back
to finish the tour, and it's one of those moments,
(36:36):
like I guess in a way, it makes me. It
makes me know that you know, just because you're having
an argument with you know, your partner or your spouse,
that you could still be like, oh that really annoyed me,
and oh, my gosh, I do not want you to
have to get on a plane by yourself. Feeling so horrible.
(36:57):
I felt so I remember going to I don't know
if it's the gift shop at the hotel or if
it was in the airport and buying all they had,
remember those those pepto bismols, Yes, the dry and I
bought everyone that they had in there. I was like,
just put easy gift. I felt so bad because normally
we're on the road together and whichever one of us
(37:19):
is on the other, one of us is taken care
of all the other stuff. In this case, you were
going your way. I was going my way, and this
was the I couldn't do any I was like, there's
got to be something I could do for I felt
so terrible, and we had called my mom because my
mom's a nurse, and told her like our symptoms and
she was like, yeah, that's food poisoning. And she had
(37:39):
told us like okay, she was like, try to get
some gatorade or power aid and she was like, diluted
with water, get some cracker, like she had told us
what to get. Matt went right away got the items
that she said to get and sent me with it,
and we were just sort of looking at each other
like this is not how our little romantic should cogo
(38:00):
weekend after being a part for two whole weeks, which
would be a long time to me today, but newly
wet us that was like forever an eternity away from
each other, now having to get on different planes and
just hope for the best, hoping that both of us
could make it home. Okay, so I make it to
(38:22):
my destination. I'm barely eating anything, like I can barely
keep down a couple of crackers and some diluted gatorade.
Make it to the gig. And the band I was
on the road with is really a great band. So
I would always on the tour, I would sit on
the side of stage and watch their shows. And that
(38:43):
was the one night I did. I was like because
I had to go on like you know, four or
five times during the show. So I was like going
up doing my little poem and then I'll have to
like go and sit down because I was so weak.
I mean, we're we're pushing twenty four hours now of
just me having crackers and a little bit of gatorade
(39:06):
at that point. I want y'all to also know that
food poisoning on a tour bus is one of the
worst things that can ever happen to you, especially when
you're traveling with the band but you're not really in
the band, which means you're not getting the prime choice
of the bed that you got to choose. And in
the type of tour bus we were in, the beds
were in like columns of three, and typically the best
(39:30):
bed is the middle bed, but if you don't have
high rank in the band, you taking that top bed
because that's the one that's the most challenging to get in,
the feeling that you're gonna throw up in the middle
of the night while a tour bus is riding down
the road playing games. The way your body is shaped
like an X just trying to get down from your
(39:53):
legs are on one leg, is on one person's bed.
The other leg on. Somebody just trying to see, like,
am I gonna have to go to the bathroom in
this tour bus? Are they all gonna hear me throw up? Anyways?
Whatever the next stop was. I think after I finally
got my stomach to where I wasn't throwing up. I
(40:14):
couldn't really eat, but I wasn't throwing up, we tried
to rehash our things. We came to some understanding. We
did learn some things, did learn some things from that argument,
did learn some things, and you know, in a way, y'all,
I mean lives happily ever after have not had a
green hot dog, saying, boy, I did not eat a
(40:37):
hot dog for three years after that, I just could
like the idea of having a hot dog was just
like pooh. I could not know. No. So I want
y'all to understand a few things. Number One, what I
learned after we got some friends that are from Chicago
is always double check the hot dog place with your
(41:00):
friends that live there. Yeah. It's the same way. If
somebody in Atlanta would be like, I'm traveling down to
Atlanta and I have fried chicken, new you know, I
got sick. I'll be like, why didn't you tell me?
I would have told you never never have fried chicken
at that place. Don't go to Gladys Knight's post, okay, please,
because you're in for a world of trouble. Okay. So
(41:22):
we did get to go back to Chicago and actually
have the Portillo's hot dogs after like five years at peace. Yeah,
that is a delicious hot dog and no food poisoning. Okay.
But what we have not been able to do is
go back to our museum. I feel like we need
like a redo on that we do. We need to
(41:44):
go back. We need to go back to there and
whatever things that we think we're going to argue about,
we need to stand on the steps and get it
all out. I'm smarter, I'm smiling. No, we need to
get on the steps right now and just say whatever
our things are so we can just go in and
just enjoy the art. Some thoughts just belong in your head. Mmmmmmm,
(42:09):
you know it do be like that sometimes. That's a takeaway.
That's a takeaway. Want to give you'all some takeaways from this.
Some thoughts belong in your head And you can't cook
pizza in the microway, Okay, that's all right, that's a
part of it. Also, um, don't get drunk like a
white boy. Apparently. I don't know what exactly that means,
but I'm just telling you if it means looking like
(42:30):
how I looked throwing up into the street, I think
the phrase was white boy wasted, but I didn't want
to create another marriage fight, so I just my older
smiling nod. So what were they They were yelling, get
white boy wasted? Yeah, but yours? Yours was good too.
(42:51):
Yours was good too. Well, the toilet paper can go, however, Okay,
I'm also going to say, for your takeaway, maybe don't
get wasted like a white boy. I don't know what
white boy would it means, but if it means anything
close to how I felt throwing up in the street,
I'm gonna advise you all, don't do it. Don't do that.
That's how we survived food poisoning in Chicago. But Chicago
(43:12):
owes us another romantic two days. Yeah, we need to
go back and just have pizza without glass and have
hot dog with no food poisoning, and have the Art
Institute no arguments. We're going to give it a drive
and arth Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for
(43:43):
Slow Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women
Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and
don't forget it to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
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