Summary
Overview
This Halloween-themed episode features four college-era stories filled with hitchhiking adventures, costume-making disasters, elaborate pranks, and haunted hayride mishaps. The common thread is young people making questionable decisions during Halloween festivities, from hitchhiking two hours to party to getting run over by a tractor while method acting. Despite the chaos, all stories have happy endings, including unexpected romances and valuable life lessons.
The Hitchhiking Adventure Gone Right
Brian recounts his 1999 university Halloween story where he and a girl dressed as a hooker hitchhiked two hours home from campus after the bar closed early. Despite having no money and making several questionable decisions, they were helped by a trucker, a police officer, and a friend, eventually returning to campus the next day to mass panic. The story highlights the carefree and sometimes reckless nature of college life in the pre-cellphone era, where disappearing for a day without communication was still possible.
- In 1999, first-year university students decided to hitchhike two hours home at midnight on Halloween to continue partying after the campus bar closed at midnight
- A trucker who initially pulled over for mechanical issues drove them the full two hours to their destination downtown
- After being denied entry to bars with fake student IDs, they hitchhiked again and were picked up by police who drove them to a friend's house
- They returned to campus the next afternoon still in costume to discover a campus-wide search had been organized for their disappearance
" We're going to go home. We're going to get two hours away and continue this party... But how do we get there? We can't drive, and we don't have cars. So the only natural way to get there is hitchhike. "
" I think I missed all the signals in my drunken stupor. There definitely could have been... That was probably a blessing, though, because you guys would be a terrible couple together. You'd, like, go on vacation. You're not making great decisions together. "
The Chick-fil-A Costume Stabbing Incident
Jenna shares her 2016 story of accidentally stabbing herself in the thigh with a large kitchen knife while making a Chick-fil-A sauce costume. The knife went approximately an inch and a half deep but surprisingly didn't bleed. She spent six hours in the emergency room and still attended the next day's party with a wrapping paper tube as a makeshift cane. The story emphasizes the dangers of using dull knives and the dedication of college students to their party plans.
- While cutting styrofoam board with a dull kitchen knife to make costumes, the blade slipped and went about an inch and a half into her thigh
- The wound surprisingly did not bleed, with blood visible underneath the skin but not flowing out
- They spent from 10 PM to 4 AM in the emergency room before being treated by a nervous first-time night shift resident
- Despite the injury, she attended the party the next day using a $5 wrapping paper tube as a cane since a real cane cost $40
" I've been arguing this for a long time, especially with shout out Eric Richardson. He fights me on this all the time because a dull knife is extremely dangerous. It's way more dangerous than a sharp knife because of this. You're like, you start dying. You get a rambunctious. Yes. And then you stabbed yourself in the thigh exactly as you did. "
" You can almost see the blood running underneath... It's so weird. I actually looked it up yesterday because I never had before, and it said that it must of just gone around the major arteries. Oh, yeah. So lucky. "
📚 3 more sections below
Sign up to unlock the complete summary with all insights, key points, and quotes
Get this summary + all future Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episodes in your inbox
100% Free • Unsubscribe Anytime
Sign up now and we'll send you the complete summary of this episode, plus get notified when new Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episodes are released—delivered straight to your inbox within minutes.