Hello, grab your wine, pull up a chair.

You are listening to the Close Friends podcast.

This is where we hit record on our IRL conversations as friends about surviving, thriving,

and diving headfirst into life, trying to be adults,

but also trying to have a fucking good time.

This week, I am a host, Lucy, and I'm joined, as ever, by our host Sarah.

Hello, hello.

And Thara.

Hello, friends.

Hello, both.

Before we get into our close friend of the week, I feel like there's someone we need to

reintroduce you to because admittedly we had introduced her in the first couple of episodes

and then we kind of stopped because we just assumed we were all in here for the long haul,

but we do know some of you of joining you like, who the fuck is Shirley?

So Shirley is a snake from Ikea, but she's also our scapegoat for anything which we don't want to personally identify ourselves with, any stories, any anecdotes.

And she essentially gets the blame for those things and misbehaviors within that.

So, yeah, she's a snake.

She's very naughty snake.

And that is who we mean when we say Shirley.

She's usually wrapped around Tara or Sarah's next because I try to avoid having her as much

as possible. But yeah, that's who she is. You're getting her next. Sorry, but she's coming straight

to you after me. I don't want her. I don't want Shirley, but I mean, I have Stan biting my

...