Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.

The show is about to begin.

I am so viscerally afraid of accidentally texting the chief of police.

Kind of weird, that's all she wrote.

You are in my thoughts and prayers in perpetuity now mind you I don't even have the chief of police's phone number and why would I hello everyone and

welcome back to monologuing I'm mad's Mitch and I am your host today and always because well quite frankly this is literally my podcast so who else is going to host it. Happy freaking Monday. It is Monday, September 8th. So naturally I am recording this episode on September 7th. Shoot. Oops. I did it again. It's a cycle I'm desperately trying to break for the sake of my sanity,

my peace, my mental health, my overall well-being. And the list really does go on and on and on and on.

So updates to come on that. I hope you had a fabulous weekend. I hope you're feeling well-rested

and rejuvenated and ready to tackle whatever life might throw at you this week. And I don't think that that's asking too much of your favorite podcast host. This week's episode is hometown drama. It's neighborhood gossip. I've long said that the epicenter for the best drama and gossip in the world is a small town, specifically a small town Facebook group. And that has never rung more true than in the write-ins

for this week's episode so thank you so much to everyone who wrote in so excited to jump into

those stories in act two but first and foremost act one cheers and tears i want to address the elephant

in the room which is the gargantuan wad of gauze and medical tape surrounding my right thumb okay

if you're watching on youtube, you are staring it down.

But I can post a picture on the podcast, Instagram, just in case anyone wanted to see how

functional my thumb is looking. It's dressed up in a lovely little costume. It kind of looks like a ghost.

It's in spooky season attire, and I really admire that about my thumb. I suffered an atrocity of epic proportions yesterday. Let me set the scene. I was in my kitchen. I was making crispy chickpeas as a snack. It's become one of my favorite snacks. Okay, God forbid a girl tried to get her fiber in. I had opened all these cans of chickpeas to get the chickpeas out because that's how cans work. And so I had all these empty cans sitting on my counter. And I was going to recycle those cans. That's important to note. And then I was drinking a poppy. Okay. It was the punch pop, limited edition flavor poppy. It's the best flavor of poppy. I'm an olipop girl through and through and through. but this sliver of poppy it just hits every single time and so i had just finished a poppy. I'm an Ollie Popper girl through and through and through, but this flavor of Poppy, it just hits every single time. And so I had just finished a poppy. And I went to go because I have a brain and eyes, I could tell that the poppy can would fit inside one of the empty chickpea cans. And I wanted to consolidate my recycling because I'm nothing if I'm not an eco warrior.

And I went to put the poppy can inside the chickby can. And for whatever reason, the poppy can was resisting that. And I was met with a little bit of pushback. And I thought, but this doesn't make sense. Like it should fit in the can. So I persevered because I've never backed down on the face of adversity ever. I'm extremely tenacious in that sense. and I push the poppy can further into the chickby can in the process,

slicing my finger wide open, just wide open. Unfortunately, just so wide open.

Trigger warning, blood, guts, and gore. I've never seen as much blood in my entire life. Like,

it was gushing, gushing, gushing, gushing blood. It was really, really, truly disturbing. And I am not a person who gets queasy around blood ever. Like, that's not ever been one of my crosses to bear. I have many crosses to bear. That's not ever been one of them for me. I thought I was going to pass out. I've just never seeing that much blood exiting my body. It was, it was chilling. It was, it was not something that I was

loving at all. Um, so that was very, very disturbing. I wrap my, my thumb in a paper towel. I'm applying, you know, pressure. All the while, my chickpeas are in the oven and I'm terrified that they're burning because you know how chickpeas are. you have to be checking on them constantly because they go from soggy to burnt in like 30 seconds flat after you've already

cooked them for like 45 minutes. It's a really fun process. I really honestly wouldn't recommend

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