Allie
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I'm actually right now pretty much on the Brown University campus because Brown takes up most of Providence. So I'm on a really beautiful street that is just all old houses that a lot of students live in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I will send them your way. I was going to tell you I had a bone to pick with you about Rhode Island having little brother energy. Oh, there you go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I've been really working on this for a while, wondering if I'd ever have the opportunity to Let's hear it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I'm going to go about it in a very nice way. Rhode Island is an incredible state. Born here, raised here. I moved away. I most recently moved back from Austin, Texas. Rhode Island is very, very special. There's more coastline here. It's sunny. So give it a chance. I will.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I do. My story takes place in 2005. It was my 12th birthday party. Fun fact, my birthday is on Halloween, which means that every year I get to have cake, candy, and I get to dress up and I get to do something Halloween related and it's Really wonderful. This year in 2005, my family was actually in the middle of a move.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
So my stepdad had built my family a house that was gorgeous and it looks like a big old red barn from the outside. So when you walk in, the ceiling shot up 27 feet and the second floor started in the middle of the house. So if you were on the second floor, you could yell down to the first floor and have a conversation. So the acoustics were crazy in the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
However, around this time, my mom decided she wanted to move. She wanted to live on a real farm. We had found a farm. We moved out of our old house, but we hadn't closed the deal yet. So we still own the house. There was no furniture in it. So I decided for my birthday this year that I wanted to take all of my friends, a group of nine 11-year-olds, up to Salem, Mass.,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Salem, Massachusetts is known particularly around Halloween time because it's where the Salem witch trials took place. During Halloween, there's haunted houses and mock witch trials and wax museums and ghost tours and all of this fun stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Something that I loved at 11, probably not my group of friends idea of fun at the time, especially when they were about two hours away from home and not with their parents anywhere. I was very lucky. My friends agreed. They all came. But then we had a sleepover afterwards back at my old house, which was entirely empty with the exception of a television.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
All of my friends brought sleeping bags with them. It's a little creepy. There were some really funky features in the house that my stepdad had built in. Like he put an old confessional from a church in the house that was used as a coat closet. Oh, cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
My mom had a giant wrought iron gate that was the entrance to her office area. So just something really funky. When you get back from a haunted night of things and you're 11 years old in a vacant pitch black house, it's things that can freak you out a little. So it's about 10 o'clock at night. All the girls are starting to go to sleep. I fall asleep very quickly. I have a tendency to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
My mom decided to go sleep in a back bedroom in a sleeping bag while all the girls slept in a sleeping bag in the front area of the house. Everyone's falling asleep. About two girls were left awake. So now it's like three o'clock in the morning and they're just having fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
And all of a sudden they hear thunder, which was really weird because there was no rain or nothing happening in the forecast that would call for thunder. So they didn't think anything of it. Then the thunder starts to get a little bit louder. Then they start to hear creaking floorboards. And they're like, that's really strange because there's nobody in the house other than us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
And nobody's upstairs because the creaking floorboards were coming from upstairs. Then they start to hear very loud footsteps. At this point in time, they start to lose their minds. They run to get my mom, who is six months pregnant at the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
So they run to my mom, they wake her up and they're like, Dina, Dina, there's something happening. We're hearing these noise. And my mom's like, you know what? Go back to sleep. You guys got freaked out. We went and did all this haunted stuff. So they go back and a few minutes goes by and they're hearing more. Then it evolves and they start hearing chains rattle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Then they start hearing little kids singing. So at this point, both of them are absolutely in hysterics. So they go back and they get my mom and they shake her. As my mom sits up, she kind of starts to hear what's going on. So she comes into the main area of the house. The other girls start to wake up. The sounds are continuing. Now they're hearing wolves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Then they're hearing a woman singing children. What the fuck? Oh my God. My mom is hearing all of this as well. My mom is in a panic. All the girls are crying. My friend Jenna's down on her knees saying her our father. One girl pees her pants. It's just utter chaos. So this goes on for about 15 minutes. I'm sleeping through this entire thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
My mom grabs her Nokia phone and calls my stepdad and is rushing to tell him what's going on. And he can't breathe. He's laughing so hard. Okay. So she's like, what is going on? Do you know what's happening? Do you not hear me? By the time he can finally breathe again, he tells her that he rigged a tape in the upstairs closet of the house to go off at 3.30 in the morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
That was all Halloween sounds because he wanted to play a prank on all of the girls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
And where he placed it was in the hall upstairs. So the acoustics of the house were in a way that because it was in the hall closet, the whole house echoed with the noise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
So needless to say, I had a lot of friends that were not allowed to hang out with me for a very long time. Oh, no. My stepdad had to come and pick up one girl to bring her home at four o'clock in the morning because she was inconsolable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
It was absolute mayhem. And the kicker is that his original plan was there were big glass windows in the house. He was going to have our neighbor come with a bloody mask and a chainsaw and bang on the window.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
We'll take whatever comes our way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Come check it out. And Monica, I just want to tell you, I listened to Race to 35 all during my pregnancy. The episodes were coming out every week. And it actually inspired me to re-download 23andMe. And I had not checked it in years. Within a 48-hour period of time, my family found out that my mom had a brother. Wow. And he lives in Rhode Island. He has daughters my age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
We are now incredibly close with them, spend holidays with them. And it wouldn't have been without Race for 35 for downloading it again and checking into it. Oh my gosh. That's two in a row, girl. Thank you. I'm so glad. Thank you very much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Monica, I am so sorry. I'm not in the closet. No, you sound great. I worked for my car and I tried so hard to find a street that was extra quiet. And for whatever reason today, it's like the Audubon. No, you're fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I am in wine sales. Ooh. There we go. So I have a trunk full of wine. I work for a distributor and I travel from account to account and sample them online and then bring home whatever doesn't get tasted. Oh my.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah, original England. Dax, you are correct. I am actually in Rhode Island.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Wow, I don't think we get many Rhode Islanders. This is exciting.