Lee
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
It's actually Lee, but you are the eight millionth person to get that wrong. So we'll just blame my parents together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Both from England. It's a more British typical name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
My dad was born in England. My mom's whole family was in England, emigrated to Canada. That's where I was born.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I live in Greenfield, Massachusetts now. Nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Two hours west. It's very close to where you've been, Dax. You recorded The Judge in the town next to us in Shelburne Falls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I love it there. We actually got engaged in that town.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I do. OK, so my story starts in November 2010. I was a junior in college at UMass Amherst. So me and my friends were at one of my friend's apartments. We're partying, drinking, you know, as a junior in college does. Somebody notices our friend Alyssa's calendar on the wall and it says Johnston Family Christmas Party. Alyssa, how drunk are you? Your last name is Johnson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Do you not know how to spell your own last name? And she was like, wait, you guys don't know this already. My dad was a Johnston and my mom was a Johnson. So she only changed her last name by one letter. Oh. So in our tipsy girlhood state, we all just start laughing and come up with this theory. Her parents were the sweetest couple. We all loved them. So we're like, it's fate, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
If it's one letter different, fate has spoken and you must be together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Right? Why not? Continue on with our night. Keep drinking. Mostly forget about this until the next night. My best friend and I, Kate, who was at the party as well, part of this conversation. We go to our shift at the dining hall. Quick side note. You guys have already heard about this dining hall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
It's the same building. Isn't that so funny and simp, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
When I heard that story, I was like, what are the chances? And then he's describing the building. I'm like, yes, this is the building I worked in. And I think it's around the same time. I want to say he said 2010, 2011. So we're talking could have been the next day. Who knows? Did you work there? Yes, I was a student worker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
So we actually traded texts back and forth trying to remember who this person was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
So much is going down at the dining hall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
So yeah, this is the same place. So Kate and I go to our shift and our shift was late nights, which basically means serving fried food to kids stumbling and drunk or high, you know, on a study break. Very laid back. And there's usually only like one or two cooks who are the supervisors for the night. And then the rest are just student workers. 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
But a good shift for people watching...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
It honestly was the best. And it was also great working because you saw all your friends. They came in and said hi. But you also just got a lot of good stories. So yeah, on this particular night, we're setting up our station, Kate and I. We see someone in a cook's outfit walk past and we're like, huh, I hadn't seen this person before. He's walking by and I definitely clock him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
He's tall, he's handsome, broad shoulders, bright blue eyes. Pooped his pants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
He caught my eye for sure. Kate, of course, knowing me better than anyone in the world, she clocks me clocking him. She kind of gives me a smirk and she's like, okay, we like him. And then that's when she, I think, remembers the joke. She's like, well, you can't date him unless it's one letter different. There's no way, you know, it's the rule. It's fate. We joke about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Then he comes over and is like, hey, I'm the cook for the night, which means he was our supervisor for the night. Oh, in power. Not quite a professor, but almost. I'll take it. He's on making the Philly cheesesteaks and he assigns me to the fry later, which is right next to him frying the onion rings because of course, onion rings, Philly cheesesteaks. It's a good night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
We're next to each other all night. And to my pleasant surprise, the flirtation is on immediately. We're chatting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
No, no, no, no, no. The cooks were often just out of college. We're flirting and Kate's clocking it. And being my best friend that she is, she's of course going to give me a hard time about this. So she just keeps as often as she can discreetly being like, doesn't matter if it's not one letter different, you can't date him. Joking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
So anyway, the shift goes on, more flirting happens and we're getting towards the end of the shift. And she's just kind of like, all right, I'm taking stuff into my own hands now because we don't know if we're going to see this guy again because he doesn't normally work with us. So we don't know, like, is he new? Is he from another dining hall? Is he just covering?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Next time he walks up to us, she just goes, hey, I didn't catch your last name. What is it? And he goes, Herrick. And we just are frozen staring at him. So he walks away and our jaws are on the floor because my last name was Derek.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
So anyway, he walks away and we're like, we're logical girls. That's crazy. We just talked about this yesterday. There's no chance that this is real. So we come up with, he must have overheard her joking with me. He was standing right next to me a lot. And maybe he got given like a list of staff names of who was working with him that night. And so he just decided to pull a fast one on us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
So he walks back and Kate, being the future badass lawyer that she is, immediately pounces on him and is like, there's no way that's your real last name. What is it really? He's like, you don't believe my last name? Like, what do you want to see, ID? And we both immediately were like, yes. He takes out his ID and just right there on his Massachusetts driver's license says Robert Herrick. Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Not then, because our jaws were plastered on the floor. And I don't know how you really explain that in a non-creepy way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
All of my friends have decided it's fate and you now must marry me. And this is now 2 a.m. We're a little delirious. He walks away and we clock out. We go on with our day. But of course, the next day, Kate quickly tells all of our friends, oh, it's fate. Lee's met the love of her life. She's getting married, joking around. And I kind of just blow it off because that's ridiculous. Nothing happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Don't see him again at the shift until a month later, he finds me on Facebook and slides into my DMs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
He just was kind of like, how's it going? You want to go on a date? So we did. Somehow that date lasted four days. Sorry, mom. Oh, wow. It was... Just one of those things where you start hanging out and you never stop. I was still in college. So, of course, I continued on college. But as soon as we graduated, we moved in together. And in 2016, Kate told this story at our wedding.