The Special Sauce

0:01 To the restless, the insomniacs, the stressed out, the worried, and the board. This is for you. Welcome to Anxiety Addicts Bedtime Stories, an original podcast by Joe Newman and Morgan Walsh serving up hot, mostly true, twenty minute stories to turn off your brain and turn on your r M. The stories come from all over the Internet, from you to the bs inbox and whispered related parties. But your secrets are safe here. All names are changed to protect the guilty, so please sit back, relax, and send us your stories at the link in the show notes and sweet dreams.

0:53 Oh hi, and welcome to one of the less weird corners of the Internet. My name is Joe and this is Anxiety Addicts Bedtime Stories, where my best friend Morgan and myself find stories from all over the Internet and our inbox of people doing kind of weird, embarrassing, maybe slightly regrettable things, and then we turn them into a twenty minute bedtime story, always with a happy ending, not that kind. So our goal here is to give you stories of people doing awkward, embarrassing, sometimes kind of shitty things, but then everything turning out okay. So whatever it is that you're stressed out about or that's like cycling in your head and you can't stop thinking about that thing that you said in two thousand and eight at that random dinner party.

1:39 Where you didn't know anybody. We want you to know that there's a lot of us out there like that. We're all doing the same thing, but we can come together, listen to these stories and chill. The heck out. So that's what we're here for. And please, if you have time, or even if you don't have time and would rather do this than something else, woruld like to help you procrastinate by asking you to get us five stars a little review and sharing with your friends and your weird aunt she would like this. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this really really funny story about magic mushrooms. Also trigger warning magic mushrooms. Not sure who that would trigger? This is a good one.

2:21 What do I have to do to get your family to like me? That's what I said, but that's not what I met meant. What Emmett really wanted to say was there is absolutely no way to ever get your family to come around to me, and there's nothing I can do about it, And I'm really sick of trying Carla's side because it was true. I know, babe, but Emmett was pretty upset. She walked through the sun speckled kitchen and put her arms around the sweetest man she'd ever met. I'm working on them, I promise, it's just well, you know, you could call them a stubborn bunch. I'm it, almost gasped the idea. I would never call them that. Carla tried not very hard not to laugh.

3:06 Because Emmett was taking this conversation rather seriously. I drive an hour every Sunday to get your uncle Joseppe those canoles he loves, even though you could go six minutes and get a Boston cream donut from Duncan. I'm just saying, but I get it. Everyone has their thing. I go to everyone's parties, and I always bring my cornhole game, and that thing is heavy. I'm going to be a. Super successful biologist one day and buy your own hair salon like the husband did in Steal Magnolia's. And speaking of Steel Magnolia's, I always pick out a chick flick on Sunday nights to make your mom happy. And then I cry real tears. Emma was a little worked up.

3:50 He did do all of those things and more, but what he said was true. Her large Italian New Jersey family didn't like him. It wasn't exactly personal. They had their reasons. They just didn't make a lot of sense to anyone outside of the family or outside of the kitchen. Emmett was a mild mannered twenty six year old from southern Georgia working as curly blonde brain to shreds on its PhD in molecular biology. But he wasn't Italian, and that was all the. Family needed to know to judge if he was worthy of Carla and their lives were quite seriously intertwined with Emma and Carla because the couple lived within spitting distance of at least a dozen Benettis, and those were just the ones that he knew about.

4:41 There were always other cousins. Dropping in, moving to the Tri state area, getting married, getting divorced, and having babies, and for reasons that Emmett couldn't quite wrap his southern head around, everyone had to be involved with everything. They were a tight knit clan. They were really close and Gia, Carla's mother, was even closer because Emma and Carla lived in her house. Every morning, Gea would raise her eyebrows as much as the botox would allow as she watched the grown man in love with her grown daughter make himself a giant bowl of lucky Charms to start the day, washing it down with whole milk and a mug of Folger's instant coffee.

5:26 It wasn't easy for her to watch. She made these. Clicking sounds with her mouth as she sliced through her loaf of crunchy bread from the local bakery and brewed her freshly ground espresso in the mocha what she asked, aghast at the accusation that she might be behaving somewhat rudely. Those are just the sounds I make when I'm thinking. Carla didn't believe her mom, Gia's stunning brown eyes brimmed with disdain every time she saw Emma in the kitchen. This was not totally undera. Emmett could screw up food like he was getting a doctorate in it. When Emmett was in charge of making the mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, Uncle Joseppe asked him, after barely any wine and with a smile on his face, what has salt ever done to you, and the cloudy side dish went literally untouched by the entire Bennetti family.

6:22 For the Bennetti's food was love. For Emmett, it was just another way he wasn't good. Enough for Carla. He looked down at his cereal bowl mournfully. I'm just not sure I'll ever get through to them. Carla's heart dropped to her pedicured feet. They'll come around, Carla said, hopefully. One day. I promise you, they'll. See what I see. Carla reached up and hugged her boyfriend again. She loved Emmett. Emmett loved hugs. She loved his. Eagerness about every new thing that came to his attention. She loved how deep he dove into new interests and hobbies and situation. She loved a strong body an equally strong sense of self. He was funny in that gym from the office way. But this whole thing.

7:09 With her family was really standing down the shiny surface of their relationship. Was it just the potatoes or did the whole food thing hold. A more meaningful question? Karla didn't know. What she did know was that Emma was right. Her family was creating a serious problem for the two young love birds. As the weeks went by, the tension in the house seemed to build. She found Emmett more and more distracted. He would staying up all hours researching away at his computer, spending his evenings tending to. The flower pots on the back porch. She would look at him and her stomach would drop. Was she somehow responsible for ruining this man?

7:54 Like so many relationships, this one reached its spoiling point. After a long day of work. Droom door swung open. Like Cramer entering Jerry's apartment on an episode of Seinfeld. This was unusual. No one could remember Emmett ever booming that quickly. It could have been his southern roots, but it was probably the depression. I've got a plan, he said, breathlessly, dashing across the room to pull his girlfriend into a spontaneous embrace. For what Carla pulled her face back from Emmett's. He looked like he just shaved and showered, smelling like dove soap and enthusiasm. I'm going to give myself a mental and emotional reset.

8:36 And before Carla could inquire about how this plan was meant to be, enacted, Emma pulled out his laptop and began to bore her with ten pages of single space research. Her eyes glazed. Over as he used one eight syllable word after another, but she knew how to be patient and wait for him to finish. He had a plan, a big plan, a very way out there plan, a plan of psychically epic proportions. The big picture was that Emmett would spend the rest of the day on a truckload of a very specific type of hallucinogenic mushroom and sit in the den with no lights, no food, no interruptions, only water and his thoughts. Well, Emmett looked up at his girlfriend with his giant puppy dog eyes.

9:25 What do you think? Carla searched hard for the right words. Okay, well, if you think this is what you need. A long, dedicated day of her boyfriend doing drugs to make her family love him was not on Carla Bennetti's BINGO card when she woke up that morning. But Emmett was as serious as a heart attack. He had one caveat. I need you to keep ge away from me too, not a single interruption. I don't want a coffee, Carla gave him her blessing. She imagined Emmett dancing and sweating and humming in the den for twelve hours, and she had no problem keeping her mother busy and out of the house for the day because.

10:10 She didn't want to be there either. The women shopped for hours, and that night Carla slept alone. Emmett was still in the den. She could hear weird harmonium music emanating from the dark room. She slept in fits and spurts, pulling out her silk eyemask, eventually blocking out all the sun. That way, the morning slipped away from her, and by the time she was fully conscious, it was almost noon. She grabbed her bathrobe and pat it out of her room. There was the usual morning clanging of pots and pans in the kitchen, rattling her head as she descended the. Stairs, but the sight surprised her. It was not her mother making lasagna, standing in front of the stove while three different saute pans were cooking simultaneously, with Emmett surrounded by grocery bags, cutting boards, and more fresh herbs than she'd ever seen in her life. Was her lucky Charms eating boyfriend. When he saw Carla his eyes twinkled. He floated across the kitchen, grabbed her by the waist, and dipped her back into a movie kiss.

11:18 She cleared her throat. Yesterday went well. Emmett released Carla from his bogart esk embrace. Invite the whole family for dinner. Everyone, six o'clock sharp now. Emma gently smacked her butt with the dish towel that had been draped over his shoulder. Get out of here. No, Carla had not slept well. She had not yet enjoyed a cup of coffee, and the dish towel placement was really throwing her off her game. And what was he doing cooking? Why does smell so good? Carla's had spun in confusion. Now what is he doing? Carla's mother called from her bedroom, where she sat at her antique desk on a very important call.

11:59 She spurred into the receiver, A futile gester. You could hear Gia Bennetti across the Arizona Bridge. Gia waved Carla into her room. Uncle Jospe wants to know what's going on. He got a text from Emmett something about dinner. A surprise, he says, Wait, Gia went back to the call, nodding her head vigorously. She covered the receiver again. He says, you don't have to marry him. Wait, Carla exhaled loudly. Gia nodded even more. He says he'll pay you ten thousand dollars to say no. Gia went back to the phone. Heaven's to Betsy Jusepp, we're you gonna get that kind of money? Mom? Carla was used to this. Can we go out again?

12:42 I just I had so much fun with you yesterday and I need to get my roots done and emmett, I guess needs the kitchen, don't. Gia returned to her call. She wants to go out with me. No, I don't know, No, I don't know anything. Be here at six like you said, and then I guess we'll find out. Now I haven't seen a jewelry box anywhere. Well, she can marry whoever she wants to. Just set this isn't the old country, all right? All right? She wants me to hang up call me in an hour show And that's how the day went. The knot and Carla's stomach grew from walnut size to an eleven pound anxiety baby in her belly. When she and Gia got. Their roots done and hit up the farmer's market. Gia's phone rang every nine minutes for the entire day.

13:28 The Benettis wanted to know what the heck was going on. Well, at least will look nice for whatever this is. But Carla couldn't focus on her blowout. She knew Emmett something huge. Had happened to him yesterday in the den, and she didn't think it was a proposal, but what else could it be? When she and Gia shuffled through the garage door at exactly five point forty five that evening, they stepped inside and were ambushed by scent like a French bakery, surrounded by a full herb garden, while the sea whipped through the olive trees. Yeah that good. The table was set hastily but beautifully, as if Martha Stewart had prepped a magazine cover shoe with a gun to her head. Everyone was on time, not because they were a polite bunch, but because they were nosy and gossip had been spreading like a soft cheese through the family since that morning. Gea's home was soon filled with a dozen family members, most of whom Emmett could name.

14:28 But it wasn't the usual Benetti family gathering. It was different. They communicated in whispers, as if their usual volume could somehow break the night. The habitually raucous group was quieted by the incredible aromas wafting from the kitchen. Carla swore she heard Uncle Joseppe's stomach raw. All right, Emmett called out, dinner's ready at tabola. The family took seats around the dining room table as Emmett placed one stunning dish. After another onto the table. Carla tried to ignore the fact that he was wearing one of her mother's cooking aprons. Because the spread was incredible.

15:10 There was an elaborate, Martha Worthy herb crusted fish atop a large platter of wildly colorful, perfectly grilled vegetables charred in all the right places. There was freshly baked bread with sprigs of rosemary dancing around the wooden cutting board, and not one, but three different kinds of steaming pasta. Wow, said Ga, breaking the silence. What's all this about, Emmett beamed, Try it, and I'll tell you this was the smartest thing Emmett ever could have said, because the Bennetts devoured the food like wolves on a fresh kill. Uncle Joseppe whispered to Auntie Daniella that it was the.

15:53 Best sauce he'd ever had. Now, you would have thought the Bennetti family had been deprived of nutrition for. Weeks looking at the way they ate. They were so busy chewing and cutting and passing around seconds and thirds that no one was paying much attention to Emmett's speech, which, after he clanked his spoon on a glass in essence, went something like this. I love Carla, I love your family. I've been in a rut. Maybe it was depression. It was I couldn't figure out how to get my head above water, so I did a lot of research into psychedelics. Carla looked around the table for a reaction. No one seemed fazed. Either her family was a lot more open minded than she'd given them credit for, or no one was listening to a single word Emmett was saying. Carla went with the latter. Emma didn't stop, and then I did a lot of psilocybin. After my trip to the den, I was awoken to the knowledge that I had been a very famous chef in Italy in a previous life.

16:55 It was the clearest vision I have ever had. I don't doubt for a second that it's true, And today was the most alive I have felt in my adult life. So this is it. This is the new me that's gonna be my life's work, my new passion and cooking is what I will be pursuing. Is a career from this day forward. Oh good, said Uncle Joseppe through a mouthful of RIGATONI. Emmett took this as effusive support, right, because there's actually a ton of overlap between molecular biology and cooking. So with my science background from this life and my knowledge from one of my other lives, this is like the absolute most perfect path for me. I've never been more excited about my future.

17:42 His face shone like a glass of lemon cello. Carla held her breath. Was this real? Had Emmett just won over her favorite but most difficult family member, who may or may not have had some mafia adjacent associates. She stared at her uncle while still shoveling pasta into her mouth. It was, by the best standards, absolutely sensational. Uncle Josette paused his eating for a short second and looked at Carla, just save me ten grand. Carla and Emmett did end up moving out of Gia's place after that, and he did transfer a study to food science which did have a lot of overlap with molecular biology, and Carla was the driving force behind opening up their own restaurant and it's been a huge success, and of course they had to name it fung Yi.

18:41 We hope you enjoyed this episode of Anxiety Attics Bedtime Stories. There are a lot more where this one came from. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much, and. Sweet Dreams, thanks for listening to Anxiety Addicts Bedtime Stories. We're here to help you take your mind off whatever is making you spiral by listening to a story about someone else's hilarious or mortifying experience, and we know you have your own. Please DM or email your stories of bad decisions, miscommunications, and Murphy's law. Your support helps us keep doing what we love and don't forget to like, rate, and subscribe, and as always, Sweet Dreams. This episode was written and recorded by Joe Newman, with editing and sound designed by Morgan Walsh.