They Call Her Domino

0:00 Well, plus you're a podcast superstar now, so yeah, yeah, I get like 20 people listening. How about that? I'm Jake Jacobs and you're listening to what the fuck All right, welcome back to what the fuck the podcast where we try to make sense of life Or at least have a damn good time trying today. I've got a special guest my old navy buddy dave It's been way too long since we last caught up, but back in the day, we served together, got into our fair share of trouble, and racked up enough stories to last a lifetime. I have no idea where this conversation is going to go, but knowing Dave, it's going to be a wild ride.

0:43 Welcome to What the Fuck. Are you in Chicago? Good morning, Jake. Yeah, I'm in Chicago. Just in the western suburbs. Been here for 24 years now. Holy crap. Nice. I'm a big fan of Chicago PD, by the way. Yeah, I've seen them filming on occasion as I'm driving through the city. So how's the weather in the Windy City today? It's not horrible. I think it's around 50. Yesterday was 62, which everybody's in flip -flops and tank tops. I was going to say, that's a heat wave for y 'all. When was the last time that you either thought or said out loud, what the fuck, and what was the situation? I say that literally on a daily basis more than once a day, just because the industry that I'm in, I do a lot of fire and water restoration work. So I see houses on fire. I see hoarding situations.

1:30 I see things that you would never expect to see when you walk into a house. And so literally every single day, it's a what the fuck? And it's funny because the inflection of how you say what the fuck really carries so much weight. Absolutely. Which is why I'm so excited for this podcast for you because. When I first heard about this, I thought, you know, this is actually kind of cool. And the more I think about it, it's like, wow, you know, those three words carry so much meaning. And it can be like more of a than an oh shit moment. Yeah, it's like it actually almost tells a story and how you say it. So absolutely. I love it. So I want to ask you when you started this podcast, obviously, what the fuck is especially with sailors? Yeah. But it's not. I mean, like, I mean, I'm in an industry now where it's I hear it outside of my office every day. What the fuck?

2:24 And it makes me giggle a lot of times. But again, it's all about the inflection of how you say it, because it's like, oh, fuck or what the fuck? I guess I'm kind of curious. When you first started this, was there a specific what the fuck moment for you where you were like, oh, I got to talk about this? I've already said it like 10 times today for various reasons. And each one was different. One was a question. One was like a holy shit, what the fuck. I was all over the place. With podcasts, you have to be really careful sometimes because podcast audiences really want something niche -y. You have to have a subject that's exclusive. You can't just be broad. Well, this is kind of niche -y, but it's also broad because you can talk about anything. It's amazing, yeah. So it's not really niche -y. But it is. It's a wild concept.

3:12 I couldn't find anybody else doing something quite like this. There's a couple of the podcasts that have that in the title, but they're talking about different things, right? So this just leaves it wide open. If you had to pick one, the funniest what the fuck moment. So honestly, one of the funniest ones involves you. Here we go. You might remember we were in South Korea. Yeah. We were at a bar. I know that's crazy. And walking back from the bar to the ship. For whatever reason, we were either trying to cut through a construction area or something. Oh, my God. I know where you're going with this. And you all of a sudden stopped dead in your tracks. And you even said, what the fuck? Yes. Oh, my God. I forgot about that.

3:54 Because you stepped on a piece of wood that had a nail sticking through it, and that nail went all the way through your foot. Straight through. And I remember seeing it, and I was like, what the fuck? So the two of us had the same experience of what the fuck, but on two totally different levels. Yeah. And that's still one of my memories, because I remember laughing, which that's... It's always funny when someone else gets hurt, right? It's always funny. And your shoe filled up with blood, and oh, man. The way it was situated in South Korea, we had to go back to, there was like a small base where there was a club there. And then from there, we had to catch a bus back to the ship. Is that correct? Am I remembering?

4:34 Okay. Well, I remember when we got back to the club, I'm like hobbling along, and my shoe or sneaker, whatever I had on, was like red with blood. And Doc Jacobs was there. Yep. And I'm like, hey, Doc, check this out. He's like, what the fuck? I think he just said, what the fuck? Yeah. He's like, dude. I'm like, I think I stepped on a nail, and I was drunk as shit. Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, I definitely felt it, but it was one of those where, had I not been drinking, it would have been a whole lot worse for me. Oh, yeah, for sure. Because I was already numb. Oh, my God. I haven't thought about that in a long time. Holy shit. You're welcome. Okay. So here's my what the fuck, and this one is a recent one. I don't know if you've been hearing me talk on a couple of episodes. Carpal tunnel surgery.

5:16 Mm -hmm. I think they fucked something up because I've been having pain that I didn't have before I had the carpal tunnel surgery. And I've been trying to tell the VA that. And the VA is like, we're going to send you to occupational therapy. There's nothing wrong. Well, I've been going to therapy. I've been doing everything that they've been asking me to do. And finally, I went and saw my surgeon's PA, I guess it's a physician assistant, yesterday. And I said, look, man, this is my dominant hand. If this was my left hand, I wouldn't even be here right now. I mean, I'm having a hard time brushing my teeth. Writing is a chore. Like, if I try to write now. It's like a five -year -old trying to write their name. It's like very awkward. I had no coordination in my hand. And he said, okay, let's schedule an EMG. That's where they put pins in you and then they shoot like electrical pulses to see what's going on. I'm like, yeah, okay, sounds good. So EMG is going to be reaching out to you to schedule that. I'm like, okay. And he was right. Literally on the way home from the VA, from Nashville to my house here, they called me and they're like, yeah, calling to schedule an EMG that your doctor ordered. What's your schedule look like? I'm like, I'm wide open.

6:11 They're like, oh, well, this is March 10th, right? They said, we can get you in May 14th. And I literally said, what the fuck are you talking about? Seriously? Like, did you? I said, this is time sensitive. You can't put me two months out. And she's like, well, this is what we have, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then finally she says, well, okay, it's more than 30 days out, so we can put you in for community care, which is where they will reach out to a nearby hospital, and then they will do it, and then the VA will pick up the tab. I'm like, yeah, let's do that. Why couldn't you just lead with that? Fucking VA. Yeah, I've had some interesting experiences where same thing where they say, yeah, someone will reach out to schedule and it's like six months before they can get you in. And I didn't know that was a thing. So thanks for that tip. Technically, if it's going to be more than 30 days out and they can verify that with their schedule, just say, hey, can I use community care? So funny story about Bahrain, actually. I did 10 years active and then 11 more in the reserves, right? So during my 11 years in reserves, I went to Australia, Argentina, South Africa. I went back to Japan. Pearl Harbor.

7:12 I was like, I was traveling more in the reserves than I did on active duty. That's crazy. I had to go to Bahrain two different times for these war games. They're all scenario based and they're usually fairly similar to the one they did last year with, you know, Hey, this is what we learned last year. Let's tweak a couple of things. And it's a whole bunch of sitting around and, Oh no, this happened. How do you respond? Kind of thing. But there was a, what the fuck moment. The last time I went to Bahrain, which was right before I retired and was really a catalyst for making me help. kind of make that decision which was we were in a like a theater and there was an admiral on the stage giving a speech about hey thank you for participating in the games we learned a lot today blah blah blah blah one thing we didn't tell you was the catastrophic plan of what if a missile is launched at Bahrain, what is going to happen? And we were all like, oh, that's actually something we didn't talk about. And he basically said, everybody on the stage, which was him and a bunch of other senior leaders, we would immediately be shuffled to a helo and we'd leave the base so that you guys know that the leadership would at least be able to continue for CENTCOM. And we were like, okay.

8:16 He's like, so you guys, rest assured, leadership will be okay. And we were like, okay. And then he stopped. And we're like, so we're all, and you can see everybody in the room is kind of like, look around, like how fucking all of us, right? Like, what do we do? And nothing, there was, he just kind of said, so just, so you got, and like, he kept going over. And so my dumb ass, of course, I'm raising my hand. I'm like, hey, I, and he says, yes, chief, do you have a question? I said, well, just what do we do? Dead silence, just nothing. And you could hear people just, what the fuck? Yeah. Because that was like the moment where you realized we're all expendable. We're all just numbers. And it really just drove it home for me to like go home and finish your time and just get out. That was a really like a heart -wrenching what the fuck moment for me. Yeah, that was one of those where you're like, wow, incredible. Yeah, it's crazy.

9:10 But again, all these what the fuck moments that carry, it's like it carries emotion in it, which is interesting. I think I said what the fuck at least two or three times in Nashville traffic yesterday headed to the VA. But it makes you feel good after you say it. Yeah, it's like, what the fuck is your problem? It's a stress reliever. Folks, there are so many stories that Dave and I could tell about South Texas. With the name of our command being Rotational Crew Delta, at one point, I somehow ended up at a trailer in, was that a Ramses Pass? It was a Ramses Pass. And then that trailer became Delta House, as in from Animal House. The stories we could tell. From that alone would fill up a podcast. Some of the best times of my life, man. Yeah.

9:52 I think it was the day that I moved in. I believe there was a roach infestation problem in the trailer. I think the trailer was in his name. Was that Drew? It was Drew. I was walking around and I was seeing fucking cockroaches everywhere. I'm like, oh, there's another one. And I remember he picked up a piece of board or a 2x4 or something and just slammed that motherfucker into oblivion. He's like, not no more. I'm like, what the fuck? That's a pretty tame one that I could tell. So if that sets the tone, then you know where we're headed with this. I do have another. trailer moment where I woke up one morning after being out and I'm sure that we were at legs and my car was parked kind of just in the street. I mean, it was like, you know, you're pulling the trailer park and there's a little kind of pseudo street within the park. And my, my car was just parked randomly in the street. And it's because we had got so shit faced the night before that I, and I shouldn't have even drove home and I did. And I apparently got back to the trailer and just parked wherever the fuck. And I woke up the next morning and I was like, what the fuck? Like, I couldn't, I don't remember getting home. Yeah. Good times. Lucky that I never. Oh, all of us were lucky. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Way too many times that I shouldn't have driven home or driving home saying, what the fuck am I doing?

11:11 I'm going to share one more story from there. But this isn't a what the fuck from my perspective. This is going to be a what the fuck from somebody else's perspective. It was my birthday day. There was a certain member of our. pack that was dating someone from legs. And she went by the stage named Domino. Interesting. Yeah. Cool kiss song. And it was a cool song for her to dance to. And she kind of fit the role. I was at the trailer and it was like eight o 'clock at night. I knew she was coming over. Little did I know that the sailor that she was dating. put her up to something, and told her that it was my birthday. Sounds like a good dude. Yeah, I think this sailor was on duty that night, so he wasn't there to witness this. But another one of our shipmates, Wiggy, he'd never been to Delta House, so he was coming over for the first time to witness what goes on. So I'm sitting there at the trailer, and Domino comes walking in, and she said, Happy birthday, Jake. And I said, Thanks. And she proceeded to cue up Domino and she sat my ass in a chair and she gave me a lap dance that I'll never forget.

12:07 And during the course of that, Wiggy walks in the door and the look on his face, he didn't even need to say it. It was on his face. I knew her. So, you know, it wasn't really a big deal. But from somebody else's perspective, that was a pretty cool what the fuck. I've never heard that story from that perspective. You've never heard it, no. I mean, can you imagine being Wiggy in that moment, though? Getting invited to someone's house for the first time. He was so excited. That whole day, he was so excited. He's like, yeah, this is cool. I finally get to see Delta House. And he walks in. That's the first thing he sees. So there's another guy, we'll just call him Grimmy. Oh, my God. I know where this is going. One of the first times he came to, this was Delta House 2 now, but one of the first times he came, we were, of course, inebriated. And we said, hey, we need you to be initiated into Delta House. And we forced him. to strip down butt naked and run down the street back and forth.

13:04 And we were friends with some of the cops in town. So, of course, we queued up one of the police officers to randomly come by at the same time when he was running. And it was, I've never laughed so hard in my life. He not only did it, but there was a bar behind this trailer park. So he not only did it, we told him he had to run around the block. He not only did that, he ran into the bar, through the bar, and out the other side, the other door through the bar and back. Oh, my gosh. Then when he got back, we're like, yeah, none of us ever did that. Yeah, so again, a secondhand perspective, what the fuck, from him was probably like, what the fuck? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So many good memories. Yeah. So I'll tell you a recent what the fuck story. We got called to a house. They had a small kitchen fire. I showed up at the house. There's two guys living in the house. We walked in and they said, do you guys have to go down in the basement?

13:57 And I was like, we have to inspect the whole house because there was a fire. There's water that's used to put out the fire. That water travels down. We have to inspect the whole house. Were they asking if you had to go down to the basement? Okay. Like nervously. And I said, yeah, we have to go down there. And they were like, well, okay, can you just give us a few minutes? And I was like, okay, is there somebody locked up? What is going on? So one guy runs down there, comes back up, and he's like, all right, well, whatever, let's just do it. And I go down there, and there was, I don't know, six or seven of those, like, eight -foot fold -up tables full of dildos. Never seen that before. So I walked out and stopped kind of dead in my tracks and realized I stopped. So I forced myself to keep walking because they were behind me. And in my head, I'm like, what the fuck? Because number one, who needs that many? Well, it turns out, it turns out they actually, they manufactured these. They had molds and they manufactured them and sell them and they were embarrassed. OK. And I was like, guys, don't worry about it. This is actually if you're making money. Cool. Then I had to think about what do you have to come down here to hide that this was the stuff they left behind. Right. Right.

15:03 I thought about that for a while. Oh, my God. What the fuck was this guy hiding if that was what they left behind? It's interesting to see some of the ways people live and the things that they do. And I'm going to share one more story I have, which sums up. For me, the ubiquitousness of the what the fuck statement. That was a big fucking word, Dave. I looked that one up ahead of time. So when my wife and I first decided that we wanted to have kids, you know, my wife's on a pill for however many years ahead of time. And everyone said, oh, dude, it'll take a year. It's like two years because, you know, your body's got to adjust, whatever. So I was like, all right, whatever. So she stops taking the pill. And I was like, well, now we just get to go at it all the time. This is wonderful. Of course, what happens like three weeks into it, she's like, hey, I'm pregnant. I'm like, what the fuck? I was happy, but I was also sad. There goes that plan. Yeah. So nine months go by. We're in the hospital and she had a scheduled induction because she was already like four days late. So we get to the hospital like six o 'clock in the morning.

16:06 They induce her. It takes. hours for this stuff to start kicking in so she starts going into labor and it was all day that she was in labor and it was i mean and her and i were both like what the fuck like right she finally gets to the point where she's like the doctor's like okay you can start pushing so her mom had been there with us all day also i hadn't really been paying attention to her much but she Wasn't eating anything. So in the middle of my wife starting to push, my mother -in -law all of a sudden has this, and she passes out onto the floor. And I'm like, what the fuck? So all the doctors go rushing over to her. Meanwhile, my wife is sitting there with her legs up in the air like, what the fuck? So I get my mother -in -law out. Well, now my father -in -law wants to come in to find out why my mother -in -law passed out. And my wife is like, get the fuck out. Like, so she's freaking out. Oh, my God. So finally it's determined that the baby's not going to come. They have to do a C -section. So wheel her in at 1030 at night, have her do a C -section. Baby comes out, and they hand the baby to me, and I was like, oh, my God, what the fuck? Like, it was amazing.

17:08 It was an amazing what the fuck, yeah. But then they're like, you know, we need to take her and whatever. So two nights before this, I had watched some stupid documentary about babies being switched at the hospital. Not on purpose, but like they, whatever. So I was like, I am staying with my kid. And the doctor's like, no, no, it's fine. I'm like, you don't understand. That's mine. I'm not leaving this kid. And I had to argue with this doctor. So finally they're like, fine, you can walk and you can walk through the window, whatever. They get her into the nursery and I'm like, okay, she's safe. My bracelet matches hers and so on. So I go back in and talk to my wife. I'm like, she's good. They wheel her into the room. And all I wanted to do at that point was just sleep for a couple hours. I was exhausted. My wife was exhausted. So the doctor's like, don't worry about it. We'll see you in the morning kind of a thing. We might have to wake you up just to nurse. And my wife's like, fine. So we literally just lay down, go to bed. 15 minutes later, they're coming in with the baby. I'm like, come on, what the fuck? And they're like, yeah, you got a nurse. So she does. Baby's crying.

18:03 Can't soothe her. Finally gets her to nurse. And then they leave. Oh, good. Go to bed. And I get very angry if I can't sleep. So I'm already kind of ratcheting it up a little bit. So I finally go back to sleep. And literally 20 minutes later, they come in. Baby's crying again. And they're like, I'm sorry. We can't soothe her. She's going to have to stay with you guys. And I remember looking my wife in the eye. And I was like, what the fuck? Because all I wanted to do was sleep. And she knows me. So she's like, just try to sleep. I'll be fine. She can just sleep with me. This kid would not stop crying. Oh, my God. Like, it's one of those moments where the what the fuck moments throughout the day were all over the place. I don't even know how to sum it up except the next day after I did get a couple hours of sleep. It was all great. Like it was, you look back and you can laugh now. Folks, the last time I saw Dave, if I had to guess, it might've been 2000, early 2001. And I was a Navy recruiter in Washington, New Jersey. And they were doing this new program where they were allowing recruiters to go to Great Lakes for a week, kind of get a taste of what bootcamp is like currently. Because I had been to bootcamp like 20 years before then.

19:05 So a lot of things had changed. So I volunteered to do it. Like a lot of the recruiters didn't want to do it. They're like, oh, fuck no. I wanted to do it for two reasons. One, because I wanted to be able to tell my recruits what's new. And then also, too, because I knew Dave was out there and I called Dave and Dave was like, fuck yeah, man. And I remember having a great time out there in Chicago, but it was during the wintertime. So it was cold as balls. I was like, yeah, that hasn't changed. Holy crap. I remember when I was in bootcamp, man, the day that we graduated, December 7th, and it was like minus 30 below with the wind chill or something. It was like stupid cold. Get on the plane. I'm in my dress blues with my peacoat and everything. And they flew me to Norfolk. So I could get a damn neck from my A school. So from like minus 36 below in Chicago to like 72 in Virginia Beach. Yeah.

19:45 So the big temperature change, I'm sure when I got off the plane and it was warm and I'm in this Pico and I'm sure my first words were, what the fuck? But a good way. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Great Lakes gets fucking cold. Yeah, dude. And the wind, the wind rips off Lake Michigan and it's bitter. One more work story for you. Sure. Was called out to a customer. The plumber that was on site actually called us out there because they were fixing a sewer line. So I don't exactly remember what happened, but something happened out in the yard. The sewer line collapsed. So the entire sewer system was full of water, which is what happens if the line collapses, the water has nowhere to go. So they had to replace the sewer line. So in the basements, most of the Chicago suburb homes, the sewer lines are called overhead lines, right? Which means they're actually like up near the ceiling and they run out from there. Very, very old houses, the sewer lines are underground. So you'll actually see the pipe kind of running right through the foundation.

20:35 So this guy's working on an overhead sewer line So you imagine he's got his hands up in the air working the sewer line. Setting the stage here, I see. And he somehow decouples the line from the flange. And it literally fell right in, like this line came down right into his face. And he took about 30 gallons of sewage water straight into his face. And I was on the other side of the basement looking at him. And he just stood there mortified that this was happening. Eventually moved out of the way. And I remember. Initially being horrified that this guy's now got toilet paper and shit on him. To muttering the, what the fuck just happened? To immediate laughter.

21:21 And I don't know, again, maybe this is a guy thing, but like we always tend to laugh at each other when. Things go wrong. Inappropriately. Yes. And I was literally crying out of my eyes laughing at this guy. And he was just spitting out. I mean, just I felt bad for him, but I couldn't stop myself. And he said, God damn it. I can't believe this happened again. Which means. Oh, my God. He did it once and didn't learn. And then I was like, oh, my God. Pardon the fun, but holy shit. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I bet there was plenty of shit jokes the rest of that day. Oh, man. I still talk to that guy, too, and he told me that that happened one more time.