This Show is Awkward

Henrique Couto asks Michelle to name the saddest day of her life, turning an icebreaker into an immediate test of vulnerability. He admits that his younger self sometimes asked new acquaintances which person they loved most who had died, hoping the emotional hand grenade would either end a dull conversation or create a real connection. Michelle explains why ranking grief feels impossible and why answering publicly raises questions about judgment, privacy and who might be listening.
From there, the hosts consider what it means to be reliable. Both describe the pressure of a future commitment coloring an entire day and the anxiety of disappointing someone who depends on them. Henrique remembers driving from Ohio to help Michelle move in West Philadelphia, while Michelle explains that being seen as dependable matters deeply even when praise makes her worry about the next possible failure.
Reliability becomes action when another person needs help. Henrique checks on an older shopper whose knee gives out, and Michelle confronts teenagers harassing a homeless woman across the street. They also examine the risks of misreading a scene: Henrique once yelled at neighborhood children who appeared to be bullying a younger boy, only to learn they were trying to stop him from running away. Their stories are personal reflections, not emergency, self-defense or medical guidance.
The embarrassment theme continues through mistaken identities, awkward recognition in public and the temptation to invent absurd answers when someone asks, “Do I know you?” A final attempt to identify the happiest day of Michelle's life leads back to adopting Gigs: the day itself was frightening, but a later physical-therapy session—when the cat settled on her stomach—made Michelle realize the relationship might work. Contains death and grief discussion, anxiety, harassment, homelessness, injury and pain, weapons and police references, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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On New Year's Day 2020, Henrique Couto has a cold, a deeper voice and an unexpectedly empty calendar. A real-estate photography client canceled less than an hour before a holiday appointment, just as Henrique was preparing his equipment. Michelle compares that frustration with apartment prospects who fail to show, find another place without saying so or assume she can meet at any time.
The canceled session opens a catalog of workplace audacity. Henrique remembers a paid model who backed out after a night of drinking and a cable-access coworker who repeatedly called out before disappearing altogether. Michelle recalls an employee who claimed to be hospitalized while posting photos from a school field trip. They discuss what happens when trust collapses, why firing can move slowly and how unreliable coworkers shift more work onto everyone else.
Henrique also revisits an old supervisor who seemed to single him out, the relief of a coworker confirming that perception and a circular dispute over accrued vacation time. A sore throat then provides a live demonstration of the difference between recording this conversational show and preserving the dramatic sound of Weekly Spooky. His New Year's Eve plans changed because of illness, so he and Rachel stayed in pajamas, rested on separate couches and watched four movies.
Michelle spent the evening with Chinese food, The Twilight Zone and Kill la Kill before sleeping through midnight. The hosts compare fireworks, childhood snacks, nonalcoholic piña coladas, banging pots and pans and the importance Henrique places on counting down. They also discuss choosing not to drink and speculate about holiday alcohol use and unsafe driving; no statistics or safety claims should be taken as verified guidance. Contains workplace conflict, illness, alcohol and impaired-driving discussion, prescription pain medication references, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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As 2019 ends, Henrique Couto is cold, exhausted and ready to admit that the year hurt. A broken furnace compounds a major loss of filmmaking income after changes at Amazon Instant Video forced him to rethink his business. He recounts nearly going broke, then recognizes the physical-media sales, convention appearances and Patreon support that helped him keep working. The reflection captures burnout without pretending that a temporary low mood defines his whole life.
Christmas gives Henrique a reason to celebrate after difficult years and time spent living far from home. He remembers saving vacation days for short family visits, cashing in a change jar for presents and reclaiming the freedom to throw a party after leaving a bad living situation. The year's creative bright spots include making Popcorn Fodder, revisiting The Driller Killer and sharing the Nightmare on Elm Street series with Michelle.
Michelle describes her own 2019 as a stressful attempt to balance two jobs, a promotion and unpaid creative projects. One positive change was embracing her identity as an anime fan and introducing Henrique to Re:Zero, Death Note, Mob Psycho 100 and Erased. They discuss cinematic framing in animation, why they recommend strong entry points instead of every show they watch and how shared media became part of their friendship.
Their year-end inventory includes Michelle's house, Henrique adopting Chicano, possible touring plans, election-year dread and memories reaching back to 2009. What begins as an angry review becomes a warm acknowledgment that their friendship has lasted a decade through job trouble, financial strain, injury, creative risks and countless awkward conversations. Contains financial stress, burnout, depression and medication references, difficult living and workplace experiences, food-recovery anecdotes, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Henrique Couto's furnace fails the morning after a technician installs a replacement circuit board. With the temperature below freezing outside, he tries to record two podcasts, arrange a repair, take Henwolf to the veterinarian and finish several jobs while listening for heat that never arrives. The breakdown compounds recent car debt and turns a promising Christmas mood into a very grouchy day.
Michelle answers with an expensive problem of her own. After years without a local dentist, she books an online appointment at a large Philadelphia-area practice offering a membership plan. Instead of the cleaning she expected, the visit brings difficult X-rays, a warning about periodontal disease and a recommendation for an urgent deep scaling that could cost roughly a thousand dollars. Frightened that she had neglected her teeth, she nearly agreed.
A call from her father persuades Michelle to cancel and seek another opinion from her longtime New Jersey dentist. That dentist examines her, takes new X-rays, cleans her teeth and disputes the need for the proposed procedure. Michelle reflects on how vulnerable patients feel when a dentist, physician, mechanic or HVAC technician knows more about the system in question—and how alarm, flattery and unfamiliar terminology can make an expensive recommendation difficult to challenge.
The hosts compare the experience with questionable oil-change pitches, key-fob confusion and repairs that are hard to evaluate. Michelle plans to document her experience in reviews but remains uncertain about who may legally diagnose periodontal disease in Pennsylvania. This is a dated personal account of conflicting dental opinions, not a finding of fraud or medical, legal, automotive or HVAC advice; anyone with a health concern should consult a qualified professional. Contains dental disease and procedure discussion, financial stress, accusations of dishonesty, cold-weather home concerns, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Michelle's childhood injuries begin with a fake fall that became a real broken arm and a jump from a backyard slide that broke the other one. Because she cried often, adults initially underestimated both injuries. Henrique remembers similar disbelief during a painful haircut, then tells two bloodier stories: striking his head on a rock after slipping from playground equipment and scraping both wrists across a rough driveway in a bicycle crash.
As a teenager, Michelle fell down a large sand dune in North Carolina's Outer Banks and fully dislocated a shoulder that had already been prone to partial slips. An ambulance crew had to reach her away from the road, and her attempt to put the joint back herself failed. The shoulder later dislocated while she slept, leading to an emergency call, an embarrassing rescue while unclothed and a painful hospital visit she remembers as dismissive.
A second sleep-related dislocation in 2017 finally pushed Michelle toward surgery. She describes severe pain, fear of another recurrence, medication-related concerns and the challenge of choosing treatment while already overwhelmed. After the operation, pain medicine and an anti-nausea prescription helped but left her tired, and even walking transferred enough movement to hurt. These are personal recollections of injury and care, not medical instructions; do not attempt to reduce a dislocation based on this conversation.
Henrique traveled from Ohio to help during the second week of recovery, cooking, washing dishes and staging a complete Nightmare on Elm Street marathon. They even visited Centralia, Pennsylvania, while Michelle was still healing. Her shoulder now feels mostly normal, though she believes some range of motion remains limited and still avoids her former sleeping position. Contains broken bones, dislocations, bleeding, severe pain, surgery, emergency care, prescription medication, brief nonsexual nudity, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Michelle comes home to an unfamiliar electrical smell concentrated in her dining room. After checking the ceiling fan and upstairs floor, she discovers that her doorbell chime is warm and vibrating. Exposed wires left during a siding job had apparently kept the circuit active for days, and the doorbell shares a breaker with her refrigerator and kitchen. She stops the vibration but suspects the chime has failed.
That leaves Michelle testing wires, installing a button that does not ring and planning yet another trip to Lowe's. She explains why owning a house makes her want to understand every manageable repair, even when a professional could finish the job in minutes. Henrique admires her persistence and proposes an audio doorbell, while Michelle weighs wired and wireless replacements against the inconvenient hole and live wires already in the doorframe.
The hosts compare their limits as do-it-yourself homeowners. Michelle can replace a bathtub cartridge but once needed a handyman to free inaccessible kitchen-faucet hardware. Henrique recalls resetting an unreliable furnace, choosing between a circuit board and a costly gas valve, and clearing an air-conditioner condensate line after his longtime HVAC technician retired. These are dated anecdotes, not electrical, plumbing or HVAC instructions; shut off power and consult a qualified professional when safety is uncertain.
Car maintenance adds more examples of knowing when to stop. The hosts discuss filters, bulbs, wiring problems, oil changes, an old collision and insurance pricing before returning to holiday lights and the economics of “minimum quality.” Michelle expects the repair to require multiple purchases and returns, but still wants to solve it herself. Contains electrical overheating and sparking, fire concern, home and vehicle repair discussion, a car crash recollection, financial stress, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Henrique Couto is printing receipts for tiny podcast expenses because taxes have never offered him the benefit of the doubt. He remembers receiving a frightening back-tax notice after a misplaced decimal point inflated the amount, correcting the error and still paying the much smaller sum requested. The hosts complain about withholding, tax math and how little a refund resembles the money taken from each paycheck.
Michelle then discovers that roughly $800 in Philadelphia wage tax has been withheld even though she neither lives nor works in the city. She suspects an incorrect work address and has asked her employer to correct it and help recover the money. The conversation expands to municipal tax differences, copyright registration, student-loan paperwork and the dread produced by an unexpected IRS envelope in USPS Informed Delivery. This is a dated personal account, not tax, legal or financial advice.
A detour through package delivery and discomfort with recorded voices reveals that Michelle dislikes hearing herself sing even though music is central to her life. She remembers a condescending response from the owner of a small New York record label, then traces her education from animation at the Art Institute of Philadelphia to Drexel University's music-industry program. The switch led toward recording and engineering just as digital production was changing the role of studios and labels.
College also deepened Michelle's connection to Philadelphia. She commuted from New Jersey, busked between classes and later worked through difficult apartments and repeated moves to return to the city she loved. Henrique argues that buying two homes in the area proves she succeeded in making Philadelphia home; Michelle remains characteristically reluctant to accept the compliment. Contains tax and financial stress, student-loan and copyright discussion, career uncertainty, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Michelle's Black Friday memories from Hot Topic are less about holiday chaos than the ordinary problems that made retail difficult. She recalls a customer demanding a later sale price, managers who could not be reached and men whose repeated visits became close enough to stalking that at least one was banned. Organized grab-and-run thefts could empty an entire shirt display while a small staff was distracted.
Henrique compares that with Spencer's Gifts, where the stated policy was to prosecute every shoplifter regardless of the item's value. He remembers confused teenagers waiting for police, friends asking when a detained boy would be released and supervisors leaving work to testify in court. Stolen merchandise ranged from Juggalo accessories to adult products, while Henrique entertained other customers with fake ex-wife stories and ominous Ouija-board advice borrowed from a movie.
Both hosts remember that good coworkers could make a repetitive shift enjoyable. Michelle nevertheless found supervising socially exhausting, accepted promotions partly because saying no felt wrong and stayed at Hot Topic for about eight years. The company supported some of her touring and even hosted small performances, but fear of quitting later kept her at Whole Foods long after the job had become deeply unpleasant.
Whole Foods produced its own customer mythology: shoppers who asked cashiers not to scan barcodes with lasers, wanted bare produce on the conveyor belt, credited organic food with curing cancer or expected salad dressing not to count toward a pay-by-weight meal. The hosts recount those claims skeptically; they are not health information. Contains stalking and harassment, shoplifting, police and court involvement, adult products, cancer and health misinformation discussed critically, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Recording a podcast makes Michelle sweat, and Henrique wants to know why. She describes stress perspiration, fear that she will have nothing interesting to say and the discomfort of creating something people can consume later. Performing music live feels different because she knows the material, can read the room and gets immediate feedback; a recording offers none of those supports.
Michelle identifies social anxiety, not simple quietness, as the harder part of being around people. At parties she often becomes an active listener because she does not know when to speak, struggles to enter a group conversation and gives up when the moment passes. Henrique admits that his outgoing style hides anxiety too, especially when he fears that attracting attention as a guest would be rude or that he is talking over his friend.
Onstage, structure changes everything. Michelle can joke between songs, respect a small attentive audience and talk comfortably for a short time after a set. Henrique compares crowd sizes and introduces the intimacy of NWA Power's studio wrestling, where a single shout can interrupt a performer's interview. That direct interaction leads naturally to their own stories of requests, interruptions and heckling.
Michelle mostly receives song requests or audience members who start conversations while she is still onstage. Henrique remembers overpowering a drunk heckler through the PA, answering “you suck” with “that hurt my feelings” and watching musicians exaggerate a mild “just play” complaint all night. The most serious incident involved an intoxicated woman kicking him in the testicles during a set and the venue declining to remove her. Contains social anxiety, stress sweating and body-odor discussion, death and grief references, intoxication, heckling, physical assault, genital injury, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Henrique Couto sets a goal of wearing Crocs until Thanksgiving, then immediately faces a foot and a half of snow and fourteen-degree weather. Michelle worries about wet feet and frostbite while Henrique narrows the challenge to brief trips between heated spaces. They compare slippers, bare feet, Chicano lounging in snow and a former coworker who claimed religious and health reasons for never wearing shoes. This is comedy, not cold-weather or footwear guidance.
A flat tire sends the conversation through spare-tire practice, Volkswagen wheel-lock keys and the limits of do-it-yourself confidence. Michelle then discusses reading the Noragami manga after finishing the anime, plus the unpredictable gaps between seasons of One-Punch Man and Hunter x Hunter. That leads to a troubling online rabbit hole involving Japanese neo-Nazis and antisemitic claims about Jewish people and samurai.
Michelle recalls a supermarket customer assuming she was Jewish from her facial features and encouraging her to take a sponsored trip to Israel. Henrique asks about kosher food, synagogue, bar mitzvahs and what it was like growing up around a large Jewish population; he also remembers a drunk game-show participant calling him an antisemitic slur. The hosts discuss stereotypes and offensive language critically, but their improvised remarks are personal conversation rather than religious or cultural authority.
The final turn concerns race and inclusion in punk. Michelle remembers a show criticized for having too many white and cisgender people, then reflects on the tension between widening access and excluding artists because of identity. Henrique connects that debate to shifting definitions of whiteness and the public framing of Trayvon Martin's killing. Their discussion argues for evaluating individuals fairly, but it is not a comprehensive account of race, antisemitism or punk history. Contains frostbite speculation, antisemitism and racial stereotyping discussed critically, slurs, the killing of Trayvon Martin, identity politics, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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