Reverse Jackass

Nick takes Evelyn back to his teenage exchange-student days in France, where one small decorative object in a shower suddenly became the centre of an international incident with stakes so high you might say, "MON DIEU!" Evelyn responds with a childhood injury story that somehow required more than one round to fully complete. Remember listeners, she's nothing if not persistent...to h...

Evelyn takes today's episode to a small-town Ontario fall fair, where an outing delivers deep-fried food, livestock-adjacent entertainment, and one tumbling act that inspires considerably more enthusiasm from the crowd than Evelyn and her husband are initially prepared to understand. Nick responds with a Chicago music story about a band he judged almost immediately, only to discover that some...

Nick tells Evelyn about a miserable bout of food poisoning during his first year living alone in Illinois, an employer who somehow made the experience worse, and the moment several days into the ordeal when things suddenly appeared to become much more medically...concerning. Evelyn answers with a restaurant experience of her own involving a birthday dinner, an excellent meal, and the deeply unfort...

Evelyn takes Nick back to a production of Guys and Dolls , when, in a perfectly ordinary performance, an unexpected digital member of the pit band decided it was time for its big moment. Nick responds with a couple of stage stories of his own, including one performance mishap that left an actor stranded in front of a live audience and another in which the audience did something perfectly nice and...

Nick tells Evelyn about an early dating conversation, a bachelorette party, and one spectacularly misused word that caused him to spend several increasingly uncomfortable minutes believing something very different had happened. Evelyn responds with a family tradition of creative pronunciation and then reveals that, in her early twenties, she and a friend developed an entire long-game strategy for...

Evelyn tells Nick about a family Christmas potluck, a Costco-sized bag of potstickers, and the increasingly desperate series of culinary decisions that followed when she refused to admit the original plan was dead and buried. Nick responds with the story of a job he kept trying to make work long after the warning signs had begun forming their own parade.  Also discussed: lasagna soup, 20-hour work...

Nick takes Evelyn back to a very serious teenage relationship, a very serious military wedding, and a very serious theatrical obligation that suddenly depended on one very dead car battery and a pair of jumper cables being asked to perform beyond their specifications. Evelyn responds with an overreaction from her own past involving a damaged windshield, a volatile ex, and an accusation that made c...

Evelyn takes us back to elementary-school science fair season, when a lack of scientific aptitude was no obstacle when it came to tackling one of humanity’s great problems: rust. Armed with pieces of metal, household supplies, and a methodology that seemed more heavily based in despair than actual science, Evelyn's Rust Busters' table at the Grade 7 science fair was born. Nick responds w...

Nick tells Evelyn about a skill his brother taught him in his early twenties that helped him move up in restaurant work, carried him through grad school, and still comes back every time there’s a bottle of wine or champagne in need of a little ceremony. Evelyn responds with two very different skills passed down by her parents, one rooted in food, generosity, and caring for people, and the other ta...

Evelyn tells Nick about the fine art of hiding: from unexpected visitors in the country, from people at the front door, and from whatever ancient survival instinct made a simple game of hide 'n seek in a house without hydro feel like a full tactical emergency. Nick responds with stories about thinking he was being stealthy when he absolutely was not, including one childhood dessert crime and...

Nick tells Evelyn about a financially fragile chapter of his Los Angeles years, one exciting payday, and the small gas-station mistake that immediately ate a much larger portion of that paycheck than planned. Evelyn responds with a university memory involving a terrifying piano professor, one of her best performances, and an increasingly impossible-to-ignore wardrobe situation that somehow became...

Evelyn tells Nick about the worst shower she has ever taken: an already uncomfortable guest-bathroom situation that became dramatically worse thanks to one bathroom, one urgent interruption, and one deeply misguided attempt at “freshening” the air. Nick responds with a story about trying to explain an unfortunate accident and immediately recreating the problem he was trying to explain. Also discus...

Nick tells Evelyn about the time he was invited along to a Honda dealership for moral support and instead witnessed a car salesman so hostile, so unhelpful, and so committed to not selling a car that he may have changed Nick’s relationship with Honda forever. Evelyn responds with her own stories of unreasonable hostility, including one school parking-lot moment where bad signage, construction, gri...

Evelyn tells Nick about a Christmas gift from 2014, resulting in a beautiful homemade chocolate pie. Unfortunately, Canadian winter knocks on the door, and offered a deeply unorthodox (and unfortunate) method to let nature butt in on the cooling process. Nick responds with his own stories of the natural world turning against him, including an extremely well-aimed bird and a beloved cat whose curio...

Nick tells Evelyn about the couples therapy dynamic that scares him most, and it is not the loud, angry pair most people might expect. For him, the real concern is the couple whose conflict has gone underground for so long that nobody knows where the pressure is building anymore. Evelyn responds with professional fears from different chapters of her life, including piano recital memory lapses, cla...

Evelyn tells Nick story of the time a full teaching day, a birthday dinner, a rainy drive home, and one badly timed traffic moment combined into a personal emergency with lasting upholstery implications for a car she was leasing. Nick responds with not one BUT TWO stories about pushing the human bladder past its recommended operating limits, including a terrifying roadside bathroom situation and a...

Nick tells Evelyn about a niche skill from his theme-park past, the old-school art of winning claw-machine prizes, and the devastating modern discovery that the machines may no longer respect craftsmanship or true skill. Evelyn responds by zoning in on the moment she realized teaching had quietly been keeping her current, and that without daily teenage exposure, slang, music, gym trends, and skinc...

After discussing some listener feedback about the injustice of mandatory track and field day, Evelyn starts into a story about a recent visit with old friends, a beloved kid, and the painful discovery that she may no longer be the favourite adult in the room. Nick responds with stories about memorable goodbyes: one messy, one hopeful, and one so perfectly summarized that it still lives rent-free i...

Nick discovers he is not the only Nick Bognar out there in the world. Apparently there is a Christian rapper named Nick Bognar , an award-winning chef named Nick Bognar , and one deeply unimpressed youth soccer organizer who really needed a completely different " Nick Bognar " to take the shin guards seriously for once. Evelyn counters with her own name-based chaos: From the American dis...

Evelyn introduces Nick to the legend of the Fred Wedge: a high school phenomenon so powerful it created a new family phrase, a private reenactment tradition, and a lasting inquiry into the physics of fabric (like, there were just SO MANY LAYERS CRAMMED UP IN THERE YOU GUYS...). Nick responds with tight-space stories of his own, including a band trip to England where he was packed into a car like a...

Nick tells the story of a Hungarian dentist in Los Angeles who solved the problem of having an unpronounceable name by simply acquiring a new one from someone standing very nearby. Evelyn responds with a story about the oddest thing she has maybe-stolen, maybe-inherited, maybe-kept as moral compensation: an ironing board with a backstory.  Also discussed in this episode: nicknames, second-choice i...

Evelyn tells Nick about a small-town theatre box office, a mysterious flood of complaints, and the day she and Jill climbed into a baby blue Chevy Astro minivan to investigate one man’s deeply unsettling idea of outdoor art. Nick responds with a disturbing piece of art from his own collection: a print so effective, so evocative, and absolutely not allowed to hang in the house.  Also discussed: &qu...

Nick tells Evelyn about a recent pickleball outing where a perfectly normal post-game backpack retrieval became a perfect opportunity for him to be bullied...by a small child. And his mom.  Evelyn responds with high school memories of being perceived as scarier, moodier, and far more alternative than she may have felt inside. Also discussed: podcast reviews, rejected nicknames, thrifted fabric, se...

Evelyn tries to mail a simple care package and accidentally enters the bureaucratic backrooms room involving two separate apps (one for customs declarations, and another for tariffs), itemized items and photos, expired QR codes, and the creeping suspicion that walking it to Pasadena may have been more efficient. Nick responds with his own “this used to be simple” grievance: airports before modern...

Episode 65 of the RJ Pod and we're coming in singing today. Nick tells Evelyn about a brief, highly emotional chapter in his high school track career, where athletic glory, mistaken identity, and one very public solo lap all collide in ways he is still apparently processing. Evelyn responds with two stories about total exhaustion: one involving noble camp-kitchen labour, and one involving a f...