The Shallow End

Artificial intelligence is supposed to make life easier. Nobody mentioned turning police officers into frogs.

In Heber City, Utah, a police department's new AI report-writing software accidentally incorporated dialogue from Disney's The Princess and the Frog, producing an official account in which an officer underwent a rather unexpected amphibious transformation. The technology worked beautifully. Reality was another matter.

Meanwhile, a Canadian man returned his Avis rental car after a perfectly ordinary family vacation, only to receive a nearly $5,000 charge for allegedly driving 18,000 miles in one week. That's an average of 107 miles per hour, nonstop, for seven days. Apparently, Avis had invented a vehicle capable of bending the laws of physics. Customer service was somewhat less impressive.

This week on The Shallow End, Jethro and Lindsay explore two spectacular examples of technology getting things confidently, expensively wrong. Because sometimes the most dangerous thing in the room is a computer that's absolutely certain it's right.
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The Shallow End Episode 231: Porch Pirate Karma and the Woman Who Declared War on Delivery Robots

A porch pirate picks the wrong driveway, and a 78-year-old woman goes to war with the robots. Just another day in the shallow end of the gene pool.

First, JG takes us to Mississauga, Ontario, where an attempted package theft becomes a spectacular exercise in instant karma. When a homeowner catches a would-be thief in the act, the suspect makes a desperate escape in his Toyota Yaris—only to back directly into a snowbank. What follows is seven glorious minutes of spinning tires, increasingly desperate decisions, and some surprisingly polite Canadian hospitality. And yes, the whole thing was caught on video.

Then Lindsay introduces us to Carolyn Marvin, a retired university professor in Philadelphia who's taken a rather unusual stand against automation. Convinced that autonomous delivery robots are stealing jobs from human workers, she's decided to fight back by standing directly in their path. Her one-woman rebellion against what she calls "sidewalk cyborgs" has attracted police attention, sparked an online debate, and raised some wonderfully absurd questions about the First Amendment.

Plus, a listener shares a genuinely terrifying lesson in firearm safety that could have ended very differently.

From porch pirate fails and instant karma to delivery robots, bizarre arrests, and questionable decisions, it's another helping of real-life human foolishness served with the usual laughter, disbelief, and occasional good judgment.

Welcome to The Shallow End with Schnebly and Toth—where poor decisions make great stories.

Got a spectacular lapse in judgment to share? Email us at lifeguard@shallowendpodcast.com.
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A teenage robber walks into a convenience store on Christmas Eve, waves a gun around, and demands money. Unfortunately for him, the man behind the counter has a few surprises of his own. Meanwhile, a Wisconsin woman decides she's going to become a substitute teacher. No credentials. No authorization. No apparent interest in actually teaching. What could possibly go wrong?

This week on The Shallow End, Jethro and Lindsay bring you two astonishing true stories of terrible decisions, spectacularly misplaced confidence, and consequences nobody saw coming.

First, it's Christmas Eve 2017 in Leicester, England, where a cocky 17-year-old armed robber decides to terrorize a neighborhood convenience store just before closing time. What he doesn't know is that the store's owner, a father of two, happens to be a trained karate black belt. Within seconds, the would-be criminal discovers that threatening the wrong person can lead to a very long night on the floor of a grocery store. It's a spectacular case of instant karma, complete with flying potato chips, a desperate plea for mercy, and a Christmas miracle nobody ordered.

Then, we head to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where a 23-year-old woman allegedly walks into her former high school and convinces administrators she's a substitute teacher. Once inside the classroom, her bizarre behavior leaves students stunned and parents furious. Racial insults, inappropriate questions, and an astonishing explanation for why she did it all turn this case of fake teacher impersonation into a serious school security scandal.

Plus, a listener shares the unforgettable story of a backyard sword fight that went horribly wrong, proving once again that live weapons, amateur reenactments, and The Phantom of the Opera are not necessarily a winning combination.

Armed robbery gone wrong. Instant karma. Fake teachers. Backyard sword fighting. It's another trip into the shallow end of the gene pool, where questionable judgment meets painfully predictable consequences.

Join Jethro and Lindsay for The Shallow End, the comedy podcast celebrating real people making spectacularly bad decisions.

Make good choices. Your life might depend on it.
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A bank robber disappears inside a 21-story apartment building while police close in. A short time later, he turns up badly injured in the basement—with the stolen cash still on him. His escape involved one of the worst plans in criminal history: a garbage chute, a 210-foot fall, and an astonishing amount of luck.

Then, Polaroid was once one of America’s most innovative companies, transforming photography by letting people hold a picture in their hands just moments after taking it. So how did a company that dominated instant photography and generated billions in sales end up bankrupt just a decade later? Lindsay and Jethro trace the remarkable rise, spectacular fall, and unlikely resurrection of Polaroid—and the technology that nearly killed it before helping make it cool again.

Plus, a listener discovers that karma, bath towels, garage doors, and security cameras can be an especially unforgiving combination.

It’s another trip into the wonderfully questionable side of human decision-making on The Shallow End with Schnebly and Toth.

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This week, The Shallow End opens the mailbag—and apparently our listeners have been making questionable decisions all over the world.

First, a listener in Germany discovers that noise-canceling earbuds work perhaps a little too well when a forgotten pot of rice bursts into flames. Then an innocent RV hookup mistake turns into one of the most horrifying sewage-related experiences ever submitted to the show. There are unfortunate names, childhood attempts to become part tiger shark, a geography lesson involving the surprising location of Alaska, and an encounter with poison ivy that ends with a very unusual doctor’s recommendation.

But the centerpiece may be an Arizona hiking trip that becomes a master class in escalating bad decisions: an 80-pound backpack, brutal sunburn, an unfortunately placed tent, dozens of wasp stings, tequila, a mysterious bagel thief, a badly gashed foot, and some improvised wilderness surgery involving mint-flavored dental floss.

It’s a special listener-mail edition of The Shallow End, proving once again that our audience doesn’t merely visit the shallow end.

Some of you appear to have taken up permanent residence.

Listen now—and please, make good choices. Your life might depend on it.
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