Padlock

References

• The Collar Bomb Case
• Wall-E
• Eating A Block Of Cheese Meme
• Video Game Gating
• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Credit Card
• Non-fungible Token
• Taken
• Escape Room
  • The physical puzzle game
  • The Movie
• Ghostbusters
• Pandora’s Box
• Love Locks
• Almost Plausible: Bread Maker
• Hellraiser
• Rubik’s Cube
• Sneakers
• Grosse Pointe Blank
• John Cusack
• Sliding Doors
• Locksport
• You Can’t Always Get What You Want
• Ball and Chain
• Top Gun
• Big
• Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
  • Midi-chlorian
• VCR
• Notting Hill
• Jerry Maguire
• Goths
• Heathers
• The Basketball Diaries

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
He could, like, when they’re being awkward, pick some famous rom-com movie line about being awkward. And he says it, and she’s like, “Oh, how do you know that? You don’t watch movies.” And he’s like, “Well-“

[Thomas]
He’s there, “I’m just a man standing in f-” She’s like, “Just stop.”

[Shep]
“You had me at hello.”

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary ideas and turn them into movies. Today we’re going to attempt to create a movie about a padlock. And when I say we, I of course mean my wonderfully clever co-hosts Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
I feel like padlocks are one of those things that can be weirdly divisive, with some people preferring keyed locks and other people preferring combination locks. Do either of you have a padlock preference?

[Emily]
I like the key locks.

[Shep]
Yeah, key locks, absolutely. Anybody can get into a padlock if they know the combination or a combination lock if they know the combination. Obviously, I guess that’s in the name.

[Thomas]
I can see how people wouldn’t want to have to carry something around though.

[Shep]
You make a compelling point.

[Thomas]
On the other hand, I remember in high school I had a lock on a locker, opened it a bajillion times and then just one day could not for the life of me remember what the combination was.

[Emily]
That has happened to me so many times.

[Thomas]
All right, well, Shep, you’re up first this week, so let’s hear your pitches for a padlock.

[Shep]
Okay, so let’s think about padlocks. What could be interesting about a padlock? Let’s do a padlock in a weird place. So here’s a person with a big heavy iron ring padlocked around their neck with a lock in the back. So they’re going around trying to get help in getting it removed. They could just pick it themselves if they could reach it, but they can’t because it’s behind them. And so could they try and teach someone else how to pick locks or trying to find someone with a grinder or hacksaw? And possibly what is even going to happen if they don’t get this off in time? It’s more, I guess, of a writing prompt than a thought-out pitch.

[Thomas]
Get this off in time. Is it a collar bomb? Is this guy a pizza delivery guy forced to rob a bank?

[Shep]
Oh, too soon.

[Emily]
Too soon.

[Thomas]
Too soon?

[Shep]
Yes. That’s a fucked-up story.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That is such a fucked-up story.

[Shep]
The more you look into it, the more fucked-up it actually is.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Pitch number two, a padlock hiding a dark secret. So doors in the basement, padlocked closed. You must never open them. Something is heard behind the door. Maybe something bumps into the door, causing the padlock to swing out and then back down. What’s behind there? Oh, now you’ve found the key. Dare you open it? What will you find? A monster or something worse? Again, writing prompt, I guess, instead of an actual pitch.

[Thomas]
I mean, that’s basically our show.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah, because there could be a monster in there, but they could be a kidnap victim in there, or they could be your evil twin sibling. Or it could be your parents’ murder room full of murder trophies.

[Emily]
It could be your parents’ sex dungeon,

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Which would be so much worse than a murder room.

[Shep]
Either way, there’s lots of bleach involved.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Okay, pitch number three. So here’s a virtual padlock appearing on your phone. So you try to use your phone, but there’s just a padlock there. Why is this happening? What can or can’t you do now? So here’s a couple of scenarios you could do with this. Scenario one a padlock appears on your phone because you’ve been mistakenly classified as deceased. And now everything in your life has been cut off in this modern, connected world where everything’s in the cloud. You can’t even look up who to call. Nor could you even call them because you can’t use your phone. Nor can you drive there because your electric smart car no longer recognizes your key fob, because you’re a deceased. What would you even do? You’re stuck. You’d starved to death.

[Emily]
Get your friend to drive you?

[Shep]
How do you get hold of your friend?

[Emily]
Walk to their house.

[Shep]
Walk to their house.

[Emily]
Yup.

[Shep]
Now, are you sure you remember the way to your friend’s house without GPS?

[Emily]
Yeah. Me, yes.

[Thomas]
But your futuristic mobility scooter won’t operate because it thinks you…

[Emily]
That’s true. All of that cheese I ate.

[Shep]
So I just imagine padlocks appearing everywhere every time you try to use some smart device or something. As soon as it knows that it’s you.

[Thomas]
It’s like being in the tutorial of a video game. You’re like, “Can’t use that yet. Can’t use that yet.” Everything’s got little locks on it.

[Shep]
Yes, everything’s gated.

[Thomas]
Not a high enough level.

[Shep]
Okay, scenario B a padlock appears on someone’s phone in an attempt to blackmail them. They hack the phone, they’ve locked it, like, “Hey, if you want to access your phone, send me bitcoin or whatever.” Unfortunately, this person is a professional hitman with a certain set of skills and a strong need to get, like, their mark’s information off of that phone in a hurry. So I imagine this is from the perspective of the blackmailer who just picked the wrong person to try and shake down.

[Thomas]
I love the idea of that happening. And they call them, or there’s a message. They can talk back and forth, and he’s like, “Oh, yeah, you’ve got to pay me, bitcoin.” He’s like, “How am I supposed to do that? You’ve locked my phone.”

[Emily]
Use that new bitcoin credit card.

[Thomas]
“You don’t just have loose bitcoins in your house.” “You’re new to this, aren’t you?”

[Shep]
“Give me all the bitcoin you’re carrying right now.”

[Thomas]
I keep it in a drawer with all my NFTs.

[Shep]
Too soon.

[Thomas]
Too soon.

[Shep]
That’s it for me.

[Thomas]
All right, I have three real ideas. One is, I don’t know, it’s an idea, and the other ones are prompts. So my idea is an escape room horror film. For example, the film Escape Room, which I learned exists after I thought of that idea. Okay, so that one’s just the idea. These ones are the prompts, a magic or cursed or charmed padlock that prevents evil spirits from getting out of whatever it’s locked. So it’s kind of like the containment unit in Ghostbusters or a Pandora’s box type of situation. If you unlock this magical padlock, then…

[Shep]
Like, the doors in your basement that are padlocked that you must never open.

[Thomas]
Exactly. My next idea is that locksmith is hired to pick a padlock. And they do. But it turns out that the person who hired them was not the legal owner of whatever was locked. Perhaps the thing that was locked belonged to the government or some corrupt police. Now the locksmith is being hunted throughout the city and must escape using their skills and wiles.

[Emily]
You could almost combine that with the second half of Shep’s pitch. Messing with the wrong guy.

[Thomas]
Yeah actually. My final idea, do you guys know what love locks are?

[Emily]
I think so.

[Thomas]
Some of them are specifically designed for this. But the basic idea is you take a padlock and you lock it. Usually there’s like a bridge that everybody does this on.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay.

[Thomas]
You lock it on a fence. Actually, their park downtown has some of these.

[Emily]
Yeah, they’re starting to do it there because it’s really popular in France and they’ve actually put the kibosh on it now.

[Thomas]
Right, and adds like a ton of weight to the bridge. And-

[Shep]
It’s popular in Japan as well.

[Thomas]
They actually sell padlocks specifically for this where there is no key.

[Shep]
That don’t have a lock, yeah.

[Thomas]
Once you lock it, that’s it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
It’s just locked. So there’s a bridge or something like that where people put love locks, except that when these locks get picked or removed, cut off, whatever it is, that causes strife in the couple’s relationship. So either the bridge has a spell on it or these specific locks have spells on them. True Love Forever, as long as the lock, once closed, is never removed. So what happens when all these locks get removed?

[Shep]
So like some city ordinance or city council, “We’re putting too much undue weight on the bridge. We need to go through and cut all of these locks off.” And then suddenly there’s a wave of divorces throughout the area.

[Thomas]
Breakups and yeah.

[Shep]
I imagine, so if it’s True Love Forever, do both participants have to be willing? Does it work like a love spell where you could write your name on someone else’s name and then lock it on the bridge and suddenly maybe they’re attracted to you, but it turns out it wasn’t real, it was only because of the lock. And then when they cut off the lock, suddenly that person doesn’t have those feelings for you anymore.

[Thomas]
So I’m going to amend or revamp my pitch because I think you’ve touched on an idea that maybe I was trying to get to and couldn’t quite get there. This is what I love about the collaborative process. You’ve just made it better.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So some person has gone to a witch or fortune teller or whatever and gotten-

[Emily]
A baker.

[Thomas]
A baker, yes. A magical baker.

[Shep]
Good callback.

[Thomas]
So they’ve gone to some magical person and gotten a love lock with a spell put on. They’ve had a spell put on this love lock so that they can ensnare the person that they like who does not like them. They go and they put it on the bridge where everybody puts their love locks and it works. This person suddenly falls in love with them, but like you said, the city comes along and cuts off all the locks. And so now this spell is broken and the person who was tricked into it suddenly realizes, “Why have I been in this relationship with you this whole time? I don’t like you.”

[Shep]
I have an addendum or a modification of that.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Before it gets cut off, they find out about it. They discover that they love the person they love, not for any other reason other than a spell. And do they choose to leave the lock, because they’re happy. They’re happy with their life, but it’s based on a lie. So this is typical rom-com fare.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Where they’re in a relationship that they didn’t intend, but they’re happy in that relationship, but then they find out it’s based on this spell. Would you choose, if you were happy, would you choose to remove the spell or not? And I would imagine that they choose to leave it because they’re happy. But then that’s when the city comes in and cuts off all the locks.

[Thomas]
I like that as a rom-com, I think that works well.

[Emily]
Yeah. I don’t think we need to explore my pitches at all. Let’s just take this one. I’m good.

[Thomas]
All right. Those are my pitches. Emily, what do you have for us?

[Emily]
All right. Mine are just one-line ideas. I couldn’t flesh out a lot of details, but I came up with some good thoughts.

[Shep]
That’s our job.

[Emily]
The first one is a puzzle lock. So, like a padlock, that’s actually one of those fancy puzzle locks that you got to do all these 8 million things to unlock it, will open up different portals to different dimensions depending on how you solve it.

[Shep]
So Hellraiser or…

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, like a Rubik’s Cube, but in a padlock form then. My second idea is a magic padlock that will only unlock for the right person, but the key is that person’s voice.

[Thomas]
Is there a voice their passport?

[Emily]
And then an anthropomorphic padlock on a pirate chest.

[Thomas]
I like that.

[Emily]
Gets into some misadventures with pirates. I’m not sure.

[Thomas]
“Will you open for us, lad?” “Not today.”

[Emily]
“Not until you solve these magical riddles.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, “I just need to change into my fucking socks.”

[Emily]
“Answer my riddles three!” And my last one is a serial killer-

[Shep]
Oh, thank God.

[Emily]
Kills his victims with a large padlock around their neck that chokes them to death.

[Shep]
So just a padlock? It’s not like locking a ring around their neck. The whole thing is a padlock.

[Emily]
Yeah. The whole thing is padlock. Yeah. It’s just one big padlock.

[Shep]
Like one of those really big bike locks.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
I imagine he’s got an array of locks of different sizes, depending on his chosen victim. I’m picturing him sneaking up behind them and holding several up to their neck where they don’t see him.

[Emily]
And he’s a locksmith by trade and he makes custom locks. It’s not weird.

[Thomas]
There you go. It makes sense for him to have a whole bunch of locks. Nobody thinks anything of it.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Except the police that are investigating the padlock murderer. I think they’re going to be looking specifically at locksmiths.

[Emily]
He’s going to get a good four victims in before they narrow it down.

[Shep]
So which one of these are we going to go with?

[Emily]
I do really like the love lock magic one.

[Thomas]
I like that one. Yeah, I like the padlock stopping you, scenario B.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s the one with the assassin?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Combine them, it’s a love story. And then he stops killing because he’s in love. They cut the lock off and he goes back to murdering.

[Emily]
I’m super picturing somehow, or combining a magical realism world with Grosse Pointe Blank. And it’s John Cusack. He’s like your normal lovey-dovey dad guy with wife and kids. And then the lock gets broken and he’s like, crazy killer.

[Shep]
Oh, man. Here’s a new pitch. Someone who padlocks their other personality. Like they’ve split Severance style.

[Thomas]
Interesting.

[Shep]
They have their normal, loving family dad personality, and then they have the cold-blooded killer personality. And when they put the lock on, they’re locking away their emotions. They have that cold blooded killer personality and maybe the lock breaks, so now they have to do a job. But they’re the family man dad trying to go out and be a hitman.

[Emily]
“How do I do this?”

[Shep]
I mean, it could have gone the other way, where it breaks, and then he is the cold-blooded killer when he’s home with his family. But I think it would be more interesting. I think it would be funny.

[Emily]
It’s more entertaining the other way.

[Thomas]
You do a Sliding Doors type of thing. You just cut back and forth between the two timelines.

[Shep]
So he’s got the split personalities and they just end up swapped?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it’s the cold-blooded killer at home trying to pretend to be a happy family guy and then-

[Thomas]
It’s like burning pancakes. “I can’t fucking doing this!”

[Emily]
Little girl comes in. “I need the potty.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That is a good one. Now there’s more to choose from.

[Shep]
Sorry. I’ll just shut up. Yeah, we should just pick one. Go with our first instinct. I like the rom-com one because I like rom-coms.

[Emily]
Me too.

[Thomas]
Okay, all right, let’s do that one then.

[Emily]
I’m down with the rom-com. And then we can make it Halloween themed and put it on, like, Hallmark.

[Shep]
Also, rom-coms are really easy to write.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I mean, we all know how it’s going to end before we’ve begun.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
We know what the ending is. And that makes the whole journey easier when you have a destination in mind.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
So the person who is locked in, let’s say, who didn’t have a choice, right, they were captured into the relationship and then they find out. Does the person tell them? Do they find out somehow or does the lock get cut off?

[Shep]
No, they have to find out before the lock is cut off so that they have that dilemma of whether they cut it off themselves or not.

[Thomas]
Well, so I guess there are three options. There’s: they can go cut it off themselves, they can wait and let the city do it, or they could go and cut the fence and take the lock off intact. Maybe that’s the first thing they do. They don’t want someone else to make the decision for them. So they go and they cut it off the fence. And now they have the lock and so they can cut it open at any time. It’s up to them. Do they cut it open or not? That’s the choice they have to make.

[Shep]
That’s vandalizing a fence. That’s vandalizing public property. Also, fences are much harder to cut off than just cutting the lock off.

[Thomas]
I mean, if it’s a cyclone fence.

[Shep]
Is it a cyclone fence? What sort of cheap city is going to spend money to have all the locks cut off, if they’re just putting up cyclone fences?

[Thomas]
It’s easier to walk along with bolt cutters than replace all of the fencing. Maybe the city hires a locksport group to come down and get them all off.

[Emily]
A locksport group?

[Thomas]
It’s people who pick locks for fun.

[Shep]
I mean, that could also be a thing, like they just organize an event where “Pick as many locks as you can. We’re going to time it. We’re going to have a competition.”

[Emily]
Okay. What if the person who’s forced into the relationship because of the lock discovers it and does have that dilemma and they choose not to unlock it, and then they find out about this event? So now it’s a race for them to get there to prevent them from unlocking that one? Because he or she doesn’t want to give up what life they do have. Because I feel like the dilemma isn’t so much like, “Well, I’m happy, I’m comfortable,” because wouldn’t you still want to make the choice to stay in that if you’re under that spell? How do you know the spell isn’t controlling you to just say, “You know, everything’s good,” and then when it’s broken is when you may have the real choice of “Do I relock it?” So if they have that event where they’re unlocking it and it gets unlocked and then they have to make that choice.

[Shep]
If we’re going to have that unlocking event, I think that they should learn lock picking real quick and try to unlock that lock so that they can have that lock so they can make the decision later, like you said. “Do I relock it?”

[Thomas]
I don’t think they should relock it. I think the whole point is that they don’t need-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, we’ve seen rom-coms.

[Emily]
I mean, that’s eventually how it goes.

[Thomas]
Do they relock it, and it doesn’t matter because the spell has already been broken? It’s a one-time thing.

[Emily]
Yeah. You could see it as a symbolic relocking of it. He or she does it in front of the other person. “I’m making this choice this time,” and then locks it even knowing the spell is broken.

[Shep]
It has to be a he that was the, I guess, victim.

[Emily]
Okay,

[Shep]
Because it would be problematic if it’s a woman.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
Problematic either way. But.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Sexism! Double standards for everyone.

[Thomas]
I’m trying to decide how I want the breaking of the spell to happen. I think it should be their choice, right? Like, they choose to break the spell, to unlock the lock.

[Shep]
Yes. If you have that unlocking event, they go to that lock, and they’re trying to pick it and trying to pick it and trying to pick it. Other lock pickers are getting closer and closer and closer, and then they finally pick it off, and they’re happy momentarily because now they have the lock. Their plan is I’ll take the lock off and I’ll relock it.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
But as soon as it’s off, the wind blows and the spell is broken. And now they’re holding the open lock. And at this point, do you choose to relock it knowing that you were happy when it was locked, but also knowing that you were being mind-controlled, basically. So it’s again, the dilemma. If it’s locked, you want to keep it locked. If it’s unlocked, you probably want to keep it unlocked.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Is this the beginning or the middle of the movie?

[Emily]
I feel like that would be the middle.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s the middle.

[Thomas]
That’s what I was thinking. So what is the entire first half of the movie? We must start with the one person being rejected.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. He’s never giving her a chance, and she thinks that’s why, like, they’re good match. They’d be a good couple. If only he would just give her a chance and got to know her.

[Thomas]
But he’s interested in somebody else.

[Shep]
I don’t think he’s interested in anyone. I think he’s just busy with work, and he’s not looking for a relationship. Otherwise, she’s breaking up-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
What’s the redemption for her for ruining these people’s lives? No, she can’t be a villain villain. She’s just, she thinks she’s doing the right thing. She thinks he’d be happier in a relationship.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because he would be able to redirect his focus from working all the time to enjoying life finally.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So she’s doing him a favor.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
In fact, maybe he complains about that, like “Oh I’m so stressed out, but it’s all worth it. I make a lot of money at my job,” and she’s like, “Well, what good is that money if you never have the time to do fun things? You can’t spend it on-“

[Emily]
“You don’t ever have time to use it.”

[Shep]
“You never take vacations.”

[Thomas]
How does she find out about this person who can put the spell on the lock?

[Emily]
Could she just be a witchy person herself? Like maybe she just doesn’t have the gift, but somebody in her family does.

[Thomas]
She works at a witchy bookshop.

[Shep]
See, I think that’s too convenient. I think that it should be just a chance encounter where she has a-

[Thomas]
Whoa, hold on. Whoa. Is Shep suggesting coincidence?

[Shep]
Yes, because, for a reason. For a purpose. So it’s not a thing that she could normally access. It’s not a thing that she could normally get to. But she has this random encounter and has this fleeting opportunity to get this enchanted padlock to make this love spell, and she has to take the chance to get that padlock right then, before she’s even decided whether she’s going to for sure do it or not. She has to get the lock. And then it’s dilemmas all the way through. Now she has the lock and it’s like, “Do I actually use it?” What do you have to do? Pluck a hair off his head or whatever and put it in a fucking whatever. She’s got to do a thing, but it’s a thing that she has to consciously choose to do and it’s not convenient.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But now she already has the lock because she made that choice whether or not to even have the option later. And now she’s more inclined to use it because she has it. Because she has also got that ethical dilemma, “Am I doing the right thing? Am I harming this person by trying to make them happy that they didn’t choose?”

[Emily]
Does she have the opportunity at a fair?

[Thomas]
So the thought that I had along those lines was she is walking dejected down the street and there’s a fortune teller shop. And so she goes in to see, like, “Well, if my future is not with him, what does my future hold?” So she’s going to have her future read, and while she’s there, there’s a little sign. It’s like, “Ask about love locks.” And so she asks about it but decides not to get it then. Comes back the next day and the shop isn’t there anymore. But there is a lock on the ground in the empty lot and it’s like a heart shaped lock. So she knows, “Oh, that’s the love lock that I saw yesterday. The mysterious fortune teller lady left it behind specifically for me.” Maybe the fortune even says something to the effect of “What you’re looking for you won’t find, but you’ll find what you need,” something to that effect. And she goes, “Oh-“

[Emily]
Can’t always get what you want.

[Thomas]
But if you try sometimes, you just might find.

[Shep]
So she ends up with the lock.

[Thomas]
She ends up with a lock, however it happens.

[Shep]
And she already got instructions on how to use it during the sales pitch while she was there.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
She has the idea of what to do.

[Thomas]
Does she talk to anybody else about this? I don’t know that she should talk to anybody about it.

[Emily]
I don’t think you should talk to anybody directly about, “Oh, I got this lock and it’ll make him fall in love with me.” I think that makes her sound insane.

[Thomas]
Right. But I worry about her talking to somebody else about him-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And complaining that he doesn’t like her because then all of a sudden he’s super in love with her?

[Shep]
I think that it would be good to have that conversation. I think that would be a good scene where they’re not necessarily talking about the lock or that specific guy, but maybe she’s talking to one of her girlfriends and they’re talking about “Guys don’t even know really what they want, they just need a little guidance.” She’s talking about her relationship with her boyfriend.

[Emily]
Yeah. Cause she wants him to propose to her. Her friend.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah, that’s really good.

[Thomas]
That’s good. Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, maybe he did propose and she’s telling the story of the proposal.

[Thomas]
How she nudged him into it.

[Shep]
Yeah. She basically arranged for things so that he thought that he came up with this idea of proposing to her.

[Thomas]
And they’re super happy.

[Shep]
And they’re super happy. They’re happy now he’s got that ball and chain on him. And so she makes the choice to do it, to use the lock, because she’s seen how her friends are happy and maybe she’s right. Maybe guys don’t know what they want and they need a little nudge.

[Thomas]
And this will make that guy’s life better.

[Emily]
Right. He’ll have support that he didn’t know he needed.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Everybody wins.

[Emily]
Yup.

[Shep]
Yeah. He’s stressed out and she’s like, “Together, if we were a team, we could tackle these things as a unit and be stronger for it.”

[Thomas]
So she does the ritual. She locks the lock, and then nothing happens until the next day?

[Shep]
Yeah, that would be also great. She locks it and then she looks around like “Is there no..?”

[Thomas]
Picks up her phone.

[Shep]
Like she’s waiting for the call. So yeah, so the next day, maybe she encounters him at the same spot in the morning. Like, she works at a coffee shop that he comes through at the first floor of the building, and they kind of flirt, but nothing ever happens. And then this time he asks her out.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good.

[Shep]
So it’s like, was it even the lock?

[Emily]
Or did he just finally decide?

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I like that.

[Thomas]
I like that too.

[Shep]
Because she keeps saying, “We should get together. We should do something.” And he finally agrees and says, “Yeah, let’s do (whatever).” And then you have the whole their budding relationship.

[Thomas]
So now, does she once again say that while he’s there, or does he initiate at this time? She waiting to see did the lock work? And he says, “You know what? You’re always asking me out. I think we should go out.”

[Shep]
I think that it’s a thing that they say every morning where she says something like, “Let’s get together on this weekend,” or whatever. And he’s like, “I’m working late.” And he says that every time. And then this time she says it expecting him to say, I’m working late. And then he goes, “Actually, yeah, let’s do it.”

[Emily]
So I have the best cheesy idea.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Go ahead, cheese it up.

[Emily]
She puts a movie quote up every day and if you get it, you get a free coffee or discount or something. And he never knows them. He always is like, “Oh, I give up, what is it?” And she’ll say and she’s like, “I can’t believe you’ve never seen Top Gun,” or whatever. And he’s like, “Well, I’m busy all the time.” She’s like, “Come over this weekend and watch it.” And he’s like, “Oh man, I’d love to, but…” That’s their routine every time. So this time he doesn’t get it. And she says “It’s this, I can’t believe… It’s Big, I can’t believe you didn’t get it.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“I can’t believe you haven’t seen Big.”

[Shep]
That’s great.

[Emily]
And then she’s like, “You need to watch it. You come over this weekend, I’ll make some dinner, we’ll watch it.” And he’s like, “You know what? Yeah, let’s do that.”

[Thomas]
That’s great.

[Shep]
It’s so good. Especially the Big specific.

[Emily]
Yeah. The Big reference.

[Shep]
But also from his perspective, he is the one making the choice at that time.

[Thomas]
Right? Yeah. All right, well, we’re going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we’ll lock down the rest of our story.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. Our main character has gotten a possessed lock, or a lock with a spell on it to cause the person of her dreams to fall in love with her. She’s locked the lock, the spell is active, and he has agreed to go on a date with her. So what happens now?

[Shep]
They start a relationship.

[Emily]
Montage the love.

[Thomas]
Montage? Yeah, I think so.

[Emily]
You see them getting closer and cozy, walking around the city in the fall with big sweaters and cups of coffee.

[Shep]
Why are they getting coffee? She works in a coffee shop.

[Emily]
I have my fantasy Shep.

[Thomas]
How far does the relationship go before everything becomes unraveled? Are they engaged?

[Emily]
I want them to live together.

[Thomas]
Yeah. They should definitely be living together.

[Shep]
(Struggling noises)

[Thomas]
Oh, no?

[Emily]
No?

[Shep]
I was thinking it would be on the verge of them moving in together. And that’s when the reveal is. Although now that you say it, them living together adds a whole another layer to this, where if they’re suddenly breaking up their relationship, he’s got to get all his stuff out of her house or whatever. I guess she’s got to get her stuff out of his house? If he has the higher paying job, it doesn’t matter. Don’t think about it.

[Emily]
However they arranged it. Yeah, but she’s got the quirky fun apartment.

[Thomas]
Maybe they get a new place together.

[Shep]
Well, then it’s super awkward because can she afford on her coffee maker salary to stay in this larger place?

[Emily]
I like that, that would be an extra conflict of, “Well, who gets to keep the apartment now?”

[Thomas]
That’s a tough scene.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
What happens? Does she move out? Can she afford that apartment? Like, they just moved in.

[Emily]
Now she’s going to move out because she-

[Shep]
No, because he’s the one breaking up with her. So that’s part of his businessman mentality. He’s like, “The apartment is paid for six months” or whatever.

[Emily]
“Get a roommate.”

[Shep]
Yeah, “I’m going to come by and get my stuff and that’s it.”

[Emily]
Maybe that’s part of the conversation. And she’s like, “Well, I can’t afford this place on my own.” She’s sorry, right? She’s remorseful at this point. Don’t want her to be..? So she’s like, “Well, I can move back in with Kim or whatever and take my stuff and go, and you can keep it. You make the money. It’s fine. I fucked up. I will leave.” And he’s like, “No, I’m making the decision.”

[Thomas]
Maybe he says, “I don’t want apartment full of bad memories.”

[Shep]
Twist that hurt.

[Thomas]
Okay. I like that he moves out. Presumably they’re going to both have to move out at some point.

[Emily]
Yeah, she’s got maybe a couple… because he’s like, “It’s paid up for a couple of months.”

[Thomas]
She presumably is trying to win him back before the lease is up?

[Shep]
I think she’s just trying to win them back. It just has nothing to do with the lease. It’s just-

[Thomas]
Well, I’m just saying, does she have to move out his apartment or not? I guess, is what I’m trying to figure out.

[Shep]
No, don’t think about that kind of stuff.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
There’s no scene where they’re doing their taxes, okay? So don’t worry about them living in their apartment and who’s staying and who’s going.

[Thomas]
This isn’t Love Locks the Phantom Menace?

[Shep]
Too soon!

[Thomas]
See, he loved her because of the midi-chlorians.

[Shep]
Oh. How does he find out about the lock? What if it was in a pack within instructions that she kept? She held on to? And maybe this is when they moved in together, when they’re unpacking. He’s helping her unpack because he’s a good boyfriend. He’s helping out. And he finds this instructions on how to make someone fall in love with you with a love lock. And he’s like, “What the hell is this? Is this a joke? Like you don’t really believe this stuff, right?” Because he’s very serious minded. He doesn’t have that magical world mentality.

[Emily]
That answers a question I had of where does he let her know that he knows? But I like that he would, that it would be a discussion that they have. And then he’s like-

[Shep]
Because he doesn’t believe it. He thinks that it’s a joke or it’s a gag or whatever. He just wants to make sure that they’re on the same page. If they’re planning this future together and they have fundamentally different beliefs on reality, maybe it’s not a good match. So he’s talking to her about it and she’s like, “It does work. I mean, we’re together. It obviously works. Like it gave you that little nudge you needed to agree to our dinner. That got us going. I locked this lock and you agreed to go out with me the next day. It works. It works.” She’s trying to convince him of a magical world and he’s realizing that he’s being mind-controlled.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’re not in the same place in that conversation.

[Emily]
She’s like, “Oh, isn’t it sweet? It got you the nudge. And then we became closer, and we got to know each other, and I was right. You are happier with me.” And she sees it as more of the inciting incident of their relationship versus keeping him there the whole time.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And he’s like-

[Shep]
For her. It’s a Meet-Cute. For him, it’s mind-control.

[Thomas]
Yeah. For her, it’s a nudge, for him, it’s a prison, essentially. Yeah.

[Emily]
And he’s like, “So every decision I’ve made, we don’t know what’s been my decision and what’s been the lock’s decision.”

[Thomas]
Does she have a shoe box with stuff like a movie ticket from their date and just like a bunch of little memorabilia about him? And then it’s in that box.

[Shep]
Oh, that’s the box that this is in? That’s great.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So it starts off where he’s like, “Oh, how sweet, she kept this stuff, and how cute, and oh, what’s this thing?” Instructions for the love lock. And he’s like, “This is ridiculous.” And that’s what he gets to ask her about it.

[Shep]
That’s great, because then he remembers the time that she plucked one of his hairs because she denied it at the time. “Did you just..?” She’s like, “What? Nothing.”

[Thomas]
Does she just straight up buy it from a real shop that exists and doesn’t disappear magically and he ends up going back on his own at some point to talk to the person that works there about it?

[Emily]
Does he need proof that the magic is real?

[Shep]
See, at first I’m like, nah, blah, let’s have the magical shop, like in Big. But I like the idea of him having the conversation with the fortune teller who can see the future and is telling him whatever to hint at the coming events.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that too.

[Shep]
Because he doesn’t believe in this magic bullshit, and maybe she doesn’t really either, but just in case, that’s why she bought it and he doesn’t believe it either, but just in case, let’s unlock that lock.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
I want the first time she talks to the fortune teller, I want the fortune she receives to work twice, essentially. So she thinks that the fortune has to do with the lock and with being with him, but really the fortune that she receives is about the end of the movie.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s good.

[Shep]
So he talks to the fortune teller and is convinced that perhaps this does work and this is when he has to choose whether or not to unlock the lock.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because then he’s not only messing with his personal happiness, his fundamental belief system is also in question.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Where it’s like, “If I do this and it works, magic is real, and I was a prisoner. If I do this and it doesn’t work, I’m a jackass who thought for a second that magic was real, even though I’m sure it’s not.”

[Shep]
“I won’t even indulge my loving girlfriend in her magical world beliefs,” because it doesn’t matter at all. So just let her be happy. Jeez. Asshole, calm down.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So when he’s talking to the fortune teller, does he ask, “If I open this lock, what happens to our relationship? What if everything falls apart?” And does the fortune teller say something like, “What if you unlock it and nothing changes?” Like, he hasn’t considered that maybe the lock genuinely gave him the nudge and maybe that was it.

[Emily]
It was just a nudge to say “Yeah.”

[Thomas]
It was just the nudge. He doesn’t think that it’s the nudge. He thinks it’s a prison. That it’s mind prison that he’s in.

[Shep]
Okay, here’s the thing. He’s happier now because he’s not stressing out at work and he’s not putting in the long hours that he was putting in before. And he may be passed up for a promotion because he’s not putting in the long hours, but he now thinks the promotion wouldn’t make him as happy as his relationship is making him. Then he finds out about the lock and has to make the choice about whether to unlock it or not. So when it does get unlocked later and the spell does wear off, he is upset that he hasn’t been putting in the hours at work because he definitely would have been doing that.

[Emily]
And you would have gotten that promotion.

[Shep]
And he would have gotten that promotion. So now he’s like, he can maybe put all his effort into work again and try to bypass the person that’s catching up to him in sales or whatever and retake that promotion. But that means completely cutting off the relationship because he doesn’t have time for her anymore. He can’t do both.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
He has to choose. So it’s not just that he was mind controlled, but he very clearly can tell that he made choices that he wouldn’t have made, which would be great again. So it’s, you have the scene later on where he’s in the office in the middle of the night and he’s gotten the promotion or whatever. And that’s when that feeling of emptiness kind of settles in. That he’s getting what he thought he wanted before.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But he’s no longer happy with it because he now can compare and contrast it with being in that relationship with her and not putting all his effort into work.

[Emily]
Yeah. Because he’s eating Chinese food out of a carton.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Emily]
And then he remembers the last time he had this particular dish was they were snuggled up on the couch watching movies.

[Thomas]
Does he open a fortune cookie in it? Oh, man. Okay, so there’s a fortune cookie and he’s having this moment. You can tell. He looks at a photo or, I don’t know, whatever way that we indicated the audience, he’s thinking about her and he picks up the fortune cookie and he opens it and it’s something super generic or maybe there’s not even a fortune in it. And he’s like, “What the fuck?”

[Shep]
I would like it if there is a fortune in it. So you can see him reading it and then you see the fortune itself and it’s just something completely unrelated.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Which reconfirms that there’s no magic in the world and that everything is bullshit because he thought for a moment maybe it would say “Reconnect with a lost love.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. And then you have an excuse to do it.

[Emily]
But he’s so manly. He can’t.

[Shep]
But yeah, I’m just picturing how awkward that scene is after the lock is opened and they’re broken up and he goes and doesn’t get coffee and just walks right by.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay, so the coffee shop is in the lobby of the building where he works.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And so it shares a glass wall with the main entrance to the building. So normally he would enter the building through the coffee shop, but she sees him just walk in through the main entrance.

[Shep]
And maybe she wants to call out to him, but can’t.

[Emily]
Yeah. That’s sad.

[Shep]
He doesn’t even look at her.

[Thomas]
She has his regular coffee order already made and ready to go, and he just doesn’t even come in.

[Shep]
That’s great. You’re good at twisting the knife, which is great for this type of movie.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So she wants to apologize to him next time he comes into the coffee shop, but he doesn’t come in anymore.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And maybe when he comes through, he’s holding some other coffee.

[Emily]
Some other coffee. Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah. That’s good.

[Shep]
So how did they get back together? We already did this. That’s where he comes to the realization he was happier.

[Emily]
But how do we instigate it between them? Like, she’s trying to text him a few times.

[Shep]
Oh, he goes to the coffee shop. She no longer works there.

[Thomas]
She can’t bear to work there anymore, watch him walk by every day.

[Emily]
Right. Watch him walk by with some other woman’s coffee in his hand.

[Shep]
It’s got to be another woman is not just from a rival coffee shop.

[Emily]
Nope.

[Thomas]
So what has she been doing in the meantime while he’s been trying to get his career back on track and getting coffee from another shop? She quits this one coffee shop. What does she do?

[Emily]
Well, she was an illustrator, so she got a job as a graphic artist down the street.

[Shep]
Right. She was not pursuing her career. She was happy where she was because she got to see this guy every day that she liked. They did the opposite. They were doing the opposite lives. She was passing up opportunities to stay there to see him in the hopes that it would turn into a relationship at some point. And he was not turning it into a relationship to not miss opportunities at work, literal, exact opposites in their choices. And so without that potential relationship, she no longer passed up opportunities. An opportunity came up for illustration work or something. And so she quit her coffee job and went to do that. That’s great. You guys are really good at this.

[Thomas]
It’s like we’ve watched a few of these kind of movies before.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Okay, this is good. I love this. We’re almost there. How does he find her? How does he get her back? What does that scene like?

[Shep]
He goes to the apartment because he knows she’s still there.

[Emily]
But she’s working long hours. So she’s not there. She lives there, but she’s not there.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
He goes to the coffee shop first and realizes she’s not there.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, yeah, he goes to the apartment? Is that where the final scene happens, or the climax scene, I suppose, anyway.

[Shep]
Yeah. Does he have the lock? I mean, I assume he kept the lock so that she wouldn’t relock it.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Absolutely. That’s part of the argument. He’s like, “I’m taking this with me.”

[Thomas]
Is there a mail slot on the door and he locks the lock and puts it through the door?

[Shep]
Does the lock recast the spell when it’s locked?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
Well, so that’s why I was kind of thinking about maybe he opens the lock with bolt cutters so that it cannot be relocked, but he doesn’t need it.

[Emily]
Do they go and buy a new lock from the fortune teller together as the denouement? Actually, I like the idea of the bolt cutter and then them going back to the bridge in the denouement and locking it to, linking hands together locking it. Is she actually at the apartment?

[Shep]
She’s not there when he arrives.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And he thinks that she’s not there. She doesn’t live there, maybe. He’s finally realized what he gave up on and she’s gone. She’s gone. He has no way to get hold of her. She changed her number. She doesn’t work where she used to work, and apparently she doesn’t live where she used to live and he’s out of options and it’s raining.

[Thomas]
Does he go back to the fortune teller to try to figure out where she is?

[Shep]
Why would the fortune teller-?

[Emily]
She’s a fortune teller, so she would know.

[Shep]
I figure that she just shows up while he’s there. He doesn’t leave. He’s going there to meet her and there’s no answer at the door.

[Emily]
So she comes back, he’s there, dejected and depressed.

[Shep]
Yeah, he thought he missed her, but she’s there.

[Emily]
Why is he still hanging out in the apartment?

[Shep]
He’s not in the apartment. I would like it if he goes to leave and the doors open for the elevator and she’s inside.

[Emily]
And she’s there. Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, what’s this conversation, then? Is she happy to see him?

[Emily]
Well, obviously I think she is. But she wants to be reserved.

[Shep]
Right. Because she also got her heart broken.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Are they both just acting-

[Emily]
Awkward.

[Thomas]
Awkward and shy, almost, like neither of them knows what to say. Neither of them wants to show their hand. They don’t want to appear too eager.

[Shep]
Yeah, right. So that was his whole problem to begin with, is he’s so reserved and doesn’t focus on relationships and just was spending all his time at work because he’s good at that.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So he’s doing what he’s good at in life, which is working and not being in relationships because he doesn’t really know how to talk to people. That’s maybe a thing that you could establish early. So he says, “I thought I missed you.” And she goes, “Oh, I was out. We had a gallery showing” or fucking whatever. I don’t know what illustrators do.

[Emily]
Whatever job she did.

[Shep]
Right. Whatever job she’s doing, that’s where she was at. So it’s again, the opposite. He’s trying to talk to her and she was working. It’s perfect.

[Thomas]
Has he… No, he hasn’t. This is 2022. He has not rented a movie and brought it over.

[Shep]
Who’s got physical media old man.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Unless they talked about that earlier as a thing. Like she still got a VHS player. What is…? A VCR. I remember.

[Thomas]
That’s how old it is. Those of us who grew up with it can’t remember what it’s called.

[Shep]
VHS player!

[Emily]
It sounds better on VHS. I was thinking he could, like, when they’re being awkward, pick some famous rom-com movie line about being awkward. And he says it, and she’s like, “Oh, how do you know that? You don’t watch movies.” And he’s like, “Well-“

[Thomas]
He’s there, “I’m just a man standing in f-” She’s like, “Just stop.”

[Shep]
“You had me at hello.”

[Thomas]
So did they rent a movie on Amazon or wherever? They had a movie they were intending to watch and didn’t watch because they broke up.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. That was the plan for that night.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But then they broke up instead.

[Emily]
Oh. Yes.

[Thomas]
So he’s come over and said, “Let’s watch this movie.” That’s how he says he’s interested in her, without saying he’s interested in her. And she says, “Well, why are you here?”

[Shep]
I don’t know if she would ask why he’s there because they’re both so awkward. They’re not asking questions. Each one is making a statement, hoping the other one will ask, whatever. So he says, “I thought I missed you.” She says “I was working.” And then he’ll say, “I still haven’t seen (whatever movie is that they had rented).” And so she’ll say, “Oh, me either.” And then there’s just an awkward pause where it’s like it’s clear to us, the audience members, that they want to watch it together, but neither of them is breaking because both of them got their hearts broken. He feels betrayed. She’s heartbroken. And they don’t want to hurt again.

[Emily]
Is this all outside the door? Like, they haven’t even gone into the apartment yet. They’re still in the hallway.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. That’s the tension breaker is as that awkward pause, and then the elevator doors start to close. She’s still in the elevator. She opens again and then comes out. And then they both walk up to the door. She hasn’t invited him in.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And he hasn’t asked to come in. They’re just standard awkwardly in front of her door. I’m just feeling so much cringe imagining this.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Because it’s so awful, yet so relatable.

[Emily]
Because you have people screaming in the audience. “Just kiss her!”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“Just say it!”

[Shep]
Oh, they don’t do it. They don’t do it. She goes into the apartment and doesn’t invite him in and is waiting for him to ask to come in. And he doesn’t ask to come in. And then she’s like, “Okay.” And then closes the door.

[Thomas]
You see him looking bummed. You see her looking bummed.

[Shep]
He gets on the elevator, and he’s waiting for the doors to close. And he’s really thinking about whether or not to go back out to the door. And then she comes out of the apartment, and she’s like, “I just wanted to say” and then the doors closed again, just like it did for her.

[Thomas]
So they run down, she runs down the stairs to the lobby?

[Shep]
No, he opens the doors again.

[Emily]
I think he should just either put his hand out or push the button and have the doors open.

[Shep]
Agreed.

[Emily]
What were you saying?

[Shep]
Establish earlier that he doesn’t put his hand out to open elevator doors because he thinks it will cut his arm off.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Like he’s got an irrational fear about it. And she’s like, “Oh, that’s crazy,” or whatever. And then at that moment, when she’s trying to talk to him, the door is closed. He puts his arm out and keeps the door from closing.

[Emily]
So that tells her he’s here for me. He’s going past his fear for me.

[Shep]
Right. But he didn’t do that a moment earlier when it closed on her.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Who makes the final move? It has to be him, right?

[Emily]
I think it has to be him because he has to make the choice now. Because that’s the whole point of it, is him making the choice.

[Thomas]
In fact, I think she should not come back out of the apartment. I think he needs to make the decision to go to her and ask to watch the movie or whatever the move is.

[Shep]
So she keeps telling him to ask her out. That’s their flirting. She’s not asking him out. She’s saying, “You should ask me out.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“You should ask me out. You should ask me out. You should ask me out.” So at that moment, he goes back up to the door, knocks on the door, maybe she even opens the door, and she’s like, “What?” And he’s like, “I’d want to watch the movie.” And she’s like, “Then ask,” because he’s still just making statements.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
“I want to watch the movie.”

[Thomas]
And so she has to use her phrase, “Well, then you should ask me out.”

[Emily]
And then he does.

[Shep]
And she goes, “I’ll think about it” and closes the door.

[Thomas]
So really, because it’s a rom-com, he asks her out, and he doesn’t even finish the sentence. She’s already in his arms kissing him.

[Emily]
100%

[Shep]
Maybe this is where you had the “You had me at hello” movie quote callback.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s great. After the kiss, they’re in each other’s arms, looking at each other. “You had me at hello.” “Stop it.” And then they go inside. Door shuts. Roll credits. Is there a denouement or is that it, is, are we go with ending at that point?

[Shep]
The denouement is them back on the bridge with the lock.

[Emily]
Locking the lock together.

[Thomas]
Oh, right. Yeah.

[Shep]
Or maybe mid credit scene is them at the fortune teller buying a new lock because the fortune teller knew all of this was going to happen because magic is real.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Whatever. And that’s when she overcharges them for the locks because she knew she could get two sales out of them. And they’re desperate buyers now. They want that love lock. And then the final scene is them on the bridge relocking it. I like the scenes on the bridge because if you have the wind blow every time the lock is locked or unlocked, it’s indicating, like a magic something is happening. But it’s like it also could just be coincidence. They’re outdoors, wind blows outside.

[Emily]
They’re on a bridge over a river where breezes just flare up.

[Thomas]
So does the wind blow the last time that they lock the lock at the end?

[Shep]
Go to black before you see it. Make the audience talk about it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it ends on the final click.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
As soon as it clicks, black.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
As soon as it clicks, cut to black. Yeah. Very good.

[Shep]
We should make movies.

[Thomas]
Feel like it. Yeah.

[Emily]
We should write rom-coms.

[Shep]
I would be happy just writing rom-coms all the time.

[Emily]
Honestly, I would be, too.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show. Did we lock on to something special or was it so bad that we should be locked up? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com We release a new episode of Almost Plausible every Tuesday morning. And when you subscribe to our show in your podcatcher of choice, you’ll be able to automatically download each new installment as soon as it’s available. So take a moment right now and subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode. And if you’re already subscribed, thanks! Come back again next week to hear Emily, Shep, and I create another episode of Almost Plausible.

[Shep]
Bye bye.

[Emily]
Good night.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
I got robbed in high school because someone knew the combination for my locker and it was the built-in locks, right. Which if you knew the combination for that locker, you could just open it whenever.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And they did and stole my expensive TI calculator, and I could not afford to buy a replacement one.

[Thomas]
So you’re saying there’s some trauma that you’ve gone through that’s informed your decision about locks?

[Shep]
Yeah, I don’t like combination locks. They also left a note that said, “You wear too much black.”

[Emily]
That’s rude.

[Shep]
So you’re the one robbing me, so lay off the criticism, maybe. I’m in mourning for my TI calculator.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That I can no longer afford.

[Thomas]
And this was before school shooting, so it’s not like they were worried about you.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“This guy wears a lot of black, and he just got robbed at school…”

[Shep]
Actually. So for some reason, I went through a goth phase before it was cool.

[Thomas]
Didn’t we all?

[Shep]
No, remember, I’m older than everyone else, so when I went through the goth phase, there were still Gothics. So I had dyed my hair black, and I wore a gray duster because I couldn’t get a black one, and I just thought I was the coolest cat, and I changed schools a lot, and so people were just like, “Oh, this is just a weird kid that has got long, dyed black hair and wears the duster.” And when they finally got to know me, they’re like, “Oh, you’re so much more mellow than you… Like, we don’t know what you’re trying to project, but what you’re projecting is, let’s not turn our back on this guy in case he pulls a knife out of his trench coat.” Like, “Oh, wow. That’s not what I was picturing at all.” So I cut my hair and stopped wearing the trench coat.

[Emily]
You were Christian Slater in Heathers.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And then The Basketball Diaries came out, and everyone sort of looked over at you like, “Shit, this guy.”