
Show Notes
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 [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from The Shallow End
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?
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.
This week, The Shallow End opens the mailbag—and apparently our listeners have been making questionable decisions all over the world.
Some bad ideas take careful planning. Others apparently require a counterfeit money operation, Abraham Lincoln’s corpse, and absolutely no consideration for how much a lead-lined coffin weighs.
A homesick teenager makes the worst travel decision in aviation history: in 1965, Brian Robson had friends nail him into a wooden crate and ship him from Australia toward Wales as air freight. When the crate is rerouted to Los Angeles—and turned upside down—his 36-hour plan becomes a horrifying four-day ordeal.