Shiny Veneers (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

**MrBallen** (0:01)
Today, I'm going to share three stories that are all about people who went to great lengths to make themselves look good, but in each case, as you'll see, it completely backfires. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark & Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, the next time the follow button is really excited to see a new movie, make sure you tell them the ending of that movie right as they're sitting down to watch it. OK, let's get into our first story called Juanita.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:56)
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**MrBallen** (1:26)
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One afternoon in late February of 2023, a 26-year-old man named Julio Bermejo walked toward a park in the city of Puno, Peru, with his girlfriend, Juanita. They were on the way to the park to meet Julio's two best friends, who he was finally going to be introducing, Juanita, too. To this point, they knew he had a girlfriend, but they had never actually met. And this in and of itself was actually kind of odd, because again, these are Julio's best friends, and Julio and Juanita had actually been together for a while now.
But Julio had sort of always been a little hesitant to introduce her to his friends, because he knew, you know, Juanita was just a little bit different. You know, she was she was odd. And he knew that his friends might pick up on that and maybe even make fun of him for it. He didn't know. He just he was worried that it would cause weirdness amongst the friends if they, you know, had a chance to interact with his girlfriend. And so he just kind of kept her secret. But his friends knew he was dating Juanita, and they just really wanted to meet her. And so they kept pressuring him and pressuring him. And finally, he's like, you know what?
We'll just go to the park. We'll meet up. I'm sure it'll be fine. And in order to ensure that this meeting would go as well as it could, Julio had also brought along with him as they're walking to the park, he had this big red cooler, and inside of it was all this rum and some cups and ice and stuff that they could drink while they're at the park. And for what it's worth, you're not allowed to drink in public in Peru, and Julio knew this. And so he was sort of weary of the fact that he's lugging this obvious case of drinks out to a public park, and he was going to be drinking in public. But he felt like it was worth the risk. He would go out there, they'd have a couple of drinks, his friends would meet Juanita, it would all be fine. Eventually, Julio and Juanita reached the edge of the park. And up ahead, Julio could see his two friends waiting by this crumbling wall within the park. So most of Puno was covered in all these old ruins, because there was this ancient civilization called the Incas, who had lived there hundreds of years ago. And so this crumbling wall that his friends were sitting on was quite literally like an artifact, a remnant of the past. But it was sort of so commonplace in this area that people didn't even notice them. It was just sort of part of the landscape. And so Juanita and Julio and Julio's big red cooler full of rum, they lumbered their way through the park, dodging different ruins that were jutting out of the ground, all the way over to the wall where the two friends were. And they actually hadn't seen them approaching. And so it was only when they kind of just were standing right in front of them that the friends looked and saw Julio, saw Juanita, and Julio right away, he's sort of trying to gauge their reaction to Juanita and to this whole situation. But pretty quickly, his friends were just pretty cool and they were interested in Juanita. And they quickly wanted to learn more about Juanita. And it was just like kind of easy. And Julio, he opened up the cooler right away. He got the cups out. He's filling them up with rum and soda. And all the friends are drinking. They're having a good time. And Julio's like, man, I was worried about nothing. My friends, they think Juanita is great. Yeah, she's different, but they think she's great. This has gone as well as it could have. And also definitely the rum was helping. And so for a while, all four of them were just sitting around this, you know, crumbling wall, you know, drinking their rum. They're having a good time. And then at some point, Julio, who was facing his two friends, his friends, they sort of looked up and they had this look come over their face. Like they were worried about something that clearly was behind Julio. They sort of gasped when they saw it. And Julio, he's like, oh no, like, is it the police? Because they're out here drinking publicly and they're getting a little bit drunk and a little bit rowdy, with the exception of Juanita. You know, she had drank the least of the group, perhaps to maintain some level of decency, perhaps. But, you know, the two friends and Julio, they were pretty drunk and being loud. And so Julio, he turns around and his stomach just drops because, yep, here come the police. There are two officers coming over and he's thinking, jigs up, they're going to clearly see that we are drinking in public. We can't even hide it.