Between the pandemic and life’s twists and turns, it took Andi Sweet four years to finally make it to The Moth’s Seattle GrandSLAM competition last fall. Telling their hilarious and harrowing five-minute story about housing insecurity to an audience of over 750 is something they’ll never forget.

“I needed a win at the time, so it felt really good and made me realize that I need to start doing this more often,” says the Bachelor of Communication Studies student.

The story of Sweet’s big win began in 2019 before they were even a MacEwan student. While on vacation in Seattle, they signed up for one of The Moth’s StorySLAMs (open-mic storytelling competitions held in 28 cities around the world) on a whim. Their five-minute story about the death of their neighbour earned them a place in one of the nonprofit groups’ GrandSLAM competitions.

When a couple of scheduling attempts turned out to be non-starters, Sweet decided that The Moth’s third request would work no matter what. So, right around midterms last fall, they headed back to Seattle. After listening to their fellow GrandSLAM competitors share stories that ranged from heartbreaking to heroic, Sweet took to the stage for a five-minute foray into dealing with housing insecurity while pursuing their first degree in sociology.

“I was in my early 20s and at a different university that refused to do anything about a mice infestation in my apartment,” they say. “It looked at the year as a whole, how the mice were ever-present and some of the really complicated emotions that still linger from that time.”

Sweet describes the story as absurd, a little bit harrowing and strangely comical. The punchline? “A mouse ran across my face while I was in bed one night, and I grabbed the nearest thing that I had to a weapon – a vibrator – and chased it, but the cord stopped me from beating it to death.”

At least some of the credit for helping the Professional Communication major prepare goes to their fellow MacEwan students. When Sweet was preparing for the GrandSLAM, their creative writing class had an assignment that involved submitting a story to be critiqued. Building on their feedback, Sweet continued the editing process until the moment their mouth hit the microphone.

The recording of Sweet’s performance could eventually make its way onto The Moth’s podcast, but even if that doesn’t happen, there’s a good chance you might see them on stage at an Edmonton Story Slam someday soon.