Episode 516: Listener Tales 80

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I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hey weirdos, I'm ash.

And I'm Elena. I didn't have a microphone in front of my face, so that would have been weird. We've been doing this for five years and I still don't remember to put the microphone in front of my face.

And this is morbid. Yeah, it is.

It is loosey and it is very goosey, and I have the microphone in front of my face now. So we can do this. And I'm going to start this listener tales because I'm excited for this, this tale subject.

Good thing, don't you forget it, don't you forget it.

But anytime I see a decomp on something, I'm like, Huh, you're like, tell me all about it, what's happening there? Call me so.

That's not short, that's pretty short.

I was going to say, for a girl's day out shopping. The first episode I heard was the one where you stumbled across a video on the dark web that pictured feet moving around with a suitcase leaking black fluid. And when you went back to find it again, the video was gone.

Oh yeah, remember those TikToks? Yes, I forgot about those. What was the name?

Oh, I can't remember, no me either, damn it. We'll have to see, then, the episode of the killer lady clown who shot her lover's wife in the face.

Wow, look at you.

I know in the event your curiosity inspires you to research this case even further, Oh, I hope you do. My research skills, or total lack thereof, left me frustrated. I have to tell you ladies, I'm so impressed with your research skills and Dave's.

Enjoy, let's go, let's go.

Going to bring it up.

OK, bring it back.

Back in the day, just kidding, I was like, what, I was kidding again?

You're like, Where are we?

I thought you were going, Oh, I was like, what?

No, no, no. I said, bring it back, and then I went, Oh, you didn't see the shoulders of it all?

That's what took me out.

Sorry, back to Heidi's tale, it's not about me.

Back in the day, my father worked as an insurance agent, with a side hustle as a contractor, builder and craftsman. Damn, he would find a trash heap of a home, buy it for pennies, gut it, remodel it and flip it for profit. He carried paper on those homes and did so well fiscally that he eventually gave up his insurance. Work for a dawn till dusk self-employed contractor building gig, which, incredibly, he is still hard at work today, in his mid 70s.

Let's go, papa, your dad.

What can I say? Dad loves what he does, that's great.

You'll never work a day in your life.

Hell yeah, my little brother and I spent many summers as free laborers for a dad's intensive home renovations. Sure, we'd both grown in unison when dad announced that he bought another Hubble. But we learned some incredible skills of our own and firsthand lessons in the value of hard work and visionary promise. That was a beautiful sentence.

Damn look, mama, we made it.

Yeah, nevertheless, the home I'm about to introduce you to was not one such phenomenal project. On a hot July day in Grants Pass, Oregon. Is that right?

It's similar to Boyd, and that's what me and Elena call each other.

There you go. Quick side note If you google the residence, I've attached the information for your eyes only you'll find that it sits near the west end of Demaray Drive. Today, this area is considered suburbia, with the surrounding pastures divvied up into additional housing and pot gardens. But back when I was just a tween, in the mid 1980s, this property was a good 15 minute drive out into the countryside of Grants Pass proper.

You just said double wing.

Oh, I thought he said double wing. Oh, I thought you said wing. It actually says double wide.

But I said, double wing and I'm 12.

I was like, Nah, I said wing, and that was still wrong.

We out here.

It's double wide, single garage door stood, gaping open, like a dark, yawning mouth. That's scary.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know about that.

I hate that. Dad told us to stay by the van, I know exactly how I feel about it, Dad told us to stay by the van. As he hopped out and greeted Floyd, who approached the van with a toothy grin, I don't like that.

Give me a soft one, give me a soft smile, give me a gummy smile. No, no, no, soft smiles only.

Smizes.

Smize at me, baby.

Floyd So Dad and Floyd moseyed off to inspect the house and surrounding acreage. My brother and I quickly grew bored of sitting in the hot van and decided to loiter in the shade of the trees near the house. As we tumbled out of the van and move closer to the house, a horrendous stench slapped our faces and burned our nostrils. Good God.

I feel like I can smell it.

But this smell far, far worse. The pungency was profound.

I love that sentence.

And it had a disgustingly and indescribably sweet twist to its rancid odor.

Oh, we know that's right.

So gross. Our senses of smell were seared by it. My brother and I flippantly commented how on how awful the smell was. But again, boredom and a touch of curiosity set in What the heck was taking dad so long?

Uh oh.

There were dark red splotches around the missing section of concrete. Weird, weird, indeed, along the left side of the garage. Or, like, you know, we like to say, unique.

Yeah, yeah, unique.

Along the left side of the garage, there was a step in a door that led into the house. The bottom half of the door was dented in. Huh, that's odd, too.

Mm hmm, sure is.

The rest of the garage was unassuming. A cluttered workbench stretched along the right side of the garage and the back wall was covered with overfilled wooden shelving that reached from floor to ceiling. At the back of the garage, toward the left side, a door stood open and offered a peek into the backyard. As I, as I aforementioned, we were 80s kids, I was 10 or 11, and my brother is two years younger than me.

I would not.

I don't recall whose grand idea it was, but the game was afoot. It was Alina's, we ran, it was, it was mine.

Oh my god, you guys are probably so stinky.

So stinky, jump ahead. About a decade, I was fascinated with forensics and seriously considered it as a field of study as I headed off to college. However, the memory of my experience in the Demarais Garage and how truly disgusting the pong of human decomposition is, persuasively steered me away from that career choice. So I ended up caring for the living rather than the dead.

That sounds fucking horrible.

You picked that sentence up and you just dropped it right in front of us.

A softball sized abscess.

You didn't ask me on the groin, you didn't knock on the door, you busted through the door, and you just dropped that sentence in my lap. Like, remember when, you know, I have to have that?

Remember, when you learned how to hold a softball, you had to figure out, like, how to arrange your fingers around it? And still, they wouldn't fit because the softball is fucking huge. Yep on your groin.

It's going to get worse. We successfully drained about a liter of loose yellow pearl.

Well.

Some stuff from the abscess.

No, no, no, she said. Liter of loose yellow pure lesson Wait, were you going to skip over the whole thing?

No, no, shut up. It had black flecks of necrotic tissue in it.

Yeet, she goes, yeet.

The stench of that drainage was the closest smell to human decomp that I've ever experienced in nearly 40 years.

Oh my god, girly, I just had onion rings for lunch. Why did you do that to me?

I suppose that would make sense. Necrotic tissue, after all. In fact, you, ladies, read a listener tale in which a thoughtful writer tried to describe the reek of human decomp. She was so close, but I remember saying out loud, What about the sweetness?

That's how I felt about my Onion rings today.

Yeah, it was. They were sickly.

No, I got sonic onion rings, and why do they make them taste like cake? I don't like it. they literally have vanilla in them, like, why were my onion rings like Decon?

I too, know the smell of human decomposition I do. It was like my sonic onion rings.

Honestly, it might be close. It was like making onion rings in vanilla bread.

There's like a weird, you know, when something is so sweet that you're like, it smells bad. I want to launch myself into the sun. That was so bad.

I don't know if I know about that.

Like, you know, sometimes somebody will give you like, you'll order a coffee and they put too many pumps of something in it. And you take a sip and you're like, whoa? Like, it's just like, Oh my god.

Yeah, it does this certain thing to like your tongue, I feel like.

Yeah, and it's just human. Decomp.

You know where you go, you go home, Roger, you go home, Roger, and you take a shoushou.

It's a lot, it's a lot. It's really hard to describe. I think that's why nobody can really describe it accurately.

It's like rotting garbage that a Starbucks barista, just like, goes by and like, pumps all the caramel on.

Yeah, but she puts, like, the sugar free, I was just going to say the sugar free one that's somehow sweeter. Like it's just because it's like fake, like it's like aspartame, like, rancidly sweet.

Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole and I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time. The impact on victims and what's left once the facade falls away? We've covered stories like a Shark tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills. An active lawsuit filed by Larry King. And no real product to push.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop around. She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

Like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

Oh my God, is he going to tell you?

My brother and I both offered lame ideas like really rotten garbage. Dad eventually clarified by saying that was the smell of Floyd's wife. She was murdered in the garage while he was away on business.

He said So take that rancid smell out of your mouth, OK?

After a beat, with our mouths hanging open and our eyes bulging, my brother and I started asking dad, all sorts of questions. He calmly, This is a dad, yeah, he calmly and matter of factly answered each one. How old were you? good for your dad?

Oh my god.

The cherry on top was that Mrs Baker's decomposing body was removed not long enough. Before. My brother and I were carelessly were running carelessly through the garage, my dad didn't realize we would be exposed to any of that. OOF mistake number one.

That's a choice.

OK, so dad gives each one of us his remodel, excuse me, sorry.

It's OK that you were a little flustered after that. OK, take that breath.

So Dad gives each one of his remodels a unique or sophisticated name, such as The Woodland or the Redwood Falls, or the Chateau.

I love your dad.

To list a few. But for this abhorrent model, we understandably and very simply dubbed it the murder House, and still call it that to this day. Honestly, I don't know what else you could name it in the months following my dad's decision to make the murder house his next remodel. We would show up on site as a family to help deep clean, dispose of garbage, and otherwise assist Floyd with moving out of the home. Floyd's wife had a little white Pomeranian, which Floyd claimed to utterly despise.

I thought I thought you were saying that he came to love the dog.

And he was like, bye, bye.

Going on a trip, that's what I thought.

Oh my god, oh Floyd, that's not OK. That sentence was such a jump scare.

That was so mean.

Fucking Floyd.

I feel like I was just tricked.

You were, you were duped. I was like, Oh, bye, bye.

Bye, bye.

Oh, that's what Floyd was like, too. And the dog's just like, OK, that's so sad, and also it's like, Dude, your wife probably loved that fucking dog, damn.

Why the fuck did you use it? You know what? Heidi has the right response. What the actual fuck? You should have given it to somebody else?

You don't just kill a dog because you don't want it, Floyd.

I'm on an emotional roller coaster right now.

It's like, Lucy, lucy, applejuicy.

Damn flash forward two decades with me, I'm here with you.

Yeah, let's get out of there.

I'm working as an ICU nurse, so you are a superhero.

Yeah.

And have a male patient who purposely blew half of his lower jaw off? Oh, who purposely blew half of his lower jaw off during a failed suicide attempt. Oh, oh, my God, the kicker.

I don't think that's a kicker, I don't. I don't think anybody told you what a kicker was.

Well, when I learned of that fact, my mind had instantly gone back to Floyd, cheerfully waving the paw of his wife's palm as he left to have it euthanized. What the heck? Why not give the pet to someone who would love to have it? Honestly, there are no adequate words for these people.

Truly, that's a that's a thing. Just give it to someone else.

God, back at the murder house, I remember that the inside of the home reeked of cheap cigarette smoke. The interior walls were formerly white, but it required a permanent orange tinge and had brownish streaks of nicotine tar that had dripped down the walls. Like wet mascara, you paint a picture.

You do. Have you ever been in a house where somebody has smoked like that? It's crazy what it does to the walls.

Oh, it's wild. We scrub them as best we could, to no avail. The tar persistently seeped through several, several fresh layers of paint. So we eventually resorted to painting them with a special sealant used after grease fires, before repainting the walls successfully.

And if that's not an anecdote, to not smoke ever.

Well, one day my mom, brother and I were cleaning up in the garage sans the odor of human decomp. Floyd had a large trash can by the workbench at one point, while tossing some garbage into the trash. My brother spied a bone, more than a foot long and nearly an inch in diameter, with bits of fatty flesh on it. He anxiously pointed it out to mom and me.

Damn, was she sure.

Maybe an animal of some sort. We lived on a farm full of horses, cows, dogs, cats, turkeys, chickens, pigs, ponies, et cetera, and we assisted with butchering our own meat. But this bone was unfamiliar and downright unsettling. Could it be from a child? I asked.

No, it's not Floyd.

He then turned and sauntered back out the way he had come in.

Why Floyd's always lying? He's lying, He's always lying.

That was, and still is, the strangest turkey leg bone I have ever seen.

Yeah, that's because it was not a Turkey leg bone.

Mom gave us a wide eyed shrug and we returned to cleaning. But from that moment on, I was exceedingly suspicious of Floyd.

Me too, after the buh-bye.

August brought the Josephine County Fair to town. My family owned a vacant lot near the fairgrounds, so we parked cars there every fair season to help pay for the lot's annual property taxes. As a reward at the end of the hot and exhausting week of parking cars all day, every day. My parents stayed to park the cars after sunset, while my brother and I got to go enjoy a couple of hours of fun at the fair. Before it closed for the season. We were noshing on cotton candy and strolling through the selection of rides when Floyd literally jumped out at us from around the dark side of a ticket booth.

Boo, Get out of here, Floyd, you're too wily. you're wicked Wily. way too wily.

My brother and I gasped and grabbed each other's arms with sticky fingers. Floyd burst into obnoxious cackles, rubbing his hands together with glee. He was pleased. He was plainly, very pleased at our fright. Floyd glanced from side to side with his dark, beady eyes.

Everywhere.

They're everywhere, everywhere, Floyd.

Get the fuck out of here, my parents are everywhere.

Every single person in this fair is my parent, Floyd.

And they'll get you Floyd.

Oh, they're close to I love. Oh, they're close by somewhere, I answered. Even though they weren't smart, Floyd looked around for a few seconds longer, then said, Well, I guess I'll go find them then.

Okay, maybe that's not sad.

I wondered about this. Apparently, the police believed he had murdered his wife and staged a business trip as an alibi. I believed it. Oh shit, never have I ever met a man creepier than Floyd.

Fucking Floyd.

Jeez, we had associated ourselves with a possible serial killer. Could it get much worse than that? Yes, yes, it could, and it did.

I didn't think it was gonna get worse.

My dad started ripping down walls at the murder house and adding on a master suite.

Oh, no.

I remember him telling us that he had found some really bad things written on the sheetrock, but he never did say what those things were. Moreover, my dad replaced the dented inner door of the garage and filled it in the missing concrete slab. Everything got a good scrub down and fresh paint, new carpet, new linoleum.

Well, it's like when Nicole Byers is like, you basic.

You basic. I love that he has, like craftwork that he puts in his homes, that's like detail, that's really cool. Astonishingly, my parents decided to use this particular home as a rental rather than selling it.

I'm sorry.

Several things, apparently. Ghosts, yeah.

Or things I hate it.

I hate it here. I made a mental note to myself. I don't even know if I'll ever be there at night, but never, ever fall asleep at the murder house.

That's a dope mental note.

It is back then. Write that down. My mom was part of a women's prayer group. So after hearing the news of demons in the walls, no real surprise. There, she and her lady friends went through the murder house room by room. Praying over it, blessing it and binding any evil spirits in the name of Jesus Christ.

That's not animals, baby.

My dad had a blank look on his face and responded along the lines of, Uh, there aren't any exposed pipes under your house? Another time, my aunt and uncle invited our family over for a movie night. They had a big screen TV that faced their bed, so the adults all piled on the bed. While my brother and I sat on the floor, leaning against the foot of the bed to watch the show. At some point during the movie, a huge, frigid gust of air came up through the floor beneath my brother and me. We were startled by it as it shot past us towards the ceiling.

I don't blame you.

My aunt and uncle only lived there for a couple of years. My last memory inside the murder house was a time when I was hanging out with my aunt. I wasn't feeling well, so she had me lay down on the couch in the living room while she worked from home. Somehow, I fell asleep. Even as I type this, my brain is screaming.

You never write down your dope mental thought.

I didn't write down that dope mental note. I remember waking up with a start as dusk was falling. I couldn't believe I hadn't died or been tortured by a wall demon. Nevertheless, never again would I let that happen. Almost every day, from the time I was 11 until I moved out of my family home at 18, I would jog the three-mile loop that consisted of my street, two side streets and Demeray Drive.

Of course.

I chuckled to myself at the involuntary note of disgust in her voice, as she said, Of course. Do you remember what year that was? or how old I was? Goodness Mom answered Maybe 10. I don't remember the year.

What a great end note on Floyd, like, Shit, can't believe. we knew that man. can't believe we knew that man.

So, ladies, the moral of my story is this. Keep it weird, but not so weird that you accidentally expose your kids to the horrid smell of human decomp in the heat of summer. But do keep it so weird that you are honest and calm about answering all of your kids rambling murder questions. But not so weird that you decide to buy said murder house and then rent it to an unsuspecting young family with little kids who wake up to demons coming out of their walls. And certainly don't keep it so weird that you then sell the home to your in-laws, who invite you over and expose you and your own kids to cold, ghostly air and banging pipes. And don't keep it so weird that you watch the house that's watching you as you jog by every day.

Oh, you know what, Heidi? This house does have creepy vibes, just looking at it.

Shit went down, you see it, shit went down.

Yeah, yeah, it's sad because it's like a cute house in a way.

That's how I pictured the house.

But it feels.

See, that's how I pictured it. Yeah, uh-oh, Heidi, you just gave me a new hyper fixation, so thank you for that, wow.

Investigate it.

I'm gonna investigate this, Heidi.

Damn, Heidi, that was a good one.

HEIDI That was horrifying and so well told. And thanks for being a hero. ICU nurse Yes, you're a fucking badass.

I love them.

And I am forever impressed that your dad just decided to make something he loved into his whole job and did it forever. And he's in his 70s and still doing it, and then he's a craftsman.

Pour one out for your dad. Good job, dad.

I love all of you. I loved his vibe. Your dad's vibe was right, impeccable, actually. Yeah, it was immaculate.

I pictured him as like the good guy in the movie that, like, hangs out with, like the crappy guy who he really just wants to kill. The whole time, yeah.

You know what I mean, You're right.

Yeah, the sopranos of it all.

The sopranos of it all, you know.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

That's amazing.

So it says, Hello. Attached is a putt-a-fuh about my haunted ass baby. Also attached are some pictures of my family and haunted baby as a baby.

Haunted baby as a baby.

Haunted baby is adorable.

I love Haunted baby.

She said I haven't really come across anyone else with a haunted baby, so I thought this would be a good story to submit. Happy reading. You're like, I've been on the lookout.

I love you.

Never have I come across another haunted baby.

Oh, we can use, uh, her name.

Casey, Casey, Hello Casey.

Also, your family and you are just beautiful.

Oh my gosh, thanks for being beautiful. He's so cute. He's so cute. Oh my god, your kids are so cute.

I'm afraid, okay.

Hello my spooky friends Alina and Ash, how tickled I was to have discovered your podcast by random, one sweltering South Carolina evening.

Oh, that sounds delightful.

Wow, you guys are great writers.

Yeah.

I was pissed that day because of the heat and humidity. That sun sure does have the audacity truth. I was tired of feeling sweat in every nook and cranny, from my tooties to my booties.

My tooties to my booties, my tooties to my booties, I love it.

Because when I got in my car that night to head home from my sister-in-law's house. After helping her in her yard that day, I had no desire to turn on my normal music playlist. I swiped over to the podcast and saw, Morbid, Yep, that's me, I'll give it a listen.

Like, hey, look at that.

That's me, and I haven't stopped since.

That's why we named it morbid, because we're like, I know a lot of people feel like they too, are morbid.

And Alina was like, we should name it macabre, and I was like, What's that mean again?

And I was like, morbid.

And I was like, we should just name it morbid.

And I was like, That sounds better.

And here we are, five years later, there we are. And Casey says I haven't stopped since I torture my kids on road trips, listening to you guys.

Eye roll, I love that for you guys.

I love that a lot and I love that you were like, You know what?

I love the whimsy of it all.

And you indulged him in that.

And you know what, Mikey just gave all the rock on.

Because he loves vibes. Wow, isn't that what the cool kids call it?

So Mikey approves, we approve.

He's a fellow Wower.

And Lane is a really cool name.

I like the name Lane a lot.

The applause is happening right now.

Oh, our ancestors in the room also.

They also approve of lane.

Yeah.

Because our roadcaster is haunted.

That's the thing we record them to.

Yeah, our pod lab is haunted really. And every time that we need encouragement or need to make a decision or they like something, the roadcaster will just hit the applause button without anyone near it. And it just did for you.

And at the same time, something fell.

Yeah, it was the what's it called lighter.

Lighter, but not onto it. No, oh so they like your kid's name, cool?

Oh, I love all those names, good job.

Watson is a wicked cute name that's my favorite of them all. They are 12, 6 and 2. Oh, I love them with all my heart. Oh me too.

I just want to hug you.

You're a great human and I love you. I had never felt fulfilled until I held my first son in my arms. Yep, this is it, this is what I'm meant to do.

Oh my God, Casey high five.

I love you so much, you fucking rule. Oh my god. More baby pictures and I'm so excited you see the froot loops.

Oh my god.

Obsessed, shut up. So enough about that. I've been wanting to share my story with y'all for a hot minute. But I could never find the time to just sit down and write. My mom brain be all over the place.

I do, I do know that.

So here it goes. One of my kids was born haunted. Yay, can you guess which one it was?

No, lane is just a little little goopy.

Lane is just like, I want to smush Lane's cheeks.

The picture we see is just like this beautiful little baby in a little basket.

And he has a lamb, and he has a lamb. And then there's Watson with a cool sick ass shark hat and matching shark shorts.

He might be Watson, I think it's Watson.

But then there's Ellis in an elf costume.

They're all so cute that I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I don't know I feel Watson.

I feel Watson, but then something's also telling me, Ellis.

Yeah, I can see Ellis, too. There's nothing like distinctive that I'm like, that is a haunted baby. No, it's just vibes, it's the vibes I feel. It's just vibes.

I'm going, Ellis.

I'm going with Watson, all right, let's go, let's go.

Do you get any creepy vibes from them? Yeah, I didn't either, but that middle one.

Oh, did I get it? I got it, Watson.

In the cute ass hat and the shark panties is the one. He must have shared my womb with his many spirit friends, because, no lie, the day we brought him home was the day the activity began in our house.

I knew it was Watson.

This joker put us through the river. So Watson was born January 9th, 2017. We got a cappy.

Hey, maybe that's what it was. I felt the vibe with him.

The cappy vibes.

Me and Watson together forever.

I had a fast and easy labor, eight hours, how fast, so quick. He was born after four pushes, with the most perfect round head at nine pounds even.

Damn mama, that's wild, good job.

My biggest baby out of all three of them. We were over the moon and we're so happy to be going home to start our new adventure as a family of four. I felt super confident going into the second baby and I was less anxious and way more prepared. It helped me a lot that we also waited six years in between kids. Oh yeah.

I was just going to say, that's exactly what it is.

The immediate thought of, like, Oh, fuck.

That's a whole person.

Like, I am responsible solely for this thing. So much fun. Alas, we did bring his little cute ass home and we quickly fell into a routine.

Yeah, don't feel weird if you overthink that. When you have a baby, everyone has that moment of like, Oh fuck, that's good to know. Like, that's a whole ass person and I have to bring it home and keep it alive forever.

And keep the other one alive if you've got it.

Yeah, that's the thing.

If you've got it.

You'll get through it, though.

So when he was about a week old, I got up after feeding at around 2.

No way.

But I'd be damned if this thing wasn't lit the hell up. I got up to check it and remove said batteries again, thinking my husband banned it against me and put them back in to gain parenting points with Lane. As I bent down to pick it up, that thing drove across my living room, into the dining room. I looked at Lane and he looked at me.

I looked at Lane and he looked at me.

He did not have the controller, I did not have the controller.

Who has the controller, the spirits?

I went over to pick it up. The lights had turned off at this point, no fucking batteries were in there. Oh, no.

No way.

As the weeks went on and turned into months, we were still having weird phantom toys. Speaking, driving by themselves, and the occasional kitchen cabinet opened in the middle of the night. That gives six cents, and I don't like that.

The cabinets, though, are better than the refrigerator.

Well, for like, you know, like in.

I'm just thinking, practically perishables, yeah.

Sorry, I could not get the word perishables out of my face.

I'm just thinking, practicality-wise, it's like, okay.

But it's way scary.

Yeah, no. The six cent scene where he is sitting there with his hands on the table and all the cabinets are hate and he takes his hands off. And it's like the handprints in the sweat.

Yeah, too much, actually. My hands are kind of sweaty right now, thinking about it. I hate that, I'm a little stressed.

Six cents fucks me up still to this day.

Oh yeah, that movie is fucked. But we were learning to live with these weird happenings, but then things started to get a little more weird. I posted a picture on my Facebook one day of Watson. He's always had these huge blue silver eyes that look too big for his head.

I love this aunt.

I do, too. I want to be this aunt. She was very eclectic and I always enjoyed interactions with her and hearing her stories. She posted that Watson's eyes were beautiful and that he can see more than we can.

That's cool.

She got the vibes from the picture, Okay, aunt Jan, thanks for that. I took it with a grain of salt, but didn't like the idea that my big-eyed baby was seeing ghosties and spirits. But, alas, I believe she was right.

My big-eyed baby.

My big-eyed baby when Watson was about five months old. It had been brought to my attention by my husband that I had developed this new, annoying habit of snoring. And I didn't believe him. So, to prove him wrong, I paid $29.99 for an app and quickly learned he ain't no liar crying emoji. So now I felt obliged to continue to use this thing, so I didn't feel like it was a waste of money.

Oh, I'm so excited.

I always think that I want to do that to like, hear if my snoring is that bad, I want to so bad, but I'm not gonna.

I might do it.

Someone died in my house, so I'm not doing that, I'm gonna do it. Did I? Nobody died, right? I don't know.

No.

I would throw hands with a spirit. If they said my kid's name like that, Oh, I'd be like, I'm gonna fuck you up, yeah, like, don't say my kid's name.

Ooh, I don't like it.

Now, Watson was still in our room at this point. He slept right beside me every night, my phone recorded on a side table between me and his baby bed. I immediately woke up my husband and demanded to know if he was up last night with Watson. He said. He hadn't woken up at all, let alone go sit on the side of my bed and talk to Watson.

I have not.

I know what's up, not today, demons.

No way.

We sat up, excuse me, we set up a meeting with the medium. And she came to the conclusion that Watson did attract spirits, but from what she could tell, they were harmless and mostly familial. Fun side note I found out after Watson was born that my great-grandpa had a twin brother that died at four years old, and his name was Dun-dun-dun Watson.

Whoa?

That's crazy that you just felt compelled to name your child that, too. This made me feel lots better about it. But we had a stern talk to the ghostie after that that there will be no talking to the baby. I didn't have any other issues as far as that was concerned.

Oh, I feel that.

I mean, damn, it was worse than when he was a newborn. He would always wake up screaming. And most of the time end up in bed with me and Eli. When I say most of the time, I mean every night.

Oh, I feel this so hard.

After one of the worst nights we had with him, I was cleaning around the house, checking things off my list one by one. Vacuuming was done, kitchen cleaned. So I went on to my next chore to clean and dust out our mantel above the fireplace. Above the mantel, there's a mirror that doesn't get much attention because no one can reach it without being on a stool. As I'm dusting the mantel, I notice something on the mirror.

Nope.

I'm freaked the fuck out. I call my husband at work and demand to know if he did it, why would I do that, Casey?

That's a very valid question.

Why would I ever? He's right, he'd never do anything like that. I called Tulane, who's only six, and asked if he did it. The kid barely knows how to spell his own name, so, of course, he denied it.

Why are you so obsessed with Watson?

Why are you so obsessed with him? Things really tapered off after the Sage. Watson still had issues sleeping in his room and didn't willingly sleep in there until his little brother, Ellis, moved in last year.

Ha, ha.

Watson sleeps in there with Ellis so that Ellis won't be afraid. Like he was my heart. Watson has told me that he used to see monsters in his room and that's why he would cry. He's also told me that I'm not his real mom and that his real mom died in 1984, but he still loves me.

Oh, wow.

And then she writes, Okay, child, thanks for that.

Okay, child.

Oh my god. As he's gotten older and began taking an interest in other things like sports and school, he really hasn't talked any craziness lately. We are thankful for that. Me, too. He's growing up to be a kind, handsome boy and only a little haunted young man.

I love this story.

Oh my god, I love it so.

And I'm so obsessed with these little little moofies.

And it says Watson For sure. Oh yeah, you could see that clear as day. That's really upsetting.

It's really upsetting.

Oh my gosh, he's so cute, though all of them are so freaking adorable.

Let me see, hold on. Oh yeah, it definitely does it, says Watson.

Yep, that's, that's Watson right there.

That says it, that's really upsetting.

I'm downloading, I had to download the video to see if it will work. Let me see if this orb is flying from this baby's head, him's got a jumpaline.

Him's got a jumpaline.

Did you watch the fucking video? Oh my God, hold on, it just went away. Look up here.

Damn.

I've actually never seen anything like that.

Watson.

It literally comes like, straight out of his head, he is so cute.

I, that was such, such a wild journey.

Oh my god.

And I'm obsessed with all three of those little muffins.

And they have really great names, they do.

Lane, Watson and Ellis, like those, are cool brothers right there.

And they all go really well together.

They flow really well.

Yeah.

So I think we have time for one more.

I would do one more, let's party.

Do you want me to do a cautionary tale for runners and joggers, or The Man in Black and the Glitching Lights?

I think, you know.

The Man in Black and the Glitching Lights.

I knew, you knew.

I knew, you knew.

Another one.

Side note We have we have three heroes here. Yeah, we got an ER, an ICU nurse, a mom, and now we have a teacher like damn.

Brought to you by heroes.

Side note, Thank you so much for the respectful way you always talk about teachers. Having been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, speculation, negative comments and even a couple of punches, no joke. I want you to know I truly appreciate it.

You absolutely do also, Kate, I will throw hands for you.

Yeah, I'll throw hands for you. Your podcast also helped me stay grounded while I was dealing with postpartum depression last year. As a first time mama, I'm so sorry you went through that me too.

We should put like, a side effect warning, I know.

I'm sorry. Side effect attached, you will find a size 14 double-spaced putt-a-foo. Oh, you get it. If you read it on the show, I might literally die in the best way possible.