Episode 490: Listener Tales 77
2023-08-31 01:12:34
<p>It’s a lighthearted nightmare in here, weirdos! Morbid is a true crime, creepy history and all things spooky podcast hosted by an autopsy technician and a hairstylist. Join us for a heavy dose of research with a dash of comedy thrown in for flavor.</p><p><br></p>
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.
You're listening to a morbid network podcast.
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?
Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.
Hey weirdos, I'm ash.
I believe that you didn't expect that, and this is morbid.
We just listed our tails in case you couldn't tell. That's why it's so silly goofy.
We just had some Wendy's up in here.
We had Reese's.
Some of you are already yelling at me for saying Reese's.
Oh yeah.
You say, Reese's.
No, I say, Reese's.
Oh, hell yeah.
That's my sister right there, I'm part of that. Mikey is giving a face.
Do you say Reese's or Reese's, Reese's?
Yeah, see.
What humans say is Reese's, there's, like a big old argument that it's actually Reese's.
Because of that apostrophe, it makes it like belonging to Reese. I believe it's correct. grammatically, I'll give it to you, but in reality, it's Reese's.
Yeah, it's like, it's, I don't know, it's a thing.
Because they are not Reese's pieces, even though, yes, that makes more sense as well, it's Reese's pieces.
Oh yeah, fuck yeah, you will not change my mind. Don't try. They are Reese's pieces.
That's the way it is.
You know, that's just the way it is.
Things are always going to be the same, they will always be Reese's pieces. We're never going to get away from that.
Well, this is listener tales, and guess what, we handpicked a bunch of good-ass listener tales for your little butt butts with the help of one. Dub-dub, dub-dub, dub-dub.
Dub-dub.
And today we decided, since it's August, which basically means it's Fall, that it is Halloween.
Halloween.
I'm ready for Halloween.
Halloween's here and I decided that this year I think I decorate mostly pretty early in September, but this year September 1st.
Oh yeah.
Let's fucking go.
Halloween's already started to creep into my house.
I'm also going to your worst nightmare about like my most beautiful mare, Mickey's not-so-scary Halloween party.
Yeah, I'm going. You're going to have a lot of fun, I'm going to have the most fun ever and I'm going to wish that for you.
Thank you, I'm going to manifest that for you.
Your girl ordered a lot of ears, I love that.
Thank you, that makes me happy. I'm glad. Yeah, it does.
Thanks.
And I mean, it's just anything Halloween makes me happy.
All this stuff is out at like, bath, body works, and like, we need to go to home Goods together.
Yeah, we gotta go to so many places.
Let's go get Halloween decorations after this.
We're going to take sheena and trid trid to haunted houses this year.
Oh, baby.
You know, Sheena Milwaunee, that beautiful Luna Moth?
That's Alina's Luna Moth, and that's my she-she.
We're going to take her to some haunted houses. Hell yeah, brother, because it scares her. And it's fun. It's so fun.
She has, like, a genuine terror.
Yeah, it's wonderful, it's great. She's a very fun person to take to a haunted house.
We're sick, twisted people, okay?
We are, but, you know, here we are. We're going to do some Halloween tales. some of these are loosely Halloween, some of these just mention Halloween.
Very briefly.
But some of them are straight up Halloween, so let's go. I think like that's basically the theme is, like, it says Halloween in the tale somewhere.
Perfect. So I have to start this off with a literal bang, Oh, okay, because this one's called Listener tales. The time I got shot in the head and had no idea, okay.
So.
Alrighty, let's see.
Whoa, so.
The way that this listener did attach, yeah. Question mark Font size 14. Double spaced. read time 6 minutes 57 seconds.
Pictures included. That was just in the header. Yeah, that's a college student right there.
They went for it.
That's somebody with a degree right there and you know what?
Your name is Allison, because you told me I better use it, Allison, Allison.
Max likes your Yabos, Allison. In fact, he loves them, he loves them.
So.
Hello, my favorite weirdos to start, my name is Allison and you better use it.
Allison, Allison, allison.
This story, I almost went very self-taught in there. This story is far too ridiculous that anyone I know who hears it will absolutely know who I am. Anyway. To follow in suit with all the other listeners who write in. I cannot thank you both enough for being such a positive light, even when telling some of the darkest tales. I'm a teacher hero and the last few years have been extremely difficult and debilitating.
However, during this extremely tough time, you and your podcast have given me something to consistently look forward to. As both an escape and a place I can count on for acceptance and support. Hell yeah, oh my allison, come to us for that.
I fucking love you.
We accept you, we support you, you can count on us.
You're a teacher, you're a badass. We love you. I've been working on submitting this story for almost a year because, well, life, it sometimes gets in the way.
But I've been going through a lot in my personal life and you have both helped me realize that. Sometimes you just need to put your happiness and yourself first.
Fuck yeah, Allison, So here it is, bitches.
Let's go, yeah, Allison, I wasn't sure which story I should write to you. There was the time a kid hopped up on drugs, rear-ended my car off the highway and left me trapped in a swamp in the dark while he tried to drive off. So I sat in darkness alone until a creepy white van of men climbed down into the dark ravine. I was stuck in and saved me through a window.
Not so creepy, after all.
Send that one in, Please send that one. In. The time. I was one of the students accused of bringing bullets to my high school and was called out of class. To be locked in the cafeteria and have all of my belongings searched by teachers, police and administrators. No, it was not me.
I am just the unluckiest human, and it just so happens that I was one of the few students out of the class when they found them. Because I have the bladder of a two-month-old and was on one of my casual trips to the bathroom from class. Or the time. I was at work after school. And I was trying to give directions to Vietnamese-speaking parents via Mapquest to find their daughter's sports game. No, this was not going well, and no, it was not successful.
I'm so bad at directions.
Unfortunately, a parent ran in the building, yelling that the buildings all over the city were blowing up and we needed to evacuate immediately. Without any further context. So, in complete chaos, confusion and fear. Myself and another teacher that was still at work had to try and rescue all the kids that were staying after school that day from the gas explosions in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
I remember that I feel.
Holy shit, I definitely remember that holy shit. Finally, I decided to go with the time I was shot in the head and had no idea it happened.
For months.
Months allison.
You got stories, my girl.
What's your life, sister?
Share these stories, Sister Allison, what's going on over there? So here we go. It was Halloween, Halloween.
See this one. It actually was on Halloween a few years ago and I was at a party in Alston, Massachusetts, to set the scene. This year and every other year in college, I had picked an extremely original and modest costume a sexy cat.
We've all been there multiple times.
I had also been just a wee bit intoxicated on Rubinoff, which, let's be honest, is a mere name change from drinking rubbing alcohol.
Yeah, Ruby's not where it's at.
At the end of the night, I love that you just used a cute little nickname for Rubinoff. You're like, Yeah, Ruby, Ruby, Rubes.
Ruby Ruru Rubinoff, For sure.
I know Ruru, I know Ruru.
Unfortunately, I know Ruru all too well.
Not good, that's so casual. At the end of the night. After the party, I was waiting with two of my friends on a street corner, trying to hail a taxi back to the house. I shared with five other girls to have some type of after party fun fact.
I recently learned from your podcast that, apparently, and in all shock to me, I guess I lived in a brothel then.
Well, shit.
Not so fun fact Listenertale Connection from terrifying home invasions Listenertale. When my story took place, I lived on the same street in Boston. Like Emily did what?
And I was only about two houses down from where she lived the exact same time her house was broken into, and I had no idea it happened.
That is not a fun fact.
That is wild also. That is the story. We just looked it up because we were like, why does that sound familiar? It's the one where her and her boyfriend chased a would-be rapist out of their house. And then they were featured on the front of the What was It?
I think it was the Herald.
Of the Herald. And she was like, I literally looked like, Shit, you looked great, but you were like, what the fuck, I was not.
She was not prepared for a photo op.
I was not ready for my closeup here.
So that was Emily.
So that's wild that you were in the same two doors down from her at the same time that listenertale happened. This is wild connection. I have to say it was extremely haunting to find out that we had been living right next to her, also in a brownstone, with a fire escape up to our house. Holy shit.
Additionally, two of my roommates had actually turned where that back door opened, where that back door opened, into a shared bedroom with their beds on the opposite side of the door. Which, in hindsight, would have made us a perfect target for that creep, yup.
Holy shit, because that's pretty much exactly how we got into Emily's house. Ooh, luck.
But back to the story. While waiting for the taxi, some people were getting a little too rowdy with their spooky spirit and alcohol consumption. And a car drove down the street past us, actually throwing beer bottles out of their car window, you know, like normal people do.
Normal people do things like that.
Then, all of a sudden, and in one quick moment, I heard a mind-numbing piercing sound blaring in both my ears. Just imagine a dog's worst nightmare, or when you get ringing in your ears, but amplify that by a thousand. My ears hurt. Disoriented, I innocently looked at my friends and said, Hey, am I bleeding?
Oh my god.
My friend then proceeds to immediately rip off his shirt and wrap it around my head. Why did he do this? you might ask. Well, because blood was pouring out of my skull.
That's a good reason.
That's a great reason. In my fine college-age, drunken mind, my first thought was that someone had hit me with one of those beer bottles, causing the pain and blood. I also did not even consider the idea that maybe I should receive some medical attention. I was incorrect about both of these things, so what exactly was my medical plan?
Go back to our brothel, put a bag of frozen peas on the wound and play some candy crush. Because, for some reason, I thought I was invincible, especially when crushing those candies.
Fast forward. About a month or so later, I was shopping with some of my friends. And one of them looked at my head and goes, Oh my God. Allison, there's a huge bug coming out of your skull, you know? As friends do.
The way I would have shat myself if I was you allison.
Contrary to popular belief, I personally would never like to imagine the mere possibility of having a bug resident in my skull. So naturally, I freaked out and looked at my head in a mirror, and what did I see, something animalistic looking protruding out of my head?
Oh my god, and this is like, a month later.
Also, Allison sent a picture, she has pics. It's terrifying.
PICS It happened.
Not knowing what it was and just deciding to believe my completely medically unqualified friend that there was something disgusting and alive turning me into a mutant, conjoined twin. I thought this case, I brought this case to my mom, who works in the medical field, after speaking with my mom. We did not know what it could be, but we assumed that it was definitely linked back to that Halloween night. Because, well, on that night, my head was bleeding profusely. And it was in the same location of this quote-unquote bug we cracked the case. Oh my God.
Unbeknownst to me. My mom later told me that when I showed up at her house to inquire about the fact I was turning into a two-headed insect woman. She left out the fact that she had actually thought there was a nine-inch nail stuck in my skull and thought it looked like someone had shot me with a nail gun. Um, but what if it was mom, mom? So we then proceeded to see a specialist to figure out what in the fuck was going on. Come to find out. This entire time. I had been shot in the head with a BB gun and there was a bullet still lodged in my skull.
What the fuck I had to have surgery to have it removed. All the while I just thought someone had hit me in the head with a bottle. And or Charlotte from Char's Web was chilling in my dome piece.
Just imagine if I had been called down as a bullet suspect now instead of during high school.
For real, they're like, Well, I think she's got them in her face.
You've got it on you. The doctor was able to safely remove the remaining piece of the bullet, which had compacted itself into my magically hard skull. Brag alert. And luckily, no, it was not nine inches. Thanks again, mom.
Although I am now left with just a little skull where I was struck, slash, shot. It has been a great story shared by many of my friends to peers and coworkers. Has been used in countless games of two truths and a lie. I was going to say that it now serves as a cautionary tale to not drink rubinoff, especially while dressed like a slutty cat. Why?
Because sometimes people might just decide to shoot you in the head. I never found out who decided to shoot me that night, or why did their catches die, and my outfit triggered them. Did I take the last pair of cat ears at the store? Honestly, the possibilities are endless.
Oh my god. But what I did find was a silver lining I'm extremely I'm an extremely short, individual hashtag represent Alayna. And I realized that based on the location where the bullet hit me. If I had just been a little bit taller, the bullet most likely would have hit me directly in my temple. And I would have died on a street corner in cat lingerie.
Sorry, mom and dad.
That would have been really fucking traumatic.
I have included a photo of the bug bullet still lodged in my skull, as well as pictures of me and my pup. Because, well, I just love him so freaking much and know you would, too.
I love him.
So there you have it. Stay weird, but not so weird that take it away, ash.
You go out with your friends and you're shitted on Rubinoff and somebody shoots you in the face and you have literally no idea. And then you find out months later, because, oh my god, there's a bug, man, crawling out of your head.
I am beyond words also, you're beautiful.
You are and your dog is beautiful.
Your pup is, you are a beautiful pair, the two of you. There's a legit picture of her with a BB gun in her head. Holy shit, right there, it's there.
Wild allison. That was unbelievable.
Allison has, like, a really nice shade of blonde, like I like that shade of blonde.
You do have a great shade of blonde look at you, look at you with your blonde look at you.
You and your puppy match, and I love that.
You look great, you survived getting shot in the head, you got tails that I would like to hear even more.
Yeah, please write in all those other ones. Because damn if you look at the picture which we are, that is so close to her temple that I'm speechless.
Yeah, that if she was a little taller, that would have hit her in the temple.
100%.
Oh God, that made my head hurt.
Oh, and just, Oh, my God, like picturing the sound.
Yeah, no, horrible. I will not. I'm so glad you're okay, Allison. Seriously, Allison.
Allison.
Allison.
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, well, yeah.
No, it's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?
Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical.
Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
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.
He then began to prey on vulnerable women, instead selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. you can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.
All right, I'm going to read this one called My sleep Paralysis. Demons remind me to engage in self-care because it's me. I was hoping that was a demon.
I literally picked that for you.
I'm obsessed. Thank you. It says, Hello ladies, my name is Veronica, and yes, you can absolutely use my name Veronica Veronica. I am a 32-year-old living in Las Vegas.
Oh, you want me to say it a certain way. Nevada, Nevada.
How do you say it? I never know how to say it correctly.
It says Nevada, not, not Nevada.
Nevada, Nevada. Okay, not Nevada.
It's Nevada, trust me, after living here for over six years, I've learned that Nevadians get a little bit testy about the pronunciation. Everybody does, they do.
We all get pissed that everyone doesn't talk the exact same way we're. I don't know why, but we all, I mean, I don't, but like, but everybody does it. Everybody's pissed that we don't all say the same words the same way across the fucking board.
Dialect, dialect.
I've said Nevada my whole life.
Me too, I've never said Nevada and you know what, whatever.
But you know what, Veronica for you, for you, for you, Nevada.
Nevada. It's losing all meaning.
It truly is.
Well, it says. I just want to clarify that despite what the media tells you, Vegas locals do not live in hotels. We absolutely avoid the strip at all costs, and we know it's hotter than Satan's asshole. After eating Taco Bell late at night. We don't like it either. Yeah, I'm not going to lie, it kind of sucked there and I hated it. I unfortunately moved here from San Diego, California, to fortunately begin my wonderful life with my now-husband.
AW, I love that, congrats. Since moving, I have graduated with my master's in Human and Social Services.
Oh yeah, Veronica, I'm going to say, Nevada for you. Hoo hoo, hoo, you earned it.
You get three hoos. And I am currently working on my fucking doctorate in human services, focusing on prevention, intervention, and advocacy.
Hell yeah, Veronica.
You're the baddest bitch. I have come a long way in such a short amount of time. So I can't say I completely hate Vegas, but I definitely don't plan on being here for the rest of my life. I have attached a putafo with a listener tail attached for your reading pleasure. It's a long one, but I'm hoping it's worth it, it's going to be.
It's going to be worth it, it's going to be worth it, it says. So this is the part where I tell you guys how absolutely amazing you both are.
Aw, thank you. I think you are amazing. You are Veronica. you've accomplished a lot. I was going to say, look at everything you've done.
You're amazing.
You're amazing. I stumbled upon Morbid about Excuse me around the pandemic, and I immediately knew that I'd found my people as the token. Spooky bitch in my family, Elena I have turned everyone onto morbid, including my own mother. My husband will often ask me if I want to put the girls on and do a puzzle, or just sit and talk about the episode. I love that so much.
Amazing. We even turned our daughters, 9 and 12, into morbid listeners. Oh my God, and they love you guys.
We love them.
We love them. We once took a road trip from Las Vegas to southern Oregon or Oregon.
Trail.
If you're nasty.
If you're nasty, then down the California coast to San Diego and then back up to Vegas. And they asked if we could listen to Morbid the entire 20 plus hours of that drive. I'm obsessed with them. I promise I vet the episodes before exposing them to certain ones. I trust you.
I trust you. We usually just go for the spooky ones when the girls are around, just to be safe.
We'll do more of those for you.
We will, we love the spooky ones. Now on to the reason as to why I am writing this listener tale. You see, I've always been a bit sensitive to energy, whether it's people's energy or the unexplained. I wouldn't say I see dead people.
I'm not as cool as the kid in the sixth sense, but I definitely sense shifts in energy or see shadows move from the corner of my eye. Now I should note that I have always been a spooky bitch. I have always loved the paranormal, horror, true crime, etc. And you honestly will probably find me with that type of book in my hand, looking at you, Elena.
Hell yeah, the butcher and the wren at thetinyurl..com slash thebutcherandtheren. Except don't go to that link because I think it's not in that service now. So just go to Barnes and Noble or Target or a store near you anyway. So it was pretty clear to me early on that not everyone is as sensitive to these things as I am.
I need to take a breath because I just said so many words at once.
You said a lot, I'll vamp for you while you say those words. Just. The second book will be coming out at some point, so be ready for that, I'm ready. You're great and you're really smart.
Me Thanks, yeah, you too, okay? When I was around 12 years old, I began experiencing sleep paralysis.
Oh, me too, that's horrible. Were you that young when it started?
Yeah, I think I was around that age, I think, ooh, yeah.
That's terrifying. It started out as small episodes here and there, so I dismissed it as nothing serious. While I knew what it was. I never thought it was a big deal, with my episodes only happening occasionally. I didn't think it could get any worse. Boy, was I wrong.
As I got older, I began to surround myself with the wrong people. At 17, I went through a fairly abusive relationship. I'm sorry that I kept secret for years. During that time, the sleep paralysis increased to the point where I would jolt awake, screaming or crying almost every night. About a year later, I found myself in another relationship that lasted for almost seven years, which also turned out to be emotionally abusive.
Jeez, I'm sorry.
You did not deserve that and I'm so sorry again. My sleep paralysis became worse, and there would be times that I would wake up completely paralyzed and feeling like I was being suffocated. Then, in 2016, I reconnected with an old friend from high school. That friend is now my husband.
Oh, stop, I love that, obsessed.
My husband and I have known each other for most of our lives.
That's beautiful.
We dated shortly in high school before you moved to Nevada.
Nevada, you deserve it.
You deserve it. We still can't agree on who broke up with who back then, but he a thousand percent broke up with me. Nevertheless, we stayed in touch occasionally throughout the years as friends. In July 2016, I came out to Vegas after a breakup and asked if he wanted to catch up. Look at you, bitch.
Fucking suck at you.
Look at that shit, you're just making things happen, killing it.
Today, we've been together for seven amazing years. I love that and I now have the pleasure of being a bonus mom to two beautifully brilliant girls that I love with all my soul.
I'm gonna cry.
I love this so much. Side note We got married at the courthouse on December 13th, 2019. it was a Friday, the 13th, and had a big wedding on Halloween 2020. Hell yeah.
In Crayob, it was amazing, and our wedding photographer dressed up as a banana.
That's amazing.
I'm not sure how it gets any better than that.
It doesn't, to be honest.
No, it does not. Since being with my husband, I have only had sleep paralysis once. It was at the beginning of our relationship and we were dating long distance. At the time, I was in Las Vegas visiting and job hunting so I could move.
His room at the time was set up where the bed was directly next to the door. This detail is important. Later, it was about 4.30 in the morning and I heard him call my name. This is weird because he typically leaves for work at 4 a..m. And it was just us in the house.
I remember thinking to myself that maybe he forgot something, so I opened my eyes. The second I did, I quickly realized that I couldn't move. I immediately knew what was going on and began to panic, but I still heard him calling my name. I began trying to wiggle my toes, fingers, anything that would break the paralysis, but nothing worked. That sounds like the most horrific....
It's awful. Oh, I can't imagine this time went on, or, excuse me. This went on for about a minute and then I began to feel a warm sensation all over my body. I attempted to move again, I still couldn't move my body, but I was able to move my head.
I slowly turned my head toward the door to see if I could turn on the light. And when I did, I saw a solid black shadow standing in the doorway looking at me. The door was cracked about an inch and it was still pitch black, but the figure's shadow was unmistakable. Listen, I know I'm absolutely blind without my glasses, but even my blind ass knew that this figure was not my boyfriend. Whatever it was, it looked like it was waiting for me to acknowledge it so it could enter the room and it was calling me. I kept thinking in my head, Go away, you're not welcome over here, over and over in my mind.
It felt like forever, but eventually the paralysis broke and I was able to move again. The second it broke, I looked at the door and the shadowy figure was gone. While I don't have sleep paralysis anymore, I'm still fairly sensitive to surrounding energy, and I often experience lucid dreams when I'm stressed. Me too interesting.
Being a doctoral student, I think it goes without saying that it happens fairly often. I occasionally have a recurring dream of an old woman. Looking into the kitchen window of our home sounds creepy, right? Well, that's what I thought, too. But when I see her, she has an oddly calming presence that makes me feel like she isn't here to cause any harm. She never speaks, never tries to enter my home.
She just looks at me and sometimes will gesture if she's trying to tell me something. I feel like she's one of your spirit guides. I kind of love her, I do, too. I told my husband about her and at first he didn't like it.
I don't believe him me, either. Drew would be like, fuck off, and please don't tell me that, no way. For a period when he was younger, he lived in Italy, where he says he experienced a lot of unexplained things.
Since then, he's very hesitant about these types of interactions. So when I told him about the old woman in my dreams, he was quick to tell me not to let her in the house or even to speak to her. Then the day occurred that forced me to come to terms with my sensitivity. I had the dream like always. The dream typically starts with me waking up in the middle of the night and walking downstairs to get water.
When I walk into the kitchen, I see the old woman looking into our window.
Oh, that'd be so creepy.
I don't like that. However, this time, something felt different. I immediately knew something was wrong. Oh, fuck that I read the next sentence.
My whole body just went whoop.
Womp, Oh, yours went whoop.
Yeah, this wasn't even a womp, it was a whoop.
Mine went whoop, I'm stressed. Oh, the old woman began pointing at the front door as if she were telling me to open it. I must have gave her. Oh, I'm so stressed.
I don't like it. I must have gave her Jesus Christ, I must have given her a weird look because she pointed again with more urgency. I shook my head and began to walk away when she began pounding on the window and yelling at me to let her in.
Oh, no.
I have chills over my entire body.
Yeah, my whole body's chilling.
The pounding then moved to my front door and grew louder and louder. I ran into our living room, which is right next to our kitchen, and huddled up on the corner of the couch to get away from her. Quote unquote. I instinctively knew that this was not the old woman, but some entity pretending to be her and trying to enter my home. Suddenly, the pounding stopped and everything went dead silent. I stood up and began to start towards the stairs to go back to bed.
I know what you're thinking, How the hell do you just go back to bed after that? But I don't make the rules in my dream world. When I reached the first step, I heard from the other side of the door an old woman's frail voice Why won't you let me in?
Oh god.
I called for my husband and the second I called his name, I woke up. And there he was snoring away, right next to me, on his side of the bed, with our beagle in between us, a beagle. I immediately felt a sense of peace and looked over at my bedroom door. There standing in the doorway was my cat.
He was standing facing away from us, as if he was guarding the door. I still see the old woman on occasion, but she's just back to her normal self, just standing there and never speaking. Her presence is still calming and I'm not afraid of her, despite the terrifying dream, she even came. The night I found out two of my uncles had passed away. And she just smiled at me and nodded, as if to tell me that they're okay now.
Oh, I got chills.
That's beautiful. I'm happy that you could separate that scary-ass dream from her because, like you said, it wasn't her. My husband and I have discussed these events at length. And I think a lot of my experiences had to do with being constantly surrounded by negative energy, trauma and stress. Now, when they happen, if they're particularly bad, I just take it as a reminder to engage in self-care and be mindful of what's going on in my life. I love that.
Well, ladies, there. It is my long-winded story about how my sleep paralysis demon reminds me to engage in self-care and kick out the negative energy in my life. The people-pleasing side of me says to apologize for the long story.
No.
But I already hear what you're going to say, so I won't. In typical fashion, I have included pictures of our fur babies. Hell yeah for your viewing pleasure. Our beagle's name is Luna.
Aw, beagle, the little black cat is knox knox, my chunky little bodyguard, although my daughter says he's likely my familiar.
Oh my God, I love your daughter.
And our sweet little angel rabbit is Severus, Severus. Oh, I'm sorry aw. we sadly lost Severus in January 2020, but he still makes his presence known.
And yes, all our animals have a Harry Potter theme to them.
I was going to ask.
Anywho? Thank you both for all that you do and for taking the time to read my story with all the love and spooky vibes. Veronica Veronica, Oh my god, your cat looks like my loxie.
All your animals are beautiful muffins. oh my god, I love them and you are also a beautiful muffin.
You're a beautiful muffin. I love the one of the beagle and the cat sitting next to each other, right? That's so cute. Oh my god, they're so cute.
Wow, oh, and Severus is adorable.
Thanks for that, Veronica. That was terrifying.
That was an interesting one, though, yeah.
Well, my next one is going to be called Daddy issues. Death by elevator and a message from beyond the grave.
Let's fucking go, girl.
Let's go, hello, my wonderfully weird, spooky, sassy soul sisters. My name is Roxie and you can use my name and any other names used in the story. I'm just the biggest fan of the pod and the two of you.
You guys are my besties and we hang out and laugh three times a week and we've never even met. But it feels like chilling with my homies, so that's what I'm going to call it, chilling with my hilarious, spooky homies while talking about murder. So thank you for your delightfully morbid banter and your compassionate storytelling. You guys are the friggin best.
Never, ever changed, change and Elena, congratulations on the book. Thanks. I saw it in Target the other day and loudly exclaimed, Hey, I know her lol.
And, you know, I bought me a copy and can't wait to read it, thanks. I've attached a double-spaced putafa of my listener tale, and if you read it on the pod, I just might explode into a million pieces. But after I put myself back together, I will share it with everyone I know. Because, girlies, this story is wild. Oh, hell yeah.
This is a very long, deeply personal story that twists and turns for over 20 years of my life. It involves a seance, an elevator shaft and a possible murder bullshit. Writing it all out was strangely therapeutic. Oh, I'm glad, and I still can't believe that it all actually happened, but it did.
This read's at around 15 minutes long, but it'll be worth it, so strap in weirdos and hold on to your butts.
I feel like we haven't said, hold on to your butts in so long.
We really haven't hold on to your butts.
Hold on to your booty.
So, to begin this story, let's jump into our time machines and travel way, way back to a time before the internet and social media and disinformation had polluted the human landscape. A pure and magical era of grunge and gangster rap, jelly shoes and pencil-thin eyebrows, baby doll dresses, and an MTV that actually played music. A time when a sweet, innocent 12-year-old me played with pogs and tamagotchis, collected everything. Lisa Frank watched Dawson's Creek and plastered my walls with posters of Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Hanson. Helena loves Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
A golden age of humanity.
The 90s I knew you were going to sing it.
Oh, I just felt every part of that. The pogs.
Oh, okay, what is Pogs?
Oh, it's really hard to explain. They're these little, I honestly I don't know how to describe. If you look them up, they're like little disks, okay, and you would collect them.
They had all different kind of things on them. And then you would use a slammer to slam the pogs. It was a game, but you would trade them. Is it called milk caps? No, they're called pogs.
Oh, but they're like you would trade them back and forth. Oh so you'd get like slammers, which were medley and kind of heavy, and the pogs were like thinner.
Pogs and slammers, let's see well. You can get them on Amazon if you want some.
I might buy some pogs and slammers and just show the girls and they'll be like, that's weird.
Make them play with pogs and slammers. Let's play.
I don't even remember how to play, I just remember trading them was a huge deal.
Want me to get you some? I can get them delivered on Thursday.
Get me some pogs and slammers. I just bought you some pogs and slammers. Okay, here you go, like, Okay, deal with it.
Mikey just looked over and was like, What the fuck are you two talking about? Are you guys okay? All right?
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.
Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia or a corrupt police cover-up?
If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.
You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
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Just add a bit of backstory. I was living with my mom, two little brothers and my stepdad, whom I had always believed to be my dad, dad. My mom married him when I was too young to remember, and they had my brothers and we were a family. And I just always thought he was my dad. Well, then he can be your dad.
Yeah, my mom never had the heart to tell me about my real father and how he abandoned us when my mom was just 16 years old and very pregnant with me.
That's awful.
He was a much older man and my mom was an infatuated young girl. She was completely in love with him. She had believed that he loved her and would be there for her to be a father, but her teenage dreams were shattered. He wasn't capable of being a husband or a father.
He was a self selfish womanizer and he just couldn't be tied down, so he flew the coop. That's an old timey way of saying that bitch ghosted his pregnant teenage girlfriend for drugs, women and freedom. Ugh. This absolutely devastated my mom.
She was 16 and pregnant, alone and completely heartbroken, but instead of drowning in her pain and sorrow, she did what she had to do. She grew the f up and took care of her daughter because she's a badass queen, mama bear. And even at 16, and with a broken heart, she could not be stopped.
What a fucking strong ass, girlie.
She gave me the best life she could, and I freaking love my mommy, oh my God.
I love that that is really sweet.
That, just like, touched my soul. That's adorable. I'm so glad. ugh, I love that.
Eventually, she moved on. She married my stepfather when I was three, and she hid her pain away and focused on her family. And she never told me about the man who crushed her and left her alone while she was pregnant. I mean, I can't imagine there's ever a right time to tell your young child that their daddy isn't their daddy. And that there is some strange man out there that shares your DNA and looks just like you, and you have the same weird walk, even though you've never even met.
Oh, that's weird. Which brings us back to 1995, when I was 12 years old and completely out of the blue. We're like, almost the same age girl. I was 12 years old and completely out of the blue, my real dad called.
He wanted to meet me. Oh, that's a really bad time. Yeah, that's a bad time. I was shocked and confused, and it took a lot of very uncomfortable conversations with my mother. But she told me the truth about everything and told me that it was up to me to decide if I wanted any type of relationship with this stranger.
She is such a good mama, she sounds like one, and that she would support whatever I chose. She was a good mom and she wanted me to be happy.
Oh my god, I love your mom.
At the end of it all, I decided that I just had to know, I don't blame you, so I decided to meet him. And this began. A strange and dysfunctional relationship with a father who would later make me regret ever meeting him and leave me with a lifetime of trauma and daddy issues. Once a deadbeat, always a deadbeat, I suppose.
It has taken decades of therapy, but eventually I've learned to forgive and heal. He also was damaged and abandoned by his father. And as we all know, hurt people, hurt people. But this story isn't about him, this story is about his mother, my guardian angel.
The grandmother that I never got to meet, but that has loved me for my entire life, May.
Oh, I love that name.
As I got to know my new dad, I learned of a long lost family that I had never met. My dad had two younger sisters, Kathy and Sandra, or Sam, as everyone called her. They lived in Tacoma, Washington, and so did their mother, May. We lived in Southern California, so we began writing letters. So for Ash and any other young ones that may be listening, letters are how people used to communicate in the before times.
It's basically an email that you write on paper and put in the mailbox, and then literal pigeons deliver it to you lol. The 90s were wild.
Contrary to popular belief, I have written a letter before.
Anyways, I began to get to know my new family. We talked on the phone and wrote letters for a few months and I learned that my grandmother May had been desperately wanting to meet me. She had been furious with my father for abandoning me and had begged him to do the right thing so that she could be part of her only granddaughter's life.
Oh, that's like, heartbreaking, right?
My father's terrible life choices had taken its toll on their relationship, and over the years, they had barely spoken. May cried on the phone when she told me how badly this had hurt her and how much she wanted to be my grandma and make up for all the time she had lost.
I love May.
So we made a plan to meet, and my mother agreed. I would fly out to Washington for my 13th birthday in a few weeks and meet my new family. Back then, you had to actually buy paper tickets to fly. That is really wild. How much that's changed?
I was going to say that I've never experienced.
So she bought them and she mailed them to me. And I anxiously awaited my new adventure with my sweet, loving new grandma and my new aunties. I was so excited and I imagined all the fun things we would do together and the memories we would make. Everything was going to be great, except that it wasn't fate. Had something else in mind? Oh, no.
A couple of weeks later, I'm sitting in science class and my name comes over the loudspeaker. I'm being called to the principal's office. As I open the door to enter, I see my mother there, her eyes wet with tears. She can't look at me or speak. The principal or counselor, or whoever the fuck twat was, who comes over and sits down in front of me, you know, the cool adult way backwards in a chair.
They always think that's going to lessen the blow or something.
That's going to make it chill.
Yeah, you just look dumb.
You just look dumb.
Sit in the chair the right way, asshole.
He takes a moment and then he says something I'll never forget, sweetheart. There's no easy way to say this. So I'm just going to tell you straight your grandma fell down an elevator shaft, she's dead.
What the fuck I feel like he could have put that a little differently.
I feel like that, yeah, there's no easy way to tell her that, but I don't know.
I'm also like, I don't really know if you needed to know in that moment that she fell down an elevator shaft.
No, your grandmother passed away, correct? Yeah, seriously, that's what he said. Cold as ice and without blinking, it was chilling.
How this ma'am was hired to work with children, I'll never know. I looked at my mother, she just starts sobbing. Now, this next part still confuses me to this day, I suppose, being a child and having my first experience with death. All these grown-ups looking at me, waiting for a response. And the cold way in which I was just told the most horrific thing I had ever heard in my life, something snap crackle popped in my brain and I started laughing.
Yes, laughing like a complete fucking psychopath. Upon hearing the news of my grandmother's tragic death, I began laughing maniacally. I would bet that counselor guy changed his methods on delivering tragic news to children after that fucking day. I'm fairly sure I scared the absolute fuck out of him and he probably thinks I grew up to be a serial killer. But I digress. I totally understand that, though.
I'm the same way I don't handle news well like that, and I don't handle emotions well like that. So, yeah, my mom saw her daughter's brain break into pieces. And she snatched me up and yeeted me the fuck out of there. While I laughed and cried and screamed through the hallways of my middle school, May was dead and I never got to meet her.
Oh, that hurts my heart for you.
The next few days were a blur. I talked to my dad and my aunts, and everyone was completely destroyed. My aunt Sam was extremely close to May, she had been with her moments before this happened. My dad never got to make amends with his mother.
Everyone was just in complete shock and sick with grief. She fell down an elevator shaft. What the actual fuck? how could this happen? Just fucking how.
No one wanted to talk to me about the details of her death. Understandably, I mean, I was so young and this was just so fucked up. All I knew was that there was a faulty elevator in her apartment building and she stepped in and it wasn't there. My God.
She fell five stories to her death, and that was it, but there was so much more. I never got the real story until many years later, when I was a grown woman. But that comes later. Oh.
The next part will forever just trip me the fuck out. So remember when I said my grandma bought me tickets to come meet her for my 13th birthday? Well, I got on my first plane ever with the paper tickets that Mae had bought me, and I used those tickets to go to her funeral.
That's so fucked.
So I fly to Washington, my dad picks me up at the airport and takes me to meet with my aunts and their husbands. It's all so strange and sad, I don't know any of these people. They hug me and they cry a lot.
I don't really know how to act. I want to cry with them, but I'm mostly just confused. I mean, I just met all of you and now we're all crying together. And also, she fell down an elevator shaft, What the fucking fuck?
That's way too much to process.
Anyway, after the initial awkwardness, the trip actually ended up being pretty awesome and quite memorable. I slept at Mae's apartment with my dad. I got Mae's room. It smelled like rose water, with a touch of cigarette smoke. Queen.
She had cute little shit all over her apartment, you know, like tchotchkes, but mostly funny gag shit, like a dick clock and a tiny statue of Jesus smoking out of a box.
Hell yeah, mae.
She was definitely my type of lady.
I love mae.
I love Mae. Oh my god. My new cool aunts took me out in Seattle for my birthday and we all got our belly buttons pierced together. Remember, this is 1995, so piercings were super new, and I must say I was the coolest girl at my middle school.
After that trip, we go to the funeral and, of course, super fucking sad. I meet all my great aunts and uncles and Mae's friends, and it's all so surreal and strange. I forever bonded with my new super cool, hip, funny and soon-to-be best friend, aunt Sam. Aww.
She's a star character in this tale. Sam is, like, 12 years older than me, similar to you two. After Mae died, she moved back to California and we've been very close ever since. I love that and as I've gotten older, she's legit my best friend, slash soul sister now.
Hell yeah, brother.
It's weird because we both see Mae in each other. She lost her mom. I lost a grandma I always needed but could never have, and we gained each other. Mae brought us together. So can I get a motherfucking shoutout to Sam fucking?
Love you girl.
Shoutout to Sam.
Sam for the fucking win, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam. So before I jump years ahead, there is one more very strange and dark thing I must add to the already very strange and dark and very life-changing story about the trip I took to celebrate my birthday, meet my family and put my grandmother to rest. Mae was cremated. She also left her 1994 Bronco to my dad, and he needed to drive it back to Southern California along with her ashes.
So this trip, this crazy trip wraps up with a now 13-year-old me in the passenger seat of Mae's Bronco. My brand-ass new dad driving me from Tacoma, Washington, to San Diego, with my cremated grandmother in a box in my fucking lap, you seriously can't make this shit up, my dudes. If that isn't morbid, I don't know what is.
That is morbid tm.
And so the years passed, as they do. I stayed close with my new family. I would go to family dinners and holidays, and sometimes I would hear things about Mae's death. But it was all so mysterious and no one really wanted to talk about it.
I can't blame them. This story is all kinds of fucked up, but from what I could piece together, the official story was this. Mae lived on the fifth story of an apartment building, so she had to take an elevator to go to and from her place. Apparently, the elevator the tenants used was out of service, so they all had to use the service elevator until it was repaired.
The service elevator had to be opened manually. Never heard of such a thing, but okay, super sketch, am I right? Yes, so. Apparently, after having dinner with her daughter, Sam, Mae went home to her apartment where her boyfriend was waiting for her.
We'll call him Dave. So apparently this guy, Dave, was living with Mae, which is kind of weird because I stayed at Mae's apartment and I remember no sign of this Dave. Anyway. Sam said goodbye to Mae and she went into the apartment building within one hour. Mae was dead after apparently opening the faulty service elevator to leave her apartment.
The elevator was not there and she fell five stories to her death. This entire story is completely full of holes and makes literally no sense.
Right, because if she was going into the apartment building, why would she open the elevator door and go back down?
Yeah, and she knew that the elevator was broken.
Right?
There was a lawsuit filed against the owners of the building and the elevator company for gross negligence. And a small settlement was given to Mae's three children after legal fees, it amounted to around 50 grand apiece. If you ask me, that's a pretty shitty settlement after losing your mom to that kind of negligence. But what do I know? When I got a little older and Sam and I grew closer. I started asking her questions about what she thought about everything and what had really happened to Mae. She told me that she had always had her suspicions about Dave.
He was super possessive and controlling, he was a freeloader who refused to work or pay for anything, and Sam just always had a bad feeling about him. And also, why was she leaving her apartment that night right after getting home, right? Was there some kind of argument?
Was she so frantic and stressed that she opened the elevator door and just jumped in without checking? Was she afraid or was she pushed? And how come I never met Dave? Oh, right, could it be because he skipped town only days after Mae's death?
That's right, folks. Days after his live-in girlfriend died under very suspicious circumstances, fucking Dave here, packed up and left, taking everything he could with him, including draining Mae's bank accounts.
And the police never investigated this.
Dave was never heard from again, except when he tried to sue my dad for Mae's 1990 Ford Bronco, that he felt entitled to for some reason. Sketchy as fuck, Dave, sketchy as fuck, what the fuck?
There was an investigation, both by local police and a private investigator hired by the family. There's no evidence to prove that Dave had anything to do with Mae's death, meaning there's no proof. But things still don't quite add up, and we definitely have our suspicions about what really happened that night.
Now same.
Now, let's jump forward a few years to 2018 or so. I know this story is taking forever, but trust me, it's worth it in the end. We love it. It's been a ride. Mae has been gone for over two decades.
I'm doing hair at a really cool spot in San Diego. shout out to all my hairdressers out there. So I'm at this team building exercise thing at the salon I work at. The boss lady got a medium to come to the shop and do a group reading for us. Super fun, right?
So she gets started and kind of bounces around the room a bit before getting to me. She looks at me and says, There's a woman coming through that wants to talk to you. Paternal or maternal, maybe a grandmother.
Her name sounds like Spring, Do you know who I'm talking about? Chills, taken aback, I said, Mae.
Her name sounds like Spring.
Oh my God, the medium goes on. She says she never knew you in life, but that she's always been with you, looking after you. She says she was there when your son was born, and she watches over him, too.
Ruin me.
As you can imagine, I was overwhelmed with all the feels, and the tears just started flowing like a faucet I couldn't turn off. I was ugly, crying all up in that bitch. I finally got up the strength to ask, Can you tell me how she died? There's just some really weird stuff surrounding her death, and her family has always wanted to know the truth.
Oh god.
The medium just kind of stared at me for a moment. She grabbed the top of her head and shuddered, Then she started to speak. Are you sure? Yes, please just tell me, I said, trying to bet my best to keep from snotting all over my own face.
She was hit on the head and pushed, killed. I'm sorry, the room fell silent. I thanked her for telling me and I ran out.
It was intense, my dudes. I immediately called Sam and we cried together for a bit before deciding that we were going to do something totally crazy. We were going to find out the truth. One way or another, Sam and I would consider ourselves a bit witchy. We dabble with tarot and spells and all things spiritual and mysterious.
I fucking love you two.
Loves it.
We're woo-woo af. Halloween was right around the corner. There it is came in Yup, or as the Pagans call it, Samhain.
Samhain is a time of year when the veil between our world and the spirit world is the thinnest. I know you both know what I'm talking about and probably could guess where I'm going with this.
Hell yeah, brother.
So yeah, we're doing a fucking seance, yo Ouija board candles, circle assault, the works. We were going to conjure up May's spirit and ask her what in the actual fuck had happened. So we began making plans for a Samhain seance and finally getting the truth it was fucking on.
The seance started off slow. We fucked with the board for a while before getting anything. Beside a few words and a lot of goodbyes, no one wanted to talk to us, but we're persistent little bitches.
So we kept trying and eventually started chanting May's name. What can I say? I guess the moment got away with us. We called for May to come through. We closed our eyes and put all our collective energy and focus on her.
And then it happened. The air got thick and the smell of rose water with a touch of cigarette smoke filled the room.
Oh my god.
Sam looked up at me, She's here, holy shit. I have full chills on my body.
I'm getting like, you know how your body will wom, I'm getting like, Wom.
Literally my whole body is chilled right now. This is a fucking tale, this is insane, this is a listener tale.
This is the listener tale.
We started asking questions more just to confirm her identity than anything else. It was may all right. She knew my son's name, she knew when she died.
She knew Sam's birthday, it was her, We could smell her and feel her presence. It was warm and comforting. The planchette moved pretty slowly at first.
Like, it was taking a lot of energy to come through, as if we were disturbing her slumber. After a while, Sam finally blurts out Mom, were you murdered? The million dollar question? The Planchette moves swiftly up the board.
Yes.
Oh.
Sam dissolves in the sobs. I put her shaking hands back onto the planchette as she cried, Grandma, I ask, Do you want us to find him? Do you need justice? The Planchette moves again.
No, and then it slowly spells out the word.
Happy, Oh my god.
And then she was gone. We can almost feel her leave. The smell of roses and tobacco just vanishes. We hug each other and we cry, we cry a lot.
After that night, Sam and I decide to let May rest. We both felt that her spirit is at peace and that she's okay, she's happy, and she doesn't need justice or vengeance or whatever or whatever. Fuck Dave, he has to live with what he did.
And let me say that both Sam and myself believe wholeheartedly that that garbage human that is Dave murdered May and got away with it. But he will get his in life or the next. Karma doesn't forget, and it will find you.
Yup.
Sam made all of us, all of us, these cute little lockets with a bit of May's ashes in them. And I keep mine around my rear view mirror. And I give her love every day and I believe she looks after me always. I never knew her in life, but she's had such a profound effect on me and the woman I've become. Rest in peace.
May.
Okay, I know I'm crying, too. I had no idea this would be such an emotional rollercoaster. Wow, I literally broke down multiple times while writing this.
I just think it's the craziest, most fucked up story ever, and I sometimes can't even believe it's real and that it happened to me. Well, thank you for reading my tale. I hope you guys enjoyed it and that it didn't traumatize you too much. Love both you spooky bitches to itty bitty pieces.
Stay safe, stay cool, and always remember, remember to keep it weird, but not so weird that you abandon your child. Only to come back 12 years later to traumatize her more with her grandma's funeral and meeting an entire family she never knew. And by taking her on a 40-hour road trip with her grandma's ashes on her lap. And then being a complete asshat to her for the rest of her life for leaving her dead inside and wondering, Why fuck you, dad? But do keep it so weird that you become best friends with your long lost aunt and solve your grandma's murder by reaching into the veil, into the great Beyond.
Peace out Weirdos Roxy.
Roxy, you're the fucking coolest.
Roxy.
Fucking roxy, roxy, holy shit.
Roxy That fucked me up that I mean.
May forever.
May forever you and Sam, forever I love your relationship.
Holy Cow.
I love that you got to have that relationship, I know I love that. May told you she's happy where she is, and that makes me happy that she's happy.
And gave you some kind of peace.
Yeah, that just told you, you know what? Don't worry about it. I'm happy where I am, right, everything's okay and that I've been with you for a long time.
Right, I was there when your son was born.
Like, that's beautiful, like that, that hurts, and like, I watch over him too.
Like, that's gonna make me cry, I know, and then me feel thing.
You didn't get a dad out of it, but you got a best fucking friend, sister.
Hell yeah.
And that is fucking cooler than a dad, in my opinion.
And you have the best fucking mom.
Yup.
And it sounds like your stepdad was pretty great, too, because he was just your dad, dad, he was your dad.
Dad, he could just be your dad.
He was your dad, It's great. He stepped in. Yeah, he stepped in, and he was like, I'm your dad.
Just because your dad, like, contributed to making you, doesn't mean he's your dad, exactly.
So you know what, you're killing it, and I love you and I love that you're a 90s bitch, and I love you're awesome Roxy. So thank you for that.
And Roxy also brought you back, fucking, what are these pogs?
Pogs and slammers.
Now you get Pogs, you get Pog retro caps and a neon purple storage tube. Hell yeah, Roxy forever. Oh yes, you're welcome.
I'm so excited, I'm happy for you.
You can get me a neopet because those just came back. You actually don't purchase them at all, but, like, make me an account or something.
Okay, I'll make you an account, all right?
Cool, I feel as though we have time for one more. I feel like we do. Do you feel as though?
I feel as though.
All right, I'm going to keep with the trend here and do. Spooky Nanny Saves Lives.
I love that.
Pour one out for nannies and grannies.
We love nannies, it says.
Hey weirdos and Deb, deb, hope you lovely people are doing well. My name is Mickey. you can use it. it's a nickname for my great grandma, grandfather. Excuse me, yes, like the mouse.
Adorable. I've been listening to your podcast since May of 2022. It was introduced to me by my ex. Thanks shithead. Affectionately. We parted on good terms.
I started from the beginning and have slowly been making my way through all the episodes. I have a bad habit of bringing multiple episodes or binging multiple episodes and then forgetting all about the pod for a few weeks. Please forgive me, it's okay, I forgive you, that's okay.
Y'all are great company. On the super long drives, I go on to visit my parents, keeping me company. And from going insane by myself with no one else to talk to but my squish mallow road trip companion. But seriously, you guys are so awesome and put so much effort into your work on the podcast, it's awe-inspiring.
Aw, thanks, Mickey.
Elena, congrats on the success of your book. Thank you. I have not read it yet. Forgive me, I am a ball of anxiety tm.
That's okay.
On a good day and struggle with suspenseful books and shows. But I've heard a lot of wonderful things about it, and I have added it to my ever-growing to-read, to-be-read list.
Thank you, Ash.
Congrats on the engagement, thank you. And if it has happened before you read this tale, the wedding, it hasn't, but thank you. I've been meaning to send this tale in for a while now.
It's been sitting half-finished for like three months, but I finished it and I'm very excited to share it with you. It's a bit of a lighter, more wholesome tale compared to some others that you've read, and might be a good palate cleanser after a heavy tale.
There you go.
I didn't even read this up.
It's like, you knew.
Attached is a 14-point font double-spaced pas-de-fac for your viewing pleasure.
Woo.
I apologize for how absurdly long it is. If you can't tell. By now, I'm a rambler through and through. I hope you enjoy this spooky little tale about a spooky nanny. Much love Mickey, Mickey.
Like the mouse, I added the like the mouse part, Mickey, like the mouse, Mickey, like the mouse. Hey weirdos.
This is a pretty long tale, with stories within the story. That's fine. It's all about my grandma's experience with a ghost, simply known as Ma'am, Ma'am. I think my family, specifically on my mom's side, is sensitive to ghosts or something. Mainly due to the members of the family having some sort of experience or interaction that was not easily explained.
For example, my mom smelling my long-dead great-grandfather's cologne in a place he never visited since he died, before it was built. Whoa, that's wild. I've even had an experience that maybe could have been a ghost. In college, I lived in an old frat house turned into shared housing.
That was definitely haunted, but this is not about me, so maybe I'll send in that one on a different day, please do. Today. However, I wanted to offer up a more happy and comforting spooky story that my grandma told me when I was young. Probably like third or fourth grade, and that I remembered. Recently, after listening to your podcast, I was able to catch up with her over Thanksgiving and get the full story, including the history of the house.
I'm sure you get this all the time, but apologies for any rambling and confusion. My writing skills are mediocre at best.
Never apologize.
Untrue. Also, this will probably be pretty long, so feel free to skip over one or two of the encounters or any of the added history or commentary in parentheses. Though, I have a good feeling you won't.
Hell, no, and I won't.
Anyways, on with the story. My mother grew up in a smaller city north of San Francisco in California, with her parents and sister. In a cute little old house on a busy street in the 70s. Hell yeah, I've added pictures at the end of the front of the house. Think cute, vintage-y house with a decent front yard, a huge wraparound porch, goals and a pool in the backyard.
Totally cute.
Well, I haven't looked yet, but I'm excited to total American dream home. The house had a couple different owners before my grandparents.
My mom and her sister moved in, and I believe at one point it was a government or office building. At one point not really relevant, but still kinda cool, true. My aunt was either a very new baby or just not born yet. When they moved in and shared one of the bedrooms with my mom, while my grandparents used the other.
There was an attic, which was later converted into my grandparents new bedroom and gave my mom and aunt separate rooms. The bedrooms were in the front of the house, facing the road, with the living room in the middle and the kitchen. Slash dining room in the back of the house, facing the yard and an unattached garage. I really hope this makes sense. It does, it does.
I can picture it right off the bat, things started happening in the house that couldn't really just be explained away, and I mean, like, right away. The first night they spent in the house after buying it, my grandma recalled waking up to hearing all the plates and other dishes that were not quite fully unpacked rattling away in the dining room.
My grandpa was either sound asleep or woke up to it as well, and my three-year-old mom and maybe-born-maybe-not tiny baby aunt were fast asleep.
In their room.
Nobody else on the house, my grandma swears. It only happened that first night as well. She likes to think that it was Ma'am making herself known as a resident in the house.
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