Morbid - Episode 542: Listener Tales 83
Episode Date: February 29, 2024Weirdos! Get cozy and get ready to listen to our 83rd batch of Listener Tales! They're brought to you BY you, FOR you, FROM you, and ALL ABOUT YOU! In this episode we have a family of wi...tchy women, get visits from spirits of four-legged family who passed over the rainbow bridge, abandon a morally tainted valentine birthday cake, and get AGGRESSIVELY RSVP'd by an entity from another realm!<3If you’ve got a listener tale please send it on over to Morbidpodcast@gmail.com with “Listener Tales” somewhere in the subject line :)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alaina.
And this is Morbid. Listener Tales! Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum the mini Morbid song, but it's not better.
It's not better.
Oh, you just brought that back up.
I saw somebody, you can download that as,
I don't know who, I don't know from who,
but somebody tagged me in an Instapick that,
like it's like a cell phone ringtone.
Honestly, that haunts me.
I remember that, I feel like.
That's a different time in my life. That's a different time in all of our lives. People ask me to sing that sometimes. I'm like,
I love you so much. That was from a different era. Yeah, she was disturbed. Yeah, like Taylor Swift has
errors. We also have errors. Yeah, and that's- She likes to be in her errors, but we leave ours behind.
Yeah. And you know what? That's a good one to leave in the dust in my personal opinion.
Gross. I think I'm hurting a lot of people's feelings right now because people got really emotionally
attached to that song.
It's true. And you know, that's the thing. It's fine. Like, that's a great nostalgia
bomb of like, yes, that was a wonderful moment in time. We just don't, we grew from that.
I don't know her.
We grew out of that.
Yeah.
That was seed. We are some kind of flowering plant now. Yeah. We're like a
snap dragon. Yeah. That's what came to me. Yeah. But I said, that's what my first thought was
actually Venus flytrap, but then I was like, I'm not eating flies. No, I don't want to do that either,
to be quite honest. So I think snap dragons. Oh, smart on your part. I think they're pretty, aren't they?
Absolutely.
They sound pretty.
So.
Oh, they're fucking beautiful.
I can't have them because I have cats.
Oh, hell yeah.
Yeah.
That's what we are.
Yes.
Look at us.
I was going to say I was the corpse flower,
and I only blew them once every like 10 years,
and you better get here because then I go to sleep.
Well, let me see a corpse flower.
And also it smells like a rotting corpse.
So that's what I was like, don't those smell bad?
No, they literally, they get their name,
but because they smell like decomposition.
Oh mama, they're also heinous looking.
And they're huge.
Damn!
What the fuck kind of flower is this?
Yeah, it's gnarly.
Where do these grow?
Yeah, there's only a few around,
like there's a few around here, like at places.
For real?
I should say a few.
There's like really, you have to travel to see one.
Like they have them at a place.
But around here, there is.
I don't know where though, but I wanted to see it the last time and I didn't get to.
And I would like to see it this time.
I want to see one.
I don't want to smell it.
Yeah.
I want to smell it.
I want to see if it's.
Good for you. If want to smell it. I want to see if it's- Good for you.
If it's the same.
How far away can you-
You can smell one half a mile away.
It's gnarly.
I'm wearing a mask.
I'm excited about it.
That's going to be our next.
I don't know when the next one is blooming.
Wow, and they bloom only for 24 to 36 hours.
Oh yeah, you have to get like, it's a big deal.
That's why it's so amazing to see
because it's just this thing. Corpse flower near me. I thought suddenly we get like, it's a big deal. That's why it's so amazing to see because it's just this thing.
Corpse flower near me.
I thought suddenly we're like,
Corpse flower near me.
Let me find one.
They're usually at botanical gardens,
like very fancy places.
There's one at the Franklin Zoo.
That's a drive.
That's a drive.
But you know what?
Worth it.
Yeah.
You know?
Take a whole last day trip.
Oh, this was three, four years ago.
Just kidding.
It might still be there though.
Well, no, it probably died, right?
But I think they like re-bloom.
They be doing that, you're right.
Okay, well, we'll look into this later.
Sorry, that was a live look into our plans.
That's a live look into how we have a conversation.
It just trails into like, where can we find this thing
and go for the whole day.
I'm about to do some study research after this.
Hell yeah.
Wait, one more thing.
This one is four feet tall.
They're huge.
That's what I mean.
They're like big.
Yeah.
It looks like, it almost looks like
an oversized aloe plant before it grows.
Yeah, it kinda does.
You're right.
Yeah, okay.
I gotta get out of here.
So it's listener tales, which are brought to you by you for you from you and all about you.
Exactly. And I had to make that happen. Yeah, of course. We can't go into it without that.
No, no, I said. And the first one that we found just looks iconic. Oh, yeah. Because
Deb Deb, as we all know, helps us organize the listener tales. I said,
Deb Deb really put a folder together.
Yeah.
And she found the perfect listener tale.
She sure did.
It is entitled, A Priest Stole My Great Grandmother's Godmother's Grimoire.
Grimoire?
Like what?
A priest is in this, a grimoire.
I looked really briefly.
There's witches.
Witches, of course.
If there's a grimoire, there's witches.
Like what do we do in here?
And it's from Sarah, which is a very witch name.
Immediately, I was like, of course it's from Sarah.
Like, come on.
Sarah said it's okay to use Sarah's name.
So, hi Sarah.
Hey.
And this says attached as a,
you wrote it along email as well, that was very kind.
And we appreciated it.
It's just very, it's, there seemed like there might have been
some personal moments that I just didn't want to like.
Yeah, we didn't know if we were in like.
We didn't want to assume that you wanted it all on the pod.
So I'll just read attached.
It's a double space Puddafa typed up on my phone.
So I hope it comes through okay, it did.
It's perfect.
With some of the weird tales that string through
the generations of women on my maternal side,
approximately 10 minute read. Enjoy.
So let's get into this.
Growing up, I always heard the stories of premonitions, ghosts, and curses, and they
all started with my great-grandmother's godmother.
I'm already in.
I'm so in.
In 1906, my great-grandmother, Alma—
Oh, cool name.
—was born into a farming family on the outskirts of the city. For Wisconsin, this is the typical story, nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary.
Well, aside from the fact that Alma's mother, Annie, named a very peculiar friend as godmother.
That friend, let's call her Jenny, was known to be a witch.
Can I just say, you should always name a very peculiar friend as your child's godmother.
You should.
And that's how you know you're doing it right.
Yeah, don't ever go out of those guidelines.
Always peculiar friends.
A very peculiar friend.
A very peculiar friend.
Yes.
Who you can't actually name.
Yeah.
I think that's who you should do.
Now I'm choosing the name Jenny because I cannot remember what my Nana Dolores, daughter
of Alma, told me her name was.
Dolores.
Cursed little me for not writing that shit down.
Jenny had been labeled as a witch her whole life
since being a small girl when she put a curse
on a nasty little brat who was a terror
and bully to everyone in school.
Iconic behavior.
Jenny's the baddest bitch.
Jenny told the girl that she would experience the pain
that she inflicted on others
and that it would quote unquote bind her.
Oh my God.
Jenny.
Jenny is Sarah from the craft.
She's everything.
Allegedly that girl was unable to go to the bathroom
for three weeks and when she did find some relief,
it was accidental.
Like she had simultaneously become constipated
and incontinent at the same time.
Whoa.
Wow.
Damn.
And this is with Jenny just going,
not saying like I'm gonna inflict this pain on you,
you're gonna receive what you are putting out.
Yeah.
That's all she said was you are gonna get it back.
And she got it back.
And she done did it.
Now this was probably the late 1800s.
Whoa.
My favorite time.
So medicine obviously wasn't what it was now,
but doctors could find nothing wrong with the girl.
She just couldn't poop.
The girl's mom finally went to Jenny and Jenny's mother,
begging them to do something about it,
pleading for her daughter's health to return,
as she had started throwing up too.
Yeah, it's gotta come out somehow.
It's coming out.
Apparently Jenny's mom just kind of gave Jenny a look
like, come on, really?
Jenny's side got up, placed a hand on the afflicted girl
and said, I forgive you.
Wow.
I got chills.
I was just going to say I did too.
The way my Nana said it, that little girl
had to run to the bathroom so fast,
she almost created a gust through the room.
She cropped us.
Wow.
She cropped us.
There were other youthful Jenny stories,
but that one is the most clear in my head.
Of course.
I have to say why.
Jenny never went on to have kids of her own.
So when her best friend had a daughter,
oh, Jenny was smitten.
Alma was supposed to learn from Jenny,
be taught the ways in order to pass down the tradition.
Now, I don't have much that stands out in my memory
for stories directly involving Alma,
other than the final story of Jenny,
which Alma was present for.
As magical as Jenny may have been,
she was not immune to the effects of time.
Jenny was on her deathbed in a hospital, all but gone,
not conscious or communicating anymore.
When her breathing became a death rattle,
they called for the hospital's resident holy man,
a priest, to pray over her.
The priest was caught off guard,
shocked that he had been called into the room
when he saw her like he knew she didn't subscribe
to his beliefs, at least not in the way he deemed, quote unquote, right.
He prayed in Latin quickly as he wanted to get out of there.
He finished the prayer and then before he left, noticed the book on her bedside table.
Quote, no one can have this book, he said, before tossing his jacket over the book as
to not touch it and picked it up, ready to leave with it.
I can only assume that this book was a book
of shadows of sorts, her grimoire,
and he took it from her and those who loved her.
I would have fought that, man.
I would have fought that guy up.
So the moment he turned to leave,
Jenny's final breath escaped her body.
A sheer black shawl was draped across her body
while she was laying in bed.
This shawl was always with her,
always worn like a security blanket
or a favorite accessory.
Oh my gosh, she's so cool.
Right?
In that moment of Jenny's final breath,
the shawl rippled down from Jenny's body
down across her legs and towards the doorway
where the priest was before cascading down the floor
where it remained motionless.
The movement was described as that
of a light wind blowing through,
but there was no wind, there was no draft, and there was no more Jenny.
My body is simply warming all the way through this.
Imagine your family telling you these tales.
Do you see my goosebumps?
This is a tale.
This is insane. I'm covered head to toe.
This is such a story.
Oh my God, I can't get rid of these goosebumps.
We all believe this was the spirit of Jenny
making a final attempt to get her book back.
Oh, yeah.
I like to think she haunted him till the day he died
for taking what didn't belong to him.
I think we were all a little mad at that still.
Yeah, of course.
I don't blame you.
Now on to my Nana Dolores.
I absolutely idolized this woman.
And even now, thinking of her, I have tears forming in my eyes.
I still feel her warmth and love like she's still here.
Dolores was a very strong woman,
driven, independent, beautiful, and full of love.
She was also incredibly gifted in gardening and animal care,
always making some sort of salve or medicinal herb blends,
bringing animals back from the brink of death,
and rescuing the injured creatures
that no one else would consider.
I fucking love Dolores.
I love Dolores for life.
I love Jenny. I love Alma.
I remember times of helping her in the garden
when we would just stop what we were doing
because there was a toad in the way
and we would talk to them until they moved.
Whoa.
You guys are the most magical fucking beings.
This is like, this is classical magic.
This is.
Or when we would be drinking tea at the kitchen table
and a bird would crash into the window,
Nana would race outside and hold the little bird and a bird would crash into the window,
Nana would race outside and hold the little bird,
whispering to them and stroking their feathers
until they would slowly come out of the stun state.
They would linger after just looking at her as she spoke.
She would say, okay, it's time and off they would fly.
I'm gonna start sobbing right now.
I'm screaming inside.
Oh my gosh.
A favorite story of mine is when Dolores
was driving the family's old crappy car into town.
I think at this time she had her first three babies, no older than toddlers in the backseat.
The car broke down and it was the middle of a downpour, very heavy rain.
She got out to see if she could tell what was wrong, but she wasn't exactly a mechanic
and cell phones obviously didn't exist.
There were no houses nearby and she couldn't leave her babies alone in the car.
As she was looking under the hood, a man approached asking what the trouble was.
Nana said the man was odd, not scary but strange.
Yet she trusted him fully.
He didn't even look at the car but asked, do you have a Coke bottle in your car?
She thought that was a weird question because why would she be driving around with an empty
glass bottle?
He encouraged her to check.
She popped the trunk and by some miracle, there was a glass sprite bottle. He instructed her to tap a certain spot on the engine using the bottle
and to try starting the car.
What?
It worked. The weird random stranger was right. Dolores, not having much herself, was always
the giver and insisted on giving the man money for his help. He smiled softly and said,
that won't be necessary, but thank you.
She turned to reach into her car for some cast, ready to shove it into the kind man's
hands.
When she turned back, he was gone, and there was no way he could have just vanished into
the house because the nearest one was football fields distance away.
What the fuck?
Something else you need to know about the man is that he did not touch the car once.
He did not touch her.
He did not touch the bottle.
And even though it was a heavy downpour, the man wasn't wet, not even a little. It's almost like he wasn't there
at all.
I, my, I can't.
Chills.
Like the chills will not escape.
These are tales that just need to exist in the world.
Yes.
Like these are just, wow.
These are like beautiful, beautiful tales.
These are so magical.
Like I'm loving this.
I love this tale.
Other notable moments surrounding my Nana are the time she predicted what would come
to be.
Like when she told everyone a plane was going to land in the field next to the house, and
it happened because the plane ran out of gas, little hobby plane.
Or when she declared, Mary is in trouble right before the phone rang and it was indeed her
daughter Mary crying on the other end in Texas.
Or when she always used to tell me, don't fall in love, which I now take as a warning
of my previous abusive relationship.
Oh my gosh.
I'm so sorry you were an abusive relationship.
I know, I'm sorry too.
My Nana passed away in January 2019.
I'm sorry.
As happens with time and passing,
she isn't part of a daily conversation or even,
or thoughts even, it happens, time moves on.
And yet, there have been occasions
when I'll have a random dream of her.
I'll see my mom and say,
hey, I had a dream about Nana on Tuesday.
And mom will look at me with a serious expression
and say, you're kidding.
I had a dream of her on Tuesday.
This is always out of the blue.
It's not like we were just talking about her or something.
Maybe she's visiting us in her dreams.
I suddenly just got this like overwhelming feeling
of like, I'm gonna cry right now.
You have tears in your eyes.
Ash literally has tears in her eyes.
I'm telling you, breaking news.
Yeah, breaking news.
Yeah, again, Ash is crying.
But I don't know.
I'm just like, it's beautiful.
I'm like, I missed your nanopile.
I missed you.
I was still.
I was like, damn.
So I'm not sure what it is we have.
I don't know if I even fully buy into it.
I do.
But I don't have an explanation for these things either.
Maybe it's all because of my great-grandmother's godmother, or maybe that just made us all more open to the possibilities.
The regular feelings of deja vu
and the lost or injured animals that always seemed to find me
remind me that this might just be the fate of women in my family,
and I think I'm okay with that.
I hope you enjoyed some of these weird little tales.
I'm taking a trip to Boston with my boyfriend next month,
and he is taking me on a day trip to Salem.
Yes!
Because he knows how fascinated I am
by the witchy stuff in history.
Half of me is hoping I feel something spooky,
and the other half of me is hoping a ghostie
doesn't follow me home.
Anyway, keep it weird, but not to weird
that you steal a book of shadows
from a dying woman's bedside table,
because bro, that's just fucked up.
But do keep it so weird that when you die,
you become a friendly roadside assistant
who helps weary travelers. Absolutely keep it that weird that when you die, you become a friendly roadside assistant who helps weary travelers.
Absolutely keep it that way.
Sarah!
Wow.
Those were beautiful in a way I can't describe.
I can't even explain.
And you told them beautifully.
I could picture all of that in my head.
You have a beautiful way with words, write something.
I was going to say, I feel like-
Sit down and write if you haven't already.
Yeah, you need to write like a book about Delores and Jenny
and Alma, like all of them. Please write a beautiful children's book about the witchy women in your family.
Please.
Because I would read my kids that book.
Yeah.
Sarah, please do it.
I encourage you.
Wow.
That whole story just gave me like such a feel, like a feeling I genuinely can't describe.
But in a weird way, I feel like nostalgic for your Nana Dolores and for Jenny.
Yes.
Like I'm like, I feel like I knew them.
Me too.
Like that like filled me up.
Yeah.
You filled my cup, Sarah.
I appreciate that.
Wow.
Damn.
Damn, Sarah.
Honestly.
That story is just that story about Jenny just blew my fucking mind.
That was good.
I'm obsessed with the traveler.
Because I don't know if like we'll have to have Mikey on to do to tell his story.
He needs to tell.
Of somebody who 100% like saved his life I feel like in the road to angel.
And it's a guardian angel.
After a road incident as well.
And it's definitely some type of spirit guide
or some kind of guardian.
There's some kind of something that we can explain
and he will tell you this story and it's beautiful
and amazing and it reminded me of that.
That's another tale that like made me wanna cry
when Mikey told us about.
So we'll have to have Mikey on for a listener tale
and he can,
cause you guys, I know you wanna probably hear Mikey.
Oh yeah.
And you should. He's wonderful. It'd be great. So thank you, Sarah, for that. Wow,
that was great.
Okay, I'm going to read the one about cats next because I don't know if you know this
about me, but I do love cats.
But you like cats?
And if you've recently listened to the old episodes, I used to not like cats, so it's
confusing.
Oh, shit.
Yeah, I guess I proclaimed ones that I like hated cats, which I used to.
But then we really wanted an animal and I was, Drew was like, let's get a cat.
And I was like, I've never met a nice cat.
And then you?
I met three. You met three nice cat. And I was like, I've never met a nice cat. And then you, I met three.
You met three nice guys.
And I'm now obsessed.
And I'm not a big cat person.
Like I've always been not really a cat person.
Same.
But me and Franklin.
Oh, you have a vibe.
We have a bond.
So Franklin, they've turned me around.
Franklin will like kiss me.
Like if I like make like a,
he literally like kisses me.
Like he doesn't like lick me,
but like he bops his mouth onto my mouth and it's beautiful.
And it's beautiful and don't make a weird.
He did that to Elena the other day.
And I'm not, I'm the only person he does that to.
I was so excited.
He tries to like, if anybody even so much as touches him,
he's a little cranky and he tries to bite them.
That's why I love him.
Yeah.
I think that's why we get along.
Cause I think we're both like cranky little.
Cranky cats.
Just cranky cats together.
I love my cats.
But when he tried to kiss you, I was like, that is not your mother.
I know.
And I was like, Franklin.
No.
We're pros.
But I think it's also the witch in us.
I think so.
But so yeah, this is about a cat.
It's called Listener Tale, haunted by Mr. Mayer, the cat.
Mr. Mayer, the cat.
I could say your name.
This is from Carson. It says, hello. Mr. Mayer the cat. I can say your name, this is from Carson.
Says hello weirdos from the dark lagoon
known as the Bridgewater Triangle.
Oh shit.
For your reading pleasure,
I have provided this excellent double space
size 14 font potafa.
Oh, look at you.
This story takes about XX minutes to read.
I don't, what's XX?
I think maybe you meant to put in a story amount,
but you didn't like a time and that's okay.
XX is not a Roman numeral.
I mean, it is a Roman numeral,
but I don't know if that's what they were meaning.
That would be big.
I think it's 10, isn't it?
No, that's V.
Nope.
Hold on, I'm gonna Google it.
No, V is five.
Sorry, I'm not up on Roman numerals.
It's 20, so I don't think it takes 20 minutes to read.
I was gonna say, because X, I think it's 10. But we. It's 20, so I don't think it takes 20 minutes to read.
But we'll find out.
Yeah, it's okay.
Anyways, hold on to your butts.
Before we get into this, here are my accolades for you.
Oh my God, I love you.
Are you ready?
Okay, good.
I've listened to your show since you covered Catherine Knight
and I was instantly like, holy fucking balls,
these humans are hilarious and this show is so fucking gross.
I didn't, for all.
On an honest note that I won't even try asking you to skip,
your show has helped me through some very hard times
and I'm so grateful for you both.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're beautiful.
Now, on to my ghostly tale.
I am a fellow Bridgewater Triangle Dweller.
Hell yeah.
But before I lived in the middle of nowhere,
no cell service dial up internet,
internet ass mountains of Ohio.
Oh, that's where I lived before.
Yes, exactly.
Between creepy mountain hitchhikers that I used to pick up in my ill-guided youth,
to strange UFO sightings that I noped the fuck away from,
to spooky ghosties in my haunted-ass Bridgewater Triangle apartments,
I have a metric fuck ton of tales I could tell you.
But alas, let's not focus on those tales,
and instead focus on these T-A-I-L-S tales.
I'm obsessed.
As I tell you the sweet story of being counted
by my beloved cat.
Oh, I'm gonna cry.
I know I'm gonna cry on this.
I'm very weirdly emotional today.
My nephew was just born.
Well, I mean, that set us off.
And that set us off.
So when my then partner now spous,
spous.
Now spous.
I don't know what happened to me that time.
You're my spouse.
That was a soul.
It was like a villainous transatlantic accent.
You're my spouse.
You're my spouse.
My then partner now spouse.
Quick sidebar.
My spouse prefers to be called my cowboy because as they say, I upgraded from partner and now
I'm your cowboy.
Howdy how.
Stop. I'm a... Stop. I upgraded from partner partner and now I'm your cowboy. Howdy, hey. Stop.
I'm up.
Stop.
I upgraded from partner.
No, I'm your cowboy.
Howdy, hey.
I'm, I love you.
Love.
I love both of you.
I love love.
This is beautiful.
But anyways, when my then partner, now cowboy, and I moved into our first apartment, we did
what any young queer couple would do and highlighted, high-tailed it to the animal shelter to adopt
a fucking cat.
That's what you did.
That's exactly.
We didn't even have a fucking couch yet and we were like, cat, cat, cat.
I need a cat.
We had a chair for the first three months we lived in our apartment and also a cat.
And a cat.
We were determined to find our perfect fur baby who would happily give us cuddles, purrs,
and love forever more.
Well fuck us because when we lay our eyes upon this scrumptious, squishy, angriest cat
in the whole fucking place, we were instantly smitten and he was coming home with us.
Now this cat had been through it in his two years of life.
He was rescued from a feral cat colony where the shelter worker said,
other cats were grooming him, bringing him food and taking care of his every need.
Therefore, he was deemed by Shelter staff, Mr. Mayor.
Oops.
There he was like, clean me, bring me food,
go get me this.
Take care of my every need.
Could you cut my fingernails?
Thank you.
He's the emperor.
I love him.
Well, the rest of Mr. Mayor's colony
was sent away to be part of the Shelter's barn cat program,
where feral cats who cannot be domesticated are adopted to farmers who need to keep down
the vermin population, our beautiful sack of fur was deemed unable to survive on his own
and was not eligible. By this, I mean, he was missing two ribs.
Oh my god!
He was born with legs that were too short and a tail that was too short and therefore had difficulty with balance and also had asthma.
Oh my god.
But just like that, feral colony of cats, our feral self said, I'ma take care of this
on the chunk.
I'ma take care of you.
I love this.
So began the next three years of our life, which we fully and entirely dedicated to this
cat.
It took six months to let us pet him. A full year for him
to sit with us on the couch. A year and a half before he would sleep on us at night. And two
years before he would ever let another human besides my cowboy and me pet him. But with each of his
milestones, we slowly learned that we were correct. We had adopted literally the best cat ever.
Hell yeah. He slowly showed us how silly and sweet he was.
And when we adopted two other cats, are we the same human?
I was gonna say wow.
Are we the same human?
He was instantly in love with them and followed them everywhere.
Franklin does not feel the same about his dog.
Although he was cuddling with Luxe yesterday and I was like, somebody call the local media.
Call the authorities.
Anyway, our three cats, oh my god, I love this so much. Our
three cats and we became a fucking tight-knit family. Every person who owns more than one
cat was always shocked at how much our cats loved each other. I am. And we would always
say, Mr. Mayor refused to be anything but loved. Oh, Mr. Mayor. By the time he was five,
his favorite activities included playing with his siblings by flopping on the ground and
bunny-kicking in the air as they casually walked by, snuggling with
me while making snorting pig sounds, and dragging his open mouth across our arms as
we slept, making us wake up with an armful of nasty slobber.
It didn't matter to us that this cat couldn't clean his own butt, or that he couldn't climb
up a cat tower.
He was happy as could be with us when he suddenly got very sick
and within one day's time had passed away
at the nearby emergency vet.
I'm so sorry.
They said his immune system hadn't been able to fend off
whatever kind of kitty illness he had gotten.
That's awful,
because that's not a long time with a cat at all.
We were devastated and brought his body home
so that the other cats could sniff him
and know what happened, so that they other cats could sniff him and know what happened
So that they wouldn't have to wonder where their brother went. I'm gonna fucking cry right now. Oh my god You guys are doing a test. Oh my god
And when I hear people say that animals don't have emotions, I always talk about how hard my other two cats took the passing of Mr.
Mare, I'm gonna start sobbing
One of them didn't sleep for three days and we ended up having to take her to the vet where they said she had depression.
The other began to pee outside the litter box and would spend weeks screaming at the door
like he was waiting for his brother to come home.
And as somebody who has had a good amount of loss in my life, nothing has ever caused
grief like the grief I felt losing that cat.
Okay, that is so valid.
It is.
And I want you to know that because I have also had loss in my life. And I can tell you right now,
I have never felt what I felt holding Bailey
while she died.
It's a different kind of love.
I will never be able to describe
or handle that feeling again.
Like, I know we got two other dogs.
So it's like, we opened ourselves up
for that eventually in life.
But it's like, I'm telling you and John said the same,
we were shocked at how that grief was like nothing
I've ever felt.
Because I think in a lot of ways,
like having an animal is so similar to having a child.
Because they're with you all the time.
People, and they rely on you.
Yeah, it's like losing a child.
Yeah, it's like it's similar.
Because that was our first thing
That's your first bird this first baby that me and John took care of together and dogs are so similar to babies
Like yeah, I'm with them in the night. You gotta take care of her weeks
We couldn't take a shower without her crying. She's like
Like sleep training them. Yeah, it's like it's And even my kids, like one of my kids the other night
started to cry because she misses,
she all of a sudden just missed Bubba.
Yeah, it's hard.
It was just upset about it.
And it's like, so it like hit.
It does.
So that is a very valid thing that you just said.
And everything you went through with this cat,
like you took so long to like bond with Mr. Mayor.
You did so much.
And you did so much.
And you put in the time, you put in the effort.
Yeah.
That's a very valid thing to say.
I just had to tell you that.
No, it's true.
And it's a different bond entirely.
Yeah, some people aren't gonna get it.
And that's whatever.
And it's just not for them to get.
Just know, I get it.
I get it, dude.
So suffice to say, we were all devastated.
And so were all of the friends and family
who had come to love and watched this little guy's journey of learning. He was safe and loved. There were so many people who wanted to say, we were all devastated, and so were all of the friends and family who had come to love and watched this little guy's journey of learning he was safe and loved.
There were so many people who wanted to say their goodbyes to this cat that we had a Zoom
funeral.
It was COVID times, and 42 people came to tell their favorite Mr. Mayor stories.
Some people don't have that many people.
For real.
For real.
As we stood with the iPad by where we had buried him under a flowering tree in the yard.
That's beautiful.
There, he rested for four more years, and the wheels of life kept on going until it came time for us
to move. We'd been renting from my in-laws' old house and they wanted to sell it, so we finally
struck out on our own. We began packing and got a real estate agent to help us buy our first home.
But as the days went on, something that had never happened for our entire time living in this house
started to happen.
We were being haunted.
Holy shit.
My spouse and I would feel like we were constantly being watched.
We felt like we were seeing shadow figures constantly out of the corners of our eyes.
Things were suddenly flying off shelves and tables.
At one point, we were both standing in our living room and watched as all of a sudden,
a cup on the nearby table flung itself off the table and across the room.
Wow, that's a cat.
And if that's not a cat, that's gonna say, and we have cat.
And that's a cat. So we were both shitting our britches of course and called up our witchy friend
with a quick SOS ghost invasion. They came over the next day and we were like, the house has matted
us for leaving. And they smiled at us and said, it's not the house, it's the land. Like something
in the land doesn't want you to leave.
I'm gonna sob right now.
I hope you were able to remedy this.
I know.
I really hope.
Immediately and without warning,
my spouse and I both began to cry,
like a sobbing crying.
Now I'm a literal sprinkler,
so this was no surprise for me, relatable.
A soft breeze on a gentle day
can make me cry over the fucking beauty of nature. Oh my God, I am your spouse. And I am you. My spouse? Nah, this fucker
is from Boston and therefore is repressed as fuck. I've only seen them cry maybe four
times in our decade long relationship. And here out of nowhere was number five. This
was literally John with me. Like he was like, oh my God, you're sobbing.
It's so true.
We both looked at each other sobbing
and though a great deal of sad boy sobs said,
excuse me, through a great deal of sad boy sobs said,
in perfect unison, it's Mr. Mayor.
This cat had never moved in his life
and was probably so scared seeing us pack up
all his familiar and favorite things into boxes.
And in typical cat fashion was letting us know his worry by knocking shit off a table.
That makes so much sense, our goddess witch of a divine friend replied.
I think he wants to know he can come with you and he wants you to bring something to
from his grave.
So I know, don't worry weirdos, we did not unbury the cat corpse.
We follow after the advice in this house of, don't be so weird about it.
Honestly, I wouldn't have said a damn thing.
I would be like, you know what, go get him.
Yeah, go get him, Mr. Mayor.
So don't worry.
Immediately after this, we went out to the grave
and what do we find but a little metal bird
that must have flown off something nearby hanging
from the tree directly over his grave.
It had never been there before, but there it was.
Wow.
We took the bird and told our baby boy he's always welcome to come with us,
and we would never leave without him.
Oh my God.
And oh, wow, this is really getting me.
This is so sad.
Oh, it's so sweet.
I know, I'm just picturing my cats now.
And all of a, oh, oh, God.
Jesus Christ.
I was like, don't picture your cat.
And all of a sudden poof, no more heavy feeling,
no more shit getting knocked over, no more
shadowy figures.
We moved into our new place with ease and set up a small table with a framed picture
of Mr. Mayor's paw prints.
We have that for Bubba.
Yeah, and now the little metal bird.
Now we light an incense for him every day and let him know how much we still love him.
You're such good, like, animal people.
You are.
Since then, the only haunting that happens from our Mr. Mayor is every now and then
we'll walk into our bedroom and see our cats cuddling and for J- oh my god.
The fuck?
Yeah, she's totally-
Like full crying.
She's full crying.
And for just- oh, because it's like so personal because I'm like I have three cats too.
I know.
And for just a moment out of the corner of my eyes I'll see a third.
Mr. Mayor shaped lump there, smuggled in next to them like he always was in life.
I love that. I'm sobbing. I love that. I love you and your cats. I love you and your cats. God.
Unfortunately this did not end our scary haunting experiences because the building that we moved into
is next door to a graveyard across the street from a mortuary, the building I live in has creepy children's
laughter on the staircase in the middle of the night.
That's not cute cat ghosts.
Shadow figures in the hallways and a ghost girl in the elevator who will scream at you
and trap you inside according to the old man who lives next door.
That's the greatest sentence I've ever heard uttered right there. Wow. According to the old man who lives next to. That's the greatest sentence I've ever heard uttered. Wow.
According to the old man who lives next door.
And then the follow up is,
so fuck us I guess.
I guess I need to call my badass witch friend again
with the SOS I can't go downstairs without choosing
between the ghostly gigglers or a demon woman help.
But these are stories for another time.
Send them in.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about my beautiful Mr. Mayor
and our happy haunting.
If you read this on the podcast, I will probably shit my whole butt off and then I'll have
nothing left to hold when you tell these scary stories.
So, whoops, keep it weird.
Carson.
Carson, you fucking ruined me with that story.
You ruined us.
And also, again, another great storyteller.
Another beautifully told tale.
And what a beautiful animal people you two are.
Seriously, I'm like sobbing out in these streets.
Your animals are lucky.
Please read something horrific.
I was going to say, I'm going to find something gnarly.
Please.
Oh my God, there's a harboring fugitive story.
I literally just trying to figure out how to do it. I'm just trying to figure out how to do it. I'm just trying to figure out how to do it. I'm just trying to figure out how to do it. I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do it. I'm just trying to figure out how to do it. I'm just trying to figure out how to do it. I'm just trying to figure out how to Luxie. Oh. Sobs. All right, let's see.
This one's called, The Time My Family Was Harboring a Fugitive.
And there's pictures of a dog.
Yeah, there's dogs.
Named Mo.
Named Mo.
I'm obsessed.
Hey beautiful ladies, I've attached a double-spaced Puttifah as my weird ass tail.
I hope you guys read it because it was fun to write.
You two are the spoopiest, creepiest, most beautiful people around.
I'm so happy that you two have each other in this life. Oh, wow.
That was lovely.
I found myself listening to the podcast every day.
It's comforting, relaxing, and overall just downright awesome.
I recommend it to everyone that I can.
Thank you.
It weird.
PS, I've also attached some pics, some picky pics,
of my sweet rescue pup, one from the day I brought him home
and the other to show how he's thriving.
Oh wow, and the difference.
I know, he looks so nervous before.
Oh, and then he's this very like, he's beautiful.
I love his coloring.
And he's just like, you can tell he's so unsure
and like very nervous and scared.
And then the picture now is him fully decked out
for his birthday.
Happy as can be with a giant like birthday cake bone in front of him with his name on it.
I'm obsessed.
So you know what, you're killing it.
You're absolutely killing it.
Another wonderful animal owner.
I love all the happy animal owners.
Right?
Oh, okay.
So my lovely spoopy ladies, my name is Ellie.
I love that name.
It's so pretty.
And yes, you can use it, thank you.
This will be a long story, although try to shorten it as much as I can. Lots of backstory though
I'd love to spill my guts and tell you how incredible you two are, but you already know that we have shenanigans to get to off
We go. Love that. I love you
Let's hop in our way back machine and travel to a time of Farmville, Jersey Shore and Kate Goslin being fed up with John's breathing
Oh my god. The fact that that's a literal thing.
Do you remember the one where she was like, you're literally breathing?
Like, what is your breathing going on?
And what, didn't she like yell at one of the kids for breathing too loud or like
something like that too?
And I was like, wow, yeah, it's a whole thing.
Calm down.
That show is wild.
That, the fact that that I, I can't even go back there because I could not ever
watch that show.
And then wait really quickly, John's Ed Hardy era.
Oh, the Ed Hardy era that everyone went through.
The Jersey Shore of the lot too.
Yeah.
So it says, I was 17 and a senior in high school, going to school with the same kids
since fourth grade.
It was a time of aim, chat rooms, and Facebook was a new up and coming site.
I can't remember exactly how I met the antagonist of our story, but I do know it was online.
Let's call this guy Tyler. Tyler was from Illinois and I lived in a small upper middle
class Pennsylvania town. My family didn't exactly fit the mold of this town, with my
single mother working diligently as an RN to raise three kids. What about us? My mother
is an angel, but she's quite naive, I being her daughter. I'm the same duh
Let's fast forward to when Tyler showed up to my door my dumb ass 17 year old self
Obviously must have given him my address at some point so stupid
Let me add here that this could be used as a cautionary tale for kids today
Okay, so at least he was who he said he was net Neve's help won't be needed at this point
least he was who he said he was. Neve's help won't be needed at this point.
He did it.
Oh man.
The original Catfish movie, I watched that recently.
That's a horror film.
It's such a trip to watch now.
It is.
It is a trip to watch now.
And it's scary.
It is horrifying.
It's scary.
When you watch it, it is horrifying.
Yeah.
Well, he didn't have anywhere to stay,
and yes, he was planning on staying.
So I begged my mom to let him stay with us in our house.
She eventually said yes, although I don't think
it took too much convincing.
I knew that he and his dad had been having problems,
so I assume that's why he wanted to get away from home.
I also knew that he had stolen a car before,
face palm to the fucking forehead of OG.
Did I mention I was dumb?
I thought I thought I loved this prick.
So I fell for the whole, I'll never do it again.
I've learned my lesson, Shpil.
I was fucking starry eyed.
I have fixed the bad boy.
I have fixed the bad boy, fucking score.
Am I right?
You know what, you were 17.
And we've all been there.
Yeah.
We've all been there.
I'm gonna fix him face.
Oh God.
The amount and also the amount of people
you think you love before you realize
like what love truly is, and you're like,
oh, I didn't love that fucker.
And that just that fix him face that we all went through,
or like if some of us went through,
I won't blanket you all.
I think most of us at least.
I definitely went through a giant fix him face
and can confirm did not fix him.
Don't know.
Not fucking scored. Did not fix him. Don't know. Not fucking scored.
Did not fix him.
Because you know what?
It's not up to anybody else to fix someone else.
You got to fix yourself.
You got to fix yourself.
You can't love yourself, RuPaul says.
How in the hell are you going to love somebody else?
Exactly.
Speaking of RuPaul, quick little side note,
just for the parents out there.
Have you watched the Tiny Chef show?
RuPaul is in it.
I love.
And also, please watch the Tiny Chef show. The Tiny Chef is is in it. I love. And also, please watch the Tiny Chef show.
The Tiny Chef is so cute.
You will be laughing your ass off.
It's amazing.
My kids thought it was hilarious.
I love it.
So go watch that.
Let's go.
Tiny Chef is so cute.
So cute.
A couple days of him moping around my poor, innocent mom's house.
And what's that?
A new MySpace message.
I'm hunched over our family desktop computer in the corner of our dining room reading this message.
It says something like, good afternoon, Ellie.
My name is Officer So-and-So.
I'm writing this to let you know
that we are looking for Tyler Lyre Lyre pants on fire.
We have reason to believe he's with you
and want you to know if he is.
That is considered harboring a fugitive
and your mother could be in serious legal trouble.
She and or you could be arrested.
Please call me at blah, blah, blah number.
Oh my God.
Imagine getting that message.
At 17 years old.
What was my first thought after reading this?
Obviously I ignored the part that said fucking fugitive
and instead yelled over my shoulder,
hey Tyler, come look at this.
Oh.
If I could smack the crap out of my younger self, I was.
He was reading the message over my shoulder on our monstrosity of a computer,
looking nervous as H.E. double hockey sticks.
He played it off though, saying it was probably his dad trying to get him to come home
because the message came from a blank profile.
Okay, shrug, armed with life without another thought,
ignorance is bliss, I guess, but not for long.
The next day was Friday.
This is where our story gets juicy.
Oh no.
He said he wanted to trade his jeep in for a new truck.
This struck me as odd, but I'm 17, okay?
I'm dumb and live in a bubble.
After school, yes, the stranger, fugitive,
was in our home alone while we were at work in school. Jump
scare. Oh my God. I happily rode with him in this car lot, to this car lot, about 20
minutes away. He, I mean, we, test drove a 90-something Chevy Silverado. You know the
one, the one that your grandpa probably drove. We pulled back into the lot and he went inside.
When he came out, he said they told him he couldn't trade his vehicle with an out-of-state license.
Did this make sense to me?
Nope, sure didn't.
But again, I'm dumb.
I'm just a little 17-year-old baby
who knows nothing about how the world works
and believes everything that anyone tells me.
We drove back to my house in his hunk of a junk jeep.
That night, he told me he was going back to the car lot
tomorrow to quote, sign papers for the trade.
Wait, wait, wait.
What happened to the out of state licensed debacle?
Tyler said the salesperson called and it was all hunky dory now.
Okay, okay, I believe that.
That's the loving, caring, and most perfect girlfriend that I was.
I asked if you wanted me to go with him.
You would have thought that Pennywise jumped out of the closet to scare him when he yelled,
no!
He said, you probably got stuff to do here. I'll just go.
Weird, but okay.
What happened the next morning?
He pulled into my mom's driveway
in grandpa's truck in all its glory.
I went to greet him and what did I see?
Do they always leave the dealer plates on?
Oh no.
I don't know.
I'm just a baby.
Just a baby.
Just a baby.
I do remember asking him about it
and he explained that he would have to go back again to quote
unquote finish the paperwork and get the new plates.
Dude, I thought that's what you were doing today.
Whatever.
Have I mentioned yet that my sister was in the hospital today ready to deliver my first
nephew?
I didn't?
Well, she was.
And we're on our way now in this weird ass truck.
The hospital was in another town about an hour away,
and we had to take almost all back roads to get there.
We were driving up a hill because duh,
this is Western Pennsylvania,
when the truck runs out of gas.
Another indication that I should've known
what was going on, I don't think Carlott's filled
the tanks for a test drive here,
for any test drives here and there.
I call my dad and he leaves the hospital
to bring us some go-go juice.
The bad feeling I had about stupid old Tyler
in this whole situation was getting worse.
We get on the road again and finally join my family
at the hospital.
After hours in the waiting room,
we hear a wretched scream from the delivery room and boom.
The first grandbaby in our family was born,
my incredible nephew, Nikolai.
Nikolai.
Welcome, Nikolai.
Also the fact that the fugitive Tyler was just there for that. He was just there for that. What a greatai. Nikolai. Welcome, Nikolai. Also the fact that the fugitive Tyler
was just there for that.
He was just there for that.
What a great story.
What a story.
You're like, hey, my first nephew.
A fugitive was there for that.
A fugitive was there for that.
It was around 10 p.m. before we all left.
Did I mention that it's my older brother's birthday?
I didn't?
Well, it is.
Oh my God.
What is happening in your life?
In the excitement of the day and the new baby,
we didn't get to celebrate my brother.
My mom asked Tyler and I to stop and pick up a cake on our way home. I the excitement of the day in the new baby, we didn't get to celebrate my brother. My mom asked Tyler and I to stop
and pick up a cake on our way home.
I quickly ran into the grocery store
and the only cake I could find was a Valentine's
themed heart cake.
Wow, that's weird.
I know today's Valentine's Day.
Valentine's Day and my nephew was just born.
Heart cake it is.
We are all at the tear land of our drive
when I get a call from my mom.
I answer, yellow.
My mom, in the most serious tone I've ever heard come out of her mouth.
Where are you? Me, jokingly. Oh, you know, we're in Ohio somewhere. My mom, Ellie, where are you?
Me. I'm kidding. We're on the highway. Jeez. We're one-hacks in a way. Mom, come home right now.
Okay. So that was weird, right? I told Tyler about the weird call
and he was strangely silent.
We got them to the main intersection in town
where you had two options to get to my house.
Either go straight and take the first right
or take a right at the intersection
and go around the block that way.
We were sitting at the red light for a few long moments
in silence, no traffic around,
but a set of headlights in the post office parking lot.
The post office was ahead of us, where we would turn onto my road.
All of a sudden, Tyler turned on his right turn signal and turned.
That's odd.
Why did you go this way?
I asked, because I wanted to go this way.
What a weirdo, I thought.
As we pulled onto the driveway, heart-shaped cake resting innocently on the floor, two
sets of headlights pulling behind us.
I said aloud, wow, it's pretty late for Tom's friends to be coming over.
My brother was one of the popular kids, and his friends were always coming to pick him
up to go to a party here or there.
That's what it had to be, right?
Wrong.
Very wrong.
Oh no.
The moment the truck was shifted into the park, about a hundred police came out of everywhere.
I mean, everywhere.
I looked through the windshield and saw the barrels of two shotguns pointing of everywhere. I mean everywhere. I looked through the windshield
and saw the barrels of two shotguns pointing at us. Oh my god. On the driver's side of the truck
was three officers with their handguns pointed at the truck, along with more officers on the
passenger side. You poor thing. Cops came out from behind my beloved blue spruce pine tree in the yard,
off our patio where they had been hiding and from all sides of the garage. Two men also came from both cop cars behind us.
I froze.
I was more terrified than I had ever been in my short little seventeen years.
When people say they're live slash before their eyes, I now know what you mean.
My only thought was, I'm going to jail because of this car-stealing little twat.
In an instant, the cops ripped open the driver's side door and yanked him to the ground,
hitting his head on the corner of the door. Good, I thought. Fuck him up. Woop woop. This bastard
has ruined my life. I was too afraid to move during this whole ordeal, so I didn't move a single
muscle other than my super strong tear ducts. I was bawling in the middle seat of this stupid
truck with the driver's door wide open, staring at the red and white frosted cake.
Finally, a young cop, probably the newbie, unlucky enough to have to deal with the hysterical girl, opened the passenger door and the sheepess just said, you can get out now.
Through tears that I can only compare to Niagara Falls sourcing from my eyeballs,
I asked, can I bring the cake? Because evidence, man, I don't know, with an unimpressed look and a slight roll
of his eyes, he said, uh, sure.
So there I was standing in my driveway with a morally tainted Valentine's Day birthday
cake and 30 police standing around feeling more embarrassed and confused than I'd ever
been in my life. Why aren't I in handcuffs? Shouldn't they be calling me Bonnie and him Clyde? Is
this a dream? Am I going to get tackled by an NFL linebacker sized police officer if
I head towards the side door of the house? So again, I didn't move until I was told
to do so. Tyler was in the back of the police car that definitely wasn't one of my brother's
friends coming to pick him up for a birthday celebration in the woods somewhere. And I was finally told I could go inside.
Inside to my safe, quiet home. My mom and brothers were in the kitchen where I set the precious
cake on the counter and without a word, I went to my room. I need to be alone now. We didn't speak
a word about what happened for years. Years? How?
From what I understand,
Tyler's dad told the police I didn't know anything.
Looking back, I should have listened
to the uneasy feeling I had about the whole situation.
And I definitely shouldn't have ever let him stay
at my house or duh, given him my address in the first place.
Teenagers are so stupid.
I'm sure there's lots of police work
that went into this as well,
because before police
hauled off the turd stain named Tyler, they told me that the US Marshals were looking for him.
What?
The fucking US Marshals. What slash who did I get involved with? The world may never know.
I need to know.
He did write me several times from jail or maybe prison.
He was saying how sorry he was and that he loved me,
blah blah blah. Eventually I received a letter addressing another girl. The envelope was addressed
to me, but the letter inside said, dear someone else's name. The letter was asking about their
daughter and saying he loved his other girl and would marry her. Wicca, Wicca, Wicca, what?
Oh my god.
I was told by a friend in law enforcement that the people monitoring
prisoners male will sometimes accidentally switch letters when they see inmates
writing to multiple women like that. And that's why they're real ones. That's a real one right there.
That is a real one. Let me let you know what's going on. I was never considering
continuing anything with this horrid man child. He was 19, so technically
a man, but not really at all. But I wrote, fuck you, across that letter and mailed it
back to him in jail slash prison.
Icon failed.
My only hope is that the same people were monitoring the mail that day and saw it. I
didn't think to look him up online until quite recently, actually. He had many charges,
including multiple burglary
and burglary attempts. I forget what the others were, but they were all stupid, and it's
very scary to think that this guy was in our home, and it was my fault.
Wow.
On the bright side, my younger brother has been a police officer for about eight years
and said that the moment he was watching through our patio door and saw 30 officers ambush
us, mostly Tyler, he knew what he wanted to do when he grew up crying laughing emoji.
I hope you read this and your younger listeners remember not to let strangers into your home
and don't be as despicably ignorant as I was.
Things could have turned out much, much worse and that is true.
It could have turned out a lot worse.
Thank you ladies so much for all your hard work.
I love you tons.
You're BFF, Ellie.
Ellie, it's for me that you and your family
didn't talk about this for years.
I love that you just walked in.
You placed that tainted Valentine's Day cake on the counter
and then just wordlessly walked into your room.
And then you said, I'm the head out.
You said, I don't think we need to revisit this.
And they said, okay.
You guys just woke up the next morning
and what about your lives?
That's a family right there.
That is.
That would be like, we know you're ashamed.
So we're not gonna talk about it.
You don't wanna talk about it?
We're not gonna talk about it.
That's not.
Just moving on.
I was like, damn, those are real ones right there.
Yeah.
Like, damn.
Wow.
Ellie, what a tale.
That is wild.
All right.
We have our next listener tale, and I just have to say that I really love
the ending of this one.
The ending of this one, I got to read it ahead of time.
It is phenomenal.
It's great.
All right, so here it goes.
Okay, this one is from Ben, by the way.
So it says, okay, here it goes.
Of all my paranormal experiences, I've only had two that were undeniable.
Thankfully, both were with another person to verify. My friend Kenny and I had met up for a hangout and sleepover. Whenever we got
together, we would usually smoke a pack of cigarettes, drink some beers, and stay up late
talking about cryptids, paranormal things, girls, and music. This night was no different.
Me, Kenny, and our friend Adam were in a rap group called Channel 3 AM.
Amazing. I love that. So amazing. I'm not sure if we had formed the group at this point
in our lives, though.
We may have just been rapping together.
We were just hanging out.
Maybe we were just rapping together.
Earlier in the night, we had wrapped over some live music.
My brother Nate and other roommates,
Britton and Ryan, were playing.
They were on fire.
It was an amazingly fun and creative time.
It sounded like explosions in the sky
mixed with weird dissonant chanting that came in and out of focus depending on what part of the
sonic wave they were riding. I love that. The music room was in our basement.
Everyone was feeling really inspired that night. The run-on sentence of a song we
were making lasted a couple hours and was so dynamic and full. I remember Adam
saying some things that were so profound it felt like he was literally possessed by a dead philosopher.
After blessing us with his spooky wisdom, Adam walked home and everyone other than Kenny and I went to bed.
I slept on a twin bed in a small bedroom sandwiched between Ryan's room and a large living room.
I had set up Kenny on the ground with a blanket and pillow just because my bed was too small to fit us both.
My laptop was sitting open on a coffee table
just because my bed was too small to fit us both. My laptop was sitting open on a coffee table
next to my feet by my closet.
As I sat on my bed contemplating
if another beer would help me sleep,
Kenny turns and asks me,
if I want to channel an interdimensional being.
What an amazing question to ask.
Right before bed, dude.
You're just about to go to bed.
You're like, on second thought,
do you want to channel an interdimensional being? And you're like, dude, I, do you like want a channel and a interdimensional being?
And you're like, dude, I was going to say that.
Yeah, weird.
Jinx.
I started him blankly where he sat on the floor in the glow of my laptop screen.
He said that he'd done it before once using a YouTube video.
I laughed, but agreed to watch the video with him.
You're like, sure.
Sure, why not?
There's YouTube for everything.
Oh, so my room was a long hallway in a bathroom directly in front of the door.
My brother's room was directly across from Ryan's at the end of the hall.
Britain lived under the living room next to a set of stairs that led to the music
room, our porch, and the backyard. Although I had responded to Kenny like I was ready to make fun
of him for the whole thing, the truth was I was also scared. As soon as I said yes to allowing
my consciousness to channel this being, I gulped like a cartoon mouse about to sneak past a sleeping cat. He navigated to the video
that somehow wasn't buried in a dark corner of the web, or in a corner of the dark web. It loaded
up and started to play what I can only describe as a comfortingly corny brainwash tape.
I love that.
Strange images started to play on the screen. I remember there were depictions of scared geometry. Sacred? Oh, scared geometry. Terrified geometry. The geometry
was like, oh, I'm a terrified rhombus. Depictions of sacred geometry, although the terrified
rhombus would be so much worse. Temples, maybe the all seeing eye, that sort of thing.
A digitally disguised voice started to speak.
The voice explained that the images and sounds would be used to help channel an interdimensional
being called a neph into our living space.
No.
Don't do that.
Don't channel shit into your living space.
Don't bring a neph into your living space.
Yeah, I don't know about that.
There's already enough people in your living space.
Yeah, don't do that. Unless they're going to pay rent, don't worry about them. Yeah, help out with the bills.
Yeah.
The voice also explained that the being would dissipate or leave after about an hour.
Oh, that's nice.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
So it's just like a quick little visit.
Just going to hang out.
An hour could be a long time depending on the interdimensional being though.
That's true.
Depending on their disposition.
Yeah, like what's Neth about, you know?
But the worrying electronic noises behind the video made me feel a bit entranced, but I still looked away and scoffed
to show Kenny I still wasn't buying. You're like, I don't give a shit. I don't know about Neth.
The voice on the video started to get mushier and less pronounced and repeated seemingly random
words from earlier on. It seemed like the person who made the video wanted it to appear hokey, like a science fiction movie from the 80s.
Love that.
The video voice repeated, enter, enter, enter now, now, now, now. And began to peter off
as the electronic humming noises got louder.
This is so intense.
It really is. Suddenly the high pitched humming noise was the only thing I could still hear,
other than a faint echo in my head of the voice, enter, enter, enter. Silence filled the room as the video went dark.
I turned the light on and was about to say something to crack a joke about the video
to lighten the mood when I was abruptly cut off by the doorknob thrashing back and forth.
Ooh, doorknob being twisted left and right as fast as possible.
Noises.
Yeah, there you go.
This went on for a good 10 seconds.
I would have reacted quicker, but I was just so shocked.
When I finally recovered, I ran to the door and flung it open.
There was no one outside in the hallway.
Neth was outside in that hallway.
100%
You couldn't perceive Neth.
It's not no one, it's Neth.
See, you don't know about that.
Yeah, you don't know about that.
There were no lights on, no sounds, no people.
I quietly checked on my roommates,
but they were all still asleep in their rooms.
There was no possible human way. Anyone could have twisted the doorknob
and then hid that fast, even if they had ducked into the bathroom across the hall. Needless
to say, I had a very, very hard time sleeping that night. I still feel shaken when I think
about it, even though it happened well over a decade ago.
That's because you met Ness.
That's exactly why.
You know you met Ness. You absolutely know you did. Ben's because you met Ness. That's exactly why. You know you met Ness.
You absolutely know you did.
You have met Ness.
Ben, you perceived Ness.
You did.
Even for just an hour.
But with all of that being said,
hey Ruby, Ben has something to ask you.
I'm screaming.
We're giving a pause. Yes, this is a pause.'re giving a pause.
Yes, this is a pause.
This is a pause.
Hopefully some things are being put into place right now.
Okay, and then...
Ruby and Ben just got engaged!
Woo!
Woo!
Happy engagement!
Happy engagement!
Happy engagement to Ben and Ruby Hart,
the most beautiful couple I've ever seen.
I love you guys, your art together.
My favorite ending of a listener tale ever.
This is so cool to be able to do this
and know that what is happening right now.
Like my heart in the future.
My heart just started racing like I was getting a proposal.
Like I'm so excited for you guys
I can't wait to see pictures and please send us pictures
And I just love your love and you guys are the cutest couple ever
And everybody if you're listening to this right now
Just like raise your glass or raise whatever you got to Ruby and Ben
To Ruby and Ben
I have a very
Funky-looking coffee right now Mine is literally iced coffee water But she wears to Ruby and Ben. But I have a very funky looking coffee right now. Mine is literally iced coffee water.
But cheers to Ruby and Ben.
And you got to drink girls, it's bad luck.
Oh my god, drink, hold on.
Sorry, I don't want to drink anymore.
I really committed to taking a sip of that coffee ice
for you guys.
That's what I'm sitting out.
But that's okay.
She old.
Because Ruby and Ben for life.
Love you guys so much.
It was so cool of you to involve us in that.
And I hope you're sobbing right now, Ruby and Ben.
And I hope you have the loveliest, happiest lives together.
Chin chin.
Hell yeah. And you know what? Maybe Neth can come to the engagement party.
Please invite Neth to the wedding. Please play that interdimensional demon video at one of
the wedding celebrations.
You can just stay for an hour. It'll be fine.
Yeah, you know.
Exactly.
Just play single ladies for him and it'll be great.
Neth loves that dance. He does. I just know it.
He knows the whole thing. I know it.
Well guys, with all of that excitement, we hope that you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird.
But that's so weird that you don't get engaged while listening to Listener Tales
because you should keep it so weird that you always get engaged while listening to listener tales.
Ben and Ruby for life!
Wooo!
This is so precious!
I love love!
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