Whispered “hey” on the Toilet | Your Urban Legends 116
/It’s a new year and a CHONKY urban legends episode is waiting for you. Featuring a long-time bathroom haunting, the cosplay to spouse pipeline, and how sometimes retail jobs are scarier than the monster under the bed!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of child endangerment, abusive relationships, kidnapping, and illness.
Housekeeping
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Send in those urban legend emails as you head home for the holidays!
- Submit Your Urban Legends Audio: Call us! 617-420-2344
Sponsors
- Bookshop.org, where you can now use the code we shared in the midroll to get 10% off your purchase!
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And Amanda, it's the first urban legends episode of the new year. Welcome. It's cozy, but it's also spooky.
AMANDA: That's how I like to keep it all year round, folks.
JULIA: True. True that. Sometimes we skew towards scary rather than cozy, but I want you to know, there's always the— like imagine all of these episodes are scary stories, and then there's the framing device of it being like a scary story around a campfire—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —or in front of a fireplace. That's the cozy element, is the framing device.
AMANDA: Yes. Or maybe agreeing to watch a scary movie when sitting on the bed of someone you have a crush on, even—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —though you don't like scary movies, but do want an excuse to have your hand held.
JULIA: Hmm, cozy, cozy.
AMANDA: So cozy.
JULIA: What's a good example of that for you, Amanda? What would be a movie that you're like, "I don't want to watch this, but my crush is watching it, so I'll watch it, too"?
AMANDA: Midsommar.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: Midsommar. Midsommer. However you pronounce it.
JULIA: Uh-huh. Cool. Yep. That's a good one. That's a good one.
AMANDA: Never want to see it, but if the person's cute enough.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Might get a yes from me.
JULIA: It has an aesthetic to it. I feel you there.
AMANDA: It does. And there are some upsetting scenes that I can perhaps turn off and then say, "Let's stop this and watch a YouTube video of, like, cats."
JULIA: Yep, yep. For sure, for sure. Famously, your sister made you watch that and then left you in her apartment, right?
AMANDA: Yeah, for a cutie, which I understand.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But also I'm like, "Girl, no, this is not girl code. This is not Midsommar."
JULIA: "This is not fair to me, particularly. How dare you." But Amanda, imagine if you will, we are in that sort of cozy, spooky setting, is there a story that you want to tell around the fire pit in front of the fireplace, in a cozy twin bed with your crush?
AMANDA: Yes, Julia. This email comes from Bree, [2:27] she/they, and it's titled Easter Duck Lore, Possible Ghost Roomie In An Encounter With a fae.
JULIA: Yay!
AMANDA: Free writes, "Guess who's back with more spooky stuff and some lore about the Easter Duck?"
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: "I was very happy to hear my story shared once more and I promise to keep you updated on other stories I recalled or found from my many spooky shenanigans."
JULIA: Please. It's all we ask for in these episodes. Truly. Just keep us in the loop.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. "I do have an important update to my sleepwalking/wandering lore that I didn't even recall until I visited some family for Christmas."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: What are we always saying, Julia? If you gotta go home, ask about the ghost stories. Come on.
JULIA: Exactly. Exactly.
AMANDA: "When you guys suggested asking for ghost stories during the holidays while all my folks were gathered, I took it and ran with it. So now, I have something old, something familiar, and something that's new as of a few days ago while writing this. A possible origin for my strange wanderings of both the waking and sleeping variety. Like my previous emails, I split my stories up, so if you want to save the Easter Duck lore for Easter time, we won't do that to you, listeners."
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "Feel free to hold off." Very kind of you.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: So first, Julia, we start with the Wicker Woman.
JULIA: Ooh, boy. Okay.
AMANDA: Ooh. "When I brought up spooky stories during the holidays, my family was less than amused, since everybody is familiar with some of my antics. My mom rolled her eyes and told me to leave it alone, that I was inviting trouble by 'bringing that stuff back up.'"
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "According to her, every time I start 'poking the bear,' stuff starts acting up again. And she's not wrong. So my mom's side of the family clammed up and didn't want to talk about such things. But my grandma on my dad's side had no such reservations."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "I siled up to her, told her about spirits and what I sent in. And she just laughed and then said, 'Bree, why didn't you bring up the tree lady yet?'
JULIA: Excuse me? Also the more grandmas that know about our show, the better. Just saying.
AMANDA: Truly, I get more powerful with every nonna, nanna, baba who knows about me.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "Now, I didn't remember that name until she explained it a little further. 'You know, the tree lady from back when Philip [4:43] and I lived in the cabin. You used to talk to her all the time when you were little after the incident with your brother.'"
JULIA: There's so many things happening in that one sentence.
AMANDA: "'The incident, I said?'" "You remember when Philip lost him?'" "And that's when I remembered what she was talking about. It was a common story that had passed around about how Philip had lost babysitting privileges after our first visit to the cabin where he promptly lost my baby brother. There was never any mention of the Wicker Woman, so I had always thought that part was a dream that I had."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "And had come up with after the fact."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "But apparently, it wasn't a dream."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "When I was four or five, my grandma still lived up in the mountains with her husband, Philip. Now, I'd always be a little wary of him even as a toddler, because I didn't like how he treated my grandma and we later found out that he was, in fact, an abusive partner. I give a lot of credit to kids because I clocked him as mean when I was very young. This meant that when my parents drove us up to visit their house, which we called the cabin, and left my brother with my grandpa, I was watching him like a hawk. My brother, that is. I was already well-established as a creepy kid at that point, so Philip didn't blink when I used the stairs to lurk around and watch him as he held my baby brother."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "My mama made it clear that since my brother was only about a year old and had already dealt with some health challenges, he needed to be protected and I took my job very seriously even back then."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Older sister solidarity.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "My mom and dad had stepped inside the main cabin, leaving my brother Philip and me out on the porch of the smaller guest cabin by ourselves. To make sense of this, I need to give you a sense of the layout of the area. The cabin was at the very end of a long downhill road of gravel and mud that was hidden around a bend in the pine trees which surrounded us on all sides."
JULIA: Classic.
AMANDA: Right? "My grandparents had built a large cabin where they lived and an adjacent smaller guest cabin with a lofted bedroom and a small kitchen in a space that wasn't taken up by Philip's workshop and garage."
JULIA: The dream.
AMANDA: Right? "There was a roof that connected the two buildings to shelter the little walkway for when snow would pile up to your hips in the winter."
JULIA: The dream.
AMANDA: Give me a breezeway.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Bitches want breezeways, Julia.
JULIA: It's true.
AMANDA: Where else are the women in white gonna walk?
JULIA: Exactly.
AMANDA: Come on. "On the other side of the cabin from the main road was a large hill mostly used by us grandkids in the winter to sled once we were old enough that had a crick at the bottom. We'd spotted various deer, ducks, even a cougar once down at the creek. It was a large piece of property surrounded by trees on all sides once you got past the creek and the small well on the other side of the bank. So—"
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "I was lurking beneath one of the stairs, watching Philip very carefully as he made the usual silly sounds to get my brother to laugh. Not cooperating, by the way. To this day, I wonder if my brother sensed some kind of the danger he was in, because while he was always a quiet baby, he still made sounds, babbles and cooed. But he was silent, and I could feel some sort of cold buzzing in my chest."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "This is the part where I thought it was all a dream because next, there was a woman that walked out of the treescape next to that gravel road."
JULIA: Sure.
AMANDA: "And just to be fully upfront with you guys, I don't know what's real or not about the encounter."
JULIA: Okay. It might all be real.
AMANDA: It might all be real.
JULIA: [8:03]
AMANDA: It was real enough that you described it to your grandma and your grandma, you know, 20 some years later is like, "Oh, the tree lady, you know?"
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "So she was tall, looked like a tree with what looked like birch bark as skin covering her whole body."
JULIA: That's so cool.
AMANDA: Right? "Beside an almost ethereal looking green gown."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "Her face though, still reappears in my nightmares sometimes. Imagine a woman's head made out of a wicker basket, but with various leaves and plant parts growing out from between the cracks."
JULIA: Okay, that sounds really cool, but go on.
AMANDA: "She had no eyes."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "No mouth."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "Just the wicker weaving of what was supposed to be a human face."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "Her hair was woven like a bird's nest and she moved like she was floating, such that I couldn't actually tell if she was moving her legs under the long drape of her skirt."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: Julia, I am kind of picturing Fiyero from Wicked Part 2.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: And how the CGI rendered his—
JULIA: Sure, sure, sure.
AMANDA: [9:12]. Back to Bree, "I felt my chest tighten and I froze under the stairs as I watched her approach Philip and my brother. I remember distinctly her saying something in a language that I couldn't understand. I could tell that there were words, but I couldn't glean any kind of meaning out of what was being said. All I saw was that Philip was talking with her as if she wasn't some sort of otherworldly creature. He was smiling, jovial as they talked and eventually moved to hand her my brother."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "I was torn between running toward them to save my brother and staying where I was, hidden and safe. At the end, I couldn't even move because I was so scared, fully frozen."
JULIA: Oof.
AMANDA: "And then the lady dipped her head toward Philip and, with my brother in hand, walked under the connecting roof parts, then on toward the hill path. I remained frozen until she was near the bottom of the hill and finally disappeared from my view."
JULIA: I can't believe this baby got, got. Clearly, he's fine and—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —everything's okay.
AMANDA: Everything's fine.
JULIA: But that's wild.
AMANDA: "So, this is the part that other people can corroborate. I then ran screaming to Philip, asking where she had taken him and why did he give her my baby brother?"
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: I remember him blinking as if coming to from a trance or a nap."
JULIA: Shit.
AMANDA: "And turned to look at his hands in confusion before asking me where my brother was."
JULIA: To be fair, seems like maybe this guy was possessed, had a vision.
AMANDA: Trance.
JULIA: That's fine. He's confused by the situation. I don't think necessarily was blaming you, but like, hmm.
AMANDA: Sure is surprising when an adult turns to a kid and says, "But where's your brother?" Happened to me a lot, Julia, as a child.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: But it shouldn't happen to most.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "So, my mom then came outside from the main cabin due to all the yelling and asked us what was wrong. And I said, 'She took him. Grandpa gave him to her and now she's gone.' I was wailing, crying, sobbing. My mom immediately rounded on Philip when she put two and two together and asked him where my brother was."
JULIA: What the fuck, Philip?
AMANDA: "Philip claimed he was, 'Just right there,' and 'he couldn't have gone far."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "Meaning, he, a one-year-old baby must have just crawled away. I kept trying to insist that a tree lady had taken my brother, but obviously nobody believed me."
JULIA: I'm so bad at babies. What age two babies start walking?
AMANDA: They often start walking around one, but like tentative, toddling steps.
JULIA: Right, not that baby took off down a hill situation.
AMANDA: They couldn't run away.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: But they are proficient crawlers, so he—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —certainly could have crawled somewhere.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "And indeed, they were all busy looking for a kind of small radius where a one-year-old could have crawled off to in just a couple of minutes."
JULIA: And you were like, "No, no, no, down the hill."
AMANDA: "My grandma was trying hard to console me until I finally shoved my way past her and ran toward where I saw the woman walk. I nearly actually tumbled down the hill because I was walking so fast downhill. But then, I saw the Wicker Woman on the other side of the creek."
JULIA: She didn't just disappear into the forest? That's wild.
AMANDA: "I stopped, having been taught about not going into running water since it was dangerous."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "And started yelling at her to give my brother back. She turned and looked up from where she was collecting something from the well, and that's when I heard her speak."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "Her voice was raspy but kind, almost like what my grandma sounded like, but as if she smoked an entire pack of cigarettes a day."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "'Hello, little one. What is your name?' 'Where is my brother?' I asked back. Too freaked out to give her my name, which in retrospect was probably a smart move."
JULIA: Smart. Very smart.
AMANDA: "'What makes you think I know?' 'You took him. I saw you. Stealing is bad.'"
JULIA: "Stealing is bad."
AMANDA: [13:14] this child.
JULIA: We don't know about kidnapping yet, but stealing, that's bad.
AMANDA: "This made her pause and she seemed to stare at me even though she didn't have eyes. It still felt like she was boring into my soul as she inspected it. I felt strangely as if she was surprised to have been noticed."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "'Is that so? Well, I don't have him here now, do I?' And she showed me her empty birch bark hands. I was crying at this point and starting to panic. 'Please give him back. He's my brother. He's little and I need to protect him.' She hummed and tilted her head."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "'If you come with me, I'll show him to you."
JULIA: Ma'am.
AMANDA: Ma'am.
JULIA: Ma'am.
AMANDA: I don't care if you're a wicker birch lady. You can't say to kids, "Come with me and I'll show you."
JULIA: Yeah, no. Can't do it.
AMANDA: "I looked down at the creek nervously. 'I'm not allowed to cross the water and you're a stranger.' 'But what about your brother?' I was scared and desperate, so I took a step toward the water and then another. But before I could enter the creek, I heard our family dog barking in the background. I turned and saw our dog, Scooter."
JULIA: Scooter!
AMANDA: "Nosing at my little brother, who was silently sitting in the shadow of the hill, looking distressed, but ultimately fine. I saw my mom and started running to join her, before turning to look back at the wicker woman. And I saw no one there."
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "Now, Philip was obviously in trouble for losing a baby."
JULIA: Fair.
AMANDA: "According to my grandma, I told her about a tree lady who took my brother, the lady who lived near the creek. She thought I was imagining it all and dismissed it, but remembered the story when I asked her during the holidays. I'm not sure what was something from my imagination and what actually happened. I doubt I was quite as verbose as I remember from what I believe was a dream. But my grandma confirmed I genuinely believed at the time there was a tree lady and I told it to her like a fact."
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "It was actually where I learned the word wicker, since I pointed to a wicker basket in the cabin to explain what her face looked like."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "And then learned the word wicker. Considering this is one of the first entities, possibly a fae? Not sure about it. It's the best guess I have, that has tried to pull me to a location. Maybe this is a possible origin story for it all."
JULIA: Uh-oh. First is a bad praise to say in that statement.
AMANDA: "So rounding this out, I asked my mom, and she says I started to sleepwalk around this age, so it's possible that the wicker woman was a start of my wanderings. To be honest, I've always avoided that creek since then, getting nervous around it. And the story of my brother being lost and then found by our dog is a common one shared in our family. Alongside the silly accusation my aunt makes about her dad stabbing her with scissors."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "There was in fact a hole in his back pocket where the scissors were, and she ran into him to hug him and then got poked."
JULIA: Yep. Yep.
AMANDA: "I'd love to hear your thoughts and theories on the matter. Since, like my mom warned me, I 'poked the bear' and have started sleepwalking again."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "But don't worry, my puppy is still around to wake me up, so I never wander too far."
JULIA: Good. That's good. I think in terms of fae encounter, the crossing of the creek is, like, the moving water as a boundary for spirits is definitely something.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And I think maybe that's why she wasn't able to hold on to your brother.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Because she couldn't, like, carry his body over the moving water. And so she was trying to lure you across it because then you chose to cross it rather than were carried across it.
AMANDA: Precisely. What she can do is lure someone willing, but the baby was— can't walk and is saying no.
JULIA: Yeah, that's wild. Damn.
AMANDA: Good story, creepy. The fact that you had such an impression of the face, Bree, that you, like, pointed to a basket and you're like, "No, no, it looked just like that." Like what, you know, four or five-year-olds is gonna know the word wicker or could even put together the, like, sense memories to— I don't know, like to make that up. It just— it smacks to me of something true and whether it was a vivid hallucination, you know, something that you put together in retrospect after your brother was safe or, I don't know, maybe a visit from someone on the other side of not just the creek, but the metaphysical plane. I'm into it.
JULIA: Who can say?
AMANDA: All right, Julia, second part of this email is titled New Roomie.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: Are we ready?
JULIA: I'm ready for it. Bring it on.
AMANDA: "As I mentioned in my first submission to the podcast, I work the graveyard shift at work, which means I come home in the morning around 5:00 or 6:00 A.M. to eat a snack, chill a little bit, and then go to sleep 'till later in the day. I also have these fun, little battery-powered candles on strings that I have attached to the ceiling to look like they're floating because they're suspended with fishing wire."
JULIA: Cute.
AMANDA: Right? "It makes my living room area whimsical and gives me a smile when I come home from work to turn them on with the little button I have. Now, the button needs to be aimed directly at the candles for them to turn on, and they come on all at once, or not at all."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "This is how they're designed to work, in fact. However, I've been having a new surprise to greet me when I come home after work these days. The past few nights, I've left my apartment with the usual lights off, including my floating candles. Imagine my surprise when I come home to see a single candle flickering on in a sea of unlit candles. Imagine my surprise when I see it twice."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Three times. Every day for weeks."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "I know for a fact that no one goes into my apartment. And even if they did, why would they light a candle in a similar rendition to a ghost light in my own apartment? Most people, in fact, don't even notice that the candles are there because the ceilings are high, the candles are white, the fishing line is, like, all but invisible. No one would turn them on or pick up a random remote, much less be able to turn on just one and not all of them at once."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "It's also the same candle every time."
JULIA: Oh, that's weird.
AMANDA: "I have to share, I check the battery on the ladder and everything seems fine and normal."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "My only explanation is I now have a new spirit roomie, that likes my candles as much as I do and that they leave a light on for me so that it's not dark when I come home from work. It's sweet. I choose to appreciate it. And I even left a little tray of honey out where my dog can't reach it for them, as well as some pressed flowers to enjoy, so we can hopefully cohabitate peacefully."
JULIA: That is very sweet, I will say. That's kind of adorable. I'm like— you know, my brain is always going like technical reason, why that's happening sort of thing. And there's like— in particular with LED lights, when they are low on battery or, like, about to fizzle out, they'll often, like, flash weird or, like, turn on when they're supposed to be off or turn off when they're supposed to be on. And so, like, that's the only logical explanation I can think of. But it's weird that it's only the one, for sure.
AMANDA: It is strange and, like, I've definitely had those devices or, like, the kind of cheap string lights where, like, the remote is kind of inconsistent.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Or you have to sort of aim it at a very specific direction. But that— also, Julia, I thought the same thing, but if the battery were dying, you know, eventually, it should go out entirely. So if, you know, in a few weeks only that candle has burned out and all the rest of them work, maybe that's our explanation.
JULIA: Maybe.
AMANDA: But I wonder then if the spirit roomie will choose another one to come say hi.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting that they picked one particular one and not like a bunch of random ones. Jake and I are also doing a Stranger Things rewatch because the series finale just happened and I've heard mixed things about it, but we had kind of fallen off in the middle of season three. So now, we are back pretty much where we left off, like, several years ago and the flickering lights always makes me kind of think Stranger Things.
AMANDA: Very nice.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I choose not to consume that content and will instead re-watch Heated Rivalry for a 10th or 12th time.
JULIA: That's fair enough. Listen, I'm not saying it's good. There's a lot going on and it's not necessarily all good, but I wanted to have that cultural touchstone for myself.
AMANDA: Very fair.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Julia, Bree also sent in a little coda about the Easter Duck, but I think—
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: —that'll be a nice note to end on, perhaps.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: After we take folks through their spooky journey.
JULIA: That sounds great. Well, before I get started on a story about a bathroom demon, Amanda—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —how about we go and grab our refill?
AMANDA: Let's do it.
[theme] Hey everybody, it's Amanda, and welcome to the refill. It is beautiful and sunny here in New York after, like, a week of gray, gray skies and I'm so happy to be here. Also very happy to be here, presumably, is our newest patron, Nero. [22:01] Thank you so very much. We really appreciate you in this day and age. Money is tight. It is hard to decide what to support, what subscriptions to pay for, and we are genuinely very touched that Spirits is one of those for you. Thank you as well to our supporting producer-level patrons, , Uhleeseeuh, Hannah, Scott, Anne, Matthew, Lily, and Wil. And our legend-level patrons, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Audra, Sarah, Bea Me Up Scotty, Morgan, Bex, Rikoelike, Chibi Yokai, and Michael. You can join these folks, get rewards like the custom cocktail and mocktail recipe cards for every dang episode of this podcast that Julia makes, ad-free versions of Spirits, notes about every single episode with more links and context and research, and much more at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Whether or not you can support us with money, it is also incredibly helpful if you help us recruit more listeners for Spirits. Listen, we've been podcasting almost 10 years. The best way to sustain and grow an audience and keep it healthy is word of mouth. We can make all of the Instagram reels we want. We can try and get into, like, newsletters and reviews and awards and all kinds of stuff. But ultimately, the thing that actually works and the thing that has let us be around for 10 years and will keep us around for hopefully many more is you telling the creepy, cool people in your life, "Hey, there are these girlies who make a mythology podcast. You are going to love it." So please, please, please, you can pause the episode right now. Think to yourself, who can I text that would love this shit? And send them this episode. We are on YouTube, Spotify, every single podcast app there is. Send them our way, or send them a link to spiritspodcast.com. The podcast collective Multitude is going and growing, and you should enjoy one of the shows that joined us last year. It's This Guy Sucked, a history podcast for haters by historians. Dr. Claire Aubin and a new expert every week pull back the scholarly curtain on some of the world's biggest bummers, y'all, but it is somehow an electrifying and exciting lesson. No dead person is safe, and the show's guests prove that the best part of understanding the past is, in fact, criticizing it. You get new episodes every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts on people from Charlemagne to Carl Schmitt. You will have so much ammo to win a dinner table argument over why certain people from history, that certain folks in your life must be like, "Oh, well, like they're not that bad. Don't be a bummer or whatever." You're like, "No, they absolutely frickin' sucked." And there's a community filled with people who love to be a hater for a purpose. And you, you right now listening, would love to listen to This Guy Sucked. Check out new episodes every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts. We are sponsored this week by bookshop.org, which is a fabulous website that has raised almost $45 million since they were started for local bookstores. What could be better than that? I absolutely love buying gifts on bookshop.org. My grandma now lives in a different state, and so I make sure that I keep her voracious reading habit fed by sending her new books via bookshop.org. And the best part about it to me is they source your order through local bookstores near you. So if I order something for myself, it's coming or I can actually go pick it up from a bookstore nearby. If I order it for my sister, they'll choose one in Hawaii. If I order one for my grandma, they'll choose one in Tennessee. And I think that is absolutely wonderful to keep your money local even while paying for and buying gifts for somebody who doesn't live near you. You can also get games, puzzles, kids' books, all kinds of incredible stuff, card games, calendars, all the stuff that you would love to look at, at a Barnes & Noble or a Borders in your youth, you can get on bookshop.org, but while supporting independent bookstores. They've also been kind enough to create a promo code to give you 10% off your order. The code is SPIRITS and the URL of course is bookshop.org.
Gustavo: Hi, I'm Gustavo Sorola. And if you love D&D style adventure full of humor and heart, you should check out Tales From The Stinky Dragon. Tales From The Stinky Dragon is a cinematic listening experience complete with guest performances from professional voice actors and comedians, immersive sound design, and its own musical score. Go on a thrilling journey with four friends and me, Gus, their very patient Dungeon Master, as we stumble through disastrous dice rolls, questionable roleplay decisions, and even a few wholesome, feel-good moments along the way. You can binge on our first two campaigns or join us every other week for our latest third campaign. No matter where you decide to start listening, you're guaranteed to have a side-splitting journey that's fun for all ages and perfect for both D&D veterans and newcomers alike. Just search for Tales From The Stinky Dragon wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe today.
SPEAKER 3: Hi, we're the fans of the podcast Girls Who Don't DnD.
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SPEAKER 11: We need to, like, roll the dice to see if I can do that.
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[theme]
JULIA: Amanda, we are back and I gotta ask you, what have you been enjoying lately, whether that's drinks or mocktails or seltzers? What's been your drink of choice lately?
AMANDA: I have been hanging out with friends who just had a new baby and it's very exciting. So I have been trying to diversify the amount of NA, like, alcohol, spritzers, beers that I'm familiar with, so I can bring over a good gift. These friends love wine and I have been buying the Töst brand, T- Ö, with an umlaut, S-T. They recently started selling it in Trader Joe's, at least here in New York state.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: But it is delicious. It's kind of like a sparkling cordial. It's very herbaceous. It's very Julia beverage.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: I could see spiking it with some, you know, liquor as like a nice mixer or serving it to your friends. So I always try to keep a couple bottles in my fridge for anyone who comes over and wants something fancy. The kind of, like, Elderflower-y blend is my favorite.
JULIA: Nice. That sounds really, really good.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. How about you?
JULIA: You know what, Amanda? I am particularly proud because in January, I have converted Jake into enjoying a couple of things that I enjoy.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: One of them is I'm getting Jake to finally start reading.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: Which he very much has a job where he has to read all day. And so he's convinced himself, "Oh, well, because I read all day, the last thing I want to do is, like, come home or on the weekends also read." But I think he is finally starting to read for pleasure, and he has read a book and a half in the two weeks that the new year has started.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Which I'm very excited about. And I also, Amanda, have finally converted him into liking green chartreuse.
AMANDA: Really? This is a huge development!
JULIA: This is a huge development.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So there is a particular cocktail. I'm going to forget the name of it, but if you have the show notes and our recipe cards, I'll include this cocktail recipe, but it is a green chartreuse and I think rye cocktail that is from Please Don't Tell.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Jake has really been enjoying that lately.
AMANDA: Good work, Julia. It's been a long journey.
JULIA: You know what? I'm very proud of myself. He was trying to make a cocktail the other day and he's like, "What do we have?" I'm like, "Well, there's green chartreuse," and he's like, "Well, what would you make with that?" And I'm like, "Let me make a cocktail for you real quick."
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: And then he had it and he's like, "Oh, this is really good." I'm like, "Let's find one that's even more coded in your direction."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So—
AMANDA: Adorable.
JULIA: —we've been doing the green chartreuse thing.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: And it's bringing me a lot of joy.
AMANDA: All right, Julia, I have my glass refilled and I am ready to learn about a bathroom demon, which will—
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: —always remind me of evil, our excellent and beloved show. Let's see what we do in here.
JULIA: One of our favorites. So this is from Nero, [29:59] they/them, titled The Bathroom Demon. So they write, "Before I get into the spooky stuff, I've got to tell you guys that I love the podcast so much. You guys are so cool and funny. I actually discovered you through one of my other favorite podcasts, Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9."
AMANDA: Hey.
JULIA: "When Julia was on there to talk about Serial Mom."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: That was a lot of fun. I want to get on that show again sometime soon. It's a great show.
AMANDA: So good. We follow them on Patreon. They make such good stuff. Go check them out.
JULIA: Hell yeah. "I love ghosts and creepy cool things and have always been a huge mythology nerd. I started with the first few episodes and then listened to each of the Pantheon series. And now, I've been loosely listening in order from start and making sure that I hear all of the hometown episodes. All that being said, here is the spooky stuff."
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: "I've lived in my hometown of Moscow, Idaho my whole life."
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: "It's a relatively old town built around the University of Idaho, which was actually established first back in 1889. There are many haunted buildings and spaces, especially on campus, but in this email, I want to tell you about the spirit that's been following me for about a decade."
AMANDA: That is a commitment.
JULIA: Sure is.
AMANDA: Also, perhaps coincidentally, right around the time that spirit started.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Just in case these things are related, I'm going to keep that timeline in mind.
JULIA: "Since around 2014," so a little earlier than spirits, but that's okay.
AMANDA: Okay, a little bit earlier. All right.
JULIA: And then they say, "—I think my brain doesn't process time well."
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: "I've had periodic experiences with something that I've taken to calling the bathroom demon. A vast number of these experiences have happened in or around the bathrooms of places I've lived or stayed at. I'm not entirely sure what kind of spirit it is, but I call it a demon because it mimics the voices of people I know."
AMANDA: Uh-uh. We know that audio haunting will get me every time.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. "The first encounter in what I think was around 2014, I was at a friend named Ant's," [32:05] like I think short for Anthony maybe, or Antoinette, I don't know, "At a friend, Ant's house where I often spent the night. I was in my sophomore or junior year of high school at the time. I always got a lot of strange feelings in that house. The air felt heavy and wrong in a way that I couldn't quite explain or articulate. In certain rooms, I just couldn't be in because they would make me feel anxious for no apparent reason."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "It's worth noting that the main room that I felt this discomfort in was always inexplicably cold regardless of the season and had at least two cellar spiders in the corners at any given time." Wow, calling out Ant's family for being like, "There's spiders in your corners, do something about that."
AMANDA: Listen, they keep the other bugs away. I'm cool with those creepy crawlies.
JULIA: There you go. I feel the same. Anyway, one of these days, I was staying over. I heard something strange that scared me half to death while I was in the bathroom. To the left of me was the door, to the right was the bathtub. On my right side, I heard a voice whisper, 'Hey,' clear as day, not far from my ear."
AMANDA: Okay, okay, okay. Julia?
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: Among the worst things to hear when you're on the toilet.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. "Hey, hey."
AMANDA: "Not now. Not now, not here, leave me alone."
JULIA: "I'm a little busy." "It made me jump out of my skin and I recognized that it sounded exactly like Ant's voice. To this day, I'm surprised at how quickly my frightened brain decided the sound must have somehow been the shower curtain shifting, even though there's no reason it should have. This was practically in a split-second because shortly after I had come to this conclusion, the voice came to me again, 'Hey,' in that whispered tone, my friend's voice."
AMANDA: Bitch, it's not a shower curtain, it's a ghostly voice.
JULIA: "Hey." Must be a shower curtain.
AMANDA: "Hey! Hey!"
JULIA: Spooky.
AMANDA: "Did you not hear the first hey? It's not the shower!"
JULIA: "Needless to say, I got out of that room as fast as possible. I knew it then, and I know it now. There is no way the voice could have actually been Ant. The voice came from the side of the room opposite of the door, which was a wall shared with the other half of the duplex. It wasn't muffled in any way, it was extremely clear. Throughout this experience, I could also hear him loudly talking to his mom in the living room, which was practically on the other side of the, albeit, small house."
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: "I, obviously, told Ant about it as soon as I came out, but he wasn't spooked, but definitely thought it was weird."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "Which is funny because he was always way more easily scared than me. We watched a lot of horror movies together, and I was the one who had to turn on all the lights in the place after we watched them. More than once, I escorted him and stood guard outside the bathroom so that he wouldn't be alone on scary movie nights. However, he did tell me that sometimes he did get freaked out in the bathroom because he would hear," Amanda, wait for it, "growling from the vent in the ceiling."
AMANDA: Wow. Not the thing I want to hear.
JULIA: Nope.
AMANDA: Ever.
JULIA: No. It's bad. Pretty bad.
AMANDA: Not from a dog, not from an animal in the zoo, not from a sound effect. That sounds bad.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: Maybe solely from Ilya Rozanov in scenes of him about to top Shane Hollander, but that's about it.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: Julia, have we talked about the fact that Hudson Williams worked at an old spaghetti factory?
JULIA: No. What? No.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Wait, save it for the end of this.
AMANDA: Okay, okay.
JULIA: Remind me.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: "Now, I only experienced this once in that house, but here's why I think that whatever this thing was, it followed me. In my first apartment, which I lived in with Ant and our friend Moe, [36:14] who we met freshman year of college, we had a couple of weird things happen around the bathroom." Now, Nero, one second real quick. Have we considered that Ant's the one haunted and not you?
AMANDA: It's possible.
JULIA: It's very possible because now Ant is the continuing factor.
AMANDA: And that would explain why Ant wasn't that worried about the whispering, he's like, "You don't hear toilet whispers all the time?" Like maybe that happens in Ant's house frequently.
JULIA: Maybe, maybe. "Admittedly, I didn't connect these things to the bathroom demon until later when I talked about it with my spouse. So I believe we moved into that apartment around 2017. I graduated high school in 2016 and I didn't move out of my childhood home until after freshman year of college. We lived together in that apartment until 2020. Now, I don't recall the exact order of these potentially paranormal experiences I had there, but here they are. My spouse, Jay, [37:11] who was just a friend at the time, was visiting us at our apartment one evening to work on some cosplay with us."
AMANDA: Oh, my God, the cosplay to spouse pipeline. Come on, so cute.
JULIA: I love it, I love it. "We were going to style their wig because we had a convention coming up so we went into the bathroom to work on it. As Jay was putting their hair away and about to put the wig on so that I could trim it to their head, they suddenly went very pale. Before I could ask if they were okay, their legs gave out and I was only able to half-catch them as they collapsed, thankfully keeping them from hitting their head on the bathtub or anything else on their way down."
AMANDA: Yeah, not to mention you probably had, like, scissors out to style the wig, like that's very scary.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah. "I got them into a sitting position on the floor and was trying to get their attention. Jay was breathing shallowly and was still pale, their eyes unfocused like they couldn't see anything. I was asking if they were okay, checking their pulse, seeing if they felt feverish. They were pretty clammy and unresponsive for a bit, but fortunately, it wasn't too long before they were able to answer me. From Jay's perspective, they were standing there in the bathroom. Then suddenly, they were on the floor."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "It turns out that they had blacked out and fainted. This experience really spooked them because they had never fainted before. Obviously, the rest of us were super worried too, but we just took them out of the bathroom so that they could sit comfortably on the couch and got them some water. They recovered pretty quickly after that, but it was really strange. In another instance, Ant, Moe, and I were in the living room watching movies. The three of us were on the couch with Ant's two cats." The cat's names. Thank you, Nero, because of course we were going to ask what the cat's names were, Caesar and Cal. "They have unfortunately passed, but they were brothers and they were very cuddly."
AMANDA: Aw. Love them.
JULIA: "Suddenly, we heard a weird sound in the bathroom. The hairdryer had turned itself on"
AMANDA: Fucking no, Julia. I don't fuck with a hairdryers, straighteners or curling irons plugged into the wall. This is scary.
JULIA: "We all went together to investigate and turn it off because we were all spooked and confused."
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: "We did find it plugged in, so maybe it was just a spooky coincidence, but there hadn't been a power surge or anything like that that could have triggered it."
AMANDA: Uh-uh. Uh-uh.
JULIA: "Now, this is where I have to share an important detail that leads me to believe that these two experiences might have been linked to the, my question mark, bathroom demon."
AMANDA: Not my bathroom demon.
JULIA: "Our apartment had two bedrooms and two bathrooms. I'm going to try to describe the layout here a little bit." Now, I'm also curious who was sharing bedrooms, but we don't have to get into that. "The door to the apartment led into the living room, which was only separated by the kitchen by a half-height wall." Makes sense. I've seen a lot of kitchens like that. "From there was a hallway. As you walked down the hallway, there were three doors. The door on the left was Ant's room, which had an ensuite bathroom. The door straight ahead at the end of the hall were Moe's and I's room." See, my question got answered. This is great. "The door to the right was the second bathroom. If you went into the second bathroom, it also had a door into Moe and I's bedroom."
AMANDA: Got it.
JULIA: So it's like kind of, like, a shared—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —bathroom and then Ant his own ensuite bathroom. Makes sense. "All that to say, the bathroom where weird stuff happened was directly connected to me in this way."
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: Of course you have the weird bathroom and Ant's bathroom is fine. Sure.
AMANDA: I'm now understanding why you're like, "Maybe the common denominator is me after all."
JULIA: "The last bits of spookiness that happened in this apartment involved Moe directly." See? Now, it might be Moe. We don't know.
AMANDA: It's catching.
JULIA: "They had a bed on a somewhat tall bed frame in the corner of the room that was by the adjoining wall to the bathroom. The position and height of their bed is important because it was right by the bathroom and I did not have a bed frame. Yes, it sucked, but I slept on a twin mattress on the floor while I lived there. This meant that I could always see under Moe's bed in the night."
AMANDA: Uh-uh. Uh-uh.
JULIA: Terrible.
AMANDA: Uh-uh.
JULIA: Bad.
AMANDA: We have all been there. We have all had to sleep without a bed frame. No judgment at all. However, you know I would be— have an eye mask or be facing the wall.
JULIA: You just can't allow yourself to look into the dark dredges underneath someone's bed every night.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: You can't do it.
AMANDA: I would so Moe a bed skirt and place it on without their consent.
JULIA: "On more than one occasion, I had a dream where I would wake up and look over to see something lurking under there."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "The thing was always shadowy, only visible in the way that it made the space under there darker with glowing eyes looking back at me."
AMANDA: Oh, so the worst-case scenario, the worst-case scenario.
JULIA: Now, it never did anything in my dreams, but just the presence of it was enough to freak me out.
AMANDA: It doesn't have to.
JULIA: It doesn't have to. Just being there is scary.
AMANDA: Like Jeremy Bentham's panopticon mode of surveillance in a prison, Julia, doesn't have to do anything, it just has to be there!
JULIA: Too true, bestie. Too true.
AMANDA: Oh!
JULIA: "One night when we were falling asleep, Moe suddenly asked me if one of the cats was under their bed. I had one of them cuddling with me and Moe had the other one on their bed with them, so the answer was clearly no."
AMANDA: Uh-uh.
JULIA: "Moe then, casually, let me know that they could have sworn that they heard growling under there."
AMANDA: Uh-huh. From the bathroom vent to under your roommate's bed, this is a bad pipeline.
JULIA: "Neither of us loved the idea of that, but I couldn't see anything down there. Both of us had to go to work at Ross Dress for Less in the morning and we were tired, so we couldn't be bothered."
AMANDA: Not the Ross Dress for Less.
JULIA: Not the Ross Dress for Less. "We simply stopped talking about it and went to sleep because working retail was a more life-sucking reality than any potential monster."
AMANDA: Say it again, bestie, you're so right.
JULIA: "In the summer of 2020, and I moved in together. We had started dating in late 2019, but we had known each other since middle school. When we both looked back at our friendship as it grew since then, we both realized that we'd both been dumb gay idiots who had crushes on each other for, like, the entire time we'd known each other."
AMANDA: Cute.
JULIA: "I don't think it was long after we moved in that I became sure that the bathroom demon had followed me."
AMANDA: Honey, this is like some season four plot.
JULIA: "Once again, I was in the bathroom and I heard a voice come from the door. Clear as day, I heard a, 'Hello?' Which I could have sworn was Jay's voice. For some reason, I immediately started to feel a little bit weird about it, but I reasonably assumed that they had come to the door to talk to me. This was something that we did frequently, though usually to continue a conversation we were already having or to share information. It was kind of weird that they would say, 'Hello,' instead of saying something."
AMANDA: Right. Instead of like, "Oh, you, my partner who's in the bathroom in the home we share." Like, you don't need to say hello in any situation.
JULIA: "Regardless, I just responded back with a, 'Hello?' Then I waited for them to continue with whatever they had come to say, but there was nothing. I felt a pit in my stomach at this point, like something was wrong and I was getting really nervous, but I didn't say anything else. I just finished up and, only a little bit afraid to open the door, I left the bathroom. My lovely fiancé was not, in fact, standing outside the door. They were still laying in bed where I had left them. The bathroom is right next to the bedroom, but we have long since found that because the doorways are around a corner, sound doesn't travel well between the two rooms. Even with the door open, if one of us was in the bathroom and the other was in the bedroom, we would have to raise our voices quite a bit to be understood. I swore that their voice had been right outside the door, and I had heard it so clearly. When I rejoined Jay in the bedroom, I asked cautiously if they had been trying to speak to me through the door. They very casually told me, 'No,' they hadn't. With that, I was fully shaken and I told them what I heard. They were a little amused and said, 'Ah, the bathroom demon strikes again,' which did make me laugh. They weren't making fun of me for being scared, but rather connecting the dots that I hadn't put together yet. At this point, I went from nervous to exasperated because come on, man, can I just pee in peace? I said something about this had better not become a regular thing because I was already tired of it. Now, it's worth noting here that my spouse isn't the kind of person who likes to scare people or mess with them. They're not a prankster and they have never tried to play tricks on me. They also have a healthy respect and belief in the paranormal."
AMANDA: Good choice, good choice.
JULIA: "I think after that, I did a little bit of a spiritual cleaning around the place. I said out loud as I did this, that this was my home and I was not inviting this being in. I told it, it was not welcome, especially not if it wanted to scare me. Now, we have lived in the same apartment and I haven't heard any voices since, but I'm not convinced that it's gone, especially since it can go for years before it scares me again. I'm a witch of sorts and I've made protective charms that I keep around the place, so I just hope that at the very least nothing worse will happen than the occasional scare. I have one more instance of something to tell you about, which may arguably be the scariest one, but also the most recent."
AMANDA: One more? Now? Still?
JULIA: "Once again, I can't be sure if this is a manifestation of the stupid bathroom demon, but there's a non-zero chance and I think that you should hear about this anyway. A couple years ago, my spouse was working overnight shifts at a memory care/hospice group home. Since I have a standard 8:00 to 5:00 work schedule, this meant that we didn't get to see much of each other. They would leave for work at 6:00 p.m. and getting home at 6:00 a.m. when I was waking up. We'd have a short time together when they would get settled to go to bed and I would get ready for work. Then I would leave and come home around 5:00 when they were just getting ready to leave."
AMANDA: That's tough.
JULIA: "It was a rough time and fortunately, they have a job at a preschool now with normal hours."
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: "My point in explaining this is I was home alone every night. They could text when they had time, but I was still in the apartment by myself. One night, I had just eaten dinner and was hanging out on the couch, watching YouTube videos or something like that on TV. Now the layout of this apartment was kind of the opposite of the last one. You come in, the door, and there's a hallway. It opens on the left a little ways down, leads to our bathroom, bedroom, and second room. If you continue straight down from the front door, you'll get to the living room and then the kitchen around the corner from there."
AMANDA: Oh, yeah, that is kind of the opposite of how I would expect.
JULIA: Yeah. "When you sit on the couch facing the TV, the entrance to the hallway is on the right at the other side of the room from you, making it so you can't see down the hall."
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: "Since I was alone, the lights were off in the hall and the other end of the apartment, which means it was just a open, dark entry to the hall there. I was focused on the TV when I started to get an uncomfortable feeling. The TV is essentially right by the hall entrance, so I could see that dark entry in my periphery."
AMANDA: Bad.
JULIA: "As I was watching my silly videos, feeling anxiety creep up for seemingly no reason, I swear I saw something move in my periphery. Long, pointed black fingers curled around the corner of the wall."
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
JULIA: "I was frozen in place staring at the TV screen. I couldn't turn my head to look and I didn't move my eyes. Somehow I felt like I just needed to be still and not acknowledge it."
AMANDA: Scary.
JULIA: "And then a head peeked out from the darkness. It was closer to the ceiling, suggesting something tall."
AMANDA: Uh-oh. Not the Home Depot Jack Skellington math.
JULIA: Thank you for breaking up the scariness with a little levity, because now I'm just picturing Jack Skellington. "I kept my gaze on the TV. It was looking at me. The face was all white and round. I couldn't make out details because I refused to look at it straight on, but I think its eyes were white as well. It seemed to be smiling and it had wild, fluffy black hair or fur all around the head. It almost looked like a mane. I didn't look at it. I kept it in my peripheral vision and I kept my eyes on the screen. I was terrified and I had this feeling that if I moved or looked straight at the thing, it would— I'm not sure actually. Win? It was like it wanted me to look at it. It wanted me to move so that it could get me or something."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "So I didn't. I remember my whole body feeling so cold while it peered at me around the corner from the dark. I think it was only there for a few seconds before it quickly retreated back into the darkness and out of view. Even when it was gone, I still didn't move for a while. I didn't trust it, so I waited. Now I don't know how long I waited, but eventually I moved and immediately texted my spouse about what I had just saw. Then I started to feel kind of angry instead of scared because, what the hell? How did this thing come and scare me when I was all alone trying to have a chill evening? I wondered to Jay if this was the bathroom demon showing me its face for the first time, but I have no idea." Honestly, I kind of hope that it is.
AMANDA: Yeah?
JULIA: Because if there's multiple spirits in this house that are trying to fuck with you, that seems worse to me.
AMANDA: See? My initial instinct was I hope it's not the bathroom ghost/demon because being able to fit such a large form into, like, the grate or the, you know, pipe of the toilet or the sink is kind of worse to me. But I think you're right. On balance, I'd rather have one shape-shifting spirit than two.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. I would rather have one— just in general, one spirit in my household than two—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —potentially two trying to fuck with me.
AMANDA: It's like that goes from a singular problem to an infestation and a pattern, and we don't want to get down those roots if we don't have to.
JULIA: Yeah, no good, no good. "When I calmed down enough to venture down the hall, I turned on the lights and burned some incense to try and cleanse the space a bit. It sucked having to go to bed alone that night after this experience."
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: "I definitely felt nervous again by the time that I settled in for bed that night, but I didn't really have any other choice. Now, I've never seen anything like that before or since, and I hope it stays that way, honestly. I do think that in the daylight of the next day, I talked at the space and at the bathroom demon about how uncool that was and that if this was the bathroom demon, I did not appreciate it venturing further into the apartment. I mean, stay in your lane, dude. So that's been my journey with the bathroom demon. I hope you enjoyed the story. I'll send updates if I have any further encounters. Thank you, Nero."
AMANDA: "Nero, the first time, I don't want to hear from you again because I hope nothing spooky happens to you and you don't have to write in except for, like, a wholesome urban legend or, like, an episode request, because good Lord is that scary.
JULIA: Yes, highly don't want you to have another experience with this bathroom demon. However, if you have another experience with another spirit that maybe is not infesting your apartment, we would love to hear about that.
AMANDA: Good call, Julia. That was a scary one.
JULIA: Ooh. Well, finish this off with something light and then tell me about the Heated Rivalry guys.
AMANDA: I will. So let's close off with a breeze story about the Easter Duck.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "I asked my mom if she still had the draft of the Easter duck letter that she left us, the first Easter post-bunny transition. Happy to report she does, and I have transcribed it below."
JULIA: Incredible.
AMANDA: "My mom read this out loud to us when we were younger because the original is beautifully written in cursive."
JULIA: Aw.
AMANDA: "Hello, children. It is my pleasure to write to you to let you know that Easter will be changing from now on. I am the Easter Duck, the first of my position. We know you all love and respect the Easter Bunny. However, he is a fake who has been stealing the credit for my fellow duck kind for years."
JULIA: He's a con man.
AMANDA: Call him a Fright Galbraith because this guy, catch him if you can. All right. "We have painted and prepared our eggs for you to enjoy while he takes credit for our work." Again, I have to say, I bet your mom was going through something at work during this time and I hope she's okay now.
JULIA: Please ask her if that was the case.
AMANDA: Please ask her if—
JULIA: If she remembers.
AMANDA: Yes, exactly. "This year, we were able to put an end to his reign. I have been elected as the first Easter Duck and will continue to have this position until another is elected in my place."
JULIA: Do we think it was a violent coup?
AMANDA: I think it was a democratic transition of power, Julia.
JULIA: Okay, fair.
AMANDA: "Unlike the bunny, I would like to give credit to my fellow workers. So please, if you have the time and food to spare, the Duck Union would greatly appreciate it if you would leave a tip with the ducks at your local pond."
JULIA: Was your mom going through some like unionization at work situation? Were they about to do a strike?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Like, what was happening?
AMANDA: I think your mom was organizing her workplace.
JULIA: Good for her.
AMANDA: Final line, "The ducks at the pond are wonderful delivery ducks that have a taste for oats and peas. Thank you. Signed, Sir Easter Duckworth I."
JULIA: Sir Easter Duckworth?
AMANDA: That is so cute.
JULIA: Do you think that's a— because he was democratically elected, do we think that's like his official title?
AMANDA: Yeah.
Juila: Like he had a name, it was like, you know, Lord John something and now—
AMANDA: I do.
JULIA: —it's Easter Duckworth?
AMANDA: I think it's his Pope name.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah.
AMANDA: I love this.
JULIA: Incredible. Oh, Amanda, that's so good. Close me out with some Heated Rivalry and then we'll go.
AMANDA: Just to say, Julia, that both Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, the IRL actors who play the Heated Rivalry guys, so Hudson Williams worked at an old spaghetti factory in Canada.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: That was, like, one of his jobs before acting full-time. And there is a review of him that was like, "This restaurant was fine, but that's server Hudson, he should be a model, man." And that's incredibly funny. And Connor Storrie grew up in Odessa, Texas. And I think there was a Minor League hockey team in his city or maybe the mascot of his high school, I forget exactly what it was.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But he just revealed that it was the jackalopes, which he thought was a real animal until about five years ago. And I said, "Same, bestie, but about narwhals and the opposite."
JULIA: Now they're doing a lot of press right now. Do you think we could get them on the podcast and ask them about these things?
AMANDA: I am going to email their publicists.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Because I think we need to unpack the old spaghetti factory/warehouse experience with Hudson.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And I think that we need to take Connor through the genesis of the jackalope and sort of explain why he's not wrong to think that it might have been a real animal.
JULIA: I can do both of those things, so fingers crossed.
AMANDA: Get in touch.
JULIA: That would be a wild episode.
AMANDA: Get in touch.
JULIA: Get in touch. Amanda, that was a spooky one, but also a delightful one.
AMANDA: What we try to do for you.
JULIA: Now, I'm going to think of the—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —12-foot tall Jack Skellington every time—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —I hear a haunting with, like, a white face.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So thank you for that.
AMANDA: You're so welcome.
JULIA: And the next time you visit an old spaghetti factory, and you don't feel the presence of ghosts, but you do say, "Oh, man, that waiter, it seems like he should be a famous actor or a mode," remember, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
JULIA: Later, Satyrs.
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