Episode 418: Your Urban Legends 102 - Ghost Cat Distribution System
/Sometimes you move into a new place and there’s a cat waiting for you. Sometimes that cat is a ghost. Who are you to question why that is? We’re also haunted in this episode by nurses, pranksters, and a creepy boy in a “tiny attic”.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of car accidents, earthquakes, sexual innuendo, gaslighting, and fire.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez.
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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. I was gonna do a weird, like, ho, ho, ho intro here. It doesn't feel right. I don't know why I was going to do that. I stopped myself.
AMANDA: Luckily for you, Julia, I have discovered a new subclass of Spirits listeners.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: I was doing some holiday shopping. One of those shopping trips was to Lush, which make a dry shampoo that I live and die by, and also, I was getting some bath bombs for some friends.
JULIA: Hell, yeah.
AMANDA: I realized that in addition to queer Midwestern librarians, obviously, the backbone of Spirits audience, we also have Lush employees.
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: Because every Lush employee I have ever met has been a spooky bitch of an expansive gender and excellent makeup pin and/or self-expression game.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And they also make great— just, like, do great banter and great chat. And a couple times, I've been wearing a Spirits pin, and they're like, "What is that?" And then when I describe the podcast, they go, "Holy shit." So if you yourself are a Lush— I almost said barista. If you're a Lush barista and you—
JULIA: Donate the soap.
AMANDA: —found the podcast by meeting me in the Lush in Union Square, shout out. And if you are a Spirits listener who is also a Lush employee, come say hi. Shout out. I love you. Thank you.
JULIA: Tell us about the haunted bath bombs.
AMANDA: Exactly. So just a little, you know, new subclass that's been discovered that I wanted to bring into the new year.
JULIA: I love that, Amanda. I love that. Now, this story that I have to start us off does not include bath bombs.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: But it does include something that we've been asking for, which is more haunted hospital stories.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Now, this is an email from Lujan, she/her, and it is titled Ghost Nurse. Straight to the point.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: I love it.
AMANDA: Let's go, Lujan.
JULIA: So she writes, "Hi, Amanda and Julia. I've been listening to Spirits since 2018, but this is my first time writing in."
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
JULIA: "I actually started listening to improve my English when I moved from Argentina to England, so you're partially responsible for the slight American accent I picked up despite living in England for six years."
AMANDA: Yeah, let's go.
JULIA: I'm so sorry. Like, if we had, like, a more Mid-Atlantic accent for an American accent, I would feel less bad. But now, you just have, like, a vaguely New York, Long Island accent, and that's—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I've heard people describe it as, "Oh, they're allergic to our accent," and I hate that.
AMANDA: I'm obsessed with the fact that you probably say like, "Coffee" a little bit, and I love that for you.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Thank you.
JULIA: I love it. I love it, too. So she continues, "I'm a doctor."
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Amazing. Proud of you. "And this story takes place around eight years ago, when I was still working in Argentina. At the time, I used to work shifts in a small hospital in a tiny city along a stretch of motorway between two larger cities. This detail is important because whenever there was an accident on that motorway, our hospital was the first stop for victims who needed to be stabilized before they were transferred to larger hospitals."
AMANDA: Yeah, for sure.
JULIA: "We had about 30 beds, but usually only around 10 to 20 patients admitted at once, and I often worked 24 hour shifts with just two nurses."
AMANDA: Intense.
JULIA: Hospitals are understaffed almost all the time.
AMANDA: Yeah. It's— I have a couple close friends who are doctors, and what y'all go through is absolutely insane to me.
JULIA: Yes. Wild. Hopefully you were compensated appropriately. I know at least here in the United States, most doctors are, but I don't know how it works in England or Argentina, so—
AMANDA: But shit, man.
JULIA: "So this happened on a weekend shift when things were fairly quiet with only about 10 patients admitted, but in the afternoon, we had to dispatch an ambulance for a multiple victims car accident on the motorway. And suddenly, the calm turned to chaos."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: "We spent hours working frantically, stabilizing victims, transferring the severely injured and admitting the rest for observation. By the time we finished, the two nurses decided to check on our other patients since their regular rounds were long overdue." Obviously.
AMANDA: It happens, yeah.
JULIA: Makes sense. You know, you were taking care of an emergency and, you know, the people who are stable, you can go check on them in a little bit. "So I stayed behind in the nurse's station, catching up on paperwork when the nurses returned, looking as pale as ghosts."
AMANDA: Why? Why? What happened?
JULIA: "'What happened?,' I asked."
AMANDA: You just did the trauma. What was wrong?
JULIA: "'What happened?' I asked, feeling a strange chill at their expressions. They explained that as they visited each room, every single patient told them that they'd already been checked on by, quote, "that lovely nurse in the old-fashioned uniform."
AMANDA: No, Julia! Old-fashioned uniform, that's a detail that makes this so much creepier.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Yeah. If it was just scrubs, like normal scrubs, that would be a whole other story, but old-fashioned uniform.
AMANDA: Aaahhh.
JULIA: "Apparently, this mysterious nurse had gone to each room, checked everyone's vitals, and reassured them that the other nurses were busy with accident victims, but they will come back soon. The patients all agreed that she had a comforting presence and a calm, caring voice that made them feel safe."
AMANDA: Oh, my God. We love the ghostly nurses coming through when the existing nurses are understaffed.
JULIA: "We were stunned."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: "No one else had come to help, and there were only the three of us on duty. We immediately checked the security cameras, scanning every angle of the two entrances, but there was no sign of anyone else entering the building."
AMANDA: Fair play. My immediate thought, part of— partly because we're on a podcast about folklore and mythology, but I was like, "Oh, ghosts, love it. Thank you." And I love that, correctly, the writer inner is like, "Maybe there's someone who shouldn't be in the hospital who's in the hospital."
JULIA: Yeah, she was like, "Maybe we should check and make sure that, like, security wasn't compromised while we were all trying to, like, handle some other shit." "Later that night, the night shift nurses arrived and we shared the story. One of them, an older nurse who had worked there for decades, just nodded knowingly. 'Oh, that was probably Maria,' she said. Almost amused."
AMANDA: Maria? A great name for a ghost nurse, by the way.
JULIA: "She explained that Maria had worked at the hospital her entire career. Even after retirement, she would rush over whenever she heard an ambulance, always eager to lend a hand to the overwhelmed staff."
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
JULIA: "She passed away years ago, but since then, many staff members and patients alike have reported seeing her during emergencies, offering help just like she used to in life."
AMANDA: Maria.
JULIA: "The older nurse just shrugged. 'She's always looking out for us,' she said. For the rest of the shift and all shifts to come, I couldn't shake the feeling that Maria was still there, quietly watching over her hospital. This is just one of many hospital stories I have, but this is by far the most chilling. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'll definitely send more in soon. Stay creepy, Lujan."
AMANDA: Lujan, A plus, gold star. This was excellent. Thank you so much.
JULIA: This is the shit I want to see. This is the reference to the story that we talked about where I was like, "I need to hear from all the doctors and the nurses and the hospital staff—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —about, like, is this just a normal occurrence? And I like that Lujan was like, "I was scared. The other nurses were scared. There was one nurse that was like, "Ah, the ghost."
AMANDA: Yep, yep.
JULIA: There's always one. There's always one in the hospital who's like, "Ah, the ghost."
AMANDA: So good. Oh, excellent, Lujan. Thank you.
JULIA: Oh, very, very good.
AMANDA: Julia, I have a query of an urban legend for you.
JULIA: Oh, okay.
AMANDA: Okay. This is not a super creepy one, but it is one that I think is going to spark some conversation, okay?
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: This is from Rip, they/them.
JULIA: That name rips.
AMANDA: It does. It's called the guy who said ouch. "This story may contain secret lofts, old Victorian child furniture, and disembodied voices, but I don't think it's actually that spooky in the end. Just weird."
JULIA: Okay, I'll be the judge of that.
AMANDA: "When my spouse bought the house that we now live in, he thought the attic crawl space was just that, a crawl space. You had to get into it via a small hatch in the ceiling with a ladder. There was a small, cramped space under the eaves with, basically, only enough room for insulation and some cobwebs. Then, a few months after moving in, he realized there was a second, larger trap door in the ceiling on the opposite side of the house. And it occurred to him in that moment that the crawl space that he first accessed wasn't big enough to make any sense. It wasn't the size of the whole home.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Julia, you're a homeowner. You're married to a building inspector.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: What's the vibe here?
JULIA: Well, either someone added something and fucked up and didn't connect things, or buildings are weird, or secrets.
AMANDA: Well—
JULIA: Those are my three options for you.
AMANDA: Let's see. "So he opened the second trap door and found," you guessed," it, a whole ass secret loft, complete with a drop down staircase and a skylight."
JULIA: Okay. Kind of fun, kind of nice, kind of a nice reveal.
AMANDA: "However, Julia."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "It had clearly been used as a creepy-ass children's playroom. And despite the house seller somehow forgetting to mention that it existed, it was very well built with ceiling lights, built-in cabinets, and a cute blue and yellow flower paint job. The only thing that made it spooky was the black, sticky grime all over the floor."
JULIA: Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Okay, hold on. I have thoughts, I have thoughts. As someone who saw a lot of houses when we were house hunting—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —there's no way I wouldn't have opened every single door.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: Because that's what realtors encourage you to do. They say, "Open every door. Make sure everything's good."
AMANDA: Is it the home buying version of, like, turning on the shower when you're a renter and flushing the toilet, and making sure, like, all the things work?
JULIA: Exactly. And I mean, you have to do that, too, when you're buying a house as well, because water pressure is important. But there's just no way that I would have bought a house without knowing about this secret loft. There's no way.
AMANDA: And, like, that would add to the value of the home, no?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Like, how did the seller not be like, "And by the way, you have a extra loft up there."
JULIA: Amanda, you're reminding me, did you see the movie Barbarian that came out a while ago?
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: So it's all— like, the premise of the thing is, like, these two people are staying in an Airbnb that they double booked, and they find, like, a weird sub-basement underneath the house.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: And then it cuts to Justin Long, who is like a movie star, who is the person who owns this house that was being rented out for Airbnb. It's like one of his financial, you know, investments or whatever.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: And so he goes to the house, and he also discovers the hidden, like, basement labyrinth. And the first thing he does is start measuring out and checks Google to see whether or not that is additional square footage that he can sell.
AMANDA: That's the first thing I would think, too.
JULIA: That's the vibe, you know? Like, if you're gonna tell me like, "Oh, and then there is also the loft." I would be like, "That's floor space and square footage that I didn't know about 'till now, but that's usable."
AMANDA: Exactly. Bonus room, bedroom, office, whatever you need.
JULIA: It is possible that they didn't tell you about it because it wasn't up to code or it was done illegally, and so they didn't want to have to put it on the books before they sold the house, which can be expensive at times.
AMANDA: But, like, you need to know about that, eventually, no?
JULIA: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I agree with you. I agree with you.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I'm just trying to, like, logic my way out of this one. What's the black sticky stuff, though?
AMANDA: We don't know. The only other thing in the room, apart from the black sticky grime, is a box of somebody else's old christening memorabilia tucked into an absolutely ancient wrought iron pram.
JULIA: Wrought— hmm. There's some fae shit happening there. Oh, I don't like that. Oh, I don't like that at all.
AMANDA: A wicker pram can be creepy, but I get it. That's easy to push.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: A wooden pram, maybe, like— you know, like a light aluminum pram.
JULIA: Sure.
AMANDA: Love it. A wrought iron pram?
JULIA: So heavy. How'd they get it up into that loft?
AMANDA: I'm not hauling that up the stairs. Fae shit.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "So when I saw the loft, I knew it needed to be my sewing room."
JULIA: Rip.
AMANDA: What a vibe. What— Julia, you're looking skeptical. No, no, no. This looks— this is an absolute vibe. You and I know how nice it would be to have, like, a reading room in a turret, right? It's giving reading room in a turret.
JULIA: Yes, but I have a husband who's a medium who can say, "This room is clean, this is fine." You don't, I assume, Rip, your spouse. I don't— you haven't mentioned any sensitivity to the paranormal for your spouse, but—
AMANDA: I mean, respectfully, he didn't know that his house had an attic until several months in, so we'll see.
JULIA: All right.
AMANDA: "So knowing it should be my sewing room, we cleared out the old pram, covered the floor with new carpet, and otherwise, made it my own. One day, during the process, I was putting liners on the shelves in the built-in wall cabinets, and after finishing a shelf, I stood up and heard a voice right beside me say, 'Ouch.'"
JULIA: Okay. Are you sure that it said ouch?
AMANDA: "It was an adult man's voice, clearly enunciated with an almost sarcastic tone, as if someone was standing behind me and I had bumped into them when I stood up."
JULIA: And they were like, "Ow."
AMANDA: Ouch.
JULIA: Great. Ow.
AMANDA: "I was alone in the house. My back was to the room, so it couldn't have been a neighbor's voice through the wall."
JULIA: That's what you think.
AMANDA: "And so I asked the obligatory, 'Hello?' But heard nothing else."
JULIA: That's what gets you murdered in a horror movie, Rip.
AMANDA: "The voice wasn't accompanied by any chills, no ominous feelings, no flickering lights, and I have never heard or experienced any other spooky phenomena in the loft again. It was simply just the time I heard a man who wasn't there say, 'Ouch.'"
JULIA: I mean, I don't know how long you've been in there. I don't know, you know, one instance, sure, does not make a haunting, but I think the longer you stay, the more likely a secondary incident is gonna happen.
AMANDA: So, Rip, what we're here telling you is that you gotta stay aware, just sort of keep, like, a big upholstery needle nearby, maybe just in case you need it.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Maybe bring some iron back into that room, you know, just to have, and keep us posted.
JULIA: My favorite thing recently, Amanda, is Jake enjoys having me watch Ghost Adventures, like old episodes of Ghost Adventures with him while, like, one of us is cooking.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And it is very funny, because, again, I want to fight Zak Bagans in a parking lot.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: However, it's truly so funny to have them, like, being like, "We heard a disembodied woman's voice say, 'Hello.'" And then they play it, and I'm just like, "First off, that's not someone saying hello." And secondly, like, they'll, like, just translate it so oddly, where I'm like, "Who decided what the what the caption for this was gonna be?"
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Because it's definitely not what you heard here.
AMANDA: Yeah. As a power user of captions on TV programs myself, nothing better than a great caption, nothing worse than a bad one.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Where it's like this is a culinary TV show and clearly nobody gave you a list of vocabulary because you're saying sous vide and the subtitles are like—
JULIA: Yeah, that is the worst, truly. I love a subtitle, but when they don't know what they're talking about, you're just like it, "But it says it on the TV, like, two minutes later, come on." But, yeah, whenever someone's like, "And I heard them say, 'Ouch.'" I'm like, "Are you sure that's what you heard?" You know?
AMANDA: Well, listen, Rip said, "That's clearly enunciated, slightly sarcastic say, 'Ouch.'"
JULIA: I— listen, I trust Rip. I'm just saying, like, you know, get a secondary source next time, if possible.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: If possible.
AMANDA: Yep. So just keep your phone's Voice Memo running at all times—
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: —when you're in your sewing room, that way you have, you know, real footage, a primary source to send to us.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Yes, they refer to it on Ghost Adventures a lot as "physical evidence." I'm like, "A recording of a disembodied voice is not physical evidence." But—
AMANDA: I mean, in a way that like, I guess, sound waves, you know, there's matter to them—
JULIA: I guess, I guess.
AMANDA: —but—
JULIA: I don't know. I—
AMANDA: So that's the man who said ouch.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Thank you, Rip.
JULIA: I love it. I love it. Do you want one more before we take our break, Amanda?
AMANDA: Yes, please.
JULIA: Okay. I have one from Ben titled Miss Clingman didn't appreciate my language and other ghost stories.
AMANDA: Hey.
JULIA: So Ben writes, "Well, I'm from a small town in West Virginia called Lewisburg."
AMANDA: Sorry, Ben's email started with the word well?
JULIA: Well.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: "My first major job was a dishwasher at a local restaurant. From what I knew, that building was first allegedly a butcher shop, then eventually an old lady's restaurant called Miss Clingman. I vaguely remember going there when I was wee little, and I do remember she made the best country style ham, hands down. And I remember she was intimidating, but that could just be the memory of a shy child. After she passed, it went to my old employer, and they changed it to a nice sit-down restaurant. While I was there, there were some pretty creepy shit that went down. My first run-in with the supernatural there was in the morning. I was upstairs organizing the pantry, and as I grabbed a box of onions and turned, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a person walk by in a chef's jacket."
AMANDA: I mean, a regular site for a restaurant, I would assume.
JULIA: "No big deal, but I thought it was odd, because I asked the chef if they needed anything before I went up there and they said no."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "When I got back down, after I finished my chores, I asked the chef what they forgot, and they said they never went up there."
AMANDA: Hmm. Classic.
JULIA: "Okay. Freaky, I thought, and went on. Months later, we were swamped. I was behind on cleaning, and there was a mountain of dishes being shoved in my tiny dish room. With mounting frustration, I trudged along, trying desperately to get ahead when one of the waitstaff set a plate on the pile, which caused a massive dish avalanche."
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: "'Fuck!' I yelled, loud enough for me to release some frustration, but not too loud to where the customers would hear. But no sooner than I said that, a salad dressing ramekin whizzed past my head. I wasn't standing close to the rack that they were drying on, plus the speed and angle was way off for it to have just fallen. When that happened, I apologized to Miss Clingman for cursing, and went on."
AMANDA: Hey, smart. Good instinct.
JULIA: Good instinct, great instinct, as we know. Politeness usually wins out when it comes to ghosts.
AMANDA: I love that your first thought was, "You know what, previous restaurant owner? You're right. My language, not appropriate for work."
JULIA: Exactly. She's a nice Southern lady, and she doesn't want me to curse.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "Then we also had trouble with the spirit knocking the tea and water pitchers off the waitstaff's hutch and sending them halfway across the room."
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: "Luckily, it was not with them filled or during service, which I guess is a silver lining."
AMANDA: The ghost was like, "I'm gonna prank you, but I know this is a tough job, so I'm not gonna fuck over your night."
JULIA: "I don't want this establishment to close."
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: "But I do think that you should be more respectful to me." "The last tale that I'll leave y'all with is the night that I closed by myself. I was the closer, which means I came in and cleaned up after the night shift chef clocked out. Usually, it would be two people, the closer and the dishwasher, but that shift was apparently pretty slow, so the dishwasher was finished way before me. So being the upstanding guy that I am, I told the dishwasher that they didn't have to wait on me and they could head out."
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: "Big mistake on my part. So to give you a better understanding what went down, I'll give you a brief layout of the restaurant. It was an open kitchen which overlooked the dining room. The far wall was covered in picture frames. The grills were facing the opposite wall, so basically, I had my back turned to the entire dining room while I was cleaning."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: "To make the job go faster, I had headphones in and was rocking out."
AMANDA: Again, night shift employees, backbone of the podcast industry, thank you so much.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: We appreciate your service.
JULIA: Keep on streaming those podcasts. Keep on streaming your favorite songs.
AMANDA: Thank you so much.
JULIA: "As I was jamming and cleaning away, for some reason, something just kept telling me to turn around, that there was something or someone behind me. Now, as I turned, all the pictures on the opposite wall were shaking, as if someone was just slightly shaking each and every one of them."
AMANDA: Weird.
JULIA: Super weird. That is like, oh, maybe a gentle earthquake coming through.
AMANDA: Right?
JULIA: Or something like that.
AMANDA: Or for me, I'm like, "Oh, is like the subway going by?" But that's— you know, you don't have a subway.
JULIA: In this town, probably not. No.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: "I freaked."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: "And with the most sheepish, squeaking, commanding voice I could muster in that situation, I said, 'Stop!' And every single picture stopped."
AMANDA: Ah, that's almost worse.
JULIA: It is worse.
AMANDA: That's almost worse.
JULIA: It's definitely worse. "Needless to say, that was the fastest cleaning job I've ever done." Honestly, proud of you that you stayed and finished.
AMANDA: Seriously.
JULIA: I would have been like, "This is opening person's problem. If they have a problem, they can talk to me about it, and I'll explain what happened, but I'm out. I'm done."
AMANDA: I'll get your back, bud. Sorry.
JULIA: " I hope that you've enjoyed these tales, and if you want more, I have a bunch, like a possible cryptid or ghost I heard in a cave, or the mysterious moving wicker wheelchair in an abandoned house I visited."
AMANDA: Julia, you know how I feel about Appalachian caves, okay? It's never steered us wrong.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. And also, wicker wheelchair?
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: Hoo. Okay. "Cheers and keep up the awesome work, Ben."
AMANDA: Ben, excellent instincts. You know what to do. You are clearly a, you know, prime student of Spirits Podcast, so please send those stories in.
JULIA: Please and thank you. Now, Amanda, I think— much like thinking about the half empty pitchers of water and tea, I think I need a refreshment and little refill, perhaps.
AMANDA: Let's go do it.
[theme]
JULIA: Hey, this is Julia, and welcome to the refill. Let's start as we always start with our newest patron, Amanda, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you, of course, to our supporting producer-level patrons like Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah). And our legend-level patrons, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And you, too, can join them by going to patreon.com/spiritspodcast today. And listen, it's getting close to the holidays, and if you're still trying to find the perfect gift, do you want to share the gift of Spirits Podcast with the people that you love the most? Consider giving the gift of a Patreon subscription. Did you know that you can gift Patreon subscriptions? It is super easy. You just head over to patreon.com/spirits/gift, choose the tier that you want to gift, the length of time you want to gift it for, and then check out, and you'll get a gift link that you can send to your loved one for them to claim. And just as a reminder, annual memberships get a discounted price, so give the gift of our show for a whole year. What are you waiting for? Give the gift of amazing content with your friends and family this year and support creatives this holiday season by going to patreon.com/spiritspodcast/gift, and nabbing this last-minute gift today. This time of year, there's nothing I love more than curling up with a good book on the couch under a blanket, and the book that has been doing it for me lately, is What The River Knows by Isabel Ibanez. Now, this is a book, if you also had a bisexual awakening from The Mummy like I did, and also you like a little bit of magic. You like Egyptian history. You like the idea of who Cleopatra is. You would like What The River Knows. It's very interesting. It's very cool. And the second book is already out, so that's always a win. I hate waiting for sequels. So I did read What The River Knows, immediately checked my Libby account to see whether or not the sequel was out, and then immediately downloaded the sequel, because it was available through my library. It's a great book. Check it out. What The River Knows by Isabel Ibanez. This episode is sponsored by Calm. And listen, there's a lot happening these days, and it can feel especially stressful or hopeless when things are outside of our control, but Calm can help you restore your sense of balance and peace amidst the chaos. I'll be quite honest with you, I am a insomniac to the highest degree, I would say, and it gets really hard, especially around this time of year, to fall asleep and stay asleep. And that is why I am so grateful that in the middle of the night when I can't fall asleep, I can just put on one of the Calm sleep stories. Calm is the number one app for sleep and meditation, giving you the power to calm your mind and change your life. Now, meditation, I think, is really helpful for a lot of people. It helps you work through anxiety and stress. It helps boost your focus, it helps build healthier habits, and it helps you take care of your physical well-being, but I'm on comm for the sleep stories, personally. I think that they're incredibly well done. They are very calming and soothing, and do help me fall asleep. I'm a big fan of the crossing Ireland by Train, read by Cillian Murphy. It's really beautiful and really nice. And I'm also a huge fan of Journey to the Stars, read by LeVar Burton. There are some really great sleep stories out there, and it's part of the reason I love Calm so much and so many other people love Calm as much as they do. So stress less, sleep more, and live better with Calm. For listeners of our show, Calm is offering an exclusive offer of 40% off a Calm premium subscription at calm.com/spirits. Go to C-A-L-M.C-O-M, /spirits for 40% off, unlimited access to Calm's entire library. That's calm.com/spirits. And listen, the holidays are upon us, food, friends, family, and unfortunately, cleaning. But our loved ones can be a little messy, and more mess equals more waste, but not if you're using Blueland, because Blueland is on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic by reinventing cleaning essentials to be better for you and the planet. The idea is simple. You grab one of their beautiful forever bottles, you fill it with warm water, you drop in the tablet, you get to cleaning. And refills start at 2.25 and you don't have to buy a new plastic bottle every time you run out. You can even set up a subscription or buy in bulk, so you never run out of the products that you love the most. They have things from cleaning sprays to hand soap, to toilet cleaners, to laundry tablets. All Blueland products are made with ingredients that you can feel good about. And for a limited time, Blueland's hand soap is getting a festive upgrade with a beautiful chocolate box inspired gift set with cozy scents like toasted vanilla, wintery pine, and sweet chestnut. They sent it to me. I was obsessed with this thing. I love it so much, and the scents are beautiful and delicious smelling. And I am actually kind of excited when I run out of hand soap, because then I can put a new one in, and I can smell a new smell. It's fantastic. And it's also the perfect gift for your loved ones or for yourself to reduce waste. And Blueland has a special offer for listeners right now, get 15% off your first order by going to blueland.com/spirits. You won't want to miss this, blueland.com/spirits for 15% off. That's blueland.com/spirits to get 15% off. This episode is also sponsored by Aura. From big events to the silly moments you capture every day, doesn't it sometimes feel like all of your favorite photos are just stuck in your camera roll? And wouldn't it be great to have an easy way to share and enjoy them with friends and family? That's where Aura comes in. Named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter, Aura makes it effortless to upload unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone, so your favorite memories are always within view. Plus, you can personalize and pre load an Aura frame for a truly special, unforgettable gift. I got this from my mom. She, for part of the year, lives down in Florida, and she's always constantly asking us, "Send photos of the things you're doing, send photos of that gig that Jake is playing, send photos of the show that you're doing." And I tend to forget to send those, but Aura makes it super easy for them to get uploaded directly to her, so that she doesn't have to ask me to send those photos along. It is great. And you can save on the perfect gift by visiting Aura Frames to get $35 off Aura's best-selling Carver matte frames by using promo code Spirits at checkout. That's A-U-R-A, frames.com, promo code Spirits. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and Conditions apply. And finally, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, I wonder, how do you stay cozy during the winter months? For some, wrapping up in a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate or watching a movie with family is the best way to spend the month of December. But also therapy is a great way to bring yourself some comfort that never goes away, even when the season changes. Shout out to my therapist. She truly is one of a kind, and I really, really appreciate the amount of time that she spends with me each and every week when I am in my therapy session. It really has benefited me over the course of the past, like, two years or so, and I think that anyone could really benefit from therapy. But especially during the most stressful time of the year, which for me, is the holidays. And if you've been thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/spirits today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits. And now, let's get back to the show.
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JULIA: Amanda, we're back. And as always, I love to ask you what you've been drinking lately, perhaps locally, perhaps not, but what's been your drink of choice?
AMANDA: Julia, we have a friend group here in the city of drinkers, and also some folks that are sober. And so we love to do like a fancy mocktail whenever we have a big, like, group party or dinner.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And so for our Friends-giving a couple of weeks ago, we made a pomegranate lime spritzer.
JULIA: You.
AMANDA: So we had pomegranate juice, a lot of lime juice, some pomegranate seeds, and then I froze up some fancy, big ice cubes with pomegranate seeds in them, and a little wheel of— a lime round. And so we added seltzer to that for non-drinkers, and a couple of the drinkers added some Prosecco, and it was totally delicious. So I highly recommend that as a nice, like, little bit tart, little bit sweet mocktail or spritzer for any upcoming holiday gatherings.
JULIA: Honestly, I think we should embrace the punches more in our lives.
AMANDA: It was really nice.
JULIA: This is a great option that you can have, like the bowl of punch, you ladle it out. And then if you're not drinking, you add your little seltzer to finish it off.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: If you're drinking, a little bit of Prosecco, like you said. I'd go maybe vodka or gin. That's just me. It's a great way of kind of, like, entertaining everyone so you're not, like, constantly opening bottles of other stuff.
AMANDA: Yeah. It was absolutely fabulous. How about you?
JULIA: Amanda, every year, my husband, who famously has never half-assed anything in his life, loves the—
AMANDA: Not one.
JULIA: Loves making things harder for himself, but also loves the idea of like, "I'm gonna make this from scratch because it's better that way."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Famously, last year, he did a pumpkin pie from scratch where he, like, actually cut up the pumpkin, and roasted it, and pureed it, and everything like that. He's a huge fan of doing from scratch eggnog. You will not see that man buying eggnog in a container.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: He's going to make it himself every time.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And so this— 'tis the season now for Jake's eggnog festivities, so I am grabbing some Lactaid. I'm going to be enjoying that. It's going to be delicious.
AMANDA: I love it. I have, in fact, sipped of Jake's sweet nectar—
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: —and it's the— oh.
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: Please don't say that about my husband.
AMANDA: I've tasted eggnog that Jake has made. It's delicious.
JULIA: Uh-huh. Basically, we're talking about eggnog. Oh, no, girlfriend. Don't do that.
AMANDA: Shit.
JULIA: We're keeping that in the podcast.
AMANDA: Well, I did say that.
JULIA: What do you got for me, Amanda?
AMANDA: Julia—
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: —I've got a nice follow-up here, among our favorite kind of emails, from Ellie, she/they. It's titled An Overdue Follow-Up Featuring Pianos, Boys with Funny Faces, Cats and more."
JULIA: Okay. I'm ready for it. Give it to me.
AMANDA: "Hi, Spirits. Ellie here with a long, long overdue update. I wrote in for the first time a couple of years ago, and then promptly started working on my Master's degree. And suddenly never had time to do fun things like write to you all."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "But now, that that time of my life is over, I've been able to do fun things again, and catch up on all the podcast episodes I've not had time for."
JULIA: Incredible.
AMANDA: "Now, I've decided to jot everything I can think of down at once, so this is a chunky email. It features a follow-up to my first keyboard story, some memories from growing up in New England, a fun little ghost cat named Marvin, and a kleptomania ghost that's trying to drive me bonkers."
JULIA: Love that for them.
AMANDA: "First, a follow-up I'll call A Moonlit Sonata."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "So to start, this is a recap of the first story I wrote in with. I attended Ohio University for undergrad, which, as you mentioned when you read my email in episode 276, is a notoriously haunted place."
JULIA: It is.
AMANDA: "And I lived in Voigt Hall during my sophomore year of college."
JULIA: That sounds familiar, and I'm assuming it's also haunted."
AMANDA: "This is the building named after the Dean of Women."
JULIA: Oh, yes, I remember Dean of Women.
AMANDA: "A title you found funny the first time, and I imagine sounds just as funny this time around."
JULIA: Yep. You know what? You just triggered my memory there with Dean of Women. I remember that now.
AMANDA: You did it, Ellie.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "Where my keyboard seemed to play of its own accord in the middle of the night. The follow-up is that I was recently talking with a friend of mine. Let's call her Macy, who lived in the same residence hall that same year. While I lived on the second floor, she lived on the ground floor, AKA close to the grand piano in the lobby."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "Well, I learned that, apparently, Irma didn't just play around with my electric keyboard in my dorm room, that shouldn't have been able to make any noise when not plugged in. We were talking about the ghostly experiences that we had around campus, and I, of course, told Macy my keyboard story. I am a firm believer in ghosts, but I'm also a scientific-minded enough to look for the logical answer first. Now, Macy is someone who will also focus on the logical first, and when all else fails, turn to the spooky and supernatural."
JULIA: Fair.
AMANDA: "So with that said, this keyboard really bothers me. It's a puzzle I've not been able to solve for years. But now, if you're talking to Macy, I think I have a better answer. Now, despite the party culture that permeates the air down in Athens, not all of us like to go out drinking every weekend."
JULIA: That's just college, baby. You know, some of us are out. Some of us aren't.
AMANDA: "Some of us preferred staying in our rooms and watching movies with friends, Macy and I included. Now, apparently, one night, Macy was doing just that. Her roommate was out on the town, and she was one of the only people on her floor."
JULIA: Spooky. Don't like.
AMANDA: "She paused her movie to take a trip down the hall to the bathroom, and instead, found herself drawn to the lobby where someone was playing a beautiful melody on the piano."
JULIA: I will say the one experience from college that I didn't really get to experience, and I'm glad that I didn't, is the, like, floor bathroom.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: All of my apartments in college had attached bathrooms, and it's part of the reason I picked the school, because the idea of, like, having to go down the hall to shower was not appealing to me.
AMANDA: Yeah. Me, too. All of NYU dorms were, like, former apartment buildings, and so I had, like, six girls sharing one bathroom, but it was, like, in an apartment almost. So I agree with you. "So I asked Macy if she knew what song it was, because we like specifics here on Spirits Podcast, they make it creepier."
JULIA: We do.
AMANDA: Thank you, Ellie.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And she replied with, "I wasn't a music major. It just sounded pretty."
JULIA: Fair. Fair girlfriend.
AMANDA: "So in my head, I picture something wild and dramatic, like Fur Elise or Moonlight Sonata for some added drama."
JULIA: I always think that's my go-to.
AMANDA: Someone was playing Auld Lang Syne on the Theremin yesterday in the subway, and I was like, "Only New York."
JULIA: I love New York.
AMANDA: "She listened in the hallway for a few moments, and then decided to risk it and quietly take a look, so as not to scare or disturb whoever was playing. And, of course, when she peeked around the corner, there was nobody there."
JULIA: Hmm, of course.
AMANDA: "The music was clearly coming from the grand piano, not a speaker or a phone. The room was completely empty. The lights were in their dimmed, almost dark setting, since nothing had tripped the motion sensor that would have turned them on."
JULIA: Hmm. Okay. I have two thoughts of this.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: One is a question, one is a thought.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Which is, I'm surprised that the music didn't stop the minute you looked around the corner.
AMANDA: Same.
JULIA: And my second question is, you say that it was very clearly coming from the piano, did you get close enough to see whether or not the keys were pressing?
AMANDA: I wondered the same thing.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But I feel like, typically, a grand piano will be angled outward so that— like, if the— when the player is sitting, they'll be looking out into the room.
JULIA: Correct. Yes.
AMANDA: And so perhaps when Macy looked around the corner, she couldn't see the keyboard, but that was also my first thought.
JULIA: This is where we get into Team Investigate versus Team Ignorant, for sure.
AMANDA: Exactly, exactly. "So Macy said she turned around very quickly, went to the bathroom, and then ran back to her room."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Smart. Good call.
AMANDA: "Now, I wish she'd done some exploring, but Macy is firmly Team Ignorant, so I suppose—"
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "—I'll forgive her."
JULIA: There we go.
AMANDA: "The story, well, maybe not as dramatic as it could be if she had gone to investigate, solidifies to me that Irma just wanted to play around on my keyboard when I heard those notes in the middle of the night that time."
JULIA: You know what? I love this ghost that is like, "I'm just gonna keep on playing, just gonna do my thing. Ooh, an instrument." And also is powerful enough to have influence on something like that is pretty dope, pretty cool.
AMANDA: Agreed. Next, "There's the prankster ghost that made friends with my brothers."
JULIA: Excellent. Love this.
AMANDA: "My second story involves the haunted house I grew up in. Now, as I mentioned in my first email, I grew up in a tiny village of 300 people in New England. Our house was built in 1870 right around the time the time the town started getting a little bit bigger with the addition of a large-ish mill that was built along the river that cut through my town."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "I lived in that house from the time I was about 2 until 14, and never questioned it when my mom said there was a ghost that lived in our little attic, but often came downstairs to play pranks on us."
JULIA: So— hmm, this is the opposite of what I usually complain about, which is the parents being like, "Our house is haunted," you know, years after the haunting.
AMANDA: This is too normalized.
JULIA: Yes. This is a parent who is like, "This house is haunted. There's a ghost that lives in the attic. It comes down and plays pranks." And I don't know if it's better or worse. I— now that I've come around on it. I don't know if it's better or worse.
AMANDA: Well, let's see how it worked out for Ellie.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: Because they continue, "This was just so normal to me, and as a creepy kid destined to spend my time hanging out in cemeteries and going to a haunted college, I never once questioned it."
JULIA: Fair.
AMANDA: "Now, I look back on those memories fondly and with a tiny case of the chills when I think about how my brothers interacted with our ghost."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "Now, before I explain my brothers, let me tell you what I mean by pranks. Now, the ghost's favorite thing to do was knock down the dish towels in the kitchen. As long as I can remember, my mom always folded a dish towel over the handle of the oven to use to dry our hands or as in, quote, 'n case of a spill with my four small children towel.'"
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: Always gotta have a towel.
JULIA: Of course, naturally.
AMANDA: "We could never explain these towels falling any other way than blaming it on the ghost, because every time you put a towel on the oven handle, you made sure it was perfectly even. And then when you walked back into the room, it would be in a heap on the floor. How? Why?"
JULIA: Gotta get grippier towels, I guess. I don't know. Or the ones that, like, you can tie them, you know? And the towel still drapes, but it's tied, rather than sliding down.
AMANDA: I think I've seen that before.
JULIA: Oh, I have one of those, so—
AMANDA: Oh. But then if you need to, like, yank it down to, like, you know—
JULIA: Well, that's why you have the one that is yankable, and then you have the one that is just there to wipe your hands and stuff.
AMANDA: Oh, I see. Like, always there just for wiping?
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Okay, fair. But Ellie continues, "You could do this multiple times in a row, hang it perfectly evenly, leave the room, and then every time you'd come back, it would be on the floor. Now, my dad tried to explain this away as one of us kids pulling it down, maybe my cat Sox or the dog."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "My mom didn't believe that, though, and she decided to prove it one day. She put the pets in the bathroom, made sure the kids stayed in the living room."
JULIA: We love a woman who is like, "Don't gaslight me. I know what's happening. It's ghosts."
AMANDA: "And sure enough, the perfectly folded even towel wound up on the floor once again."
JULIA: See, if this was nowadays, you would just set up a camera to show that it keeps getting pulled.
AMANDA: Julia, honestly, I don't think I would. I think I would be like, "I can't have evidence of this happening. I need to simply just sort of know it."
JULIA: Well, when your husband is telling you, "Oh, you know, it's clearly the animals or it's clearly the kids."
I would say, "No, bitch. Watch the Ring footage."
AMANDA: "Now, I'm sure you're wondering by now, though, how do my brothers intersect with these pranks?"
JULIA: Good question.
AMANDA: "Well, they shared a room that had a doorway directly into the 'little attic.'"
JULIA: Hmm. Bad.
AMANDA: It's making me a little bit nervous that Ellie puts little attic in quotation marks.
JULIA: I've seen Paranormal Activity 3. I know what's about to happen. Go on.
AMANDA: "So when my older brother was about 3 or 4, he started being nervous about going to bed. He explained that he was nervous because there was a strange boy in his room and he didn't want to be friends."
JULIA: Fuck that.
AMANDA: "We asked him more about this boy, wondering if this was a new imaginary friend, or maybe being a small and creepy child, he could tell us more about the ghost. So my brother explained that the boy was bigger than him and had short brown hair. He was wearing a dirty nightgown and had a funny face."
JULIA: Does a child know what the nightgown is or is he just like, "It's a dirty dress that this child is wearing, but he's a boy."?
AMANDA: I don't know.
JULIA: I don't know.
AMANDA: I'm very startled that he had a funny face, which Ellie says.
JULIA: Oh, I missed the funny face part. I'm so sorry.
AMANDA: That's fine.
JULIA: I was focused on that dirty nightgown.
AMANDA: "Also a funny face," but Ellie adds, "We could never really figure out that part. It was funny."
JULIA: Did you ask him to draw it? Ask him to draw what the funny face was.
AMANDA: And what, Julia, create a haunted drawing you have to burn?
JULIA: Yeah, it's just three black circles, eyes and a mouth that's gaping wide.
AMANDA: No. Burn it and you start a house fire. No, no, no.
JULIA: Great.
AMANDA: "My brother went on to tell us that the boy would stand in the doorway and look at him while he tried to sleep. I don't remember how we ended up convincing my brother it was okay to sleep in his room again, but he only mentioned the boy a few more times before he seemed to vanish. Now, we thought nothing of it and brush it off as a strange imaginary friend."
JULIA: Do you think it's one of those situations where this child is like, "These adults are going to do nothing about this, so I guess I'll just stop mentioning it."? And the boy was probably still there.
AMANDA: I mean, yeah, I think the kid probably got used to it.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "So fast forward a few years, my youngest brother is about the same age, 3 to 4. One day, seemingly out of nowhere, he wakes us up in the middle of the night screaming his lungs out."
JULIA: Oh, fun.
AMANDA: Again, shout out, parents, not one of you. God bless. This is terrifying. "My sister and I shared the room next door to them, and being the protective older siblings we were, we raced toward him. He said he'd woken up from a bad dream and saw a little boy staring at him from the doorway. Now, naturally, in that moment, I suddenly remembered my other brother's imaginary friend that we had brushed to the side."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "'What did the boy look like?' My sister asked him. He proceeded to tell us about a boy in a dirty nightgown with a funny face who wouldn't stop looking at him."
JULIA: Fuck that. Quietly now, fuck that.
AMANDA: "I was older this time, and I remember it took us several weeks to get him to sleep easier in his room. The boy visited him a few more times, at least that he told us about, and then again vanished. None of us ever vividly saw him like that again, but someone still played with the dish towels and refused to let us watch TV in peace."
JULIA: I'm glad you moved out when you were 14, just saying. I'm glad.
AMANDA: Oh, scary. "Next up is the ghost cat Marvin."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "Now, in true prior creepy kid fashion, when I found my first off campus apartment to live in with a few friends during college, I had to pick one with a spooky vibe."
JULIA: Naturally.
AMANDA: "When we signed the lease, I thought the creepy, cool part was that it was directly across the street from a cemetery. Yes, one of the five cemeteries in Athens that the town officials try to convince us don't make a pentagram, but they totally do look it up."
JULIA: I forgot about that.
AMANDA: "As someone who spent lots of time with my best friend at the cemetery in the New England town I grew up in, it was the only place our younger siblings wouldn't follow us, and had lots of name suggestions for characters in the books that we wanted to write."
JULIA: Awesome.
AMANDA: "The idea of having these kinds of quiet neighbors really appealed to me. When we first moved into the house in May of 2020, I brought along my two cats, Chloe and Coda. For the first few months, it was just my one roommate, we'll call her Mary, and me, and everything seemed normal. Then in August, just before the school year started, our other roommate Paige moved in."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "Paige and I were much closer friends and spent a lot more time together than we did with Mary. After a couple of months of Paige living with us, spooky things started happening, and then we started feeling and hearing things."
JULIA: Hmm. We're gonna blame Paige, probably, because Paige is the factor here that changed things, but go on.
AMANDA: Now, I know in the past, you've debated which sense is creepiest to have tripped by a ghost.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: And I firmly believe it's touch. Let me tell you why.
JULIA: Well, yeah.
AMANDA: I'm just telling you, smell is also creepy. Okay.
JULIA: Smell is creepy, but like auditory and feeling touch is scariest, Amanda. I'm not saying that smell is not creepy, because I think smell is creepy, but feeling things on your skin that aren't there is scary.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah. You know, fair. Let's see what happens here. "So my cat Chloe started getting weird zoomies, where it seemed like she was playing with another cat, but Coda was already asleep on the couch."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "Now, I don't mean running around. I mean like pouncing and seemingly wrestling with nothing. I would be curled up in bed with both cats accounted for, sleeping by my head, like they always do. And then I would get the distinct feeling of another cat jumping on the bed with us."
JULIA: Classic.
AMANDA: "I would frequently hear purring coming from the foot of the bed, and even with Chloe and Coda up by my face, it would be distinct purring from the foot of the bed."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "I'd move closer to investigate, and the purring would get louder the closer to the foot of the bed I got. I tried to explain it as maybe, like, the central air kicking in and making a weird echo, but the vents were all on the other side of the room."
JULIA: No, girl, no.
AMANDA: "And then one morning, Paige woke up and walked into the kitchen, looking like she'd just seen a ghost, or felt one."
JULIA: Probably. At this point, in this story, probably.
AMANDA: Checks out. "She explained that a few times over the past few weeks, she'd been feeling a cat join her in bed, even when her door was closed and the cats were with me in my room."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Now, Julia, we talked about this. Ghost cat seems ideal to me.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Ideal. No allergens, no litter. Like, I love this. I would be all for it.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Frankly.
JULIA: As two people who are allergic to cats, I would love a cat. However, a ghost cat would be nice, though, I want to see the cuteness.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: You know? Like, that is part of the appeal of a cat to me, is like—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —"Look how cute this baby is."
AMANDA: I think I would ideally want a ghost cat that would, like, look a little bit corporeal and like a beam of sunlight, you know? Like—
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: —it's like an outline of them if they're, like—
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: —curled up on a pillow, I'd be like—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —"Aw, cute."
JULIA: Cute.
AMANDA: "Paige could hear a cat purring sometimes in the middle of the bed when she would be working on her homework, which is, by the way, a prime spot for the sun to come in through her window."
JULIA: Good point.
AMANDA: "And this morning, she'd experienced the creepiest thing yet. She woke up laying on her back and could clearly feel four cat paws standing on her chest, the front two kneading and making little biscuits on her stomach."
JULIA: Ghost biscuits. Ghost biscuits.
AMANDA: "Chloe and Coda were both in my room, and when she opened her eyes, there was nothing there.
JULIA: That's fucked up. That's fucked up, man.
AMANDA: "I told her about my experiences with the ghost cat, and we were justifiably pretty freaked out. Now, Mary, however, thought we were losing it, because this was the middle of COVID lockdown."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "'I bet the dog keeps Marvin away from you,' I told Mary. Paige froze when I said that, and said, 'Wait, you call the ghost cat Marvin?' I was like, 'Yeah. I mean, it just seemed to fit.' And then Paige goes, 'Wait, I was calling him Marvin in my head, too.'"
JULIA: That's fucking weird.
AMANDA: "From then on, we accepted there were simply three cats in our house, and the third one was a ghost named Marvin."
JULIA: This cat whispered its name into your ears while you were sleeping.
AMANDA: "We never talked about or decided on the name, just independently started calling him that so it stuck."
JULIA: That's wild. That is truly wild.
AMANDA: "I lived in that house for two years, and the visits from Marvin never stopped or slowed down. He was just another roommate."
JULIA: That's a long time.
AMANDA: "Now, here's where it gets interesting."
JULIA: Uh-oh. It wasn't interesting already? Jeez.
AMANDA: "In the almost four years since I moved into that house, I've lived in five other places." The joys of being young and bouncing between apartments.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "Every place I've lived in since, that house across from the cemetery, Marvin has moved with us."
JULIA: Oh, Marvin— what do they call it? The global cat distribution system?
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: You got that, but Marvin is yours now, but he's a ghost.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "I can't figure out why, but Marvin following us makes a lot more sense than there being separate ghost cats in every place I've ever lived. I think he may be attached himself to Chloe or maybe one of the cats toys."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "But regardless, Marvin remains a part of my life to this day, and honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way."
JULIA: I hope when you give treats to the corporeal cats, you also leave out a treat for Marvin.
AMANDA: The angel share. It's Martin's share.
JULIA: Yeah. It's the Martin's share.
AMANDA: Now, Julia, Ellie left us with one final story, but I'm gonna have to save that one for the bonus urban legends episode coming out later this last month.
JULIA: No. You did that last time. Amanda, don't do it to us again.
AMANDA: Sorry. Sorry, it's a kleptomania ghost that steals Ellie's shit.
JULIA: Fine. I'll allow it.
AMANDA: just got to become a patron at patreon.com/spiritspodcast to hear Ellie's final tale.
JULIA: Wow. Wow. Wow.
AMANDA: Sorry.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, I am delighted. I am chilly. Is it from ghosts? Is it from the weather? Who can say, really?
AMANDA: Who can say?
JULIA: Who can say? But I am— I can't wait to see everyone in the new year with a new hometown urban legends episode. I know we have several regular episodes between now and the new year, but I'm excited for more urban legends episodes. And as a reminder, you can send us voicemails.
AMANDA: Hey, you sure can. We would love to hear your voices. Listen, I know that we're all, you know, slightly, perhaps socially anxious Lush employees, librarians, and just also people out in the world, so I get it. But listen, it's gonna be really fun, and you should totally call us at the Spirits Podcast phone number, 617-420-2344. Is that the area code closest to Salem, Mass that we could find? It sure is. It's Boston. Please call us at 617-420-2344. And for everyone calling internationally, just put in the plus one, that's the US country code.
JULIA: Listeners, thank you so much for joining us. I hope this was a spooky urban legends. I love the tradition of telling ghost stories in the dead of winter, and this is what we're gonna continue doing for you, even in the height of summer from now until eternity.
AMANDA: Like Marvin the ghost cat, we'll never leave you. We'll be here bringing you spooky shit every dang Wednesday. And until then, remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: —stay cool.
JULIA: Later satyrs.
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