Episode 422: Your Urban Legends 103 - Fight Off Ghosts, Stay Hydrated!
/We can’t buy a minor league baseball team, but we could rebrand one into something spooky with your help! Also featuring your stories of recurring childhood nightmares, another haunted field trip, and the worst thing a kid could say at a sleepover.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of drowning, death, murder, suicide, divorce, extreme injuries, blood, spiders, gun violence, and animal death.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends a silly phone game like Watermelon Merge.
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
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- Submit Your Urban Legends Audio: Call us! 617-420-2344
Sponsors
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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 it is a new year and new hometown urban legends are coming hot and fast and quick to our inbox.
AMANDA: They sure are, including, Julia, some with people's voices in spooky month October, we rolled out a voicemail line where you, too, can call and leave us your urban legend voicemails. And of course, that number is registered in Salem, Massachusetts, it is 617-420-2344.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: And Julia, we have gotten our first voicemail. Do you want to hear it?
JULIA: Should we save it for the end, Amanda?
AMANDA: What a tease.
JULIA: Would it be better?
AMANDA: I love that.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: How about, instead, I start us off with Sailor Spirits, my dad's spooky seaside story, which really made me nervous to be on a windy beach as a kid.
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: This is an email from Riky, she/her, and she writes, "Ahoy, Spirits Team. Did you know that the Netherlands have islands? Being both an avid listener of the Spirits Podcast and Join the Party season three, I thought you would be interested in this spooky seaside legend."
AMANDA: Now, that makes sense as a country, very largely based on boats, but—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —I guess not a thing that I really thought about before.
JULIA: Yeah. I also— I guess I didn't think too much about the Netherlands as a country, and how it was shaped, and whether or not there were islands there.
AMANDA: You know, I— I've— my experience is mostly the tulip fields and Amsterdam, but I'm glad to hear about it.
JULIA: I have no experience. All right. So she continues, "My grandparents grew up on Ameland, one of the islands that are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. All the islands have their own particular culture and stories. Living so close to the sea, consisting of mainly fishing towns, Ameland was riddled with stories about drownings, ghosts, and getting lost in the dunes. The story I'm sending in today is a legend I grew up with from my father's side of the family." And then it goes into quotes, which I'm immediately excited about.
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: "In a hut on the island, lived an old woman named Rixt with a sailor son named Sjoerd. They lived off what the sea provided, what washed ashore from the wrecked ships. Sjoerd was bored with this life. He wanted to go to sea, and against his mother's wishes, he left and traveled the wide waters. Rixt still practiced her practices, and even went so far in her lust for loot that she turned to crime."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "On the highest dune, she planted a stick with a lantern attached to it in order, through this misleading beacon, to strand ships in distress on the shore."
AMANDA: Oh, shit.
JULIA: "Her trick was successful many times. And once a Danish coaster ran aground on the Amelander beach in this way. The next morning, goods and corpses washed ashore."
AMANDA: She is not just like, I don't know, pilfering from ships that have tied up, or, you know, chests that have gone overboard, but fully causing crashes. That's next level.
JULIA: Yeah. That is, like, true shore piracy, I would say because you're not— it's not piracy because you're not on a ship.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But you are causing chaos, and I like that.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: There's many stories of Fire Island, the, like, beach area where I live nearby, of people doing that during, like, the 1800s of just, like, creating these fake lighthouses and stuff so that people would run aground on these inlets and small islands and everything.
AMANDA: I completely get it and it's also, like, one of those crimes, like salting the Earth, where I'm just like, "How could you?"
JULIA: How dare you? "So the next morning, goods and corpses washed ashore, and Rixt cheered and hauled in the loot and hid everything to be used or sold later. She also robbed the corpses of shipwrecked sailors of whatever she could sell. But suddenly, she discovered that one of the castaways whose corpse she was examining was her own son."
AMANDA: No. Shit.
JULIA: "She fell down on the body, and some beachcombers found her there. Suddenly, she jumped up, plunged into the water that sucked her in, and one of the beachcombers heard her cry, 'Sjoerd, my son, have mercy.' The sailors who sail past Ameland today tell the story that they see a spiritual form wandering at heavy storms and still hear Ricks wailing, 'Sjooeeeerd.'"
AMANDA: That's a good story.
JULIA: It spelled out that way, too. "The fact that the wailing of Ricks sounds like the wailing of the wind, makes it even more creepy when you tell this story on the Amelander beaches. I was properly creeped out as a kid when my dad told this story, and I hope that it brings you some creepy delight. Thank you so much for reading my ugly building story from Amsterdam on the Patreon episode."
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: "You are doing incredible work, and I'm looking forward to everything you are doing in the future. Spooky and warm regards, Riky."
AMANDA: Riky, for anyone who is not a patron, and if you're not, why not? Go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast. They sent in a story of a building so ugly, it was haunted. I love it. I highly recommend it.
JULIA: Yeah, it was very good. It was like the architect did some wrong things and then like, "And that's why the building's so ugly."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And we're like, "Okay. Fun."
AMANDA: Julia, that was wonderful. Thank you so much. I have an email here from V, she/they. Titled ghosts, vampires, tunnel collapses, and a poem.
JULIA: Ooh, a poem. A little poetry corner and then hometown urban legends.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Who would have thought?
AMANDA: And I get to bring it to you this time.
JULIA: Aw.
AMANDA: So V writes, "Hello, my name is V and I've been listening to your show since the before times, pre-pandemic."
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: "I was relistening to some of your older episodes, and I was listening to episode 201, Which, for the uninitiated, was your 50 Legends Across 50 States."
JULIA: Oh, yeah.
AMANDA: We did that.
JULIA: We did that.
AMANDA: "It was excellent to hear various myths and folklore from across the US. Some I'd heard of, and others, I didn't. And I am from Virginia, my home state of the last 30-ish years. And the brief urban legend you shared from Virginia was about the Bunny Man."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Now, don't get me wrong, this is respectable, very common urban legend, but I think B in Bunny Man is for basic, because mad man in a bunny costume with a hatchet, we can do better."
JULIA: You know what? That's fair. It's been a while, and also, I only had one urban legend for each, so sometimes the most basic one is the best one.
AMANDA: But we get to add to the canon now of Virginia—
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: —urban legends, so—
JULIA: Maybe we'll have to do a follow-up to that 50 urban legends one of these days.
AMANDA: That'd be really fun. I would like that.
JULIA: One of these days.
AMANDA: "So I want to tell you about an urban legend from Richmond, Virginia, that's not as well-known, but I think you will enjoy."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "Let me introduce you to the ghost of the Richmond vampire, aka the Hollywood vampire."
JULIA: Ooh. Okay, okay.
AMANDA: "On October 2nd, 1925," specific date.
JULIA: I love specific dates.
AMANDA: "The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad was attempting to work on the construction of the Church Hill Railroad Tunnel."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Again, under what is now the Church Hill District of Richmond."
JULIA: Now, Amanda, recently, just to give people some context, I was driving someplace with Jake, and we got to this weird intersection where it's— technically, it was going under a bridge that the railroad goes over, and it, like—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —weirdly turned into a one lane. So, like, half the time, a light was there telling one area, like one direction that they could go, and then half the time telling the other direction that they could go. And I said, "Why don't they just widen this bridge?" And Jake said, "Baby, that's really hard to do." And I said, "Okay, that makes sense." He's like, "There's a lot of weight that it has to maintain, so that construction takes a really long time." I'm like, "Okay, that makes sense." So anytime I hear about construction about train tracks, I'm immediately like, "Oh, it's gonna be a lot of work."
AMANDA: I love it. You were like, "La, la, la. Why don't they just widen it?" And he's like, "You don't understand."
JULIA: "You don't understand. It's not that easy."
AMANDA: "So there have been several attempts to build this particular tunnel before, and every one of them failed for various reasons, but the common cause was the ground wasn't meant to be dug into because the content of the soil on the east end of the tunnel was prone to collapse due to rain and water levels."
JULIA: Okay. Maybe it was, like, very sandy or something like that. It just held a lot of water. Okay.
AMANDA: "Work on the tunnel was going by schedule, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, until a voice cried out from the tunnel, 'It's coming down!' And the tunnel began to collapse."
JULIA: Oh, no. No.
AMANDA: Among the worst things you want to hear as a construction worker, I would say.
JULIA: Not something you want to hear ever. Unless you're specifically working on a demolition crew, in which case, hooray. You did the thing.
AMANDA: Then I think it would just be like, "Go"— like, I feel like if you work in demolition, and, like— let us know, listeners, if you work in demolition, I don't think you want to be saying like, "It's coming down," because that feels like an unplanned demo.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: "As workers scrambled to escape a collapsing tunnel, a humanoid creature was seen fleeing along with them."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "Descriptions of the creature are varied and unreliable, but some of the more common traits in most of the reports from the day were that it had long, sharp teeth, including two long fangs, torn clothing, scarred skin all over as if burnt, and some reports even saying that the creature had red eyes."
JULIA: Now, Amanda, before you gave that description, and you just told me that it was a humanoid creature, I had a thought of being like, "Man, imagine that was just one of your coworkers, and you described it as humanoid." And you're like, "Man, that was just Steve." Steve was just having a bad day. Steve's going through a divorce. Steve's not dressing super well lately.
AMANDA: You know, nobody taught Steve about moisturizing, and it's on us to, sort of, like, you know, gently, lovingly teach him about it.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah.
AMANDA: "After the workers that managed to escape the collapse and the ones that were not in the tunnel at the time of the collapse, gathered back together, after the initial shock. They soon gave chase to what they termed 'the vampire.' Hunting the creature across the city of Richmond."
JULIA: What— huh? I mean, listen, I'm pro team investigate. I don't know if I'm pro team hunt down the vampire.
AMANDA: Hmm. This is 1925, we are not—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —in, like, late 19th century vampires are new in pop culture and we're so excited about it, and we're not even into the, like, Renaissance era of monsters on film. So why was someone's first thought like, "It's gotta be a vampire right there."?
JULIA: I don't know. I don't know.
AMANDA: "Just over a mile away, in the neighborhood of Oregon Hill, with the Hollywood Cemetery, there was a large cemetery and final resting place to many big names in local and national history, including two US presidents and maybe their wives?"
JULIA: Why is it maybe their wives? You should know where the wives are buried.
AMANDA: "Close to the entrance, there's a mausoleum of one W. W. Pool. Now, what does Mr. Pool have to do with this legend?"
JULIA: Is he the vampire?
AMANDA: Absolutely nothing. "His mausoleum just happened to be the last sighting of the vampire as he disappeared into the building."
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: "He was never seen again."
JULIA: Do we know that— or rather, can we assume, perhaps, that the vampire is Mr. Pool? It's very possible.
AMANDA: I'm not sure, Julia, but it's a very good thought. "When the angry mob entered the mausoleum, they were stunned to find the creature was not in there, as they'd clearly seen him enter. They searched the area and graveyard and yielded no results. Eventually, they stopped looking and returned to the collapsed tunnel to help in whatever way they could with those still trapped."
JULIA: Wait, okay. Hold on. We left people trapped in the tunnel to go chase after maybe a vampire?
AMANDA: Our priorities are not right.
JULIA: They're not correct in the story, they are not correct.
AMANDA: That's why we need unions.
JULIA: No union leader would have let them leave those people in the tunnel.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: He would have said, "Focus up. No vampire hunting. People are still alive."
AMANDA: "Allegedly, the steam engine and some of the remains of the unfortunate workers that did not make it out of the tunnel remain there to this day."
JULIA: That seems bad.
AMANDA: "On cool or brisk nights, it's said that the ghost of the vampire can be seen stalking about Hollywood Cemetery or its surrounding neighborhood for reasons unknown."
JULIA: I never considered that vampires could have ghosts.
AMANDA: Right?
JULIA: Wouldn't it simply just be the vampire still?
AMANDA: I've got to assume that there is a underground network of—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —tunnels or passageways—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —that can connect the mausoleum and graveyard to this site of tunneling. And obviously, the construction disturbed tunnels that had been there before. And so I would guess that this is, in fact, a vampire, maybe a person with skin condition who was living underground. And then, when, you know, disrupted, fled just for safety, and then somehow got into a piece of safety via the mausoleum.
JULIA: Have we considered mole men? That's an option.
AMANDA: But then, don't you think they would have via the ground?
JULIA: Yeah, but if the tunnel was collapsing, maybe they got trapped, and the only exit was to go out, rather than to go further into the tunnels.
AMANDA: That's fair.
JULIA: Maybe their escape route got cut off.
AMANDA: I'm picturing just kind of like a Buffy style, like, mausoleum leading to, you know, a den, like, spikes. "Now, I," V continues, "have never seen this vampire personally, but I have gone on a few ghost hunts at Hollywood Cemetery. It's not hard to sneak in, despite of its historical significance. And once in a blue moon, someone in Oregon Hill will claim to have seen the ghost of the Richmond vampire, which is interesting to me, because depending on the age of the storyteller, the Richmond vampire has slightly different origins. People in my age group, elder millennials and older, are told the tunnel collapse was caused by the vampire out of malice, whereas younger age groups were told that the digging in the tunnel is what awoke the vampire, causing them to strike in defense."
JULIA: Consider, perhaps, this vampire is Richmond, Virginia's version of Gritty where the construction—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —of the Flyer Stadium allowed Gritty to be awoken from his underground tunnel system, his nest.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: So perhaps, this is a Gritty origin story but for Virginia.
AMANDA: Incredible. Okay. Richmond, VA, Minor League Baseball. Well, Julia, I have great news, which is that the Richmond Triple-A team is called the Flying Squirrels.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: And— excuse me, the Double-A affiliate, and they should consider, I think, adopting the ghost of this vampire as their mascot.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Though I'm—
JULIA: Vampire Ghosts.
AMANDA: —I'm not gonna—
JULIA: That's a great team name.
AMANDA: I'm not gonna lie to you. This logo that they have goes pretty hard.
JULIA: It goes hard? I can't wait to see. Let me see.
AMANDA: DM-ing it to you on Slack.
JULIA: So this could so easily, in October, be transformed into a vampire ghost, like so easily.
AMANDA: The squirrel could simply wear a mask, or even a collar.
JULIA: If someone wanted to start a petition, we would link it on the podcast and get it going.
AMANDA: Yeah, we would use our influence.
JULIA: The Richmond Vampire Ghosts. Consider it.
AMANDA: Vampire Squirrels, isn't that a thing?
JULIA: Vampire Squirrels, I don't think so. Vampire Bat is a thing. Definitely. Vampire squirrel, though, did they just suck the juice out of the nuts? That's not a thing that I meant to say, but well—
AMANDA: Now, Julia, I did— we're gonna move on past that. I did Google vampire squirrel, and what has come up is tufted ground squirrel.
JULIA: Oh, those are cute.
AMANDA: Which, I mean, it is cute, but why do we call that sweetie a vampire?
JULIA: Does he look like—
AMANDA: Oh, it's been— oh, it's locally reputed to be a carnivore.
JULIA: That is something that I've heard recently that squirrels are starting to turn to carnivorism, and I'm concerned.
AMANDA: Wikipedia says that the squirrels reputed carnivorousness has not been observed scientifically, which is a very kind way of saying like, "People are convinced and science is not. "
JULIA: I've seen a couple articles recently, I'm concerned.
AMANDA: Wow. Okay.
JULIA: So someone start the petition for us, and we will promote it, and hopefully, we will get Richmond to embrace their vampire ghost traditions.
AMANDA: I think you have this exactly like in-built tradition, and it would be irresponsible not to make use of it for your Double-A affiliate.
JULIA: I agree, I agree.
AMANDA: So Julia, to close out this email, V says, "The reality is, the vampire was most likely a worker who was too close to the steam engine when it burst as the tunnel began collapsing. I am sure that when he came out, there were extreme injuries. He later died in a hospital. People are pretty certain, and said hospital was eventually converted into apartments in which I spent some time, because my friend lived there."
JULIA: Oh, V.
AMANDA: "It was as unsettling as it sounds."
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "And I was just visiting."
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: "I don't know how my friend slept and lived there for two or three years."
JULIA: Please ask that friend whether or not they had any ghostly, spooky experiences living in that apartment, because I'm sure the answer is yes.
AMANDA: And now, our poetry corner.
JULIA: I forgot about the poetry corner. I was so excited about the vampires squirrels.
AMANDA: So V says, "This is a poem written by my dear friend and poet, Michaela Mayer. She gave me permission to share it with you. It's titled 1925 and it's about the Richmond vampire. If you like her or her work, you can find her on Bluesky at eurydicespeaks.bsky.social."
JULIA: That's a great name.
AMANDA: That sealed it for me. I was like, "I'm in. all right, Julia. Here is the poem, 1925 by Michaela Mayer.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Doomed, a word like a toll of a bell beckoning toward death. Blue marl clay shrink-swell soil in their mouths, under nails, clod-handfuls in fists which push whitely toward the air. Men emerge like grubs, pale and stained, the skin of one hanging cloak-like from his body. Later, the burns will drag him under the surface, back to wet walls in perpetual collapse, a hell of rumor and blood. The tunnel became a grave, long, narrow. Here, beneath my feet, they dug for the railroad, moneyed hubris putting aside unstable earth until a cave-in forced their hand. Resurrected by urban legend, a vampire stalks these fanning hills. Deep evil brought to life by witnesses who watched the burned man escape. Just like us, to see one in pain and to name him monster, chewed up by the shining teeth of commerce, he haunts our memories, spawns an echo which darts from tunnel to graveyard faster than human feet can flee. At night, I visit the mouth, walled off with concrete, place pennies like obols where the entry once yawned. It does little good. They're gone, swallowed up by soil and greed, half-forgotten almost a century later as the copper clinks against cold stone."
JULIA: Holy shit. That was really good.
AMANDA: That's Michaela Mayer, 1925.
JULIA: Eurydice Speaks on Bluesky.
AMANDA: Eurydice Speaks. Thank you—
JULIA: Damn.
AMANDA: —so much, V. Thank you, Michaela. Sorry to this worker.
JULIA: Yeah, I'm sorry that we turned you into a vampire. That's somewhat on us, but maybe your legacy will be honored by the Minor League Baseball team that we will get named after you.
AMANDA: And stronger worker protection.
JULIA: Yes, yes. How about one more before we go to our break, Amanda?
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: I have an email here from Gracyn, she/her, titled Family Curse or am I just that unlucky?
AMANDA: All right, we are here to decide.
JULIA: "I've been meaning to write in for a long time, but I've been trying to find a way to put my experience together. Hopefully, it makes some sense. Also, this isn't even all of what I've been through, but this is what I can remember on the top of my head right now. I'll definitely send a follow-up email one day, including updates on how the ghost situation is going. I've always thought that I got my being able to see ghost/shadow figures from my mom, until I started thinking and looking more into it as my ghost problems continued to this day. But first, let me explain a little bit of both sides of my family. Buckle up, it's gonna be a long one." It's not that long, but I'm excited. "I grew up with my mom, who's had her own experience when she went to Europe when she was 21. She picked up an old lady, who for the next 10 years, my mom said she saw in the corner of her room every once in a while."
AMANDA: Okay, so by picked up, I was like, "Do you mean hired?" No, no, no. She got her soul attached to a departed one.
JULIA: The spirit of an old lady ghost.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "As well as when she was with my dad, she felt something grab her arm and tug hard enough to wake both her and my dad up, and this wasn't long into them dating either."
AMANDA: Bummer.
JULIA: "There was also an incident at their first house that they bought together, where she regularly saw a man in their closet, pointing a gun at her."
AMANDA: Worst-case scenario, no.
JULIA: I don't like ghosts that have guns, ghosts that have objects that could hurt you. I don't like that. A ghost is menacing enough as it is.
AMANDA: You don't need it. Yep, it's adding filigree to a thing that doesn't need filigree. You— you're fine. You are scary. You just point at me, frankly, and I think that would be ominous enough. I don't need you to have— for guns to enter the spiritual world.
JULIA: Yeah, no. I don't need them. I don't need that. I'm good. "Then there's my dad's side of the family. My grandmother, at least once a week, would get her friends and some of my grandfather's sisters to do a seance using an actual Ouija board."
AMANDA: Hell, yeah.
JULIA: "I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, because this was in the '60s and '70s in Chile, so she most likely knew what she was doing. And to be clear, though, I've never used one and will never use one myself."
AMANDA: Fair.
JULIA: "My dad has had experiences himself, but more on the friendly family member looking into him, kind of stuff." And she continues by saying, "Now, why can't I have nice ghosts haunting me? Anyway, on to my stories, my first real experience into seeing ghosts was when I was in college. I lived in an apartment style dorm room with two rooms on each side and a kitchen in the middle, a sink in the middle of the two rooms, each with their own bathroom. It was my best friend, Kaat, they/them and I on one side, and our other two roommates on the other. Before I even saw the shadow figure, I remember Kaat looking into the mirror and seeing a shadow figure who then darted behind my bedroom door, since my room was open and I was hanging out in their room."
AMANDA: No. Uh-uh.
JULIA: "It was the last couple of weeks of classes of my first year, and I was asleep on a Monday night. I remember waking up and seeing my bedroom door opening and closing, and then my closet door opening and closing."
AMANDA: Uh-uh. I'm out, I'm out. I'm dropping out of school. I'm moving dorm rooms. I'm out of here.
JULIA: "After calming myself down, I fell asleep only to be woken up later to a shadow figure floating above me."
AMANDA: Uh-uh.
JULIA: "I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, it was gone. Somehow, I fell back asleep." Incredible. Team Ignorant, we love to see it. "Now, fast forward to that Wednesday, and the same thing happened with the doors opening and closing. The only difference, though, I actually got freaked out enough to get out of bed and go to the bathroom with the door open and the lights on."
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: "Now, the other weird thing was that Kaat woke up from a dead sleep, and when they're asleep, it is nearly impossible to wake them up, and open the door and saw me freaked out. So I spent the rest of the night in Kaat's room, finally falling asleep after a couple of hours. It turns out"— this is a wild next statement. "It turns out, there's a demonic presence around the school, since the school's over a 100 years old, and that rumor has it, it's made people die by suicide."
AMANDA: Lot going on. I would reiterate my previous statement, Julia. I'd drop out. You never see me again.
JULIA: Lot going on there.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: I also think that maybe if your school has a reputation of having a demonic presence on campus, maybe someone should do something about that. Maybe a fun, little exorcism or a cleansing or something. Like, let's do something about the demonic presence at school that is causing deaths.
AMANDA: Yep, I think certainly you know better, free, unlimited student mental healthcare would be a good start.
JULIA: She continues, "I believe that I've always had medium abilities and that it only, quote-unquote, 'activated' when I was in the presence of something dark. Now, weirdly enough, both Kaat and I think that whatever's haunting me doesn't like other people around me and is trying to isolate me."
AMANDA: No, no, no. It's a red flag in a relationship. It's a red flag in a ghost.
JULIA: I agree, Amanda, a 100%. "Kaat has been attacked in their sleep more than once, and in the daytime as well. I've slept over my dad's more than once, and he sometimes hears someone knock on his door in the middle of the night, and it isn't me. Now, the reason that I think I didn't get this from my mom's side of the family is because I fully believed that my grandmother on my dad's side, brought something into this world when she used the Ouija board, and my family is cursed on my dad's side."
AMANDA: I feel like a Ouija board could not bring forth a haunting this powerful. What— you disagree?
JULIA: I disagree, Amanda, I'm sorry. Ouija boards— the problem with Ouija boards in the understanding of, like, what the Ouija board is, is a lot of times spirits will lie to you and they'll tell you like, "Oh, I'm just married. I'm a little girl who died from tuberculosis. Can I come and, like, live in your house? Don't you feel bad for me?" And then you say, "Oh, of course, Mary, I'm so sorry. Come, like, hang out with us."
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: And then it's a demon.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So I think that it is very possible that you can release something that you don't understand or that you're fucking around with, that is bigger than you think it is.
AMANDA: Brutal.
JULIA: So she says, "Pretty sure that grandma's the one that cursed us from the Ouija board, other than the ghost in Europe that my mom picked up. The other two were when she was sleeping in the same bed as my dad."
AMANDA: Oh, I see, I see. So the dad is a common denominator, apart from that one.
JULIA: "I remember when Kaat and I were at my dad's place once to check on his dogs, and we were leaving, we heard a noise, and then the dogs had their backs up like something was there, and then my nose started bleeding."
AMANDA: Hate that.
JULIA: And to top it off, I've had three food items of mine just disappear. Not eaten, just disappear, including a Freezer Blizzard from Dairy Queen.
AMANDA: No, that's a good food item.
JULIA: It is a good one., "A Gatorade bottle and then most recently, a Brisk Iced Tea.
AMANDA: No. Why is the ghost so thirsty?
JULIA: Why is the ghost so thirsty?
AMANDA: Is this ghost dehydrated?
JULIA: I don't know. It's trying to isolate poor Gracyn, you know? I don't know what's going on here.
AMANDA: You're right. Julia, you're so right. It's trying to dehydrate you.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: So that—
JULIA: Trying to make everything so weird.
AMANDA: Yeah, so you're weaker. Oh, no. Stay hydrated.
JULIA: Keep drinking, Gracyn. Keep drinking.
AMANDA: Fight off ghosts, stay hydrated.
JULIA: She finishes off with, "THANK YOU GUYS FOR MAKING THIS HAUNTED ASS PERSON," all in caps, "myself, feel more normal knowing that other people who've written in have had similar experiences." And then that's where we leave off. And I think, much like Gracyn, we might be a little dehydrated. I don't know if it's from ghosts or if it's not from ghosts, Amanda, but I think we need a refill.
AMANDA: Let's go.
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AMANDA: Hello, ConSpiriters, and welcome to the refill and a brand-new year. I'm so glad that you are still here with us. Welcome, especially to our patron, not a new patron, but an existing patron, Sarah Stuart, who upped their pledge. That's right. We notice when you update your pledge, when you upgrade it, when you go from monthly to annual, which saves you money and lets us know who's supporting us for the whole year. It's fabulous. And if you are not yet supporting Spirits on Patreon, here's why you should care. Number one, you can just sign up to the Patreon for free to get updates of new episodes and, like, what's going on with us, if we have new merch, if we have live shows coming out. We're gonna let you know via a free Patreon post. So if maybe like me, you are trying to stay somewhat less on social media than you did last year, that is a really good thing to do. Join for free. You don't have to spend any money, patreon.com/spiritspodcast. But if you do want to spend some money, you can get ad-free episodes, you can get tarot readings. You can get bonus urban legend episodes every dang month. There's like dozens and dozens of them for you to go back and listen to. We've been on Patreon since 2016 so there is an incredible amount of bonus content that you can access by joining at any tier at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Thank you, as usual, to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah), as well as our legend-level patrons, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. Now, folks, I was able to enjoy some real time off over the holiday break for the first time in a while, so big up Julia and Bren. Thank you for helping me get that time off. And one of the things I did most that I don't think I've done for years and years and years since playing Snood on my old— my dad's like Windows '94 PC, Shout out Snood, is I zoned out and just played a very simple matching game. It was so much fun. This specific one that I was playing was called Watermelon Merge. A lot of YouTubers that I follow have been playing it recently. It's just so satisfying. I spent $7 on the ad-free version because I love myself, and I just got to, like, be alone with my thoughts and play Watermelon Merge and, like, zone out and not do much of anything. It was beautiful. And now, I reward myself with 15 minutes of Watermelon Merge at the end of each day. I highly recommend it. So whether you have a, like, kind of mindless phone game of choice, or you want to try Watermelon Merge. I think there are versions you can play in browsers and everything. It's a very common game. Fruit Match is sort of the general thing you can Google. I highly recommend it. Check it out. Lots going on at Multitude as usual. And if you are looking for a new podcast to listen to and marathon on your next road trip, or maybe you've finished the back catalog of something else you were listening to, and you're like, "Oh God, wish I could listen to these 422 episodes of Spirits again." Well, you can, but also you can listen to Join the Party, an actual play podcast with tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling and collaborators who make each other laugh every week. Julia and I are players in this podcast, along with DM Eric Silver and our fellow player, Brandon Grugle, and we welcome everyone to the table, whether you have been playing D&D since the '80s or you just sort of see it online now and again, and you're like, "Huh, that seems fun, but not really sure what that's about." You can now catch up on almost the entirety of our current campaign, which is a pirate story set in a world of plant and bug folk. Julia plays a sentient tea bush witch with trauma and a curse and wonderful magic, and everyone loves Cammie the best. So you should go ahead and figure out why we are also obsessed with Julia's specific tea bush Cammie. Listen now at jointhepartypod.com or just open up that podcast app. I know it's open because I'm talking to you right now. So look at the podcast app, look at the search bar, put in Join the Party, and listen to our current season, season four now. We are sponsored this week by Blueland. Now, one of the ways that I think about my impact, my budgeting, and just trying to, like, be less wasteful in my life, is around single-use plastics. It is pretty important to me to try to minimize my carbon footprint. It also helps because I'm lazy and I don't like to take out the recycling, so less recycling I have and I generate the better for me. And I actually learned recently that people in the US throw away 25% more trash from Thanksgiving to New Year's than that same period of time other times of the year. So if you like me, want to cut down on plastic and your general waste this year, I highly recommend Blueland. I absolutely love their all-purpose cleaning spray. I love their toilet cleaning tablets. I love their laundry tablets. Incredibly useful. Their whole thing is that they give you beautiful, reusable glass bottles for cleaner and they look great on the counter. The tins for, like, the toilet and dishwasher tablets are absolutely gorgeous, and I would use them for jewelry if I didn't use them for cleaning products. Then refills are super affordable, starting at just $2.25, which you can either do on a subscription basis or just buy in bulk. They are incredibly good. They smell really good, and I highly, highly recommend it. Now, Blueland also has a special offer for our listeners, right now get 15% off your first order by going to blueland.com/spirits. You don't want to miss this, blueland.com/spirits for 15% off. blueland.com/spirits to get 15% off. And finally, this is a fun sentence, we are sponsored by Gladiator II, the movie. It is now out on digital, so you, too, can enjoy the incredible stylings of Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Paul Mescal, and Connie Nielsen in this action-packed epic. Film critics are calling it, quote, "one of the most entertaining films of the year," and you can even get over an hour of next level extras if you get it online, including deleted scenes, featurettes, and more. Now, it's available at a bunch of participating retailers. It is Rated R. It's from Paramount Pictures, and I would love if you join me this weekend in popping Gladiator II on your screen at home, from the comfort of your own house now. All right. Now, let's get back to the show you.
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JULIA: Amanda, we are back. And as always, with hometown urban legends, I want to know what you've been drinking lately, whether it's cocktails, mocktails, what have you, what's been going on drink-wise for you?
AMANDA: I have been really enjoying the classic combo, Julia, of lime seltzer with lime juice and pebble ice.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: I really enjoy just, you know, sipping on something with a little bit of taste to it. And whether you are casually sober, cutting down on drinking or whatever reason, just want to enjoy a cute, little NA bev at home, highly recommend just, like, real fresh citrus juice and that same flavor of seltzer. So good. Grapefruit, lemon, lime, yuzu, if we're feeling fancy. Meyer lemon maybe, but it's a wonderful thing. And just, like, cutting into the lemon lime, I'm like, "Wow, I can't believe this smells so much. There's so much smell and a little fruit."
JULIA: So much smell, so much fragrance.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: If only there was a ghost that smelled like lemons, I would let them haunt me.
AMANDA: I'd welcome them in and name them Pledge.
JULIA: My favorite bar has gotten my favorite drink back in on their seasonal menu.
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: And, Amanda, you might remember the Senior Redenbacher, which is—
AMANDA: I do.
JULIA: —the Mezcal popcorn cocktail that I talked about last year. That is my absolute favorite, and is back on the menu. They are now serving it with a little, like, piece of popcorn that's been dipped in dark chocolate on the top as a garnish, and, mwa, chefs kiss. It's so amazing.
AMANDA: Extraordinary. I love a drink that comes in a little snack.
JULIA: A little snack, you know? I want more margaritas to just, like, come with chips and salsa on the side. I think they should be doing that more often.
AMANDA: I mean, they— yeah, they could just charge, like, $24 for a margarita and chips and salsa, and I'd be like, "Yeah."
JULIA: Or like, you know, you could just give me some chips and salsa with the, like, $16 to $18 Margarita that I'm probably ordering.
AMANDA: Yeah, that would be, honestly, into it.
JULIA: I would like that very much. Now, Amanda, what do you got for me?
AMANDA: I have a triptych. Okay? I have three urban legends here from Adrian, he/him.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: Who writes to us from Sweden with Dreams, ghosts and a friendly visitor.
JULIA: Ooh. Okay, okay.
AMANDA: So first, the dreams, "When I was a very tiny kindergarten lad, living in an equally tiny house with just my dad. Now, the thing with the house is that I'm pretty sure it used to be a soldier's cottage. Now, these are very common here in Sweden, where soldiers were given a cottage once they were done serving in the army. I was very open to the spiritual world as a tiny human, and so one day, I had my first ever nightmare. I remember it—"
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "—clear as day even now."
JULIA: Wow. Amanda, do you have any nightmares that you very specifically remember as a kid?
AMANDA: No. I— there are themes that I definitely remember. And when I was little, there were nightmares that would come, you know, pretty frequently, but none—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —has lasted to this day. How about you?
JULIA: I have two that I remember having— I don't know if it was frequently, but multiple times, enough that I remember it now as a adult, right? One I know, specifically, was around when I was eight years old, because it coincided with the remake of Godzilla that stars Matthew Broderick.
AMANDA: Not what I thought you were going to say. I thought you were going to say, like, birth of my cousin. You know, like starting a new grade. No, no, no.
JULIA: No, no. I think the commercials of the Godzilla just really scared me.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: And I remember like I'm in a subway and there's eggs, and then all of a sudden, Godzilla starts raging, and I'm very scared by that.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: And then my other one is because of the animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Objectively terrifying.
JULIA: He's just very— he scared me. He scared me a lot.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: The animated version—
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: —of the Grinch is very scary, especially when he gets that very creepy smile that, like, scrunches his whole face up. I don't like it.
AMANDA: Yep, I can see it. I can see it right now. And the fingers were both, like, too long and too fuzzy, in a way that, like— shout out to the animators, like that really sticks with me.
JULIA: They nailed it, they nailed it.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And so that was just the animated Grinch would chase me around our hometown.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And I didn't like that.
AMANDA: No. I wouldn't, either. Bad to be chased.
JULIA: I hate being chased.
AMANDA: I actually had a nightmare last night that there was a very large spider on my ceiling, and I had to be like, "Oh, so pretty. How do I get you out of here?"
JULIA: "Oh, what are you going to eat, the rats? You're so big."
AMANDA: I used, like, a salad bowl and a piece of cardboard—
JULIA: Oh, my God.
AMANDA: —to be like, "Let's go, buddy."
JULIA: That's such a logical— it's a logical, like, nightmare that you solved your problem.
AMANDA: That's the kind of dreams I'm bringing to the table here.
JULIA: I love that.
AMANDA: All right, back to Adrian. "So in my first ever nightmare, I am in my bed, trying to sleep, and all of a sudden, there are hundreds of holes in all four walls with rifles pointing into my room."
JULIA: Oh, no. We thought a ghost with a gun was bad. That's worse.
AMANDA: It's a ghostly army.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "The rifles all start firing at the same time, and I try to hide under my covers. This goes on for a little while, until I wake up. Now, I'm pretty sure I accidentally closed the door to the spiritual after that dream, because I have never experienced anything like that since that night."
JULIA: I mean, I would close the door to the spiritual after that dream, even—
AMANDA: Same.
JULIA: —you know, not consciously.
AMANDA: Second story, titled Ghosts. "Now, my best friend can see ghosties, good and bad. And to add more to it, her mom can hear them, too." Now, you gotta love a mother-daughter spiritual duo. "So at one point in time, they were driving to a funeral with my bestie's little sister in the car, and all of a sudden, someone started talking to the mom, saying, 'Hi,' making small talk. The mom calmly whispered to my bestie, asking if she sees who's in the backseat. So the daughter turns around and she says, 'Oh, yeah, it's the man whose funeral we're going to.'"
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "The wife said, "That makes sense. He wants me to say hi to everybody.'"
JULIA: "That makes sense." Hate that.
AMANDA: "And he left after they promised, indeed, to pass on his greetings to his family."
JULIA: At least he didn't linger. At least he wasn't, like, over her shoulder be like, "No, no. Make sure Steve knows." I don't know why I keep using Steve as our example, but, "Let Steve know." You know?
AMANDA: Let Steve know.
JULIA: I'm glad he's here.
AMANDA: "The end of this anecdote is now my best friend didn't tell me she could see ghosties until we were having a sleepover, like we often did when we were kids, when she looked up into the corner of her room where it met the ceiling." What do you think it's gonna happen now, Julia?"
JULIA: It'd be like, "There's a little boy there."
AMANDA: "She said, 'Good night, grandma." Rolled over and went to sleep."
JULIA: No. No. Absolutely not.
AMANDA: And Adrian adds, "I didn't sleep at all that night, and asked her about it in the morning."
JULIA: I don't fucking blame you.
AMANDA: "And she very blithely informed me of her gift."
JULIA: I think I wouldn't have let my friend go back to sleep. I would have said, "No, no." Grabs my shirt.
AMANDA: "Hey."
JULIA: "What the fuck was that?"
AMANDA: "Hey, wait a minute."
JULIA: "Hey, wait."
AMANDA: "Hey, excuse me, what the fuck?"
JULIA: "Pardon?"
AMANDA: Last story, A Friendly, Ghostly Visitor. "So I used to have a beautiful border collie named Millie. We grew up together, did everything together."
JULIA: Aw.
AMANDA: "I pick her up from doggy daycare after school, and often bring my aforementioned best friend, so I would have someone to talk to."
JULIA: Are there human names, Amanda, that you're like, "That's just a dog's name. I know it was originally a human's name, but that's a dog's name." Millie is one of them for me.
AMANDA: Millie is— yeah, Millie is pretty good. I feel like I've met a lot more dog Jacks than I have people Jacks.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: It's like I only know trans-masculine Jacks or Terriers.
JULIA: Yeah. That's fair. That's fair.
AMANDA: But that's one that comes to mind for me.
JULIA: Okay. It's either an 80-year-old man, a dog, or a trans-masc guy.
AMANDA: Shout out.
JULIA: Shout out.
AMANDA: "Sadly, Millie crossed the Rainbow Bridge when I was 10 or 11, but I did have my bestie by my side through it all. As time passed, one day, my bestie looked at me, looked down, and then looked back up and said, 'You know Millie still hangs around with you, right? Like, she comes and checks on you all the time.' Obviously, I didn't know that, but I did realize, as soon as she said that, that sometimes when lying in bed, I would get the feeling of something lying down by my legs. Millie had truly been coming and checking up on me, and she still does this to this day, roughly once every two months, I'll get that distinct feeling of her lying down by my legs and having a little rest."
JULIA: That's so sweet. I love that so much.
AMANDA: "Stay creepy, stay cool, and remember your pets always love you no matter what."
JULIA: So nice, so sweet. All right, Amanda, I gotta up the ante with a little creepy before we get to our voicemail.
AMANDA: Must.
JULIA: This is an email from Marley, she/they, titled Taking 12-year-olds on a haunted house tour, the crane house.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Now, I love this because I like this theme of, like, taking children to haunted—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —places as a field trip.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: It's been a recurring one in the past couple episodes that we've done, and I— I'm just so into it.
AMANDA: We're— we've heard from a lot of the chaperones on such trips, and we've heard a couple of like, "Oh, I was on a tour once, and I did some creepy stuff," like our first discussion of the Winchesters. But I would love to hear from more former creepy kids who got taken on ghostly field trips and scouts.
JULIA: All right. So Marley writes, "Hi, Amanda and Julia. This is, like, my third time writing in the last month, but I thought you would be interested in hearing about something that just popped up in my memory after listening to Episode 409. I grew up in Utah, and was half in, half out of the state's prominent religion during this time, so I went to quite a few youth activities in my ward, my congregation, with my friends from the neighborhood. One of these activities was presented to us and our parents as a tour of a historic home in Riverton, Utah." Where, according to the research I've been trying to do on the home, Heber, Heber, which I love, not Heber. Heber.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Herber and Mary Crane lived with their 10 children from 1916 to around sometime in the '90s, before the house was purchased by the city and moved to a new location so that a Taco Bell could be built in the original lot in 1996.
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: I gotta know if that Taco Bell's haunted.
AMANDA: I have to know if the Taco Bell's haunted.
JULIA: I gotta know. I gotta know.
AMANDA: I have to know.
JULIA: "Flash forward to 2008, since the Crane house was a free Historical Museum and we were in the middle of a recession, our youth leaders thought it would be a great idea to take a group of 12 to 14-year-old girls to see art and learn about history of the city that is next to ours. Boy, were we all misled."
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: "Upon arriving to the Crane house, the tour guide, who was a middle-aged woman, asked if we were excited for a tour of the house. Of course, we were."
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: "She herded us into the house and immediately launched into the history of the Crane family. The room we started in, the parlor, was reportedly where Mary Crane died 50 years prior, in 1958. We all giggled, and someone said, 'Ooh, what if she haunts the house?' This was all our tour guide needed to go into all of the experiences that volunteers and museum staff had had in the house."
AMANDA: I love that the tour guide was just, like, waiting for the littlest invitation to be like, "You're into hauntings? Oh, do I have something for you."
JULIA: It's really one of those things where she's like, "Did someone say ghosts?" And like, "No one said ghosts."
AMANDA: "Shut up. Pipe down."
JULIA: She's like, "Let me tell you about all the ghosts." That would be me, that would be me as a tour guide.
AMANDA: Honestly, Julia, me after one beer about any topic of my interest.
JULIA: Yeah, there you go. "So we walked upstairs and we were shown where Mary had allegedly written her name in wet paint on the ceiling while the house was being renovated in 2005." I'm assuming we're talking about the ghost of Mary since she had passed away in 1958. "I can attest that the name Mary was written in the ceiling paint, but it was way too high for anyone to have done it without a ladder. Granted, I guess ghost can float, but I'm not entirely sure about the validity of this claim."
AMANDA: Ghosts can absolutely float or, perhaps, I don't know, a painter with scaffolding.
JULIA: Yeah. Or ghost telekinesis, who can say? "The next thing that our tour guide told us was her own experience in the house. She had been dropped off one day in December of 2007 by her husband, and a winter storm rolled in, and trapped her in the house with Mary."
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: "The China hutch in the dining room had apparently started shaking and the dishes were flying off the shelves."
AMANDA: Oh, damn.
JULIA: "She told us that when her husband called to let her know that he was outside, all of the doors were locked, and she wasn't able to get out, even though she had her keys."
AMANDA: Okay. Damn.
JULIA: "After a few more minutes of trying to leave, the door eventually unlocked itself, and someone yelled at her to, 'Get out,' of the house, so she ran."
AMANDA: And she still works there?
JULIA: At that point, yeah, she still works there.
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: "Now, the older I've gotten, and now that I am almost 20 years removed from the situation, the more I am convinced that it was all made up to scare us. Regardless, it was a really cool thing to learn about, and I ended up doing a deep dive into the family, thanks to all the family work that Utah— Utahns," which I guess I've never heard what you would call people from Utah before.
AMANDA: No, me neither.
JULIA: Utahns do if they're members of the LDS church.
AMANDA: LDS loves genealogy.
JULIA: Loves genealogy. "Unfortunately, the house was sold to a developer in 2009 and it was slated to become a doll museum." Terrifying, just awful.
AMANDA: Oh, Julia, me? Why don't I just open, like, a historical surgical theater where you can touch the creepy instruments? Like that's the only thing I can think of that's worse than a doll museum.
JULIA: Well, it was slated to become a doll museum, however, now it is part of a Montessori K through eight.
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: And she writes, "And I hope that if there are any ghosts there, they are at peace." Frankly, I'm not going to rule the Taco Bell out until I can find it. "Thank you so much for keeping me entertained at work for the last eight years." Eight years. Oh, gosh. And then sent a picture of what the house looks like now, which is— it looks beautiful. It does not look haunted.
AMANDA: I'm sure it's beautiful. I'm sure the Taco Bell is, you know, serviceable and serves breakfast as every Taco Bell yells at me with a sign that they do.
JULIA: Yeah, I still have never had a talk about breakfast, one day.
AMANDA: Julia, as promised, would you like to hear a voicemail update from Sarah K. H.?
JULIA: Yes, I would.
SARAH: Hello, Julia and Amanda. This is Sarah K. H. calling in with a follow-up to a previous story. I'm the gal who had the ghost do her a solid by waking her up from a nightmare. And you would ask me if I had a recording of the ghost saying good morning to me. I do not, sadly, have that. But now, that you have this voicemail situation going on, I can give you an idea of what it sounded like. So imagine you were asleep, having a bad dream, and a ghost of undetermined gender puts a hand gently on your shoulder and on your elbow, and greets you twice with, "Good morning. Good morning." Very pleasant and very helpful, and not something that I have experienced before or since. Talk to you later, satyrs.
JULIA: Wow. That has real parental energy the way that they— like, "Good morning." That's like a mom trying to wake a child up from a nap being like, "Good morning, cutie pie. It's time to wake up. You have to go to school."
AMANDA: "Okay, honey." And I love, yeah, the shoulder and the elbow like, "Okay, we're gonna just, like, rock you gently into wakefulness."
JULIA: Yeah. Oh, that's very sweet. It's not as creepy as I thought it was based on the story. It's actually very sweet.
AMANDA: And Sarah, what a fabulous use of our voicemail line. Thank you for breaking it in. And again, folks, you can call at 617-420-2344.
JULIA: Do it. Do it. And Sarah also finished with the perfect, "Later, satyrs," which I appreciate.
AMANDA: Love it. Well, thank you, Sarah. And Julia, I feel so good to start the year as I plan to go on, which is judging people's ghostly encounters while wishing desperately never to have one of my own.
JULIA: Preparing but never wanting is the way that we handle our ghost stories here at Spirits Podcast.
AMANDA: It's very true. Well, Julia, I think it's really important to remember that next time you have a craving for Taco Bell breakfast, just pause, take a breath, and then remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
JULIA: Is this Taco haunted?
AMANDA: Aaahhh.
JULIA: Later, satyrs.
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