Episode 191: Your Urban Legends XXXVII - TikTok Ghost!
/We’re raising some important questions because of your urban legends: Do you have a cursed bloodline? What kind of TikToks are ghosts into? Why is Florida so spooky? We don’t promise we have all the answers, though.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of chronic pain, grandparent death, animal/pet death, grief, and depression.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends the Youtube channel, Pasta Grammar. Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Merch: Our new pins, digital coloring book, and posters are all for sale at http://spiritspodcast.com/merch!
- Multitude: Get tickets to our July 30th LIVE SHOW at http://multitude.productions/digitallive. Meddling Adults also wrapped up its first season, so catch up now at meddlingadults.com!
Sponsors
- Function of Beauty is hair care formulated specifically for you. Save 20% on your first order at functionofbeauty.com/spirits
- BetterHelp is a secure online counseling service. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/spirits
- Tula House is a Brooklyn based indoor plant and design store founded to bring us closer to nature while exploring new ways to design and experience plant life. Get 15% off your entire order by using the discount code TulaHouse at tula.house.
Find Us Online
If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/spiritspodcast) to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more. We also have lists of our book recommendations and previous guests’ books at http://spiritspodcast.com/books.
Transcription
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.
Amanda: And this is Episode 191: Your Urban Legends, Number 37.
Julia: There we go. It’s another time for urban legends. I had my cousin tell me that he enjoyed these episodes the most yesterday. So that was nice.
Amanda: Aww. My dad has said the same thing because he likes Eric Schneider the best. Or at least likes hearing Schneider on the show and so he enjoys these episodes. I’m like, “Okay, dad. I see how it is. That’s fine.”
Julia: That’s valid, Brian. I get it.
Amanda: I love all our Patrons equally, Julia, but right now I love Abigail, Maya, Griffontastic, Ommery, Nicole Without the H, and Kaylan the newest. The freshest. Because they’re our newest Patrons!
Julia: Fresh, fresh Patrons. Hot out of the oven.
Amanda: I love when that happens. Welcome guys! Thank you so much for choosing to support us--a independent media business that employs three people in the media industry--with your dollars! Because we don’t have loans or venture backing or a media company that owns us and we like it that way, but you are the ones who allow us to do this as our jobs, so thank you!
Julia: And you all smell like cinnamon.
Amanda: Absolutely. I made cinnamon rolls this weekend. Ooh, Julia, it was a real good time, and I would absolutely share those delicious, delicious rolls with our Supporting Producer level Patrons: Philip, Alicia, Debra, Hannah, Jen, Jessica, Keegan, Landon, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Molly, Mr. Folk, Neal, Niki, Phil Fresh, Polly, Sarah, and Skyl who, along with our Legend level Patrons, are the beautiful Doric columns that keep this whole situation afloat. Audra, Avonlea, Chelsea, Clara, Donald, Drew, Eden, Frances, Jack Marie, Josie, Lada, Mark, Morgan, Necrofancy, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty.
Julia: I just think of the sourdough bread that we’ve made throughout this quarantine and I think, “Yeah. That’s our Legen level Patrons.” They’ve given us so much time and so much of their attention and love.
Amanda: Absolutely, and, Julia, would you let me know what else you’ve been giving your attention and love over the last week?
Julia: Yeah, sometimes you just need something really lighthearted and a little bit mindless and for me, that was a YouTube series that Jake introduced me to this week which is called Pasta Grammar--
Amanda: Oh boy.
Julia: --and it is about a filmmaker and his very Italian wife who live in Maine and it’s mostly this man subjecting this poor Italian woman to American versions of Italian food--
Amanda: Oh boy.
Julia: --and her just being like, “This is not how you do it!”
Amanda: I love that so much.
Julia: It’s very sweet.
Amanda: Incredible. I have been checking out our Myth Movie Night pick for next week, which is the 2020 version of The Invisible Man with Elizabeth Moss and I have so many thoughts. I can’t wait to share them with you.
Julia: I am very excited to talk about it because The Invisible Man is so steeped in its own lore that it’s just going to be a blast to explore and dig into.
Amanda: I can’t wait, and we are recording that just before our newest Multitude live show. We have missed doing live shows so much and we are back with a digital live show happening this Thursday the 30th of July, 8 PM Eastern, and we are also making a video-on-demand, a VOD copy. So if you go to multitude.productions/digitallive you can buy a ticket to the live show and stream it with us or watch it afterward.
Julia: If you’re listening for some Spirits content, I promise you there’s going to be some good ones. We are going to be making our own urban legend and you’ve heard how buck-wild the urban legends are in our regular episodes. Just imagine one that we’ve made up ourselves. It’s going to be wild.
Amanda: It’s going to be fully 37 episodes worth of knowledge, experience, and urban legend tomfoolery and I cannot wait. We also wanted to let you know that the first season of Meddling Adults is now complete! This is the who-dun-it show that we launched during COVID and host Mike Schubert does an excellent job of choosing absolutely wonderful and definitely too complex for a children’s novel mysteries from sources like Encyclopedia Brown, and they are so much fun. Guests include all of the Multitude hosts, Helen Zaltsman, and the crew of Hey Riddle, Riddle--all of whom were fantastic--Mike’s parents. There are just so many great guests to enjoy.
Julia: And again, if you want to check out me getting redemption for my terrible first episode, that will also be part of the digital live show that we’re doing for Multitude!
Amanda: Yeah! Hey, yo!
Julia: Yo!
Amanda: So listen to Meddling Adults in your podcast player or at meddlingadults.com and make sure you join us on Thursday for our live show. 25% of all sales are going to the Black Lives Matter global network and we are very excited to experiment in bringing our patented podcast variety show to the internet! That’s multitude.productios/digitallive. Without further ado, enjoy Episode 191: Your Urban Legends: Number 37.
[Theme music]
Eric: How are we all doing today? Amanda, you recently came back from your vacation.
Amanda: I did. It was very nice and staring out into the forest on a cloudy day reminded me how many spirits are out there and things that I don’t know about so it was a nice little re-spookifying.
Julia: Spooky specters. I love it.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: It is time to get spooky. We’ve got a whole bunch of spooky stuff to go over, I’m sure. I’ve got some dog spooky stuff, I’ve got some Everglades spooky stuff, all kinds of stuff.
Amanda: Ooh. I love that. I love how inherently haunted Florida is. Maybe can you open up with that one?
Eric: Yeah. Let’s get right to it with “Talking Rocks at the Everglades Historical Bed and Breakfast.”
Julia: Oooh. I love a Bed and Breakfast.
Amanda: Fantastic.
Eric: This comes to us from Molly and she writes: “I was listening to an episode recently where you mentioned a haunted hotel, and it brought back a memory of a very weird bed and breakfast that I stayed at a long time ago. To set the scene, we were in Everglades City, Florida--the Everglades are a huge expanse of wetlands don the edge of Florida, 1.5 million acres according to Google, and Everglades City houses one of the visitor centers and not much else. If you look at pictures of the city from the 1940s, not much has changed and it is a very spooky town by nature.” Amanda called it.
Amanda: Mmhmm.
Julia: Florida.
Eric: Just the natural spookiness of Florida.
Julia: Florida’s just spooky. That’s how it is.
Amanda: Arguably the first urban legend on the show was from our friend Matt in Florida and I just think that it’s a thing we return to again and again.
Julia: Mhmm. Mmhmm.
Eric: “There are 3 historical buildings in Everglades City, one of them being the Bank of Everglades Building. It's a large, mint green, pillared building that has now been converted into The Everglades Historical Bed and Breakfast. It is here that our story takes place.”
Julia: You don’t see a lot of mint green banks.
Eric: You don’t see a lot of mint green buildings.
Julia: Specifically not banks.
Eric: “The building is huge, but the way I remember it, we were the only guests at the hotel. It was me, my mom, my dad, and my older brother. We went to check-in, and the woman who ran the B and B got to talking with our family. At the time, my mom was suffering from chronic pain in her forearm, which had been persisting for months and was making our vacation hard on her. For some reason, this came up in the conversation--maybe my mom was asking if there was a hot tub to help relax her arm muscles or something like that--and the woman told us she was pretty sure she had just the thing.” Oh boy.
Julia: Uh oh. I don’t like that.
Eric: What’s the thing going to be?
Julia: I don’t like it.
Amanda: Oh no.
Eric: “She brought us into another room. The walls were green like old fashioned bank walls often are--”
Amanda: Okay, okay. May I just stop and say, if somebody says, “I have just the thing,” and tries to take you to a second location, I mean, let’s just do a poll. You guys wouldn’t go, right?
Julia: No. Not a secondary location. You’ve got to tell me the thing.
Eric: Depends on how bad the chronic pain is in that arm.
Amanda: I mean, fair. I am now going to look at mint green walls and go, “Ah. Classic bank.” Whereas before I think I would have thought of a hospital? I don’t know.
Eric: “The walls were green like old fashioned ban’s walls often are, and there was a large safe on one side of the room. I remember being so fascinated by the safe that I didn't even notice the room was full of rocks.”
Amanda: What?
Julia: What’s happening?
Eric: “There were rocks--every shape, size, color--covering every surface of the room. Most of them were shiny and polished and perfectly round, but others were shaped into diamonds, hearts, and squares. The woman sat us down and told us that she talks to rocks.”
Julia: Hmmmmm.
Eric: Getting better. Getting better as every bit goes on. “Not only does she talk to rocks, she told us, but the rocks talk to her. She told us the story of the first time she discovered her rock-whispering abilities. I can't exactly remember what happened, but I do know the rocks gave her some sort of romantic advice because she had it smoothed and cut into a heart shape, and that the voice was so clear that, at first, she thought it was coming from a human. So we're talking full sentences, different voices, out of loud talking rocks, not just a vibe.” That seems to be the first time the rocks spoke to this lady, gave romantic advice.
Julia: I’m just so curious as to what kind of romantic advice a rock would give a person.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: How many romances has that rock seen?
Amanda: Hang out. Stick around. I’m a rock. That’s all I can do.
Eric: Maybe it’s the rock from Romancing the Stone.
[Audible sounds of disappointment]
Eric: Ba-boom! “Anyway, she looked at my mom’s arm then walked around the room, leaning her head in to each rock, listening to see if any of them could help out with the pain. At last, she picked up a small, white rock that had a kind of translucent glow to it. She let each of us hold it and it was cool to the touch despite the heat of the Floridian summer. She told my mom that the rock told her to roll it up and down her arm. My mom was skeptical--as we all were--but she did as the rock said, rolling it up and down her arm. The cool rock felt good on her arm, she said and it felt like it was easing the pain. Still, she doubted that she'd wake up the next morning pain free. The next day, we woke up to banana nut muffins and cereal placed outside our door--” I love a banana nut muffin. “--and my mom never felt pain in that arm again.”
Julia: What?
Amanda: What?!
Eric: “Needless to say, we left a good tip for the excellent service. I hope you find this story fun. I remember it was one of the weirdest hotel experiences of my life. Love the show, and hope y'all are keeping safe. Molly.”
Amanda: Wow. I mean, that could’ve gone much worse.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah, haunted rock could have been worse. A lot worse.
Amanda: And, I don’t know, I think just massaging a sore muscle with a smooth, pleasant rock--it’s not going to hurt anything.
Julia: I mean, there’s a reason people get hot stone massages. That’s a thing
Amanda: Totally. That’s very pleasant.
Eric: Who’s got a story to follow up my talking rocks one?
Julia: Do you guys want a story about “Why My Friends Don’t Like Sleeping Over Anymore featuring My Haunted Bed?”
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Julia: I’ve got two haunted bed stories.
Eric: I mean, I don’t need the second one, I need this one.
Julia: All right. Cool, cool, cool. This is from Mari and they write: “Hey friends! I’ve been listening to your hometown urban legends and I’ve always wanted to share my experience with the supernatural I’ve had during my 18 years of living in the same house. I’d like to start by saying I don’t believe in ghosts because most things have a scientific explanation, but it’s getting really hard to avoid at this point. Since a young age, I’ve been convinced something was really wrong with my house. When I was little, me and my brother would sleep in bunk beds--he had the top bunk, me in the bottom bunk. I’ve experienced the feeling of being watched for as long as I can remember, but nothing important happened as long as my big brother was with me.” Aw. “When he got older, he moved into the basement and left behind his top bunk. That’s when weird shit started happening. Alone in a room with two beds, I was often kept awake at night by the distinct sound of tapping and scratching on the top bunk, as well as a loud breathing sound.”
Amanda: Don’t like that.
Eric: Don’t like a loud breathing sound. I don’t like a quiet breathing sound but hate a loud breathing sound.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: “I never gathered the courage to look so I just would wait for it to stop and never told anyone. On one occasion I was woken up by the door of my wardrobe opening on its own so fast it hit the wall. That door was always hard to open for some reason, so my 9-year-old self had to pull it hard to open it, and the noise it would make was pretty loud. This is not the kind of door that opens on its own. When I turned 13 I also moved into the basement. The bunk beds were disassembled and the bed my dad decided to put in my new bedroom was the old top bunk. For the first few months--”
Amanda: No, dad! That’s the haunted one! Of all the beds available to you, that’s the one--
Julia: He doesn’t know!
Amanda: --you don’t use!
Julia: He didn’t know! They didn’t say anything!
Eric: But it’s the top bunk. Like, you can’t put the bottom bunk in, because then lack of stability happens.
Julia: The stability of the bottom bunk is assured, I feel like, whereas the top bunk, not so much.
Amanda: I mean, I think bunk beds, if it’s a stacking kind of bunk bed, where they can come apart, then use either one.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah. “For the first few months I thought the haunting had stopped because I was now occupying the bed, but I was wrong. The breathing was not just a sound anymore, it was directly in my face. On a few occasions, I distinctly felt warm air blown directly. On. My. Face. As if someone was asleep against me. The years that followed were very intense. I started to experience sleep paralysis with a creepy elderly woman that would get into my bed, the feeling of being watched was through the roof, and physical manifestations were more frequent: books falling off my shelf and food being literally thrown out of the pantry by god knows what.”
Eric: That’s so many different things.
Julia: Yes.
Eric: That’s so many different things that I don’t like.
Julia: It’s a lot of stuff. “At this point, I was the only one in my family experiencing it, so I didn’t know what to think of it. It changed when I started making more friends and inviting people over for sleepovers. My big brother had moved out so I often had the house to myself, and there was one incident that made everything a bit too real. Me and my friends were sitting at the dinner table and talking when we heard a loud noise behind us that sounded like glass breaking. We then realized that a glass that had been placed on the counter several meters away from us had completely exploded on its own. Glass everywhere. I looked for an explanation, but there was no heat source, no wind, no one could have been touching it. It was the first time the ghost or ghosts broke something and the first time other people witnessed it.
Amanda: That doesn’t just happen. You know? It’s not like you’re brewing iced tea and you pour some hot water into a jar with tea bags and it’s too hot and the glass explodes. That’s not that.
Julia: No.
Eric: As you said “There was a weird sound,” my headphones had a weird amount of static in them. Just for that.
Julia: I heard hissing, it’s weird.
Eric: Just for that exact moment. We all heard it. The ghost is back.
Julia: Don’t like that. Don’t like your new haunted house, Eric. “It’s not over yet. About a month later, my best friend at the time was sleeping over in a camp bed besides my bed. I heard her get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom--it has a loud fan that turns on with the light so I could tell by the sound she was there. She took a while to come back but I didn’t think much of it. The next day she mentioned running into my brother when she went to the bathroom. She said she saw him leave the room just as she got in but didn’t say hi or anything. I told her my brother had moved out and lived an hour away. She went quiet, so I asked her if she saw his face and she just said, “I know I saw a boy.” Very creepy. “I feel very lucky I have never met the boy in question. These past few years I got used to some kind of presence, and I’m still very skeptic when it comes to ghosts. I feel like the worst part is over.”
Amanda: Pretty good haunting, I would say.
Julia: That’s a spooky haunting for sure.
Eric: Got all your classics. Weird sound, weird sight.
Julia: Breath.
Eric: Whole bunch of other stuff.
Julia: Very good.
Eric: Someone making a bad decision.
Julia: Mmm. Always important, the bad decision. I have a worse bad decision one coming up later. You guys are going to be stoked by it.
Eric: Oh boy.
Amanda: Fantastic. Would you guys like a taste of taste-related hauntings? I have two short ones or do you want to hear about a TikTok loving ghost?
Julia: Ooh. I do want to get to taste, because taste is still on my mind, but I can’t wait for the TikTok ghost.
Amanda: That’ll be after the refill, but let’s do a couple of tastes. A little aperitif. So we asked for taste-related hauntings in our last episode and definitely want to continue to receive those, so please do send them in, but here’s just a couple that we got. First, from Kiara, and she writes: “This is tasting ghost tiramisu. So, a little background first: my grandma passed away two years ago and absolutely loved cooking and baking. We have, like, seven books full of her handwritten recipes. She used to make tiramisu every year for my grandpa’s birthday because it’s his favorite dessert. They were together for more than fifty years, so you can imagine how long of a tradition that was. For his last birthday, my mom and my aunt decided to make one for him and he teared up a little bit, he said it was delicious and thanked them profusely. He went to sit outside after the party like he usually does, I decided to join him because I didn’t want to leave him alone. We stayed in silence, just enjoying the light summer breeze. I remember I was focused on petting my dog when it happened.”
Eric: When it happened!
Amanda: “I felt the taste of tiramisu in my mouth. It wasn’t like--pardon my bluntness-- when you burp and have an aftertaste of what you’ve been eating, it was really strong and tangible and new. Then I heard my grandpa chuckle and say, “Oh, you remembered!”. When I turned towards him, he had a distant look into his eyes and a little grin on his face. I think I stared at him for 30 seconds straight or something, I was really confused. Then he turned to me and said, like it was the most natural thing in the world, “I know. Your nonna definitely put more coffee in it, huh?”
Eric: No. Nope. Mm.
Amanda: No? Creepy?
Eric: Ah.
Julia: Eric doesn’t like it. It’s sweet but creepy.
Amanda: Eric, this is as heartwarming as hauntings get!
Eric: But it’s like, “I know the weird thing that you’re experiencing right now and I’m going to explain it with a very--” not ominous because--
Julia: It’s a little ominous.
Eric: --it is very sweet. Both literally and figuratively, but--check that out--but it’s just “I know that you’re getting a little extra coffee flavor right now!” It’s so--ahh.
Julia: Yeah. It’s a little spooky. I got you.
Amanda: Well, Kiara finishes by saying: “That’s how I tasted a ghostly dessert. I know it doesn’t really count as tasting an actual ghost but I think it comes pretty close. By the way, my grandpa just laughs and shakes his head if I bring this up in front of the family. I guess it’s kind of an inside joke between me, him, and my nonna’s ghost.”
Julia: I love having an inside joke with a ghost.
Amanda: Me too, and the next one comes from E. L. M., she/her. “When I was younger my mother and grandmother would take me to my GG’s--great-grandmother’s--house.” I also call my great-grandmother GG. So that made me happy. “When I was there my great aunt who lived with my GG would feed me pomegranate. Then I would go into the sitting room and converse with the adults, possibly one of my proudest 6 year old moments. My GG died when I was about 7 or 8. Since I was a literal child, I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time. When my family went back to the car, my Dad played a slow and sad song, which sent chills down my spine halfway through. A few years later I was just sitting at a party with my cousins and we were talking about life in general. Eventually the conversation came around to our GG. One of my cousins--I’ll call Sofia--was really close with GG and also got pomegranate whenever she was visiting. She then told us that whenever she talks, thinks, or is generally reminded about GG, she can taste pomegranate. I myself have only had this happen once--when I was listening to the slow, sad song that my Dad played. It was odd.”
Julia: Awww. That’s very sweet as well, but also very spooky.
Amanda: Still spooky, man. I love it. It’s just so tangible, you know?
Eric: Well, that was very sweet, but now I’m a little thirsty, so.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Let’s go get a refill!
Amanda: Let’s wash away the taste of this coffee and this pomegranate with some craft brews in the refill.
[Theme music]
Amanda: Julia, I know that for me when I am not sleeping it is usually not fear of shadows in the dark or other urban legend like activities, it’s mostly anxiety about what’s going on in my life, and I find it really, really helpful that when I have those thoughts, if I can’t sleep, I can either get up and just journal a little bit or I can write down some notes that I want to discuss in therapy. And that is a really helpful way for me to do something about what is bothering me and then be able to kind of put it to the side, say, “I’m going to deal with this at this specific date and time, when I have my video call with my therapist,” and then move on with my day or my night. SO, I’m really, really grateful that BetterHelp makes it so easy to communicate with my therapist at really any hour of the day. I can send messages to my therapist that they respond to in a timely fashion, and we schedule phone or video meetings like you would talk to a therapist in traditional, offline counseling, but I can do it from the safety of my own home and the comfort and being able to wear my pajama shorts and all of that honestly makes it a lot easier for me to kind of relax and focus on what it is. Being honest and what I need to talk about. So, BetterHelp is a secure, online counseling service that matches you with your own licensed professional therapist. They have a broad range of expertises and they are available worldwide no matter where you are. It is more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is available. Plus they make it really easy and free to change counselors if you ever need to do that. So go ahead to betterhelp.com/spirits to get 10% off your first month of counseling. That’s betterH-E-L-P.com/spirits to get 10% off.
Julia: Yup. Join over a million people who are taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. That is betterhelp--H-E-L-P.com/spirits.
Amanda: We are also very happily, every day, sponsored by Tula House, which is an absolutely beautiful indoor plant and design store in Brooklyn that was founded to bring people closer to nature while also exploring new ways to design and experience plant life, like beautiful pots and watering tools and shirts. Tula provided the plants for the multitudio. It is absolutely fantastic. I love coming into the office each day and greeting my beautiful plants which have trellised and grown so long that I’ve had to figure out new ways to store them and propagate them, but Tula is fantastic. This team is so lovely. They check in with me every now and again and are like, “How are the plants doing?” and I’m like, “Great, Tula. Thank you. You’re beautiful.”
Julia: The really cool thing, too, is that they provide these kind of exclusive uncommon finds drops on Tuesdays that include these rare plants and one-of-a-kind pottery. So it’s beautiful and also rare stuff is always cool and they have a bunch of different kind of plants. You can find tropical plants, they have arid plants, you can find pottery and growing tools and even plant inspired apparel and accessories. I love some of their stuff.
Amanda: And I love people wearing it around the neighborhood of Greenpoint, where the Multitude studio is. They’re just absolutely fantastic. They are selling prints now by botanical artists and they’ve really just been a real fixture of our community and, for those who live outside of Brooklyn, it is a great way to buy something to support a local business and get a beautiful plant or piece of pottery or art work for your home. So they are offering Spirits listeners--and Spirits listeners only--15% off your entire order using the discount code tulahouse, all one word, at the website tula.house.
Julia: That’s spelled T-U-L-A-H-O-U-S-E.
Amanda: tulahouse at the website tula.house and while you’re at it, go ahead and follow them on Instagram! They’re so good! Their stories are beautiful, their paint is so soothing. It’s @tulahouse.
Julia: Design for all living things.
Amanda: Thanks Tula!
Julia: Amanda, adapting to having long hair after being a short-haired person for a very long time has kind of been a challenge for me over the past couple of years. I just don’t know what to do with it all.
Amanda: That makes sense to me. You have beautiful hair, it is wavy and a lovely color, but it seems like it is a lot to deal with.
Julia: It is a lot to deal with and I feel like a lot of the promises that are made by shampoo and conditioner companies are often--they just don’t work for my hair. They’re like, “Oh, this’ll smooth it out,” or “It will be less frizzy,” and then I use it and it just does nothing. It looks exactly the same. That’s not the case, Amanda, when I tried Function of Beauty. Function of Beauty is hair care that is formulated specifically for you. So no matter what your hair type is, they’re going to create a shampoo or conditioner or a treatment that fits your unique needs. They have over 54 trillion possible ingredient combinations to make sure your formula is as unique as your hair is, which is absolutely wild. That is a impossible number in my brain.
Amanda: It is very big, and they even let you choose the strength of the scent which I really appreciate because I’m like, “I would like a whisper of eucalyptus, but not like a full perfume store level.”
Julia: Yes. I completely understand and totally agree, but it’s really easy. All you have to do is this quick but really thorough quiz and tell them all about your hair and then they determine the right blend of ingredients and then they bottle your custom formula to order and then they send it to you! And it’s in this really cute customized bottle with your favorite color and also a fragrance that you choose, at the level that you choose, Amanda, which is great, and my favorite thing about them is that all of their formulas are vegan and cruelty-free and they never use sulfates, parabens, or any other kind of harmful ingredients that can damage your hair. And Function of Beauty is not just the first ever custom hair care brand, it is the internet’s top rated customized hair care brand. So they have over 40 thousand real five star reviews and counting. So what are you waiting for? Go to functionofbeauty.com/spirits to take your four-part hair profile quiz and save 20% off your first order. Go to functionofbeauty.com/spirits for 20% off and let them know you heard about it from our show.
Amanda: That’s functionofbeauty.com/spirits. And now, let’s get back to the show.
Guys, when I was on vacation I had the pleasure of visiting Citizen’s Cider in Burlington, Vermont which is a fantastic Cidery with a very, very good brew pub kitchen as well and I must have tried like four different ones of their ciders because they’re all so delicious and I think my favorite is probably the Dirty Mayor, which is a gingery kind of cider that Citizen’s makes. They have distribution all over the US but particularly if you’re in New England. You should check them out. They’re wonderful.
Julia: I actually picked up a IPA which--usually I’m not a big IPA fan, but my dad is and--
Amanda: Ooh. Plot twist.
Julia: --Jake is. So I picked up from Five Boroughs Brewing Company, the Gridlock Hazy IPA. Which is a lot more citrus-y and tropical than your typical IPA is. I really, really liked it. It’s really, really nice.
Amanda: Yum.
Eric: And I had a nice little bottle of some--not the whole bottle, obviously--of some Cleveland Underground whiskey. I got their rye which is aged in black cherry barrels.
Julia: That sounds good.
Eric: It was quite flavorful. Usually, I mean I like any whiskey for the most part, but this one had a nice little bonus flavor to it that you don’t get all the time from other whiskeys.
Julia: That sounds really nice.
Amanda: Barrel-aged stuff is my jam. I will try pretty much anything barrel-aged because I feel like it’s a taste that even if I’m not that sophisticated I can look for and find and be like, “Oh. Yeah. Okay. All right. I see that.”
Julia: Be like, “Oh, this is oaky.” Because it’s aged in oak barrels. I got you.
Amanda: Exactly! Do you guys want me to go right into my TikTok ghost? Because I’m very excited about it.
Julia: Oh, please do! Please do.
Eric: Yeah. I’m mostly interested in if it is a tick tock like the clock or the app.
Julia: It’s got to be the app.
Eric: I don’t know which one it’s going to be, but--
Julia: It’s got to be the app.
Eric: I’m assuming it’s the app.
Amanda: Oh, it’s totally the app. So this is from Lucas. It is titled ‘The TikTok Loving Ghost and Tales from the Old Naval Hospital.’ “I’m here to share some stories from my time in southern France at my school. Last summer I and my family stayed at a shared house with some family friends. I believe it dates back to the 1600s or so. There were five other families with us--” Side note, oh my god, what a gigantic vacation. “--everybody had kids, but I was the only trans kid and they didn’t know what to do with me. So I got my own room and bathroom and the entire second floor of the carriage house!”
Julia: Oh, hell yeah. Trans rights.
Amanda: Oh, it’s wonderful. Okay. “I was super happy with this because I wouldn’t have to deal with the other children, but slowly I started to notice things. My perfectly fine phone would glitch whenever I was in my room for no reason at all and when I left the carriage house, it would stop. Now this was a bit annoying, but I was in France so whatever. I had places to see and I didn’t really mind. Then, there were the footsteps. Now, it was an old house, so the floors creaked and settled, but I started to hear very distinct footsteps going down the tiny hallway from the stairs and I knew something was up. After realizing that something was definitely in this house, I started speaking to it--obviously--but it never responded. I would tell her that I had boundaries and while she can stay because this isn’t my home, I’d like it if she didn’t make so much noise while I slept. And just like that, the nighttime walking stopped. I finally got some good rest after a while.”
Julia: Love when ghosts listen.
Amanda: “Now after a day or so, this ghost became very invested in my phone and I put two and two together and realized that she had been messing with it. No harm was really done, but the ghost really seemed to like TikTok. When I had it open on my phone she would swipe past videos, and when I swiped past one, sometimes she would swipe back up to rewatch it. I found this completely hilarious.”
Julia: That is hilarious. That is the word I was going to say.
Amanda: “Then when it came to me filming TikTok’s, she would mess with the focusing and stop the recordings. I even have screen-recorded evidence of her doing this, which--if you’re interested--I can send.”
Julia: Yes, please.
Amanda: No offense, Lucas. I don’t want this. So.
Julia: Oh, I do..
Amanda: You can send it and write in the subject line ‘TikTok for Julia’ because I have no interest in watching this ghostly apparition.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t need haunted video files. That’s--
Amanda: No, no, no.
Eric: --not for me.
Julia: I want it.
Amanda: “I left France after about a week and it’s one of my favorite stories to tell and my best evidence of paranormal that I’ve ever gotten on film. Now, for some local stories back in Washington DC, where I’m from. Despite what you may think, there aren’t that many ghost stories I’ve heard of in DC. I go to an old private school that has classes in an old naval hospital that was restored when I was little. Some of the windows and most of the wood are original though. The hospital was built after the Civil War, so I don’t think there are any Civil War ghosts. As the history goes, it was mostly used as a school and a hospital starting in the 1900s and there are signs all over the building about its history. Despite not being used during the Civil War, it is very haunted, but we’ve never actually seen the ghosts. Unless you want to count the time some historical reenactors came and seeing a 1900s nurse run down the hall almost made me shit myself.” Me too. Listen. Sleep No More? Oof. If you’ve been you know. Very bad. “Every room has a name and most of them have their own weird ghosts. In Shiner there is a picture that swings on the wall when there is no breeze and the A/C is off, in Jacobs there is a door that leads to nowhere--which could just totally be a construction error I guess, in Latrobe I’ve seen whiteboard markers fall on the floor when there is no one there to push them, but my two favorites are Hanes and Drummen. In Hanes I feel like I’m being watched. It doesn’t matter if class is happening or it’s after school, you just feel watched and get goosebumps and shivers on your neck that make you twitch. They haven’t done anything bad exactly when you’re in there, but you never really feel quite alone. There’s always a presence that makes you want to jolt your head back and yell at whoever’s staring, but there’s never anyone there.”
Julia: I do have a comment about the painting that swings even though there’s no breeze. Just secure it a little more, you know?
Amanda: I know!
Julia: Two hooks instead of one. That’s all.
Amanda: Yeah, or like it fully opens on a hinge and it’s like, “Just take the hinge off, man.” It’s really okay.
Julia: Come on.
Amanda: I think if I own a house one day--rip, the millennial dream--I would definitely install a painting on hinges. Even with nothing behind it. Or like a post-it note with a smiley face. Just for the laughs. That would just be very good.
Julia: That feels right.
Amanda: “As for Drummen, nothing has really happened there except for the one time I and my group of friends were sent to work in there while the other group was across the hall in Jacobs. There are no chairs or tables in Drummen and the staff gets mad if you sit on the A/C unit--” Guys, don’t sit on the A/C unit.
Julia: Don’t do it!
Amanda: “Or the windowsills, so my group laid on the floor. That day I was wearing a long sleeve sweater despite the weather and had my sleeves rolled up. In Drummen it was cold and the A/C unit was on full blast so I rolled my sleeves back down, laid on my stomach, and got to work. About 30 minutes later, I pushed them back up when I had gotten more room temperature and then immediately went pale and got shivers throughout my body, because there were symbols on my sleeve.”
Julia: What?
Amanda: “They weren’t small either. Stretching the length of my arm in big strokes--where I couldn’t make out what was written but it had been done in ink. I’ve asked around since that day and shared the photo I took of the marks with my peers on the internet, but I haven’t gotten any answers.”
Julia: What the fuck?
Amanda: “I hope it doesn’t turn out that my bloodline is cursed?”
Julia: Almost definitely. That’s almost definitely the answer.
Amanda: Lucas, I’m sorry to say, it seems like you have a--
Julia: Cursed bloodline.
Amanda: You’re a magnet. Yeah. You have--there’s something there. There’s something there.
Julia: Are you, perhaps, the seventh son of a seventh son or something like that? You know? Anything close to that?
Eric: Never good.
Amanda: Were you born June 6, 2006?
Julia: Oh no.
Eric: I mean, that could line up.
Amanda: Well. That was a scary one, so thank you, Lucas.
Eric: This comes to us from Sarah, and she writes: “First of all, I want to say you are the very first podcast I ever listened to a few years back.”
Amanda: Aww.
Julia: Aww. Yay.
Eric: “So I want to thank you for making such a wonderful show that leads me to continuing to listen not only to you but to expand into giving my shot at many other wonderful podcasts in the world. I’ve got a few stories to tell you about my dogs. So, the first is about Oreo. He was the sweetest black and white, half chihuahua, half cocker spaniel little guy in the world. He was given to me by my grandmother at my 13th birthday and I was instantly in love with him. I was instantly in love for life.”
Julia: Oh my god, I wish my grandparents would give me dogs when I was a child.
Amanda: I know!
Julia: That would’ve been nice.
Eric: “I moved him out with me with when I moved out of my parents house at 22 after college. He was my constant companion, and when he passed when I was 26 I was an absolute wreck. He'd been with me for literally half of my life and was my comfort for most of my hardest moments. A few days after he passed I was still struggling to keep it together.. I wasn't eating or sleeping much, I wasn't functioning and I knew my friends and family were concerned. As I was standing in my bedroom trying to fold laundry, I was overtaken by grief and could barely breathe. I started to worry that I really wouldn't be able to breathe if I couldn't get it together when the lamp across the room turned off. It wasn't the bulb that burned out, or the power that went out. I heard the very distinct clicking sound of the switch being turned to off. It snapped me out of it and I immediately felt a wave of comfort and calm as I took a huge breath. I knew immediately it was my little Oreo. While I still miss him every day, I really believe he came to help me and heal me in that moment and let me know that he was alright.”
Julia: Aww. Oreo.
Amanda: I bet he did.
Eric: “The second is about my dog, Mochi.”
Julia and Amanda: [simultaneously] Mochi!
Amanda: What a good name!
Eric: “ I adopted Mochi shortly after Oreo had passed. A long haired chihuahua/dachshund who wanted nothing more than to sleep on my lap all day every day. Unfortunately, we only had one year together before he passed.”
Julia: No, Mochi!
Amanda: Noo! What a roller coaster.
Julia: Eric, are you sure this isn’t a Stone Dog situation here?
Eric: No! It’s nice because the dogs are there to comfort the person.
Julia: Okay, okay. Dogs are there in spirit.
Eric: Yes. “I dealt with it better than I had with Oreo but it was still hard. A month after his passing, I decided I was going to throw myself into a project to keep my mind occupied while missing his sweet little face. I had tickets to Comic Con and a cosplay planned before his sickness got worse. I threw all my energy into this project. For the most part it worked and I was absorbed in making it and didn't spend too much time grieving. It was however a good way to completely overwhelm myself to get a project I had planned to spend 6 months on done in just 1. One day as I sat in my living room, trying to make this dang costume, playing TV in the background to keep it from being silent. I was starting to feel overwhelmed by everything. I wanted mostly to look at pictures of Mochi and go to sleep. As I felt the wave of anxiety mixed with grief start to win, the TV went black. I glanced up and the TV was black but for a subtitle at the bottom of the screen that said ‘You got this.’ It lasted long enough for me to stare at, even grab my phone and take a picture of it. I felt the presence of that little furry ‘potato’ as we lovingly called him in the room with me. If he could have crawled into my lap to calm me in that moment that is 100% what he would have done, so I believe he did the closest thing he could. The screen stayed that way long enough for me to calm down and went back to the streaming selection screen. I resolved to finish my costume, with a fresh wave of determination. I did and it's probably the most successful one I've managed to put together despite all of it. I think that little pep talk from Mochi helped a great deal. These are my two stories of my good boy doggo spirits coming to calm me and ease me and my heartache after they had to leave me. Dogs are truly a blessing we don't deserve on this Earth, but I am glad we have them.”
Amanda: That’s so sweet, and I feel like it’s really comparable to a dog just kind of taking your attention when your attention is going to a bad place, you know? Whether it’s licking you or barking or just trying to get your attention in some other way and turning off a light or a sound that was in the background is very comparable. It brings your attention somewhere else and helps kind of pull you out of a bad moment.
Julia: Yeah. Or when dogs curl up with you when they know you’re sick or sad or stuff like that. Like they just have that sense.
Amanda: So sweet. Mochi. Oreo. We love you guys.
Julia: Adorable. We’ll do my scary one. It’s short, but I felt it is particularly scary and ties in with my bed scary stories for this episode. So this is from Annabelle and the title of it is ‘Ghost Wing Chow Down.’ Doesn’t sound scary.
Eric: What was that?
Julia: Ghost wing. Chow down.
Eric: Okay.
Amanda: That’s just an intriguing series of syllables.
Julia: So Annabelle says: “This was from a few months ago. I live alone with my older brother for context. It's late at night, and everyone in the house is just about settling into bed and falling asleep. This house does not creak and make--” Oh. Sorry.
Amanda: May I just say, don’t like the present tense myth.
Julia: Yup. Nope.
Amanda: That creeps me the fuck out.
Julia: I love it. Send more like this.Anyway. “This house does creak and make occasional noises, but they usually aren't noticeable until the room is silent. I'm falling asleep when I hear a noise. It's coming from underneath my bed. My bed has two inches of space between it and the floor. Almost nothing can fit underneath it. The slow realization of this gave me the worst feeling and started pulling me out of my drowsiness. This isn't the worst or most confusing part. The noise I was hearing was like someone was intensely eating chicken wings completely bone clean.”
[Laughter]
Amanda: It’s very specific but I get it!
Julia: “It was so quiet, terrible, and clear all at the same time. I don't know what it actually was, or why I thought of something so specific. I froze in my bed for a couple minutes, then slowly began to turn over and creep towards the edge of my bed. Mind you, I got the main bedroom of the house, so I have a king size bed. It was a long, terrible, creep over to the edge. When I got there all there was the pitch black two inch void that was the space underneath my bed. Looking didn't make me feel any better. So I bundled up under the covers and tried to forget about it until I fell asleep, exhausted. Yes, it did stop after about 10 minutes, but even that was enough to seriously freak me out for a good while after.” That’s it. Just creepy, creepy chicken wing noises. Underneath the bed.
Eric: I don’t like how--
Julia: Specific?
Eric: --low their bed is.
Julia: Oh. Yeah, the two inches.
Eric: Two inches! It feels like one of those things where it can be so expansive if there’s something terrible down there but also it’s so tiny when you look in it that it’s like, “What could be down there?”
Julia: Mhmm. Also, no storage.
Amanda: The gap under my couch is a similar height and I hate looking under there because then I realize how much dust is there and then I’m like, “Ugh. I need to prop up my couch on risers to swiffer under there. I hate it. Well, thank you all for writing in. We would love to hear more TikTok and taste ghosts.
Julia: Yes!
Amanda: So please know that you can always submit your urban legends at spiritspodcast.com and just click on the contact page.
Julia: Or if your bloodline is cursed! I would love to hear about that, too.
Amanda: That’s true! That’s true, and above all else, remember:
Julia: Stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.