Episode 240: Your Urban Legends LII - A Haunted Osmosis Jones Situation

This episode is full of creepy shenanigans, don’t worry. We talk viral Tiktok ghosts, respecting funeral directors and undertakers, and what was definitely a Hot Topic teen ghost. 


Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of teeth, surgery, cadavers, imprisonment, capital punishment, fire, death, ableism, funeral homes, death of family members, bodily functions, and post-surgery depression. 


Here’s a link to Tammy the Face Ghost


Housekeeping

- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends The Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. 

- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books

- Call to Action: Check out Meddling Adults: A whodunnit game show charity hosted by Mike Schubert. Search for Meddling Adults wherever you listen to podcasts, or visit meddlingadults.com


Sponsors

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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.


Transcript


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 240: Your Urban Legends Number LII. As we all learn Roman numerals together!

JULIA:  We're learning together, that's the important part. 

AMANDA:  Didn't know... 

JULIA:  That's what we meant for a long time.

AMANDA:  Have we surpassed the Super Bowl yet? Let's check. 

JULIA:  I don't know. 

AMANDA:  They are on Super Bowl LVI is going to be 2022. 

JULIA:  Got it. 

AMANDA:  So, it's only a few months time, Julia. Is, is the point. 

JULIA:  We'll be there soon. 

AMANDA:  We'll be there soon. But Hello, conspirators, thank you so very much for joining us again. And thank you to our newest patron, Lisa, thank you for joining the fold. We get to be podcasters full time because of the support of our patrons and of all of you as you listen and do stuff and to take our surveys and share the episode and put us on your Instagram stories. That's a really helpful way for you to tell your friends like hey, this is amazing. You should listen to this podcast and we so appreciate you. 

JULIA:  Yeah, you Lisa specifically this week, we appreciate you. 

AMANDA:  

You're our MVP going with a football theme and also MVPs are supporting producer level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Allison, Bryan, Debra, Hannah, Jane, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Justin, Keegan, Kneazlekins, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi. And Julia, don't forget it, those legend level patrons, Audra, Chimera or Change, Clara, Drew, Jack Marie, Jaybaybay, Ki, Lada, Morgan, Morgan H., Necroroyalty, Taylor, & Bea Me Up Scotty.

JULIA:  If I had the ability to craft Super Bowl rings for all of our legend level patrons, I would do so.

AMANDA:  Loving this. And Julia in addition to learning jewelry crafting ala sports championship rings, what have you been reading, watching listening to or doing this week?

JULIA:  So Amanda, I took your advice. And I downloaded the Libby app, which is my library app.

AMANDA:  Yes! 

JULIA:  So I can read books from the library on my phone, it's great. Normally, I love a like physical copy of a book but I also really like that I can read in bed without having to turn my light on if I'm you know, unable to sleep and I don't want to wake Jake up. So I just finished last night the second book and then started last night the third book of The Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. You might have heard of the book Ancillary Justice that is the first book of the series and oh my gosh, it is so good. I love space opera so freakin much. And this is just itching all of those scratches or vice versa that I love about Sci-Fi. 

AMANDA:  That idiom only makes medium sense. So I understand what you're getting at, don't worry about it.

JULIA:  Thank you. Scratching those itches. 

AMANDA:  There you go. And if you wake up in the middle of the night and you're like I don't really want to read right now and you want to listen to a podcast but you've caught up in Spirits, Julia, do any recommendations for people should be listening to coming out of the Multitude collective? 

JULIA:  Oh, I sure do. I don't recommend it. If you're listening to it in the middle of the night and you're sleeping next to your partner because you will shake them awake with your laughter. But it's Meddling Adults! Meddling Adults is a whodunit charity game show hosted by Mike Schubert each week two guests go head to head in a contest of solving children's mysteries like Encyclopedia Brown and Scooby Doo and Shelby Whoo. I love the Scooby Doo episodes personally because I was such a Scooby Doo kid. And points are awarded not only for correct guesses, but also for absurd accusations and the winner earns money for the charity of their choosing. You can like play along at home test your own sleuthing prowess out and see if you can outsmart people like Velma from Scooby Doo. If you want to listen to Meddling Adults, and you should search for Meddling Adults wherever you listen to podcasts, or visit meddlingadults.com

AMANDA:  Brilliant. So you not only get to enjoy a whole new episode of Spirits you have a whole new show from Multitude to enjoy. If you feel like it, and we think you should.

JULIA:  And Amanda and I have both been on episodes.

AMANDA:  It's really good shit. There's nothing more I like more than a mystery and revisiting things from my childhood and it's truly the perfect combo.

JULIA:  I truly thought I was good at like riddles and puzzles and solving mysteries. I'm not very good. 

AMANDA:  

My episode had a lot to do with teeth and I didn't see that coming. So without further ado, everybody enjoy Spirits Podcast Episode 240: Your Urban Legends Number LII.


YOUR URBAN LEGENDS!


ERIC:   I have… we're gonna jump right into it. The first story of the episode. This story comes to us… we're jumping straight in, comes to us from my girlfriend, Kelsey via an Instagram reel she saw.

JULIA:  What?

ERIC:   Nothing spooky came to Kelsey. But… wow, if this story isn't both hilarious and perfect for Spirits, and a great jumping-off point.

JULIA:  Tell me about it.

AMANDA:  Kelsey: Unsung Hero of Spirits Podcast.

JULIA:  I thought this was finally going to be like, she had a supernatural experience in your home and it's finally confirmed that your house is haunted.

ERIC:   No, nothing like that. Although yesterday during the Multitude quarterly business meeting, my light in the office did turn off, which is why it's a little dark in here. It didn’t… but the light switch did not move, the light bulb just burnt out. But there was a moment during the meeting where I was like, “What the heck?” and I don't think anyone noticed, even I internally was like, maybe a cloud just covered up the sun quickly or something? It’s like, maybe the lighting changing the way I did it. Anyways, this comes to us from Kelsey via Instagram, and the story is by on Instagram, Kevin James Thorton. He's one of those guys that does the like Auto-Tune-y stories where he like tells the story that's all auto-tuned. It's very funny, listen to it. So we'll play that now. I bet we'll react.

JULIA:  I think I know which one you're talking about and I'm very excited.

ERIC:   Very good. Julia might already know about it. Amanda, I think you'll appreciate this greatly.

INSTAGRAM STORY:   Recently, I had to have a tooth pulled, and then they did a bone graft. And the dentist kept saying they were using cadaver bone. So then, of course, I was like, I'm just curious, is that the bone from one specific person? Or is it like a mixture of people, and then, the room got really awkward. And the dentist in a really serious tone was like, “We're not allowed to disclose that information”. And I was like, “I'm not going to try and go hunt down their families or something”. And uhh… but now I can't stop thinking about the person living in my face. And I sense that her name is Tammy. And now my face is haunted and that's the story of Tammy in the face ghost.

JULIA:  Tammy, the face ghost. Incredible.

ERIC:   We had two separate reactions happening there. Julia sang along with it. She’s clearly seen the video--

JULIA:  I was mouthing the words.

ERIC:   --which was delightful. And Amanda was like enjoying it and then once the keyword ‘cadaver’ showed up, her, her mood really, really changed.

JULIA:  Shifted, really shifted.

AMANDA:  You know, I appreciate it as a work of art. I was at one of the first live performances of the Gregory Brothers and I appreciate auto-tuning the news as a genre. But wow, this is I don't know where this falls on the spectrum of modern medicine as a miracle, and please never. Wow, it's a, it's a compelling question.

ERIC:   I think one of the more interesting things is firstly, that a dentist would ever just even tell you that this is where the bone is coming from.

AMANDA:  Oh, they must tell you though, they must tell you!

ERIC:   There’s not a lot of other reasons that like you, Where else would you get bone from, I guess. But like to explicitly be like, hey, this bone…

JULIA:  Cadaver bone.

ERIC:   If it's from, it's from a dead person.

JULIA:  Or multiple dead people!

ERIC:   That's a lot to tell someone when they're already sitting in the chair.

AMANDA:  Yeah.

ERIC:   Probably have the local anesthesia. But now, let's move on to the more interesting thing. Face Ghost. Face Ghost: Coast to Coast. The two coasts being your mouth.

JULIA:  This reminds me of there was some sort of horror movie where someone is getting surgery.

ERIC:   Oh, this is… yeah, this is a the, The Eye—

JULIA:  Yes!

ERIC:   —I believe with one… oh, is it, Jennifer Love Hewitt?

JULIA:  That feels right.

ERIC:   —or Jessica Alba? It's one of them, for sure.

ERIC:   I think it's Jessica Alba.

ERIC:   Yeah.

JULIA:  Let's confirm so no one yells at us on the internet.

ERIC:   Yeah.

AMANDA:  I'm really trying to distinguish their faces in my brain and I can't do it.

JULIA:  Is this the one—

ERIC:   It’s Jessica Alba.

JULIA:  —I feel like I'm mixing up… it’s Jessica Alba, thank you. I feel like I'm mixing up like an urban legend thing that I heard once and this movie where it's like, oh, this man got the surgery to replace his hand but it ended up being a like a death row inmate that they killed and then used his body for science.

AMANDA:  Sure.

JULIA:  And so now the hand is trying to murder people.

ERIC:   Yes, that is that I don't know if that's ever been a movie but it's definitely a classic urban legend, for sure.

JULIA:  Yeah.

AMANDA:  That sounds right.

ERIC:   Yeah.

JULIA:  What is the plot of The Eye then? Is it she can see dead people now that she has a dead person's eye in her face? 

ERIC:   I will read it right now. Now, are we talking about 2000s The Eye or 2008’s The Eye.

JULIA:  Oh, no!

ERIC:   There’s two The Eyes.

AMANDA:  Why!?

ERIC:   It’s clearly, it's clearly the 2008 film based on the synopsis. Let's see, I'll just read this word.

JULIA:  Let’s... we’re in.

ERIC:   I mean, this is already a weird story. We've started with Instagram. We're now going to Wikipedia. Let's just have, let's just have a fun time at the start of this one. Sydney Wells is a successful violinist from Los Angeles who had been blind since she was five years old—

JULIA:  Okay.

ERIC:   —caused by an accident with a firecracker.

JULIA:  Oh, very specific.

AMANDA:  No!

ERIC:   Interesting detail. I mean, you gotta got to do that world-building. 15 years later, after celebrating conductor and pianist, Simon McCullough's birthday during rehearsal, Sydney undergoes a corneal transplant— after dinner, it said? Oh no, just after a… after rehearsal. Still, seems like, seems like you'd book your day to not do anything before--

AMANDA:  Yeah.

JULIA:  Probably not.

ERIC:   —your eye gets replaced. a bit blurry at first. And she also—

JULIA:  [9:46] sees a ghost

ERIC:   —she begins having terrifying visions.

JULIA:  There we go.

ERIC:   Mostly a fire and people dying and then she can also see people who are already dead. So yeah, so she gets the the the the sixth sense.

JULIA:  She gets to the sight from the sight.

ERIC:  The sight, yeah.

AMANDA:  Now, I think donating your organs or any of your body parts of science is a completely noble cause I'm an organ donor. I hope that like I think my, my spirit would be very happy if my physical form is able to help others quality of life or to prolong their life after I'm no longer using this, this flesh prison.

ERIC:   Yeah.

AMANDA:  I think I'd be pretty happy for that to be me in a face ghost.

ERIC:   Yeah.

AMANDA:  And I think all I would want to do is just like, I don't know, hang out and make sure that the person with my bone graft can enjoy more foods than I was able to in my lifetime.

JULIA:  I think that brings up an interesting question as to what are the powers and awareness of Tammy, the face ghost. Because it's just a bone graft in someone’s jaw?

ERIC:   It’s very limited.

JULIA:  So it has to be limited, exactly. So like, are you able to taste food that someone else is enjoying? Are you able to see what they are seeing? Or are you just like, aware of movement?

AMANDA:  I think the funnest thing would be that they were able to talk.

JULIA:  Okay.

AMANDA:  And have a real, a real of a ‘The Mask’ situation. Where you're able to you know hopefully improve their quality of life by making them bolder than they would be on their own.

JULIA:  Yes, that was the point of the Jim Carrey movie, The Mask.

ERIC:   I think it could be also something like there's a full Tammy: The Ghost with the rest of her body.

AMANDA:  Oh sure.

ERIC:   She, she liked it but then, this part is better moved in a bit of her ghostly presence is now in this man's, this man's mouth and like every time like maybe he like mixes tooth on like a fork or something, the ghostly, the full ghost gets a little like tinge at that's that's what me pain is for ghosts. So like, this was like totally I was like “Oh, that was like well that was weird. What was that?”

JULIA:  Is Tailypo situation? Where now because a piece of this ghost is in your mouth you are going to be haunted by the rest of the ghost wanting that small piece back?

AMANDA:  That's most likely to me.

ERIC:   Yeah.

JULIA:  I also think that we are skipping over the fully terrifying idea that he asked if it was from one dead body or multiple dead bodies—

ERIC:   Oh, yeah. That’s a whole kind of worms.

JULIA:  —and they could not reveal that information. So is Tammy, the face ghost like, an amalgamation of different people's jaw bones?

AMANDA:  Because I mean then you have a whole workplace comedy where you have multiple ghosts all sharing the same living body and needing to just get along even though they are wildly different archetypes of people in my fiction.

JULIA:  Is this is a haunted as Osmosis Jones situation then?

AMANDA:  That's exactly what it is, Julia.

ERIC:   Let’s say it's a haunted Osmosis Jones.

JULIA:  Cool.

ERIC:   That I feel like makes the most sense and also the least sense. So I feel like exactly the perfect place to land—

JULIA:  Great

ERIC:   —as a final, as a final resting place on this story.

JULIA:  Incredible.

AMANDA:  Fabulous.

JULIA:  Would you get like to hear about... remember how we were talking about how you shouldn't live in funeral homes?

AMANDA:  Oh, yeah.

JULIA:  A couple of episodes ago?

ERIC:   Yeah, yeah, because they're weird liminal places that are supposed to look like houses but aren't.

JULIA:  So I have an email from Jessica, which is titled, “Old Funeral Homes Shouldn't be Real Homes. Just Live in an Existing One, It's Fine!”

AMANDA:  I love that.

ERIC:   Yeah.

JULIA:  So Jessica writes, “Hello, Spoopy Fam! I am almost caught up on Spirits episodes. Thank you for keeping me company during the pandemic lockdown here in Fort Benning, Georgia.”

AMANDA:  Thank YOU for keeping us company, Jessica.

JULIA:  Yeah, “I just finished Your Urban Legends: Creepy Child Scale episode and was delighted to hear you say that old funeral home should not be repurposed into homes for the living because at last, I finally have something to contribute and I love nothing if not attention.”

AMANDA:  Yay!

JULIA:  I love our listeners so much.

AMANDA:  I do too. It's okay to ask for attention. You should. You can.

JULIA:  “You see, I agree with you that is far too creepy to move into an old mortuary seems like a good way to be haunted by some Undertaker sloppy seconds. Although I suppose you could maybe work secondhand ghosts into the home buying negotiations. My preference has always been to live in a, no pun intended living, breathing funeral home. I've been asked this question 1000 times and now I'm asking you, have you ever seen, My Girl? Because my childhood was pretty much my girl now I have not seen the film, My Girl. Has anyone seen—”

ERIC:   I have also not seen My Girl.

JULIA:  Okay, so this is a good reference for our listeners who have seen My Girl, but I have not.

AMANDA:  Eric, could you give us a quick little synopsis if you're on the Wikipedia beat?

ERIC:   I sure can. I'm hacking in.

JULIA:  I love the Wikipedia beat.

ERIC:   The film tells the story of an 11-year-old girl living in Madison, Pennsylvania during the summer of 1972. And then it says, the title refers to the classic 1964 song of the same date by The Temptationss.

JULIA:  Is the family like morticians or something in that movie?

ERIC:   Her father, Harry is a widowed funeral director who does not understand his daughter.

JULIA:  Great. Got it. So…

ERIC:   Yeah, this one had a longer synopsis on The Eye and I don't want to read the whole the whole thing.

JULIA:  So continuing from the email, “For me, death is the family business. My father and his brother and their father before them were all morticians. My mother, her sister, and her sister's husband have all made their careers catering to families saying goodbye, and to walk through our doors is not unheard of to see children sitting in offices answering phone calls or shuffling through paperwork. I have three siblings and every single one of us grew up here their children are doing the same. My home probably saw more dead bodies enter its doors than living babies the day that my parents brought me home.” That's—

AMANDA:  Fair enough.

JULIA:  —hilarious.

ERIC:   Wow.

JULIA:  “I cannot remember seeing my first dead body and if there was ever a time I was scared or disturbed by knowing I slept only rooms away from the departed, then I don't remember that either. It was a part of life for me and while my friends thought it was spooky, gross, and completely bonkers, I never thought twice. It was my home, graveyards were my playground and I spent many happy afternoons marking graves with my dad. Taking a very long metal rod and tunneling it into the ground to find the edges of a burial vault so that the gravediggers know where the next grave over should begin.” I never thought about like how they need to figure out like okay, well did they bury this casket exactly where they were supposed to. Okay, so that's like, you know—

AMANDA:  It’s brilliant.

JULIA:  —10 feet over or whatever, that’s fascinating. “Kind of a weird activity for a little girl poking strangers’ coffins, but like I said, I thought nothing of it and was just hanging out with my dad.”

ERIC:   Honestly, kind of just a weird activity period. I know it's part of the job, but also like casket hunting via a [16:31] rod is just out of any context, kind of a weird thing.

AMANDA:  I think this entire thing is completely sweet and charming, and I'm really enjoying it.

ERIC:   Oh, I love it. I love it too. It's great.

AMANDA:  Yeah. I spent lots of afternoons like laying bricks and moving piles of sand and like digging fence posts with my dad and I can picture the you know, the fun.

ERIC:   My dad did not have me do any electrical work as a child.

AMANDA:  Smart.

JULIA:  And neither of my parents had jobs where I could actively participate in what they were doing. So, no.

AMANDA:  You mean you didn't teach Math to high schoolers, Julia—

JULIA:  No.

AMANDA:  —when yourself were a child?

JULIA:  No, I didn't. “So before I start discussing ghosts or hauntings, I want to establish how seriously my family takes funeral preparations. We were never allowed to reference our home as a haunted house or to decorate for Halloween or to make a big deal or game out of the spookiness of the whole living situation. People came to us to say goodbye and my father made sure that we understood that nobody's family should ever be reduced to a ghost story or to something ghoulish. So here I am for the fun of sharing my experience. But since I know how important it would have been to my dad, I can't continue without emphasizing how much genuine love care respect, and reverence is involved in undertaking which I super appreciate.” Like I know a lot of us have like a fear of death and other things associated with death and particularly jobs that are associated with death. So it is really nice to be reminded like these people take care of your family in what is usually the worst time of your lives. So thank you for that.

AMANDA:  Totally.

JULIA:  “So while my older sister who took over the family business after my father's retirement swears the place is haunted, I never had any spooky experiences, at least not until college. I went to university full time in my hometown and I worked nights at my family's funeral home. Now my aging parents lived upstairs accessed via stairs in the back or the personal elevator that they had installed because of their mobility issues and the actual business portion was contained downstairs. After dinner, I would drive over to their place, unlock the downstairs entrance and work on transferring information from their file cabinets into a new data system in their computers. You see my dad was probably more old school than anyone and held on to some damn like typewriters as long as the technology allowed.” It’s very cute.

AMANDA:  I feel like you haven't gone to college unless you've had a data entry job getting paid like five to $7 an hour.

JULIA:  Yeah, that's about right.

ERIC:   That sounds right.

JULIA:  “Seeing as how it was usually pitch black except for the particular room I was working in and the exit lights in the halls and how there were literal dead bodies around the corner, I would always bring my maybe not brave but definitely not bothered golden retriever mix, Ballad with me to keep me from getting the scaries and spending too much time thinking about things like hey, I'm working the graveyard shift and how in Night at the Museum everything comes to life at night and how much that would absolutely suck here. Also laughing at your own jokes as I am prone to do is really creepy if you think about how it is the only sound echoing down the black hallways into rooms with dead people.”

AMANDA:  I don't know. Again, if I were, if I were the dead person there I'd hope someone was having a nice job at work you know and like having a good time and a dog was there you know enjoying a nice news.

JULIA:  “One night, Ballad and I were carrying on business as usual or trying to except the computer in the office I typically use just would not work. I don't know much about electronics. So I can't exactly describe the problem but it kept glitching out whatever there are other offices and other computers I can use those. Except I couldn't those computers kept kicking me out of the data programs as well annoying weird that they were all having the same problem but not scary. But as I am gathering up the folders containing details and remnants of lives that no longer exist, I heard a sound down the hallway towards the back of the funeral home. A sound I refused to investigate alone and the electric typewriter behind me beeped and reset itself as though someone was preparing to type.” 

ERIC:  Oh boy.

JULIA:  “Ballad lazy and unflappable was suddenly ready to leave. She stood up from where she had been napping and went to the door turned and waited for me her eyes just saying, ‘Jess, we should go outside.’ I told her we can't go home yet she doesn't know it but I get paid by the hour and leaving this early doesn't work for me. She stayed by the door.” Love a dog who's just like, “Ma'am, we need to leave.” and you're like, “No, capitalism. I'm sorry, dog.” “I finally found a computer that would cooperate with me laughing at my own Heebie Jeebies and set to work. Ballad had reluctantly followed me into the office but stood by the door the whole time waiting for me to get up and follow her out. She was uncomfortable and clearly wanted to not be in this building anymore. I reassured her everything was fine and we would leave soon, but I could tell something was on her mind. The typewriter next door woke up again. I ignored it. I don't know how that thing works. It's probably normal for it to do that sometimes. Do they have settings that they need to update? Who knows? Nobody because nobody uses this typewriter.”

AMANDA:  Love slash hate the phrase woke up regarding that typewriter.

ERIC:   Yeah, that, that also was like a real choice in words, for sure.

JULIA:  Jake has the older like the Xbox One or whatever. And every once in a while, it will just like bleep to life and I'm like, no one's near you. No one wants to play your games right now, Xbox! And it scares me every time even though it's a very gentle like pleasant sound when it bleeps to life. “And then I hear that sound down the hallway again. Mind you, it is about 11 PM at this point, there should be no sounds down this hallway. My parents live upstairs but like I said they're older and in bed by now. What is that sound and where is it coming from? Is it running water? The embalming room in the back has running water. I cracked the blinds and peek outside checking to see if perhaps we got a call in the middle of the night if someone was bringing in a body and embalming it already my car was the only one in the employee lot. Ballad leaves comes back, begs for me to follow her so I do. She stands by the exit door we entered in through and begins to cry like, ‘Now! Please! Let's go!’ I give in. I've had enough. I grabbed my shit. I clipped her leash on and I shove her and everything else I have into my car. The next day I called my parents to tell them the bad news about how they're haunted now.” Just great! Just like, “Oh hey, by the way, I heard some running water from the embalming room, no one was there you're probably haunted now, sorry about that.” “Hate to say it but you have ghosts. They laugh. My mother a migraine sufferer had felt ill in the middle of the night and my father had taken her to the ER what I heard earlier in the night when I first encountered all the computer problems was them leaving and the sound that I mistook for running water in the embalming room was actually the sound of their tiny elevator that they used after getting home.” which is very cute.

ERIC:   Classic. Classic mistaking the elevator for running water.

JULIA:  “Yes, my dad said the typewriter will often reset itself for no reason multiple times after a surge which is likely what happened before I ever got there. Maybe that was the problem with the computers as well. I can't account for that but I can account for not knowing how the hell a computer works. So as for Ballad’s panic mode, she had a terrible case of the runs the second I let her out of the car back at my house that night.”

AMANDA:  Oh, Ballad! No!

JULIA:  Ballad! “So her urgency was less evil Spirits and more diarrhea. My mistake, they looked the same to me. But anyway, that is a story about how I have never called out sick a day in my life but I did leave work early once because of ghosts. Sorry but also not sorry that I don't have a real funeral home ghost story to tell you but it just occurs to me that I have in fact been haunted by malicious Spirits before and maybe I can tell you that that one day if they let me in the past they don't want me to talk about it.”

AMANDA:  Oh!

JULIA:  Also a little like aside at the end here, “Also military bases in Southern USA, haunted as fuck! I am palming my entire face for not thinking to even mention the ghost in the barracks at Fort Jackson.” But this email has gone on long enough. One day, if you are interested, I will tell you all about the sad ghost that sang to me on guard duty. You guys creep me out at night, sincerely, Jess. So please send us those emails. Just please, I want those backup emails.

AMANDA:  Jess, I love this story and I've never been so happy for hunting to have an explanation. I find that just as satisfying personally as hauntings without explanations. Like, this was a real journey. I loved it very much and I love that this was you know, an entertaining story for us that was still in keeping with you know how your family treats your profession and the people that you serve.

JULIA:  Hell, yeah.

ERIC:   It was very nice, lovely story. Also, just like a lovely amount of just kind of shenanigans happening that end up appearing to be spooky.

JULIA:  I love creepy shenanigans.

AMANDA:  I have an email from Huntress [25:00] titled, I Think I Found A Modern Ghost.

ERIC:   A modern ghost.

JULIA:  Finally!

ERIC:   Modern Ghost: All About Town.

JULIA:  We have the one that was haunting Tik Tok at one point. That's a fun one. I'm excited for this one.

ERIC:   Yeah.

AMANDA:  Yeah, I mean, we've had three relatively modern haunting situations right now. So I'm looking forward to it. Okay, Hunter writes, "One of my favorite activities is to go on long walks at sunset and sunrise. One day I was visiting my grandparents who live on an old farmhouse, which isn't used as a farm anymore, but still has the old barn and whatnot. The barn is pretty far away from the old house on a small hill. It also has this old used to be red, but is now faded gray wood color. I'm sure you know what I mean. I've always been intrigued by the oldest aesthetic that it has. I remember you guys saying people never find modern ghosts. So I believe I have one for you now. I was on a pre-sunrise walk and had come back through the woods that lie at the edge of my grandparents’ property. I walked toward the old barn as it was in the same direction as the house was. As I follow the trail back to the barn slash house. I saw what I thought was my grandpa because he's also an early riser. as I got closer, though, I noticed that the person I thought was my grandpa definitely wasn't. 

JULIA:  Oh!

AMANDA:  For one, it wasn't a man but a teenager around the age of 14 to 16, same age I was at the time. The guy had short, brown wavy pair of black jean short overalls with a white shirt underneath, as well as black and white striped tights and [26:18] small short platform boots.

JULIA:  Damn! That's style.

AMANDA:  "Dude, we're in a farmhouse, how even walking in these boots? Platforms in the country? What are you doing? I asked the guy what he was doing there because he didn't fit into the surroundings at all, and he looked shocked. 'You can see me?' He said.”

ERIC:   Mm-hmm!

AMANDA:  "I told him, 'Yes.' And then he asked me a really weird question. 'Do you mind if I asked how you died?'”

JULIA:  Oh, no! 

ERIC:   Oh! Oh! It got worse. It got worse in a bad way. 

JULIA:  Oh no, my guy! 

ERIC:   This is like that film, Wristcutters: A Love Story. A classic film, very good. Got some wild casting in there. 

AMANDA:  Oh, really?

ERIC:   Nick Offerman before Parks and Rec Wil Arnet's in there. Tom Waits is in there.

AMANDA:  What? 

ERIC:   It's a real good film. It's a, it's a great film.

JULIA:  Wild. 

AMANDA:  Okay, back to Huntress. "I was taken aback, "I'm not dead!" I told him because I know for a fact I'm not. 

JULIA:  Hmpf, do you? Do you though? 

AMANDA:  "'Then how can you see me? Unless you're stuck here too?' 'What do you mean stuck here?' Just as our conversation was starting to get really interesting, the sun began coming up. As I raise my hand to touch him, the boy began to fade. 'Wait, don't go yet!' the boy called out just before he disappeared."

JULIA:  Ohhhhhhh! 

AMANDA:  Then Huntress says, "My personal theory is that this person is stuck in the place of a ghost but never actually died."

JULIA:  Ooh! Interesting! An interesting theory."

ERIC:   Oh, no!

AMANDA:  I love this interaction.

JULIA:  Stuck in the place of a ghost but never actually died. Hmm! My theory is that it is a fun little joke that some Hot Topic teen pulled on her. 

ERIC:   A Hot Topic teen. 

JULIA:  That whole outfit it's a Hot Topic teen look.

ERIC:   It very much is. 

AMANDA:  It very much is, it's a mall teen.  Yeah.

ERIC:   But that's like that's a Hot Topic teen from like our day. 

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:   Hot Topic teens now we're wearing my Critical Roles shirts, and just like Levi's, they're like normies. Hot Topic is for normies now, it's weird.

JULIA:  Hot Topic still sells goth stuff. It's just less goth stuff. 

ERIC:   They do, but they also sell a lot of just normie shit. 

JULIA:  Yeah, they do.

ERIC:   I say this as a normie.

AMANDA:  Sorry, Eric. Are you wearing a Critical Role shirt right now?

ERIC:   No, I'm wearing a Goblin Bunker shirt--

AMANDA:  Okay. 

ERIC:   --from Tim Rogers' YouTube videos.

JULIA:  Fair enough. 

AMANDA:  Nice. 

JULIA:  I'm still theorizing here. I think that maybe we know we love liminal spaces here. right? 

ERIC:   Oh, yes. Love them. 

JULIA:  I think malls are liminal spaces. 

AMANDA:  Yes.

JULIA:  Especially like outdated malls. 

AMANDA:  A 100%

ERIC:   Yeah, any mall now. 

AMANDA:  Any mall now.

ERIC:   For sure. 

JULIA:  Yes.

AMANDA:  Yeah.

JULIA:  So I think maybe this guy got stuck in some sort of like mall liminal space and now he's like appearing in random places across the world. because like...

AMANDA:  Oh!

JULIA:  He's, he's stuck.

AMANDA:  Like walking into different storefronts and they're just kind of pop him out different places around the world which would explain the attire in the country lane.

ERIC:   That makes... it makes sense to me.

AMANDA:  Fascinating. 

ERIC:   It makes sense. 

JULIA:  I'm glad. 

ERIC:   I saw on like, the lu... but maybe it was liminal space subreddit or something. It was a picture of a mall and I literally couldn't tell if it was my childhood mall or not. Like that's how similar malls are. They all look identical.

JULIA:  Might have been, you never know.

AMANDA:  Yeah, it's truly amazing. And I just I love this exchange wherein like, 20 words we went from, "You can see me?" "How do you died?" "Then how can you see me too?" just such a good exchange. Well, Huntress, thank you very much for writing in. I love it. This is like a beautiful short story with this exchange of dialogue going from a strange occurrence of seeing a Hot Topic teen and platform boots on the road to definitely being briefly stuck with a ghost. 

ERIC:   Well, I'm gonna go scroll through Instagram a bit more while we grab some refills. 

AMANDA:  Let's do it.


ADS


JULIA:  Amanda, there's nothing like being comfortable in the clothes that you are wearing at home especially during the summer. Like I find it very difficult to be comfortable during the summer because like all my clothes are either sticky if I don't have the AC on or I'm cold if I turn the AC on almost immediately.

AMANDA:  Yeah. 

JULIA:  So there's very little in between for me. But thankfully, I have been not only rocking a Third Love bra I have also been rocking some other loungewear and it’s extremely comfortable.

AMANDA:  How's it going for you?

JULIA:  It's going really great. You know what, Amanda? Third Love is and should be your go to destination for comfortable and quality everyday essentials. You deserve to be comfortable and Third Loves bras, underwear, sleep and loungewear all help with that, seriously. You can find your favorite everyday essentials from their new feather lace collection to their 24 seven classic t-shirt bra and if you don't feel like getting dressed in the morning, now you don't have to because Third Love has sleepwear and it's extremely comfortable as well I wear it like all day on a Lazy Sunday and I am like just as comfortable as I was when I woke up. 

AMANDA:  Oh, that's delightful! And if people out there who deserve some TLC, Third Love Comfort want to get some for themselves what can they do?

JULIA:  They can go to thirdlove.com/spirits right now to get 20% off your first purchase. That is thirdlove.com/spirits for 20% off today. 

AMANDA:  And Julia I recently went to some of my first in-person a friend hangs for a while of people that like I don't I haven't been in my pod that I haven't been seeing you know on Zoom regularly and it was a little bit nerve wracking to be like, hey, it is 98 degrees inside. What do I want to wear? How do I show off my cool tattoos? How do I stay calm, cool and comfortable? How do I look stylish and not just wearing my very comfy loungewear outside all the time? And the answer for me it's Stitch Fix. Stitch Fix offers clothing hand selected by expert stylists for your size, style and budgets amazing because they send you stuff that's in the price range you already told them about. So they don't send you something and you're like oh god I love this but it is above the price range that I was looking for. Best part is you can try on the pieces at home in your regular lighting in your regular house without going to a changing room which I don't know about you has always been a bit of a phobia for me and whatever you like you keep, whatever you don't like you send right back they include a pre paid return envelope and shipping returns and exchanges are always free. This is how it works, you pay a $20 styling fee for each box which gets automatically credited toward any pieces you keep. There's no hidden fees, it's easy to understand the checkout process is nice. Stitch Fix is just the bomb. So get started today at stitchfix.com/spirits will get 25% off when you keep everything in your Fix that's stitchfix.com/spirits for 25% off when you keep everything in your fix, stitchfix.com/spirits.

JULIA:  I'm getting my new box soon, I'm very excited.

AMANDA:  It's the best day when you come home to a Stitch Fix box.

JULIA:  You know what also is always the best day ever, Amanda? A good hair day. I find it so difficult sometimes to like look at my hair and be like today are you going to behave or are you not going to behave? And the answer is when I wash my hair and use my Function of Beauty products it's a good hair day all the time. Function of Beauty is the world leader in customizable beauty offering customized formulas specifically for your hair's needs. You just have to take a quick but thorough quiz that tells them about your hair type whether it's like straight or wavy or curly or like hair goals. What do you want to do? Do you want to lengthen it you want to volumize you want oil control and like sometimes your hair acts differently depending on the season. 

AMANDA:  Totally!

JULIA:  So like it gets frizzy in the winter but oily in the summer and so your hair goals change and you can switch up your formula by just like telling Function of Beauty like hey, I need a little oil control nowadays. Also Amanda they have a new subscriber program, Function with Benefits. Subscribers get discounts on every order, a free treatment whether that's a hair mask or a serum or a leave in conditioner every four orders and they get access to exclusive fragrances and colors and new products. 

AMANDA:  Ooh, ooh! It is awesome. And my favorite part as always, you can choose the color fragrance and fragrance level or go fragrance and dye free if that is useful to you and even put your little name on the side of the bottle. It is truly so customizable and you deserve to turn your good hair days into a good hair life. Go to functionofbeauty.com/spirits to take your quiz and save 20% on your first order go to functionofbeauty.com/spirits to let them know you heard about it from our show and get 20% off your order. functionofbeauty.com/spirits. And now let's get back to the show.


What are we drinking?

JULIA:  So here's the thing, I was in my local beer depot the other day picking up-- 

ERIC:   My local beer depot! 

JULIA:  Well, you know? It's a beverage depot.

ERIC:   The beer depot where you could get lumber, and a six-pack.

AMANDA:  You're describing Long Island, Eric!

JULIA:  Yes, that's just Long Island, sorry. So I haven't been to Harpoon Brewery I think since I lived in Boston, and I haven't really picked up a lot of their stuff because their stuff was always kind of like, meh to me. But they had two beers that I have to tell you guys about. One was the one that I'm drinking today, which is the House Marg, which is like a margarita inspired like sour beer and it's delicious and delightful and it's got a little bit like lime in it. And it's got like a little bit of like this kind of rosy flavor to it, which is really nice, I'm a big fan of it. But my absolute favorite and I'm usually not a stout person, Amanda, but I know you are. 

AMANDA:  Yeah.

JULIA:  So, I'm gonna recommend this one to you. Amanda, it is the Mike's Pastry Cannoli Stout.

AMANDA:  Oh, my! 

JULIA:  After the incredible 24-hour bakery that makes incredible cannolis, Mike's Pastries in the north end of Boston. If you're in Boston, go get a pastry for Mike's Pastries. Their Ricotta [35:38] Cannoli is incredible. But the fact that they have a Mike's Pastry Cannoli Stout, I will start drinking stouts in the summer just for this. 

AMANDA:  Oh, hell yeah. I went to a very small or vaccinated wedding in Charlottesville, Virginia a few weeks ago, and we came home with far more alcohol in our car than when we left.

JULIA:  Classic.

AMANDA:  Because lots of distilleries, breweries, and cideries down there that we really like. So I came home with a 24 pack of Bold Rock IPA Cider, and they call it their India-Pressed Apple Blend. It is so good. If I just tried it and didn't know that there was hops in it. I would never in a million years tell you that there are. But it just makes the sweetness, t's just a little bit cut and it tastes like apple. It tastes delicious. It is crushable you can drink lots of them in a row or drink them you know slowly over the course of a day and I feel like with barbecue season coming up and all of that it's important to have something that you know like a sea quench or Brooklyn summer those are kind of my go-tos if like at a barbecue. I know I can have like a few of these over the course of a day and I'm not going to get tired of it and it's going to keep me refreshed. And I'm adding Bold Rock IPA to my list.

JULIA:  Oh hell yeah, that sounds delightful. And I do love a drink that I can absolutely crush throughout the day. 

ERIC:   Well then, I have a drink-- 

JULIA:  Oh, boy! 

ERIC:   --for you two. Great Lakes. I've recommended a few Great Lakes over the years. I think last time I recommended one as well. This time I am recommending their near beer. Their, their near beer? It is near to me. There's an empty can near to me, but their new beer, Crushworthy. It's right in the title. It's just like, I think Amanda recommended something called Crushable--

AMANDA:  Yeah.

ERIC:   --a few weeks ago. This is Crushworthy from Great Lakes. It's their new locale citrus sweet. It's like 100 calories, and it's a nice light beer and it's a light beer that actually tastes good, which I feel like is something that garden variety light beers don't. So it's nice that breweries are like, thinking of people like us that like want to, like have a drink all day day, but not like just wasted during that. And just like it also wants something that tastes flavorful. So like-- 

AMANDA:  Yeah.

ERIC:   --this is exactly that. I've picked up a few six-packs of it and it's nice to just have like two in the evening after work. You get to drink it for a bit longer, but it's about the same as drinking one regular beer, which is, which is nice.

JULIA:  Plus citrus sweet sounds nice. I like that. 

ERIC:   It's quite nice. Yeah. It's nice and refreshing, as Amanda said about, about her recommendation. 

JULIA:  Yeah, I love a beer that I can have two of and have and then not feel like I have to take a nap after. 

ERIC:   Exactly. Yeah. As we age, being able to drink two beers is sometimes a rare treat for, for us.

JULIA:  But my problem is like I'm a, I'm a six I like a tall boy. I like a 16 ouncer.

ERIC:   Yes, we all [38:15]

JULIA:  I want to drink two of those. So [38:19] shut up! So I like, I like to have two beers because I feel like that is like the appropriate amount. But when it's a 16 ouncer you know, it's usually more alcohol and double the volume literally. So it's, it's a bit of a struggle sometimes for me because I'm small.

ERIC:   Yeah 

JULIA:  And two beers is a lot of beer sometimes.

AMANDA:  Well, do you know what I find really crushable on refreshing? 

JULIA:  Is it stories from our listeners? 

AMANDA:  It's a story titled, Queers Living in Haunted Church from Alex [30:36].

JULIA:  Oh, hell yeah bruh. 

ERIC:   That is something.

AMANDA:  Ah, this email just delights me from beginning to end. Alright, come with me on this journey. Alex writes, "Hello Spirits Three, I'm a huge fan of all the multiverse." which Alex, the first time I've heard someone use multiverse refer to Multitude shows. 

JULIA:   Good.

ERIC:   Also, Spirits Three, which I also like. 

AMANDA:  Yeah! 

ERIC:   It felt like we're like pirates of the Spirits Three!

JULIA:  Arr! The Spirit Three! 

AMANDA:  Or the Witches Three in Macbeth.

ERIC:   Yeah. 

AMANDA:  “Love the content. I got a spooky story for you about my very queer roommate and I were both trans and professional drag artists living in an old haunted church. Content warning: There are brief mentions of post-surgery depression, just so you know. Two years ago, I moved neighborhoods in Toronto, I moved from an old house downtown built in the early 1800s to an old church converted into apartments in the West End built-in 1886." 

JULIA:  Alright, let's talk about this real quick. Sorry. Would you move into a old church that was converted into apartments? 

ERIC:   Oh, yeah, for sure.

AMANDA:  Yeah, I think the architecture is too good not to.

JULIA:  It might just be the Catholic Guilt talking here, y'all. I don't think I'd be into that. I think I would just be stressed out. 

ERIC:   What if it's an old Baptist Church? 

JULIA:  That would probably be better, to be quite honest. Probably a bit better.

ERIC:   As long as it's not bought from a Diocese, you're fine with it? 

JULIA:  Yeah, yeah. 

ERIC:   Now, what about Lutheran because those are pretty similar. Would that be okay? Or just...

JULIA:  I think as long as it's some form of Protestant that’s not Catholicism, I probably down for it.

AMANDA:  So listen, we're not claiming this makes sense, we're just saying. 

JULIA:  It's just my gut instinct here. Listen, there's no logic to it. It's just gut. 

AMANDA:  "Well, I'm used to living in old houses and working with old spirits, so I wasn't too worried about the move. I couldn't have been more wrong." 

JULIA:  See? See? 

AMANDA:  "Pretty much immediately since moving into the apartment, I noticed the Spirits starting messing around with my drag. Hiding brushes or pallets, knocking over my costume materials from the other side of the room, scratching in the walls, pretty harmless stuff like that. But add to the creepiness of it, our studio is five degrees colder than the rest of the house. As in you get a wave of cool air when you walk through the door from the room beside it. I started with telling the Spirits I acknowledged their long presence in the house and thanking them for letting us live with them. Eventually started leaving out salt and minor wards to protect us as they got more active. I've been primarily responsible for keeping the Spirits on track and aside from their measly attempts to scare us, I've been able to keep a decent relationship with them. Until I got my top surgery in December due to my physical and mental health being bad since surgery, extreme depression after any surgery is normal, by the way even gender-affirming ones. I was unable to keep up with my rituals to keep the Spirits at bay. So as you can expect things escalated. Loud banging and noises can be heard when we start recording videos or take pictures of our drag only to our ears, by the way, they're not on the recordings. 

JULIA:  Huh! 

ERIC:   Oh boy. 

JULIA:  They might just had the gain turned down too low, if you turn the gain up and you'll hear it. 

AMANDA:  "It's a regular occurrence now to hear the opening then slamming of our front door, walking into our living room and roughing through our stuff only to find no one's there when you get back. And the creepiest one yet, when I first started getting back into cooking after recovery, the face of someone screaming showed up in my cast iron when it warmed up."

JULIA:  Hey! Hard no! Thank you. Mm-hmm!

ERIC:   Mm-hmm! You know what? This is going to be a controversial statement. Maybe you got to wash that cast iron.

JULIA:  Controversial statement is maybe the cast iron because cast irons last a very very long time, haunted. 

ERIC:   That also could be it

AMANDA:  I mean isn't seasoning your cast iron basically haunting it?

JULIA:  No! 

AMANDA:  Like they just-- 

ERIC:  It’s haunting it with flavor.

JULIA:  [42:11]

AMANDA:  --it is haunting it with flavor!

ERIC:   That's why everyone refers to a really good dish as hauntingly beautiful. 

AMANDA:  Yeah! You're having all of the, all of the leave-behinds the particulates of past meals accrete and bring their own nonstick and flavor to the party. 

JULIA:  I don't know if I can come with you on this one.

ERIC:   I did say we didn't we didn't discuss it [42:32] episode but I did talk about like whether or not like trees and other like living things that like or like plants have like could become ghosts. I don't think we explored it enough. But now like we could, we could explore it. Spices also once living now dead crushed up dried, put into a cast iron. Are the ghosts of herbs haunting cast iron pans all over the nation and world?

AMANDA:  Well, I do have to say that Alex did investigate this. Okay, so they said, "This freaked me out but I decided to cook my breakfast anyway.”

JULIA:  I just use a different pan! 

ERIC:  Gotta have three square meals. 

AMANDA:  "I then cleaned my cast iron normally. No soap, before you ask. Checking it for other flaws, none were there. I then pass it to my roommate who did the same. This went on for three days before I mentioned to my roommate, hey, maybe I should bring it to someone who can remove whatever happened to it within three hours of saying that the entire cast iron had RUSTED OVER!"

JULIA:  No! Rust doesn't spread that fast!

AMANDA:  I know! "Needless to say, bad cast iron has not been in our house since."

JULIA:  Yeah, like I said, cast iron, haunted. 

AMANDA:  "We're now in the middle of packing for a move date of July 1st to another old haunted house!"

JULIA:  Why?

AMANDA:  But having been to the place, I'm happy to say the Spirits there seemed much more chill. And I wouldn't be surprised if they are also queer. Best, Alex." 

JULIA:  Incredible, incredible. 

AMANDA:  I was entranced by the setup. I enjoyed the journey. But then the cast iron rusting in three hours just like that's creepy on so many levels. 

ERIC:   Yeah, that's that seems extremely fast.

JULIA:  Yeah, that's no, no, I would have thrown it out or just use a different pan, use a different pan! 

AMANDA:  Well, the cast iron is not in the house any longer and it's not coming with them to the new spot. So Alex, let us know how the move ends up being.

JULIA:  Good. So I want to finish this off by returning to an old favorite. A familiar but a somewhat forgotten friend. And-- 

ERIC:   Oh, no!

JULIA:  This is an email from Dot. And she titles it, Just Another Spaghetti Warehouse Haunting? 

AMANDA:  Yes! 

ERIC:   Just another one. 

JULIA:  Just another one. We're back, we're back at it. We're back at The Spaghetti Warehouse. 

AMANDA:  Restaurants in the US are returning and so is The Spaghetti Ghost.

JULIA:  So she writes, "I am just now listening to Episode 58 where several years ago you asked about any Spaghetti Warehouse stories. I know I'm years late, but I wanted to partake in this anyway when I was a teenager maybe 15 or 16, I went to Spaghetti Warehouse in Houston with my friend's family for her birthday dinner. She chose this location specifically because it was on Houston's Most Haunted list. As you recall, our original Spaghetti Warehouse story, I believe was the Houston Spaghetti Warehouse."

AMANDA:  I believe it was too.

ERIC:   Sounds right.

JULIA:  "I don't remember much about the trip. But what I do remember, I will never forget. Our server told us several stories about spooky happenings that occurred while they were closing the restaurant and stories that other servers had relayed to them. Sorry, I don't remember any of these. As they went to put in our order. They let us know that the upstairs area had the most reported spirit activity. So it took maybe 20 minutes before my friend and I gathered the courage to go upstairs. The stairs were very worn, made of a dark mahogany type wood and were poorly lit by this beautiful crystal chandelier." Probably shouldn't have a poorly lit staircase just as an aside. That's how you get more ghosts... or lawsuits.

AMANDA:  So true and what are lawsuits except for ghosts of liability?

ERIC:   No, I'm not... this one, we're not doing. 

AMANDA:  Both Eric and Julia started shaking their head as soon as I started talking. So you guys know me too well. 

JULIA:  You said what are ghosts but lawsuits I thought, "No!" 

ERIC:   We can't make everything into a ghost. 

JULIA:  "They creaked every few steps and gave you chills the further up you got. Right before you reach the top, there is a 90 degree right turn with several more steps to reach the top. This area of the restaurant was used as an overspill dining area and a small second kitchen area. However, we went on a quiet weekday so it was empty with the occasional server running up there for silverware or glasses. When we reached the top of the stairs, it almost fell silent. It was jarring going from a brightly lit and lively noise to what felt like poorly lit lighting with the occasional muffled noises from boisterous downstairs guests. There were beautiful but creepy lamps with dark shades along the walls. We slowly admired all the wall art and antiques the way one would admire paintings in a museum. As we got to the furthest corner of the room from the stairs, my friend felt a cold draft and started speed walking back to the staircase. I laughed and pointed to the nearest vent and explained that we were in a restaurant and restaurants were always cold." which is true, restaurants: always cold. "As I laughed, I heard a lightbulb crunch behind me. It wasn't a pop like it burned out or had a short. It wasn't a glass getting crushed under someone's foot like that follows a Mazel Tov it didn't sound like a glass breaking from downstairs or in the kitchen. It sounded like a chandelier bulb had been crushed by a hand at ear level, three feet behind me." 

AMANDA:  Oh, god. 

JULIA:  "My heart stopped for a second. I quickly turned around towards the sound and all the lights were on I went to inspect the area and I couldn't find anything. I'm the type of person that stays brave while everyone else is panicking, and then I panic later when everyone is fine. So I told my friend It was probably just a server in the kitchen. I peeked my head through the saloon-style kitchen doors and there was no one in there. As I walked out of the kitchen towards the stairs with my bravest face on, I felt a warmish breath on the right side of my neck and heard a deep raspy voice whisper in my ear. 'Hello.' I screamed and proceeded to run down the creaky stairs with my friend and never went back. Thanks for creating a space to share spooky stories without or with minimal or with funny judgments. Great show." If you have Spaghetti Warehouse stories, send us more. This is fantastic. I'd like, I want to know why they broke the chandelier bulb. Like what, what about that was like did the chandelier fall on them and that's how they died? And so now they're like, you know, destroying the thing that destroyed them?

AMANDA:  Yeah. Or maybe they're, they're carrying it or had in their hand for some reason. And it like resets every, every morning, you know? And so they can like use it to catch attention. 

JULIA:  A Palm Springs thing, I see. I see. 

AMANDA:  I would love more than anything to hear from someone who knows someone who does like restaurant decor. Like I would love to talk to somebody who decorates like a TGI Friday's, an Applebee's, Spaghetti Warehouse.

JULIA:  Yeah, how do they go about doing that? That's fascinating because like Spaghetti Warehouses all weird vintage stuff. And-- 

AMANDA:  Yeah.

JULIA:  --from the area so--

AMANDA:  Yeah. 

JULIA:  --I'm very curious.

ERIC:   I feel like Friday's probably just has a warehouse full of that stuff that is just mass-manufactured for Friday's. But Spaghetti Warehouse does like it is like it seems mostly authentic. So and they're not like building those streetcars, surely. But I don't think they're also opening a lot of Spaghetti Warehouses. So, so it's probably not that hard.

JULIA:  I think arguably, more Spaghetti Warehouses have closed than have opened in the past 10 years. 

ERIC:   Yeah, probably. 

JULIA:  But like if you go to an Applebee's and it's like the neighborhood Applebee's it has all of the like local stuff.

AMANDA:  Yeah. 

JULIA:  Like it used to have our sports team memorabilia and whatnot.

ERIC:   That's true, yeah. 

JULIA:  So they can't be mass manufacturing all of that. 

AMANDA:  Actually, it could be really interesting.

JULIA:  Yeah. It's a cool job. If you have that job or you know someone who has that job, let us know. 

AMANDA:  Well, I feel like we really ran the emotional gamut today.

ERIC:   We did. 

AMANDA:  We had some modern ghosts we had a few spaghetti vintages and it was just another delightful tour of your hometown urban legends.

JULIA:  I love these episodes. I love people sharing their very spooky, very sweet stories with us and I know that all of our listeners are enjoying it as well as they Stay Creepy.

AMANDA:  Stay cool.


[OUTRO]


AMANDA:  Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Alison Wakeman.

JULIA:  Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances and merch on our website as well as a form to send us your urban legends at spiritspodcast.com.

AMANDA:  Join our member community on Patreon, patreon.com/spiritspodcast for all kinds of behind the scenes stuff. Just $1 gets you access to audio extras with so much more available, too. Recipe cards, directors commentaries, exclusive merch and real physical gifts.

JULIA:  We are a founding member of Multitude, a collective of independent audio professionals. If you'd like Spirits you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude.productions.

AMANDA:  And above all else. If you liked what you heard today, please share us with your friends. That is the very best way to help us keep on growing.

JULIA:  Thank you so much for listening. Till next time!



Transcriptionist: Krizia Casil