Episode 248: Your Urban Legends LIV - Do You Want to Be a Pickle Man?!
/Children in dangerous situations, children being scared by pickles, the kids are creepy but alright! The new urban legends episode features many holes, and NONE of them are good.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of missing persons, child endangerment, religious persecution, car accidents, death, animal death/entrails, nuclear meltdown/Chernobyl, sex, and grandparent death.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends the work of Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. Check out her book, Surprised by God.
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
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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 248: Your Urban Legends Number LIV.
JULIA: The title kind of gives it away but we have a discussion about pickles.
AMANDA: I love these episodes. I love getting to chat with you guys and I love the stories that our listeners submit. So everybody, thank you so much for doing that.
JULIA: Yeah, I really love the silly ones as much as I love the intensely scary ones. So, I think this is a good balance of that.
AMANDA: I think so too. And I think people who just are, like, well balanced generally are our new patrons: Matt, Catherine, Edwin, Masha, and Mira, thank you so much for joining. And thanks as well to our supporting-producer level patrons: Uhleeseeuh, Allison, Bryan, Debra, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Jessica Stewart, Justin, Keegan, Kneazlekins, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi.
JULIA: And Amanda the people who I would take camping with if I was an 18 year old in the woods, you'll see about it later, would be our legend-level patrons: Audra, Clara, Drew, Jaybaybay, Ki, Lexus, Mary, Morgan, Morgan H., Mother of Vikings, Sarah, & Bea Me Up Scotty.
AMANDA: We are sustained by your support just like we are sustained by the silly and scary stories that conspirators email into us. So, thank you, patrons so much. And as always, if you would care to have your name, read on the show, and become a patron of Spirits. You can do that at patreon.com/spiritspodcast.
JULIA: It's great. Do it. Let us make more podcasts.
AMANDA: Hooray.
JULIA: Amanda, speaking of making more podcasts, sometimes we take a break from making podcasts and we, we read things, we watch things, we listen to things. What have you been reading, watching, listening to lately?
AMANDA: Well, Julia, it is Rosh Hashanah of the Jewish New Year, and I could not recommend more highly, the works of Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. She is one of my favorite follow on Twitter. She writes a fantastic newsletter called Life is a Sacred Text. And she's written a number of really lovely books, including Surprised by God and Nurture the Wow. So, I highly recommend if nothing else, following her on Twitter. Certainly subscribing to her newsletter. And all of those books are totally worth your time.
JULIA: Ooh, that sounds lovely. What a good choice, Amanda. Thank you.
AMANDA: Yeah, she's @TheRaDR on Twitter.
JULIA: Nice, and you'll find the link in the show notes under Amanda's recommendation corner.
AMANDA: Absolutely, and Shanah Tovah everybody. Enjoy one of the many fantastic guests that we've had on over the course of the show. We've had some excellent Jewish authors this year. As well as fantastic previous episodes on things like Passover and The Golem.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. Check those out. Enjoy them. And Amanda, you know what I've been enjoying? It's the newest show on Multitude.
AMANDA: What's that? A new member show?
JULIA: It's a new member show, this is the newest Olympian. Consider Amanda, what if Percy Jackson was the YA Series that we should have been reading all this time? I know that I kind of missed the, like, premiere of it because I was a little bit too old when the books came out and now I regret it.
AMANDA: Just a little too old.
JULIA: Yeah,
AMANDA: But great news, you now have a little bit of a digital book club. Where whether you are a fan who wants to dive back in and hear somebody new experiencing a series that you love. Or you never got on the train, and you want an excuse to do so. It's the perfect time to do it.
JULIA: It really is. Join Mike Schubert, who you might know from Potterless, and he is reading through the books for the first time. And he's going to bring that sassy great energy that he's brought to all of his podcasts, and new episodes are every Monday. You can search for The Newest Olympian in your podcast app, or you can go to thenewestolympian.com to start listening.
AMANDA: Well, Julia, without further ado, we hope that you all enjoy Spirits podcast Episode 248: Your Urban Legends Number LIV.
AMANDA: Guys, a lot has changed since 2015, when the three of us were on, I believe a group Facebook message, talking about what it would be like to start a podcast. And one of those things is my family has a much different idea of what I do for a living than they used to. And the evidence for this is a text message I got from one of my Aunts, who I love very deeply. I don't know if you need the context here. She's very Catholic and was born in the 60s. Here we go. Amanda, it's Aunt Jay-. And I'm going to do like, the Jay- and then dash like it's a Victorian novel, you know?
JULIA: Mmh-hmm.
AMANDA: Do you know a lot about the occult? I'm having problems with my roommate, capital S, Spirit here and she's creating havoc.
JULIA: Oh, okay. Okay.
ERIC: Great.
JULIA: Great.
ERIC: I mean, we let's, let's see if we can help.
AMANDA: This is a text message I got at 10:30 PM on a Saturday night.
ERIC: Oh, a normal time.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Great. Great.
AMANDA: And after opening I have to tell you guys that I had a opening anecdote for the next urban legends episode. I replied, "Oh, wow. I'm afraid I don't know a lot about the occult. My only ideas are; salt circles always help and small offerings, like bread or milk.
JULIA: That's true. That's true. Asking politely, we've also learned is a good way-
AMANDA: That one's good.
JULIA: -of getting ghosts to stop being mean.
AMANDA: So then she said, "Very good ideas. Thank you, love you. XOXO." And I think she said, Aunt but I think she meant Aunt Jay-. And then I said, "Love you too". Have not heard back, this, this was four weeks ago.
ERIC: Oh.
JULIA: I feel like that's a good sign. Unless it's no one has heard from Aunt Jay- in four weeks, but.
AMANDA: People had heard from her.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: She is well. I thought that was, that was just an outstanding moment in my own personal relationship to my own family. And so, I walked around for weeks thinking like, "Wow. Who thinks that I, that I am an occult expert, because it's just not a skill set I have, also I run a media business and those two things are different. Until my dad a few days ago was like, "Hehehehehe, did, did Aunt Jay- text you?"
JULIA: Oh, no. Brian, no.
ERIC: The call was coming from inside the family.
AMANDA: Like, Yeah, yeah, she did. And he was like, "Oh. Okay, cool. She was telling me about her problems." And I said, "You know who knows how to solve those problems for you, Amanda." And I was like, "Dad! I, I can't solve them for her. That's mean of you to say."
JULIA: I appreciate that Brian has assumed that in the past, what five years?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: You've somehow gotten your exorcism license or something like that?
AMANDA: I think he knows I haven't and he thought it would be funny to tell his sister I could help him which I thought was mean because she was in a time of need, and she was talking to her second youngest brother of like, eight of them about what to do. So, it's partly on her you know. I'm going to reach back out. See how things are going. I'll keep you guys posted. It was not a text message I expected to get.
JULIA: No. Nor would you nor should you get that text message.
ERIC: Yeah. No kidding. I'm glad that this happened to you, Amanda because I only have an intro about a big hole in my yard now. And we don't have to get into that which, which is great.
JULIA: Eric, I have a story about a big hole in a basement.
AMANDA: Whoa.
ERIC: Perfect.
AMANDA: Would that be triggering? Or, or can I read that?
ERIC: It won't be triggering. I've passed the, once, once we heard that the total cost we'd have to pay that was the most triggering moment of this whole ordeal with, with some, some sewage pipes that we're dealing with here at the house. So, I don't think any, any related pipe basement hole story is what will affect me too poorly.
JULIA: Okay, good.
AMANDA: Well, good, because these holes are in Finland and in buildings that you don't own.
ERIC: My favorite place for holes to vi-.
AMANDA: I know Finland. I mean, I know that the Philippines are, they're obviously top-tier source of stories, period. But I think Finland is really vying for number two here. So, this story comes from Frida and it is titled: Two Weird Tunnel Stories. "Hey Spirits team, your episode about the secret tunnels of Europe jogged my memory enough to want to share the two times I've been exploring creepy tunnels under my school."
ERIC: The two times?
JULIA: What? You think after the first time you'd be like, "No more of this."
AMANDA: You would, Julia. You would think. I grew up in Helsinki, Finland. My first school is an old building built in 1916. And from grade three onwards, we had our handicraft lessons in the basement of the school building. Handicraft, which among other things include learning to sew, and carpentry are part of a curriculum in primary schools.
JULIA: That's something we should have in our primary schools. Just saying.
AMANDA: I just thought this was great. At some point, my friends and I noticed that there was a big hole in the wall in the corner of one of the rooms in the basement. We got curious. So, one day, we asked to stay behind in the handicraft classroom after the school day ended. I think our official reason was to finish some sewing projects, but instead, we decided to explore the hole in the wall.
JULIA: Okay. Here's a question that I have for you, for both of you. If you walk into a room, how long would it take you to find the large hole in the corner? Because I feel like I would clock that immediately.
AMANDA: I immediately do a full sweep.
ERIC: How big is the room?
JULIA: I imagine, like, classroom-sized.
ERIC: The most important question is, is there a bunch of dirt around the hole?
JULIA: Like it was recently dug?
ERIC: Yeah, because like that, I feel like a hole is kind of easy to just breeze over if it's just a hole. But if there's a bunch of debris around it.
AMANDA: What's that?
ERIC: That's gonna really indicate the, the hole. But like, if it's just like, a dark spot in a corner that might already be shadowy, if, you could, you could miss a hole upon an immediate, immediate surface.
AMANDA: No you can't. You would clock it immediately.
JULIA: Yes, yes. That, this is my issue.
ERIC: Look, I've. Look, you asked the question. I'm not spending a lot of times in rooms with holes. I'm just making a guess.
AMANDA: Okay, Julia and I, maybe this, is this is our advantage, having walked into lots of rooms together, you know, in the course of our, of our lifelong friendship, where we had to be like, "What's going on here?" I feel like I look high. Julia looks low. We do a full perimeter sweep immediately upon entering the room and I would clock that hole immediately. Even if it was like, I don't know, covered by a piano or a bureau or some kind of large piece of furniture. It would take me maybe an hour to be like, "There's a weird draft or echo." Like, I am just, I am looking. I am Nancy Drew-ing constantly.
JULIA: Yeah. And I mean, the assumption is, and I'm sure we'll get to this point in the story, this is a hole in which children can crawl through.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: So, that's got to be a big hole.
AMANDA: Large hole.
ERIC: Yeah. No, that's true.
AMANDA: Even in like, an arena. Like, if I was at a concert and, you know, an hour into the set. I'm looking around, I'd be like, "Do, do you see that giant hole over there?" Like, it would, it would definitely occur to me. My eyes are constantly roaming my surroundings to avoid making eye contact with people trying to talk to me, you know what I mean?
JULIA: That's true.
ERIC: Fair enough. Fair enough.
JULIA: We've said hole too many times, continue.
AMANDA: So, this hole opened into a small tunnel. Small enough that even us, being nine-year-olds at the time, had to crawl on our knees to fit. We'd all brought flashlights so we could see where we went. These kids are preparing y'all. They made a plan.
JULIA: Right, because they, they made the plan to stay behind, to explore this hole. So they were probably like, "Let's get flashlights from the house."
AMANDA: This is full, like YA detective series paranormal vibes.
JULIA: Yeah, this is a Coraline bullshit, where they're going to wind up in another dimension.
AMANDA: This is like a Maureen Johnson Truly Devious situation. It really is. I remember that wooden pillars emerged from the reddish stone and sand every now and then. Probably parts of the original construction and that the tunnel seemed to lead further in, under the school. But our progress was stopped when the ground dropped away, deep enough that we didn't want to take the risk of possibly getting stuck down there.
ERIC: That's good.
AMANDA: Good decision-making. Near the edge was a small pile of 10 Penny coins. So, this was in 1999 before Finland switched to Euro and still used the Finnish Mark. However, they were modern coins. A coin reform had been made in 1990 introducing this new design. We contemplated taking the coins with us. Quick.
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: Quick pulse check. We don't touch the fairy coins, right?
JULIA: No. What? No. Why are they there? They're an offering to something dark and mysterious.
AMANDA: Yeah, on the edge of a chasm. Yeah, we don't, we don't touch the fairy coins. In the end, we left them there and crawled back to the classroom. Into the following days, we talked about ways we could possibly make it further down the tunnel wondering if we can find some rope somewhere but the next time we were in the classroom, the hole in the wall had been boarded up.
ERIC: Okay.
JULIA: Something bad happened.
AMANDA: We never found out why it was there in the first place or why it was so quickly fixed after it had been open in that room for weeks.
JULIA: Because they lost a child in there probably and they just didn't tell you all. AMANDA: Oh, I was gonna say somebody noticed. [8:31] Eric some dirt coming back out of the tunnel and was like, "Oh, some children must have explored in there. Better board it up."
JULIA: Yep. Yeah, yeah.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: My question is, how hard did they try and with what methods to make sure there weren't children in it before they boarded it up. Because that's a real horror story in the making.
JULIA: I feel like they probably just called and be like, "We're boarding this up. If there's children in there, come on out." Amanda and I had tunnels or at least like, not tunnels I guess but like, an area underneath the school in which people would go down there and graffiti and it was probably full of asbestos. Almost definitely full of asbestos.
AMANDA: Yeah. I thought you're talking about our elementary school at first. Where there was that boiler room near the Lost and Found and like, the exit to the, the back playground.
JULIA: Mmh-hmm.
AMANDA: And I once I saw the door open and I just remember like this, it, it felt like the mouth of a dragon. Like it was lit in red and just like have like a moistness because that was where the boiler was. After you made me watch that scary movie with the man with the face and that has that whole boiler chase scene. I was like, "Oh, yep, that's it."
JULIA: I don't know if I made you watch a movie with a man with a face. I'm assuming you're talking about Nightmare on Elm Street.
AMANDA: Yes, that's one.
JULIA: Because he, like, lives in a boiler room.
AMANDA: Yes, he does.
JULIA: I will say, it makes sense that a boiler room is scary because it does seem like a place from hell.
AMANDA: And it also should deter children. You don't want to go touching hot metal down there.
JULIA: Yeah. That's true.
AMANDA: So, guys, that was only one of Frida's two stories. Are you ready for the second?
JULIA: Whoa, yes.
ERIC: Yeah
AMANDA: The second creepy tunnel story comes from my university days. I studied Telecommunications, Acoustics, and Sound Processing in Helsinki's Western neighbor city, Espoo. It's a well-known fact that there are a lot of tunnels under campus. Partly air raid shelters, partly tunnels that were seemingly dug to try out new construction methods and technologies, but students aren't allowed to them. Now, if I were there I would have a tunnel frat guys. Tunnel frat.
JULIA: I feel like we talked about in a earlier episode that someone who went to a college where there were tunnels and they're like, yeah people would just like throw like, week-long parties in those tunnels, and that scares me. I don't know why. Just scares me.
AMANDA: It sounds like some Lev Grossman's The Magicians' bullshit and I love it.
JULIA: Mmh-hmm.
AMANDA: Not that rules stopped a bunch of technology students of course. One of my friends had somehow managed to get his hands on a key to one of the tunnel entrances. In one fine Sunday the day after the annual ball. If you know, you know.
ERIC: If you know, you know.
JULIA: I don't know.
AMANDA: I don't know, Frida. Can anyone else from Aalto University, please explain?
JULIA: Helsinki is like, yeah.
AMANDA: A small group of us thought it was a good idea to go down and have a look. The tunnels under campus are big. Some big enough to drive a car in but all were at least two meters high at all time. So, thankfully, no crawling this time. The tunnel we entered led straight down for a while until we came to a kind of hub where several tunnels met. This is literally the plot of a Scooby-Doo movie.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: By the way. We ventured a bit into some of them but found nothing more interesting than discarded helmets, gloves and safety glasses, and a couple of chain link fences blocking further entry.
JULIA: Oh, because those people got eaten and then they blocked off whatever ate them. Almost definitely.
AMANDA: I also feel that the age of the helmets matters a lot. If they're modern helmets, no problem. If they're like old helmets, I don't want anything to do with that.
JULIA: How covered in dust were those helmets?
AMANDA: Yeah. Are they like, hand-hammered leather or are they plastic? Because that really matters.
JULIA: Mmh-hmm. Mmh-hmm.
AMANDA: However, in one of the tunnels, there was a niche in the wall with a statue of the Virgin Mary, some candles, and a bunch of flowers.
JULIA: Again, we're just leaving offerings in tunnels and there's something dark and mysterious in there.
AMANDA: I think the answer is stop building niches in your tunnels.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: That seems to be the problem.
ERIC: Oh, but where, where are you going to put your stuff?
AMANDA: Well, that was the most troubling part of the earth stalls, if you recall, was these fucking niches.
JULIA: Yeah, the niches, we didn't know why they were there.
ERIC: We didn't know why any of it was there.
JULIA: That's true but specifically the niches.
ERIC: No, not specifically. All of it. All of it was a mystery. I mean, that was extra mysterious, but the whole thing was also like, well no. I listened to the episode.
JULIA: You edited it.
AMANDA: That's the most troubling part, was the niches. It's like well we could come up with lots of theoretical reasons why people would be building these tunnels, including but not limited to hobbies, but the, the niches are something else.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: We did not, Julia, to be fair, consider like, a semi-life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary as a reason and justification for those niches. So.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: That's on us. But guys, just to complicate this a little bit. Catholicism is a very small religion in Finland. There are only about 15,000 Catholics in the whole country.
JULIA: Is that why they're making things in tunnels?
AMANDA: I don't know. I don't know if Catholics were persecuted in Finland. And, and also, just for context, the majority religion is Lutheranism, where Mary is not revered. Like, she's not kind of like, separately like a figure like she is in Catholicism. So, finding an altar in a tunnel under a university campus made all of this even weirder. The candles weren't lit, but the flowers were fresh. Someone must have been there quite recently, no more than a day before. After considering the altar for a while, we decided to head back up and leave those tunnels be.
JULIA: Good. A solid choice, for once.
AMANDA: So then, Frida concludes by saying, "If I had a nickel for every time I found something slightly weird in a tunnel under my school, I'd have two nickels, which isn't much but it's still weird that it happened twice. Stay creepy cool".
JULIA: That's my favorite quote from a TV show that I've never seen before.
AMANDA: Yes, extraordinary. Thank you so much, Frida.
ERIC: If you're looking for more tunnel content, I've got, I've got some, some info for you. There is, this is not spooky tunnels, unfortunately. But there is a YouTube channel called Ghost Town Living, where a guy bought an old mining ghost town up in a mountain in California. And he, like, goes looking in the tunnels there. Using like, safety precautions and stuff and, like, is rebuilding a hotel and stuff. And like, there's currently a whole fight that he's having with the Bureau of Land Management. So also like maybe check out his latest video like right the Bureau of Land Management so that they don't turn it into like a petroleum mill or something that is apparently happening. So, like yeah, it's a great channel. Great videos. Lot of videos of, of mines and tunnels that are, that are just spooky by ambiance but not, not by ghost.
JULIA: Okay, because I was gonna say, "Eric, you can't say that this guy has a whole thing about how he bought a ghost town and then be like, but it's not scary when he goes into the tunnels. It's not creepy when he goes into the tunnels."
ERIC: It's scary like the first 30 minutes of the descent, not the last 30 minutes of the descent.
JULIA: Gotcha, gotcha. There's no, like, weird creatures crawling through the tunnels.
ERIC: Not yet. Not yet.
JULIA: Now that we know of.
ERIC: I have a story about La Llorona, horny teens and illegal death.
JULIA: Well, isn't it all death? Well, no, not all death is illegal.
ERIC: No, not all death is illegal.
JULIA: My, my immediate thought was murder.
ERIC: It's illegal to die.
AMANDA: Oh, fuck yeah dude.
JULIA: We live in a society where it's illegal to die. You have to keep paying money to stay alive.
ERIC: Isn't that the plot of In Time?
JULIA: I feel like-
ERIC: Which is a movie I weirdly referenced yesterday of, of, of slack because of what I was speaking with. So like, weird that it's popped into my mind twice now. This comes to us from Ana Maria and she writes, "First off, thank you for free consulting you guys of for as part of Multitude. I had a meeting with Amanda a few months ago.
AMANDA: Yay.
ERIC: They helped me finally design the course where my project was going. I promised her I would send her some stories that I wrote. So, here they are.
AMANDA: Thank you.
ERIC: My neighborhood is filled with legends, both traditional and not so much. Like that corner pharmacy where every Christmas Eve there was a car accident. Maybe it was because of lack of traffic lights, but who's to say it wasn't bad vibes? Anyways, here are three stories. Number one, you know La Llorona, so I won't go into details of her story and go straight to the apparitions. My city is full of ravines, underground rivers, and lakes, which is the dream setting for her.
AMANDA: Oh my.
JULIA: We're just doing a lot of holes and underground stuff this episode.
AMANDA: Wow.
ERIC: That girl loves her water. A few blocks away from my house, there was an entrance from one of the ravines to the city. There, travelers could find a fountain where their horses would grab a drink of water and local women went to do laundry in the communal [16:29] or sinks. So, it was a good place to get gossip while washing clothes during the daytime and wash your spectral hair while crying for your lost children at night.
JULIA: Classic.
ERIC: The fountain is long gone. In its place, it's a normal busy street, but my neighbors seem to think La Llorona doesn't know that since all who live here have heard her at least once.
JULIA: Well.
ERIC: Yes, me included.
JULIA: Uh-oh.
ERIC: I've heard her twice. The story goes that if you hear her crying far away, she's close, and if you hear her near, she's far.
AMANDA: Mmh.
ERIC: And I've heard her both ways. Once I was reading by myself in the second floor, and from the stairs near the entrance, I heard a woman crying. The lights were off and no one else seemed to hear. I thought it was my mom, but I found her very happy with my grandma chilling in her bedroom. I can't say if it was La Llorona, another wandering ghost, or my regular old house spirit. Yes, we do have one who is very fond of pets.
JULIA: Oh boy. Oh boy.
AMANDA: I love that hearing her far means that she's close. Like, imagine hearing a whisper something and be like, "What's that?" But your instincts are so piqued because that means that she's like right near you.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: I feel like we've heard that in other stories, too. I think maybe it was the Aswang or another like, Filipino spirit. But I've definitely heard that one before. I like it.
AMANDA: Totally.
ERIC: Story number two, the one about horny teens and a frightening monk.
JULIA: Classic.
ERIC: [17:52] is the Catholic parish that lends its name to our neighborhood. It was once home to a Franciscan monastery. It was a big compound that later became streets and homes in the 1900s. In the 30s and 40s, a monk started to appear in an alley every night around 8 PM.
JULIA: The phrase "A monk started to appear" is not good.
ERIC: Both young and old had seen the apparition. It became so much that everyone was in bed by 7:30 PM to avoid seeing it. Grandmother said it was one of the monks probably buried decades before in that alley. They prayed rosary upon rosary and nothing seemed to appease the wandering spirit. One night a man noticed it stopped in front of a teen girl's window. Afraid it would be a bad ghost that wanted to steal the girl into eternal damnation, the man told the girl's father who concocted a plan to finally face the spirit and vanish it. A group of neighbors stood guard and waited to ambush the evil friar.
AMANDA: Excellent use of the word concocted. I love that so much. It is so evocative.
ERIC: I also like evil friar.
AMANDA: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very Romeo and Juliet vibes.
ERIC: Lo and behold, it went straight to the girls’ window. She opened it and the monk started to climb into the bedroom. So, all the neighbors including the parish priest ran out of hiding to catch it, pull a Scooby-Doo, and unmask the culprit. The girl is very alive, very healthy, and at this point very scared teen boyfriend.
JULIA: Oh, my God.
AMANDA: Oh, no. Oh, my God, that's so funny.
JULIA: Okay, for a moment when he started describing this and how it was looking at the teen girl's window. I was like, "That girl is definitely like, having sex on the DL and not telling her parents. And now, this like, monk is being very judgmental about that." But no, the fact that it's the boyfriend? Scooby-Doo as shit.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: This is why we have hometown urban legends Ana Maria, and this is perfect.
ERIC: And the third and last one. They said that neighbors could hear death coming in its carriage, known here as El tren de la Muerte. You could hear a horse, old crackly wheels, and dragging chains in the streets. Whenever you heard it at night, you had to close your windows and curtains. Turn off the lights and go to the backroom so death wouldn't take you with them. Turns out it was a myth started by some men that were smuggling illegal booze into the city through the ravines. So, they would cross the streets and nobody would see them. Very clever if you asked me. Makes you wonder though, many years later, I've heard several accounts of people that still hear the carriage before a family member passing away, when carriages are no longer in service and booze is readily available. That is come to us from Ana and she writes lots of love from Ana and Wasabi, the Cat
JULIA: Wasabi, the Cat.
AMANDA: I met Wasabi, the Cat. Oh, so cute. Thank you so much. I find myself haunted by the sound of carriage wheels on cobblestones and extremely thirsty. So guys, why don't we go grab a refill?
JULIA: Sounds good.
AMANDA: We are sponsored this week by Girlfriend Collective. And when you feel confident, when you like what you're wearing, when you're very excited about moving, and how your body feels in your clothes, you can do it all. And whether you're running, biking, doing yoga, swimming, hanging out on your couch, playing Stardew Valley, whatever it is that you're doing, Girlfriend Collective has clothes that you can feel your best in. They make sustainable, ethically made activewear for everyone. Their sizes go from double extra small to 6XL. And they make cute and comfortable bras, leggings, shorts, tanks, tees, swimsuits, and more. And again, whether you're doing activewear or running errands, or hanging out around your house, their clothes have functional fabrics, colors, and styles for any activity. And they even have a garment take-back program called Re-Girlfriend which I hope that more companies start doing.
JULIA: Mmh-hmm.
AMANDA: So, once you're done loving your pieces, you know, hopefully, many years from now, you can then send them back to the upcycled into new girlfriend gear. So, helping to, you know, cut off that fast fashion timeline is something that I really appreciate. And for listeners of Spirits, Girlfriend Collective is offering $25 off your purchase of $100 or more, when you go to girlfriend.com/spirits. That's $25 off $100 or more when you go to girlfriend.com/spirits. girlfriend.com/spirits. How'd they get that domain name, Julia?
JULIA: That's great. I'm so, I'm so happy for them.
AMANDA: I'm stunned. I'm stunned. Well, I've got my outfit sorted, Julia. And now, what do I put on my feet? That's my main question.
JULIA: That's a great question Amanda because summer is starting to wind down now. And while I love my flip-flops with a burning, burning passion, I got to start thinking about close-toed shoes. But luckily, I have these Rothy's loafers that are so incredibly comfy that I'm almost, like, not going to miss my flip-flops. They have such incredible flats, loafers, and sneakers which are perfect for, like, rolling into fall. And they have these also, like, these great washable bags that are perfect for, like, getting away like when Jake and I go hiking during the fall. It's incredible. And good news for any guys who are listening, Rothy's aren't just women's shoes anymore. They also sell men's sneakers and men's driving loafers, which I know editor Eric has picked up a pair and they look extremely stylish and also very, very comfy. And they are durable, washable, and better for the planet. Plus, they're rigorously tested for the perfect fit, wash after wash. There's no shrinkage involved so that's important.
AMANDA: Yeah. The men's line features the same level of craftsmanship and attention to detail as the Rothy's women's line so that that quality that you will come to depend on.
JULIA: So, keep that summertime feeling going with washable, sustainable, stylish shoes, and bags from Rothy's. Head to rothys.com/spirits to find your new warm-weather favorites today. That's r o t h y s.com/spirits. Amanda, I know how much you love your bedding. I know it in my soul because I have the same bedding. And-
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: -Lord, Is it comfortable? But sometimes, you have to get out of bed, and that's unacceptable sometimes. Unless you are wearing some of Brooklinen's fabulous, fabulous loungewear.
AMANDA: I've literally never seen any of you, my friends and colleagues, more excited than when I said, "Hey guys, Brooklinen wants to send us loungewear." And truly, the whole team was beside themselves. And I was too because you guys know about my love for the Brooklinen lounge t-shirts which I'm wearing one right the hell now. And I wear them most days of the week, because they're very comfortable. But also they sent us a little short tees. And Julia, you, the moment you got them you were like, "Hot damn. These shorts." And then I put on my pair and I was like, "Hot damn, these shorts." They're so good.
JULIA: I literally spent I think a good 48 hours in those shorts recently.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Because I was just hanging out by the beach, I didn't want to take them off. They were so comfy. They're also like, not too short. Like, I feel like when I buy shorts that are loungewear they're sometimes like, my butts hanging out of these, but these are like the perfect length and they have a pocket in them. Oh.
AMANDA: Yeah. And what I love too, is that we are at the two different ends and extremes of the Brooklinen size chart and they fit both of us very well. We both love them. So, I absolutely love when they have that kind of attention to detail. So, now if you, you know, want luxury and coziness all day long. Brooklinen has got you, they have bundle deals on loungewear so you can get more comfort for less. Trust me, you're going to want to check this out. So, go ahead, get comfortable, and get it for less at Brooklinen. Go to brooklinen.com and use promo code Spirits to get $20 off your minimum purchase of $100. That's b r o o k l i n e n.com and enter promo code Spirits for $20 off with a minimum purchase of $100. Once more, that's brooklinen.com promo code Spirits. And now let's get back to the show.
JULIA: So I am back at it again with my local beers from Long Island and Great South Bay brewery has just put out a Rosé Sour that is just delicious. I love it so much.
ERIC: That sounds really, really good. I've been watching old episodes of Top Chef per Amanda's recommendation and there's a moment in Season One where they say, "This is a Rosé. It's very rare." And I can't stop thinking about that whenever I hear rose so.
AMANDA: I love that.
ERIC: I was recently in the good old state of Michigan, and we had a few different beers from the Sagitta Brewing Company.
AMANDA: Oh.
ERIC: And so, I'm just going to recommend if you can find those. I don't know how big their distribution is by any means, but they're on the old western part of Michigan. So, if you're around there, I'm sure they probably distribute pretty widely in the state of Michigan at least. Go check them out. Pretty good stuff.
AMANDA: And I was in Seattle where we completely by accident came across Optimism Brewing Company, which I loved every single beer we tried there. We tried two flights, I sampled eight beers. They were all fucking awesome, including like a nitro stout that I, you know, that's like my absolute favorite genre of beer to have. And it was so delicious. The brewery was like an entire city block. They had excellent COVID protocols. They had food trucks, you could bring in stuff from across the street. There were cute dogs. The guys behind us were playing Magic: The Gathering. It was just like a great experience. So, if you're in Seattle or can buy some Optimism beer, I highly recommend they're stout.
JULIA: So, I have a story that was sent in by Casey. It was actually inspired by a recent episode and she titled this email, Who was Screaming in the Woods: Hint, It Wasn't Me.
ERIC: Uh-oh.
JULIA: So she writes. So, for starters, I just want to say how much I appreciate your podcast, I seriously consider it self-care as I unwind on my way to and from my job as a social worker in an agency that serves youth that are homeless. So, thank you.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: I just listened to your episode with Owl Goingback and it triggered a memory in me that I have intentionally not thought about for years. He was discussing the screaming sounds coming from the woods that he was not allowed to enter. But when he did, he found scratch marks unnaturally high on the trees. I believe I have encountered the same creature.
ERIC: Oh.
AMANDA: I also repressed that memory. So, we're all just in here together.
JULIA: So, this story takes place in Hudson, Wisconsin, basically Minnesota. It's one of the three good things Wisconsin has. I was an 18-year-old, fresh out of high school, working as a camp counselor at YMCA camp St. Croix. I had attended here for years after my mom and grandpa. I always joked around that this camp was in my blood by now. As you may recall from when you were all 18, you thought you were an adult now and on top of the world. I fully believed that I was ready for the world because my age told me so. Boy, did I have the rudest awakening. Each week we have a different group of campers. This particular week, my co-counselor Snacks, which all the counselors have "Camp names", and I had the trailblazers. The trailblazers were a group of 10, 9, or 10 year-olds that stayed at the camp all week in a cabin, but for one night we would hike out to a campsite to sleep in tents. How exciting. I'm terrified already. Well, it started out as usual. Half of the girls were excited and ready to march and half were complaining about having to carry a pack. We trudged along, got to the site, and set up camp. The evening went as planned. We cooked over the bonfire. We made s'mores, told stories, and sang songs. Let me tell you, it doesn't get more peachy keen than that. This is very sweet, very Wisconsin. Bedtime rolled around and all the girls went to their tents and quickly fell asleep. I was shocked because it's normally a fight to get them to sleep. I mean, who doesn't want to stay up late in the tent giggling while telling dumb jokes and telling scary stories? Apparently, not these campers. I didn't realize then but I would be damn thankful in the morning that they were all heavy sleepers. Of course, Snacks and I decided to stay up late and giggle and play games in our tent because we knew that that was proper tent etiquette. After who knows how much time, I hear something in the distance. It sounded like faint screaming. Snacks asked, "Did you hear that?", "Yeah, it's probably just the other campsite." I brushed it off because I knew all the other girl trailblazer groups were out on the same night as us. I also had to prove my macho 18-year-old self is not afraid of anything. But then we heard it again, this time closer. It was not a little girl. The scream was too full-bodied and loud to be any child to be able to make that noise. We looked at each other wide-eyed and frozen. We didn't have to say anything because I knew her expression meant, "What the actual fuck?" Because that is what I was thinking. My big 18-year-old head was slowly deflating. I thought to myself, maybe it's a woman trying to find any sort of human justification for the sound that echoed through the woods. Another few minutes passed and we heard it again. This time, much closer, the decibels of the scream rang in my ears. This is no human, I thought. It has to be larger. I looked at snacks and I could tell by her blank pale expression that she had the same realization. It was in our campsite. We lay motionless in our sleeping bags as it passed through the site. The intermittent screaming caused us to flinch every time. We had absolutely no intention to investigate or even peek, though. Our unspoken agreement to not know was better than to know. Shout out team ignorance. The scream started to fade as it continued through the woods. I laid still and slowly fell asleep as thoughts raced through my mind. The main one was, "How can anyone trust their children with me when I myself am still a child?" My tough 18 year-old shell broke and I had the deep realization that I have a lot in common with Jon Snow. I know nothing. In the morning, I expected crying girls and terrified faces but I got smiles and laughter. None of them had heard it. I questioned them a little, but when they asked me why I was asking this, I told them that a raccoon paid us a visit. I got to making breakfast as the girls and Snacks packed up the camp. After a few minutes, Snacks approached me pale as she had been last night when the thing was in our camp. What the hell could it be now? It's gone and it's daylight and I just want to forget. She pointed to a tree next to the trail that entered our site. Sitting in its branches where the entrails of some mid-sized animal. Like a rabbit or a raccoon maybe. What the actual fuck does that? We hightailed it out of there with the girls in tow only to find another pail of entrails in a tree, this time with a heart.
AMANDA: I mean, I'm sure this is for hunting, right? But like, Jesus Christ.
JULIA: Only one other group had heard the calls of this creature. At least we weren't crazy, but who was screaming in the woods? Thanks for reading my story. I will certainly be writing in again. Let me know if you would like to hear about the dream catcher that roams the campgrounds. I actually have a song I could send you for that one. Or the mischievous ghost who likes to laugh in my house. Thank you, Casey.
ERIC: I want both.
AMANDA: I want both. I want both. I don't think we've ever included a listener voicemail on the show, but if you have sea shanties, folk songs, or creepy camp songs, I would like to hear them.
JULIA: Samesies.
AMANDA: spiritspodcast@gmail.com I'm sticking with my Northern and Eastern Europe trend here and I'm bringing you a story from Sophia, titled My family's Pickle Cryptid and more about the Sandman
JULIA: Tell me about pickles
AMANDA: I sure will. So, my family specifically my dad's side of the family has our own homemade cryptid/mythical creature/boogeyman and it is a pickle man. The pickle man or gurkenmann in German is-
ERIC: Oh, my God.
JULIA: I love that so much.
ERIC: Holy cow.
JULIA: Gurkenmann
ERIC: I don't think we've ever had a better-named creature on the show.
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: I think it's Gurkenmannin, Gurkenmannhin.
ERIC: It's all good.
AMANDA: However, it's all good.
ERIC: All good for me.
JULIA: Gurkenmann, I love him.
AMANDA: A pickle that is also a man. Imagine the peanut man from the peanut butter logo, but as or I'm assuming the like, the Mr. Peanut situation.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: But as a pickle without the cane or monocle, the cylinder stays though in which you think they're referring to the hat.
JULIA: Oh, okay. I'm thinking of like, it's a pickle but it's still in the jar.
AMANDA: That's so funny and creepy. He's supposed to live in my grandparents' attic. And has been used to threaten two generations of children, my father, and later my brother and me into eating vegetables, cleaning up toys, and being quiet while grandma has her nap. Because well, if you're naughty the pickle man is going to come and get you and turn you into a pickle person too.
JULIA: Of course, obviously.
ERIC: Just like the, I don't even know if those are high or low stakes. I mean, I guess high because-
JULIA: Do you want to be a pickle person?
ERIC: -if you don't want to be a pickle man.
AMANDA: No. I would eat myself, that would suck. Now, I had all but forgotten about the pickle man's existence until I thought about hometown urban legends I could send in. And only then did I realize, I never knew his origins. So, recently I asked my grandma where the pickle man came from, like, if it was an actual creature from the folklore of, I don't know, Bohemia where she's from. It's part of the Czech Republic now. She just laughed at me at that suggestion and explained that the pickle man was in fact, her own creation. Turns out that as a child, my father was for some reason terrified of the mascot on the logo of a particular brand of pickles. And believe me, guys, I tried to find the brand or the logo, but I have not yet been successful.
JULIA: Mmh-hmm.
ERIC: Hmm.
AMANDA: My grandmother decided to use that fear to her advantage. And so, the legend of the pickle man was created. Even though in hindsight, it's a ridiculous story and I love that we have a family cryptid. Remembering how genuinely terrified I was about getting turned into a pickle. I'm not sure if I'll pass this one on to my kids one day, but maybe it at least explains why I absolutely can't stand pickles.
JULIA: You have to pass it on in your family. You just have to.
AMANDA: You have to. It's a legacy. It's a legacy.
JULIA: This is like the, the parking angel.
AMANDA: Yeah. Dudley.
ERIC: Yeah. The parking Angel. Yeah.
AMANDA: My best friend Dudley, yeah. And then, just as a [30:59]. Sophia added, "Secondly, I wanted to provide a follow-up on Episode 245, where you talked about dreams. Specifically, the Sandman as it's a story I also grew up with. The myth of the Sandman is very much alive and well in Germany, as basically every kid I know believes in it, or has at least heard of it. There's a TV show, it has been produced and aired every day at the same time. 7 PM since 1959. It's a ritual for tons of children in Germany to watch before going to bed, and the theme song is probably more well known than the national anthem tbh.
ERIC: Wow.
AMANDA: I just thought it was interesting that the Sandman apparently isn't as much of a thing in the US as your guys' only connotation was the song. Anyway, keep being amazing. Lots of love, Sophia.
JULIA: I wouldn't say it's our only connotation, but I feel like, that's what I think of when I think of the Sandman. Like, that's my first connotation, not my only one, but my first one.
AMANDA: I'm aware that the song, like, refers to some existing, like, legend/figure, but absolutely not a thing that I personally grew up with at all.
ERIC: I was really worried that this was going to be a backdoor Rick and Morty joke this whole time because people, everyone loves when that guy turned himself into a pickle. They thought it was the fucking funniest thing on earth. And honestly, guys, I'll be, I'll be honest, it wasn't that funny. He just turns himself into a pickle. It was fine.
JULIA: We're gonna get hate mail, Eric. Come on.
ERIC: That's fine. You send all of your hate mail about me not liking Pickle Rick enough to @TedCruz on Twitter.
JULIA: That's Eric's handle
ERIC: Actually no. Well, we'll go more local. We'll go to @JoshMendell, he's a real slimeball running for senate here. So, send all of your Pickle Rick issues with my take on it to him.
JULIA: Good.
AMANDA: Did anybody have a family cryptid growing up? My parents had a version of Elf on the Shelf. My mom had an Elf called Barnaby, who would, you know, watch out for your behavior between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And if you were bad, you know, report on you to Santa.
ERIC: I mean, we went, we went snipe hunting.
JULIA: What is that?
AMANDA: What's that?
ERIC: You've never been snipe hunting?
JULIA: No. What is that?
AMANDA: No.
ERIC: So well, I mean, I don't want to spoil it but you, you go, you're camping. And you go, "Okay, we can all go snipe hunting". And the way you attract the Snipes are by banging pots and pans in the woods. But turns out, there aren't Snipes. They're not real. They're just a way for kids to go banging pots and pans in the woods. That's very funny.
AMANDA: Well, that sounds, like, very safe because at least you're scaring away the real critters.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah. It's just something to kind of be like, Okay, the adults now want to just, like, spend some time by the fire and peace.
AMANDA: Cute.
ERIC: You guys go snipe hunting for 30 minutes.
AMANDA: Yeah, I love that the origin of pickle cryptid was, "Grandma wants to nap" which is awesome.
ERIC: Yeah. I mean, who doesn't want to nap?
JULIA: I didn't have one but I was a weird child. So, I would leave, like, little offerings by the sea to Poseidon. That's it.
AMANDA: It's why we love you Juls.
JULIA: So, I'm going to close this out this week with a email from A. And he's titled his email, My Grandma's Haunted Microwave.
AMANDA: Oh, yes.
JULIA: Yes. Excellent. Hello, Spirits gang. I'm a huge fan of the show, especially the episodes of the urban legend. I was just listening to Urban Legends LII with the story about the haunted cast iron pan and thought I'd share my own story about haunted kitchen equipment with you.
AMANDA: Yes, yes, yes.
ERIC: Yes.
JULIA: This happened 10 to 15 years ago and involves my grandma who is no longer with us. She was born in Ukraine in the 1920s and moved to England during the Great Famine in the 1930s. She never really trusted technology, but over the years, she softened a bit and got used to things. Like TV and hair dryers. However, when my uncle bought her a microwave, she had mixed emotions. For the first year of having it, she refused to plug the microwave in. She said she could feel bad energy coming from it and I heard her muttering something about Chernobyl under her breath.
ERIC: I mean, fair, fair.
AMANDA: Listen, grow up at that time. I too would be very suspicious of radioactivity in all its forms.
JULIA: Yes.
ERIC: Yeah. Yeah.
JULIA: She was onto something, I feel like. One time, when we were visiting, my dad plugged it in and showed her how to use it. As soon as it came on, she ran out of the kitchen and wouldn't come back until we unplugged it again. When we asked her why she was so afraid of it and she said she could feel it trying to pull her soul out of her body. We laughed it off and reassured her that it was safe and not going to harm her, but she didn't seem convinced. A little while later, we noticed the microwave had disappeared, and we just figured she rejected the new technology and thrown it away. So, we didn't ask her about it. We totally forgot about the whole thing and never really spoke to her about it again. Cut to a few months later, and my grandma called my dad around because of all of the vegetables she had planted in her garden had died for some reason, and she needed help digging the garden over. When he got there, she said it was my uncle's fault and that he should never have bought the microwave. Not really understanding the relevance of the microwave. My dad started digging the garden over. After a few hours of digging, he hits something hard but hollow sounding with his shovel. He dug around to investigate further and discovered the microwave fully buried.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And beside it was a bowl and a spoon.
AMANDA: Oh.
ERIC: That's no good.
AMANDA: That's a twist I didn't see coming.
JULIA: When we asked my grandma about it, she told us what happened. Convinced that the microwave contained an evil spirit, she consulted an old friend who specialized in old-time-y paranormal stuff. I liked the phrase old-time-y paranormal stuff. The friend told her to put some water and sage in a bowl and run the microwave for a few minutes to ward off anything untoward. My grandma told us that she did that and the microwave filled with an unholy light and so the only thing that she could think of was to bury it in the garden. I guess her friend didn't tell her to take the spoon out of the bowl before microwaving the sage. Sometimes it's not an evil spirit, you just have to read the user manual. Although, that doesn't explain why everything in her garden died I guess. Maybe it was an evil spirit after all.
ERIC: I mean, I bet being buried with a microwave didn't help in the root's system.
JULIA: I feel like, does, is rust good for the earth? Is that, like, a thing?
ERIC: No, no. I've, I've recently got it into composting. I'm now a compost guy.
JULIA: Okay, cool.
ERIC: And I can confirm, they don't tell you to put rust in your compost so.
JULIA: I just wasn't sure because I feel like, nitrogen gets released or something. I don't know.
AMANDA: Well, listen. It's possible that something was wrong with the microwave, that maybe there was some kind of manufacturing defect or environmental pollutant, and she knew that. And when it got into the ground it leached into the plants.
JULIA: Yeah. Instinctively, she knew that and this is also, like, my thing where a lot of times people will be like, "Oh, I get this creepy feeling about this basement. It must be ghosts." And you're like, "No the wiring is just wrong and that's making you, like, anxious."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And I feel like that might have been the case with this, this microwave. Could have been an evil spirit, could have also just been very poorly wired.
AMANDA: All this checks out to me.
JULIA: All this checks out. A finishes with, "While I'm not entirely sure that the microwave was haunted, my grandma absolutely did for the rest of her days. Thanks for reading this. From A."
ERIC: Another hole.
JULIA: Another hole.
AMANDA: Another hole.
JULIA: It's just like, Oh, gosh. All the holes. Everything but my, my first story had the holes in it today. We've said hole too many times. Let's wrap it up.
ERIC: I think we said hole the appropriate amount of times. I love that book, Holes.
AMANDA: Oh, it's great.
ERIC: That was like, one of my first favorite books back in the day.
JULIA: Do you remember that song that they had for the movie version of that?
ERIC: Vaguely.
JULIA: Digging up those holes, Dig it.
ERIC: Yep.
JULIA: Digging up those holes, Dig it. I don't remember anything else about that movie.
AMANDA: That was one of my first earworms. I feel like if YouTube existed back then it would have been, like, one of the first, you know, million streamed videos.
JULIA: Mmh-hmm.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: I feel like that's true.
AMANDA: Well guys, I feel like we learned a lot. We've, we've ventured into the earth at many points on the earth's surface. We've gone back in time. We've gone into the dreamscape. We've really Scooby doo-d, teenage boy trying to sneak into his girlfriend's room.
JULIA: We did. That poor teenage boy.
AMANDA: That poor teenage boy. I hope he's well.
JULIA: Hold up, before we transition out, I think we need to talk about the teenage boy.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: Because his concept of, like, "Here's the way I'm going to get laid. I'm going to pretend to be the ghost of a monk and scare an entire village so I can get it in.
AMANDA: It's great. It's great.
JULIA: Incredible.
AMANDA: It's a known cover. People are probably not, I mean, they had to like, get the entire town together over multiple days of planning to like, go after it, which means that it was a great idea because all those other days they didn't go after him.
JULIA: That's true. That's true.
ERIC: That's true.
JULIA: Proud of that boy. He got it in. Anyway.
ERIC: Well, not that time.
AMANDA: Not that time.
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool. 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 episodes, transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website. As well as a forum to send us in your urban legends, and your advice from folklore questions at spiritspodcast.com.
AMANDA: Join our member community on Patreon, patreon.com/spiritspodcast for all kinds of behind-the-scenes goodies. Just $1 gets you access to audio extras with so much more like recipe cards with alcoholic and non-alcoholic, for every single episode, directors commentaries, real physical gifts, and more.
JULIA: We are a founding member of Multitude, an independent podcast collective and production studio. If you like Spirits, you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude.productions.
AMANDA: Above all else, if you liked what you heard today, please text one friend about us. That's the very best way to help keep us growing.
JULIA: Thanks for listening to Spirits. We'll see you next week.
AMANDA: Bye!
Transcribed by: John Matthew Sarong
Edited by: Krizia Marrie Casil