Episode 288: Your Urban Legends LXIV - Ghosts Don’t Weigh Anything!

Julia’s house might be haunted, but we’re not gonna dwell on that. Instead, we’re revisiting how haunted pasta is, yelling at you about using homemade ouija boards, and picture ourselves as extremely haunted dolls. 

Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of family member death, health conditions, bugs, and ouija boards.

Housekeeping

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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. 

ERIC:  And I'm Eric. 

AMANDA:  

And this is Episode 288. Yet another installment of Your Urban Legends

JULIA:  Now Amanda, before we get into the urban legends that our listeners sent us, I have a tale.

ERIC:  Oh boy. 

AMANDA:  Oh, is this a first-person perspective?

JULIA:  It is. Now, you– you know the story because I posted about it in the Slack. But recently Jake and I purchased a home yey, very excited required a lot of work because it was the same owners probably for the past 60 years and we have been kind of cleaning things out we've taken down the horrifying wallpaper that was in our master bedroom with flamingo pink ceilings. And it has just been like an interesting experience kind of going through someone else's home that they lived in for so long and trying to turn it into your home and kind of like change the energy of it, you know?

AMANDA:  Now, Julia, what was your impression of the energy when you first walked into the house?

JULIA:  I was like wow, this is a disco house. Very 70s.

ERIC:  Disco house!

JULIA:  Disco house and like, you know the energy was fine. It was a little like confused I think is a good word to describe it. We've recently learned also that the house probably like fucks like these people might have been swingers we're not entirely sure. Did find a box of use condoms in the wall when we took down part of the wall. That's another story for another time. 

AMANDA:  Horrifying.

ERIC:  Oh, let's make it a story for this time, maybe? 

AMANDA:  Well, it's also it's a story for the patrons. So if you are a patron-

ERIC:  Yep, sure. 

AMANDA:  -you enjoy that at the end of last month's bonus Urban Legends ep. 

JULIA:  That's true. We did talk about that then. 

AMANDA:  So patreon.com/spiritspodcast. If you are so interested I was gonna say 'horny for' but that's not what I'm gonna say 

JULIA:  Oh, no, but you should. 

AMANDA:  I certainly didn't think about it or say it and now nobody's thinking about it either. You should join and listen to the story.

ERIC:  That's a great episode because it starts with me and Julia in a very real and serious fight

JULIA:  Heated debate. 

AMANDA:  You're right. Yeah, I frankly felt like I was moderating a contentious you know, sort of family dispute.

JULIA:  It's also one of those where we did a one big chunky story for the whole episode which I think are some of our best ones. 

AMANDA:  Me too. 

JULIA:  So besides the– the condoms in the walls and how my house fucks, we did go into the attic and we found like several things that they just left in the attic an old like antique pair of skis a broken and half surfboard. 

AMANDA:  Both of those have great options for decor, like love it, you could pay a pretty penny for that in a thrift shop.

JULIA:  That's true. That's true.

ERIC:  Weird thing to put back in an attic. 

AMANDA:  Yeah. 

JULIA:  Yeah, after you break the surfboard. It's frustrating.

AMANDA:  I guess it must have been broken in situ. Otherwise, I would have a lot of questions. 

JULIA:  But most importantly, what we found in the attic was what Jake described to me because I wasn't up in the attic at the time because it was a crawlspace attic he goes, "Oh, I found a chest or trunk up here." I was like. "Oh." he's like, "Well, it's locked." I'm like, "Huh. Well, what's in it?" He's like, "Well, it feels like nothing." and I'm like, "Yeah, Jake. Because ghosts don't weigh anything." and so we kind of like went back and forth, should we open this should we not open this. Eventually Jake brought it down from the attic so I could look at it and you know kind of decide what we were going to do with it and I decided well you know I haven't been haunted yet, I don't think. So, now's a good time as any.

ERIC:  Yes. yes. 

JULIA:  And so he took the trunk outside

ERIC:  Just in case, you do want the ghosts to get stuck in the house that way they're they're free to the open air. 

JULIA:  Exactly. If we open it the ghosts floats up that's how ghosts work. So we bring it out it's like this like metal trunk like you guys know what I'm talking about, right? 

ERIC:  Yes, yes.

AMANDA:  Yeah.

JULIA:  Like one of those like old storage trunks the lock on it very thick it's like made of like brass or something so it was very hard to cut through your jig tried to do it with I like handheld saw first, didn't work. Broke out the saws off, finally got through on that, big reveal Jake opens it up there's nothing inside, I'm like, "Ghosts!" And Jake goes, "There goes the ghosts’ soul." and then we put it back in our house because whatever we put in there and it was released into the ether and probably not in our home. We haven't experienced any haunting situations yet. But it's also been like two days. So who knows? 

ERIC:  Who knows?

AMANDA:  Keep us posted.

JULIA:  Now it's in our creepy basement instead of our creepy attic. So if anything happens, I will let you know.

AMANDA:  Well. It sounds like a perfect time to hear about hauntings and potentially not hauntings from some of our listeners. Who wants to start?

JULIA:  For lack of talking more. I do have a great story to start us out for.

ERIC:  Excellent. Yeah.

AMANDA:  Julia, this whole podcast was an excuse for us to talk more. So here we are.

JULIA:  Thank you. So this one is from Dani and they wrote perhaps the best subject line for me personally as a human being and so I had to pick it and this was, Mama mia, that's a spooky meatball! In parentheses, (Why pasta places are haunted, probably).

AMANDA:  I mean this is perhaps the oldest question of humanity question mark. 

ERIC:  I don't think that's right.

AMANDA:  Certainly, in this podcast.

ERIC:  The oldest question of humanity is how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?

AMANDA:  Eric, what do you need ancient humans weren't lying on their backs on the savanna or the jungle or tundra wherever they were-

ERIC:  Yes. 

AMANDA:  -and wondering one, what is pasta? 

ERIC:  [5:17]

AMANDA:  Two, why are those places so haunted?

JULIA:  What is wheat? How do we make food out of it? 

AMANDA:  Yeah.

JULIA:  How do we press that and turn it into pasta?

AMANDA:  Can we like cultivate them, maybe?

ERIC:  As we know, the first– the first few [5:28] were 15th-century Italian.

JULIA:  It's true. 

AMANDA:  Julia is scrubbing her hands over her face like this episode has already taken a turn for the worse.

JULIA:  Oh, boy.

ERIC:  You know it's gonna be a good episode where we go to our tried and true situation of is pasta haunted or not? 

JULIA:  Yep, exactly. 

ERIC:  You know that we either have a really good story for you or we've run out of other things to tell you about if we're going back to pasta.

AMANDA:  We've never run out of stuff.

JULIA:  This is a good one and Dani is writing in because they are slowly catching up on the podcast and they write, 

"Apologies in advance for length! I recently stumbled on your podcast and I love it! I'm slowly catching up! I just finished episode 80, I think it was urban legends 10? Anyway, you said something to the effect of "why are all the spaghetti places haunted?" (in reference to the various haunted spaghetti warehouses/factories/etc). As an Italian, like, lasagna-the-main-course-of-our-Thanksgiving-dinner Italian, I gotta say, we just really like to haunt." which is true. " I grew up in central Jersey, on the shore, of course, and my grandma is from NYC (it doesn't get more Italian-American than that, ya know?), we came over from Sicily in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and literally every house in my extended family is haunted to some degree. Most of my family is very Catholic. Anyway, we're not ~supposed~ to talk about the ghosts, but every once in a while we do." "My favorite ghost story (which I do want to preface by saying it was before I was born, so I didn't ~personally~ witness this, but) it was a few months after my Nan passed away (great grandma). Apparently, my mom had said something not so nice about her, and a ceramic cookie jar lid flew off the shelf, missing her head by inches, and shattering against the wall behind her." 

AMANDA:  I love it. 

JULIA:  "The cookie jar itself was still on the shelf and totally fine, so everyone swore it had to be Nan's ghost. We never kept cookie jars in the house after that. (Which very much sounds like something you'd tell a kid to explain why we don't have a constant supply of cookies in the house like the families on TV, but I've asked my mom about it again as an adult and, after some persuasion to get her to discuss it at all, she stuck to the story)."

AMANDA:  I love the idea of a great grandma being like just because I'm dead doesn't mean you can disrespect me. 

JULIA:  You're not allowed to talk shit to me just because I died. God damn it.

AMANDA:  Yeah. 

ERIC:  Also, like a ceramic cookie jar is like a staple of a grandmother's house. So like-

AMANDA:  Totally. 

ERIC:  -definitely makes sense that that would be involved somehow.

JULIA:  So Dani continues, "I..." actually "...grew up in that house; my Nan left it to my grandma, and my mom, my siblings, my aunt, my uncle, my cousin, and I all lived there with my grandma until I was in high school, and it was definitely haunted. Like, shadows in the corner of your eye that take a little too long to disappear when you look straight at them, and things disappearing or getting moved around a lot, but everyone swears they didn't touch it. Sometimes you would hear noise from another room, like two people arguing in a whisper (I assume Nan and my great grandpa, although he's actually Irish but got disowned for marrying my Nan in the 40s, so, honorary Italian)."

ERIC:  Classic. A tale as old as time, truly. 

JULIA:  [sings] Tale is old as time.

AMANDA:  I've never heard a tri-state area story more New York, New Jersey than that.

ERIC:  Yeah.

JULIA:  I was gonna say, [sings to the tune of Tale As Old As Time] a story from New York. 

AMANDA:  Uh-huh.

JULIA:  So. "It's a small house, and if a TV was on you could hear it at least faintly from the other side of the house, so I would usually assume that was the noise, but then I'd go in to turn the TV off and it would already be off. Also, as soon as I'd walk into the room, the whisper arguing would stop abruptly, as if I'd interrupted them.", which I'm like, I'd like go set or like polite enough to be like we're not going to argue in front of the child. 

AMANDA:  Yeah. 

JULIA:  “And sometimes, one of the cats (we've always had several) would be in the corner just kind of staring at the center of the room with those giant saucer pupils they get when they're scared or excited. This happened to my siblings a lot too, so at least the cats and I weren't alone in being creeped out. Then, when my cousin was a toddler and I was in 8th or 9th grade, there was a few months where she used to wake up and cry about the "man and lady" who stood in the corner of the room looking at her. Like, she'd be crying and pointing and just yelling "man and lady, man and lady" between sobs. As someone who's had sleep paralysis my whole life, with my earliest memory of that at about three or four (a story for another time maybe; this email is already very long), I just assumed she was having sleep paralysis or night terrors or something too. Until a few years later, when my cousin was older and she was looking through a family photo album with my aunt and pointed out the "man and lady," who turned out to be Nan and great-grandpa. I'd like to think they were just watching over her, and I don't think they meant to scare her, and I think that's why they eventually stopped showing up. But the cookie jar thing is VERY much on-brand for Nan; from the stories I've heard about her, she had a bit of a temper. Anyway, Italians! We love to haunt, and sometimes we're a little sassy about it.”

AMANDA:  Julia as, as an Italian American how does this check out?

JULIA:  Yep, true. All true. 

AMANDA:  Love it.

JULIA:  All makes sense. I hope that when I pass away after being a an old sassy Italian grandma that I too come back to haunt when people talk shit about me. 

AMANDA:  I love it. 

JULIA:  That's the dream.

AMANDA:  I love it. You don't deserve my cookie jar! Then throws it at the wall.

JULIA:  You don't deserve my cookies!

ERIC:  What cookies were in that jar for your family? My grandmother always had Oreos.

JULIA:  Yeah, my grandma was also a big Oreo person. She never had a cookie jar but was definitely like a, "Oh, well. I'm gonna have some Oreos, does anyone else want some?" And were like, "Grandma you're diabetic you can't be doing this to yourself."

AMANDA:  My grandma made epic batches of Christmas cookies. So she would do those like the thumbprint cookies with like a little jelly candy in it like a jelly you know?

ERIC:  Yes. 

JULIA:  Those are the best. 

AMANDA:  Some red some green she made like hundreds and hundreds of them starting in the summer and froze them.

ERIC:  Oh! 

AMANDA:  She must have a second freezer somewhere I didn't know about.

JULIA:  Whoa!

ERIC:  Oh wow. 

AMANDA:  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 

ERIC:  You mean there, there are always Christmas cookies.

JULIA:  It's always Christmas cookie time.

AMANDA:  No, no, no, they wouldn't come out until December. 

ERIC:  Ah.

AMANDA:  But she– she would start baking them freeze them and then we usually went upstate for Christmas and so she would bring with her like 100 cookies in Tupperwares. 

JULIA:  But she was starting like six months in advance? That's wild! 

AMANDA:  Well, she also gave them out she gave them out to like neighbors like the mail carrier like her hairdresser you know everybody. 

JULIA:  She must have like just had a single seat in her car driving upstate that was just cookies. 

AMANDA:  Oh, I helped pack that car. Yeah.

JULIA:  Wild. Love it. 

AMANDA:  I actually have just a quick little personal haunting that I wanted to say, Julia, I didn't want to step on your– on your trunk situation. This is more like a minor phenomenon. 

JULIA:  Okay.

AMANDA:  But my fiance, a different Eric is a fan of the Boston Celtics and they were recently in the Conference Finals in the Eastern Conference of basketball it was you know very exciting and nail biting went to game seven the longest that it can go cuz it was very contentious back and forth and one team kept really blowing out the other and then I was like God damn, who's gonna win and during game six with the Celtics could have won and we're, in fact very close to winning the whole conference, but then ended up losing going to game seven. I wasn't sure what to watch. And I was like, What should I watch? And he goes, Well, Amanda, I think you're gonna have to watch the Time Traveler's Wife. 

JULIA:  Oh, no. 

AMANDA:  The remake of the movie helmed by Steven Moffat. 

JULIA:  Oh, no.

ERIC:  Oh, no. 

AMANDA:  It's a limited series on HBO Max, which come on, it should have been at least FX or Stars or something. This is not an HBO-caliber property. Which guys, in case you're wondering is filmed in a mockumentary style.

JULIA:  What? Why?

AMANDA:  I thought that episodes one and two were pretty bad. Episode Three begins with old age makeup. And I was like, but the thing is guys that whenever I was watching the Time Traveler's Wife, the Celtics were winning. And whenever I stopped, they lost. 

JULIA:  Oh no. 

AMANDA:  So I did watch it through game seven, where they clung on to a very small lead for the entirety of the game and ended up winning by like four points or something. 

JULIA:  Whoo! 

AMANDA:  And I just want to point out that it was uncanny. It was difficult. It required personal sacrifice. But I would like to take partial credit for the Celtics.

ERIC:  I mean, I think it's well deserved. I mean, if you have to suffer through a subpar HBO Max show, which I think all of us have had to do at one point or another. 

AMANDA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  It's- it's- it's tough. It's I mean, it's probably as tough as where they- the Eastern Conference Finals. 

JULIA:  Physically and emotionally. 

AMANDA:  Yeah, it was- it was terrible. I don't recommend it to anybody and I'm gonna have to catch up on like the filmography of Russell T. Davies to really just like, push that out of my system. 

ERIC:  He's back. He's back in charge of- 

AMANDA:  He's back at it.

ERIC:  He's back in charge of Doctor Who, Amanda!

AMANDA:  He is.

JULIA:  Yeah, can't wait.

ERIC:  Is this- is this when we tried to watch Doctor Who together again?

AMANDA:  We have Russell and we have a black Doctor. So like, come on.

JULIA:  I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I did restart watching Doctor Who recently-

AMANDA:  Yeah.

JULIA:  -at that news, and I was like, okay, well, I haven't watched the last like three or four most recent seasons. Let's go for it. Let's see what happens. 

AMANDA:  I know. I'm back in for Russell. I can do it.

ERIC:  I will give it an honest go. But you know what? I've been fooled before a couple of times by Doctor Who.

AMANDA:  We've been hurt before. 

ERIC:  More like Doctor Fool. [14:17]

AMANDA:  Well, let's now go into a non-personal haunting. This comes from Jelly and it's titled, Ancestral Ghosts, Trickster Elves from the Philippines, and an Old General. 

JULIA:  I would like to point out that Jelly is the name of my car. So I am going to picture my car writing this email in.

AMANDA:  Yeah, totally. 

ERIC:  Your car has a name? 

JULIA:  Yeah, we named both of our cars. 

ERIC:  I mean, I've heard of people naming their car. I just didn't realize you had a car with a name. It just never has come up.

JULIA:  I have two cars that have a name. My first car is Jelly because my husband bought it without telling me that I was gonna buy it. 

ERIC:  Oh.

JULIA:  And the license plate is J E L. And I was like, Oh, I wasn't ready for this Jelly. And he's like, Well, that's the name of the car now. 

ERIC:  Yep, yep. It makes sense. 

JULIA:  Then our second one is a convertible that I inherited from my grandparents. 

ERIC:  Ooh, fancy.

JULIA:  And it is silver and I love and it's like a boat. And so I named it the Dolphin after a boat from a book series that I like.

ERIC:  Amazing. 

AMANDA:  It's very good. 

JULIA:  Yeah.

AMANDA:  Well, this jelly is a Labtech. She does blood tests in a hospital. She does blood tests, including many, many COVID tests over the last couple of years. So thank you, Jelly, and she writes, "...usually I do these tests by myself in the hospital late at night and Hometown Urban Legends is my favorite thing to listen to when I'm there alone, good or bad idea? You decide."

JULIA:  Ah, it depends on you and your tolerance to creepiness, I feel like you know?

ERIC:  I say it's a good idea. 

JULIA:  Okay.

ERIC:  I say download all the episodes again listen to them again.

JULIA:  Relisten to them, yes. 

ERIC:  [15:38] friend's phone. 

AMANDA:  Yep. Yep.

ERIC:  All of it. Yeah.

AMANDA:  It's perfect. 

ERIC:  It's never a wrong time to listen to our podcast

JULIA:  Subscribe all your co-workers. 

AMANDA:  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

JULIA:  All your patients

ERIC:  Don't know. Don't, don't- don't take your patients' phone to subscribe their phone, that- that feels like I don't think it's a HIPAA violation, but it feels HIPAA adjacent.

AMANDA:  Yeah, you can have all your coworkers do it. 

ERIC:  Yeah. 

AMANDA:  I'd say you know, download the– the only time you should touch the Apple Podcast App is to download all episodes of Spirits on a person's phone that way if they like accidentally click the play button when they have their headphones plugged in, but no music playing it'll just automatically start to play our show.

JULIA:  [16:10]

ERIC:  The worst feature of the iPhone hands down.

AMANDA:  It's great. It's great. Alright, this is a couple of part email from Jelly. So she begins by saying, "I'm not particularly spiritual myself, but out of my immediate family, apparently I've had the most encounters with the otherworldly. I actually have a bunch of personal stories, but I think these are the ones you might enjoy most." Firstly, "An Ancestral Ghost Story" 

JULIA:  Ooh.

AMANDA:  "One of my earliest childhood memories was playing with my grandfather (Lolo in Tagalog) in my grandmother/Lola's house. (I'm Filipino by birth but I grew up in NZ and Australia). I must have been, like, one or two years old--old enough to toddle, but not old enough to remember much else. My Lola's house wasn't huge, but it was this old Spanish style house in Quezon City, Manila that (I think) my Lola's parents built after they got married. The living room used to be this pale green colour" just like your living room you just made Julia.

JULIA:  Oooh.

AMANDA:  "and there was a big portrait of my Lolo on the far wall right above the altar. (It was the Philippines and my Lola was VERY Catholic. She had a little corner in her house with her bible, rosaries, Santo Nino, the whole shebang, and on top of it all was this ginormous hand painted portrait of my Lolo). Lola had this wickerwork furniture set in her house, and Lolo liked to sit on this one armchair with really really long armrests. It was His chair." Capitals. "and no one else would sit in it but him. I used to play hand games with him while he sat on it, and we'd even play hide and seek or chase each other around the coffee table.   

Eventually, as I grew older, Lolo stopped coming around. I don't remember when exactly, but we stopped playing and I saw him less and less often. I was young, so it wasn't really a big deal at the time.

Fast forward twelve-thirteen years. My family emigrated out of the Philippines when I was five, and a long while later, we were living in Auckland, New Zealand. My mum was up late one night looking through some old photos, and I came out into the living room and found a picture of an old man holding a baby. I'd never seen it before, but I recognized the man: "Oh, hey," I said. "It's me and Lolo."

  

Mum looked at me funny and frowned. "How do you know that?"

  

 "Oh, me and Lolo used to play games at Lola's house. That's him in his armchair with the big long arms."

JULIA:  Oh, no. 

AMANDA:  "Mum sort of just stared at me for a minute looking really confused. "Are you sure you're not confusing him with your Tito (Uncle) Reggie?"

  

I laughed. "Uh. Yeah. I think I would know the difference between my grandfather and my uncle."

  

And then my Mum kind of just went pale and quiet."

JULIA:  Oh, no!

AMANDA:  "What's wrong?" I asked her.

  

"Well," said Mum. "You can't recognize Lolo from that photo. He died a couple of months after you were born."

JULIA:  Whhhaaaa!

AMANDA:  Aaaah!

ERIC:  Uh-oh. 

AMANDA:  "We stared at each other. A few seconds passed before we shut the photo albums and Noped right out.

  

Fast forward a couple more years, and we were in the Philippines for my cousin's wedding.” 

Not yet guys, there's more! 

JULIA:  Oh no.

AMANDA:  "We were visiting Lola's house, which is a lot smaller than I remembered it being and Lolos arm chair and all the wickerwork furniture was still there. My cousin was playing video games on his computer, which was set up right outside of the master bedroom, which was Lola and Lolos room when he was still alive. He was playing Defense of the Ancients or World of Warcraft or something. I don't know. But the point is halfway through the game..." Eric,  you have an expression there are those very different kinds of games?

ERIC:  No, no, it's Defense of the Ancients is often referred to as DOTA. So here I get written out all the way it's just it's just like very funny. It's accurate, but it's very funny.

AMANDA:  Jelly was explaining it for me because she then writes, "...half way through the game, he stopped what he was doing--and you know what DOTA and WOW are like, you can't pause--got up, and closed the bedroom door.

  

 When I asked him why, he said: "It feels like someone's watching me from in there."

  

 "What do you mean?" I asked.

  

 He looked at Lolo's portrait over the altar and said nothing. This same trip, we met my other cousin's little girl, who was three or four at the time and wouldn't go anywhere near Lola and Lolo's room. She'd point at Lolo's portrait and hide her face in her mum's shoulder and we knew she'd seen him around too. The running theory is that he appears to the eldest child of each family that was born after he died. I was the last grandkid to "meet him", if you can call him holding me when I was tiny tiny baby "meeting him". I have an 18 month old now, and I can't help but wonder if she'll run into him some day too.”

JULIA:  I love that but my question is why are all the other cousins like afraid of Lolo and you're like, yeah, a Lolo and me, we used to play all the time. It was great. Love that for us.

AMANDA:  I don't know. Maybe their connection was stronger because they were able to meet before his death. 

JULIA:  That's true. That might be it.

ERIC:  Too busy playing video games. 

JULIA:  Too busy to hang out. 

AMANDA:  I know. 

ERIC:  Listen, kids, if you're too busy playing the Fortnite or the Minecraft, maybe you won't get haunted by your grandpa.

AMANDA:  Yeah.

JULIA:  Lolo just like kind of judging how- 

AMANDA:  Yeah. 

JULIA:  -like your World of Warcraft strategy, you know?

ERIC:  He's like, oh, my grandson's a jungler. Really? Really? 

JULIA:  I don't know what that means. 

ERIC:  I barely do.

AMANDA:  He's like, shape up your raids. Is that anything? 

ERIC:  That's No, that's alright. You do have to keep up with your raids. 

AMANDA:  Nice. Well, the second part of this email Julie, I think you'll really enjoy it's titled, "Trickster Elves from the Philippines" This one, Jelly writes is not so scary. "When I was eight and living in New Zealand, I had really bad eczema. We lived across the road from this house with a really big field that us kids liked to play in, and my eczema really only started to play up after we started running around in it. Every doctor we went to said it was probably an allergic reaction, but no matter what they did, it didn't go away. It was all over my arms and legs, and even on my face and, long story short, it was pretty gross..." and uncomfortable. "We were running out of options so my mum turned to more traditional methods. She gave me a plate of food, told me to leave it in the field across from our house, and apologize to any duwende we might have brought to New Zealand with us. In Filipino mythology, duwende are elves (like, elves and the shoemaker elves, not Tolkein elves) who live in fields and under anthills. They're usually pretty harmless but if you trample their homes or disturb their territory, they can be salty about it and curse you until you apologize.

  

 I left the plate of food in the field and apologized like I was told. The next day, my eczema began to clear.

JULIA:  Oh my god, I love this for your mom!

AMANDA:  I love this for your mom who's like doctors, creams, not working. Alright, well, it can't hurt. And look, it didn't. 

JULIA:  Yeah, bring some stuff out. Apologize. It should work out. It's fine. I also just like I love this idea of like, your mom told you, hey, we're gonna do this folkloric thing. And then like, immediately, immediately you get to come up and stop that I'm like, yes. Thank you.

AMANDA:  Thank you. It's beautiful. And then it jelly has a final part to her email, but I'm gonna save that for this month Patreon urban legends episode.

JULIA:  Really plugging the Patreon. In this episode, you're missing out some good stuff if you're not subscribed.

AMANDA:  Maybe years worth of bonus episodes. 

ERIC:  Yeah.

JULIA:  Yeah. Yeah, it's great.

ERIC:  Do you have a little tease of maybe what that section is titled?

AMANDA:  Oh, well, of course. This one Eric is titled, "The Old General." 

Eric and Julia:  Ooh. 

AMANDA:  Which sounds like a brand of whisky. So, with that on mind, would you guys like to go get a refill?

ERIC:  I'd love to. 

ERIC:  Absolutely

[midroll]

AMANDA:  Hello, hello. Welcome to the midroll. Julia's internet got eaten by ghost. So here I am. But I'm very excited to first and foremost remind you that we are going to be having a live show. The Spirits team will be reunited Julia Eric and myself for the very first time since the pandemic live in person or via stream on July 15. If you're in New York City come and see us live a caveat or you can buy a ticket to stream it live or watch it later on video on demand whatever you want go to spiritspodcast.com/live to get your tickets now. I would also of course love to welcome our newest patrons Heidi and Grace and thank our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Daisy, Froody Chick, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Jessica Stewart, Kneazlekins, Lily, Little Vomit Spiders Running Around, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi. And of course, don't twist it the legend-level patrons, don't get it twisted. I don't know. I guess don't twist it either. Arianna, Audra, Bex, Iron Havoc, Morgan, Mother of Vikings, Sarah, & Bea Me Up Scotty. To join go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast we think every new patron by name, get your name read, do it now. This week I would like to recommend a new podcast that we have been working, working working on getting out to you. It's named Rainbow Parenting This is a partner podcast that Multitude is producing with Lindsay Amer of Queer Kids Stuff a longtime friend of mine and now a collaborator. This podcast is all about raising kids in a gender and sexuality-affirming way if you've ever wondered how to talk to kids about gender and sexuality, how to support kids in your life, or how to encourage the adults around you to be more affirming. This is a great show for you. There's a link in the description or you can look up Rainbow {arenting in your podcast app. And finally, if you are looking for even more podcasts to listen to you gotta check out Exolore by Dr. Moya McTier, Dr. McTier helps us think about what life would be like on different planets and how to create your own fictional worlds. Every week, she explores fictional worlds by building them with a panel of expert guests interviewing professional world builders or reviewing the merits of worlds that have already been built. I was on the show a few weeks back talking all about building businesses and doing the world-building of culture building at work and I had a really fun time. Moiya asked me questions that I had not really thought about before and hadn't been asked before which is just totally typical because she's amazing. So search for the word Exolore. It's like explorer, but with an O instead of a P in your podcast app or go to exolorepod.com. I was visiting Julia out in her home on Long Island the other day. And when I got there, it was late at night and we were you know, putting our stuff away and getting ready for bed, and Julia and her husband Jake were like, hey, by the way in the morning, guess what we have? And I was like, what? He said wild grain and it sure was and in the morning, I woke to the smell of freshly baking sourdough bread. It was totally amazing and delicious and so easy. Wild Grain is the first bake from Frozen box for artisanal bread. Plus, they have amazing roles, pastries and even handmade pastas. It's so cool and makes a sort of pasta dinner during a weeknight feel so special. They use great ingredients and for every member Wild Grain donates six meals to the greater Boston food bank that's over 120,000 meals donated so far. Basically, you sign up choose what kind of box you want and how often and then they deliver for free, free delivery a box of breads, pastas and pastries with easy to follow instructions. Every item bakes from frozen and 25 minutes or less, you can always reschedule skip or cancel if need be. Hungry already? For a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box plus free croissants in every box when you go to wildgrain.com/spirits to start your subscription. You heard me people that's right, free croissants in every box and $30 off your first box when you go to wildgrain.com/spirits. That's wildgrain.com/spirits or use promo code Spirits at checkout. We are also sponsored this week by DoorDash. And one of the things that they kind of suggest that you think or talk about in this ad is if you have back-to-back meetings or errands or chores to take care of and need some help getting stuff done, whether that's getting groceries delivered or getting dinner or lunch delivered to you. And that literally was me today I had meetings between 9 AM and 6 PM. And you know I in the past might have not eaten or if I forgot to pack a lunch or had nothing in the fridge I just wouldn't have brought it but I was able to get a smoothie bowl from my favorite local Juice Bar via DoorDash and not have to leave my office which was amazing. And DoorDash has so many options for you along with the restaurants you love, you can now get groceries and other essential items delivered with DoorDash that string snacks and other household items delivered in under an hour. Ordering is super easy and your items will be left safely outside your door when you choose contactless delivery drop-off, which I always do because that way the delivery person can just drop it off, get on with their day and I can come down and grab it when I'm between calls with over 300,000 partners you can support your neighborhood go twos or choose from your favorite national restaurants. Popeyes is my go to. For a limited time, our listeners can get 25% off and zero delivery fees on their first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter code Spirits that's 25% off up to $10 in value and zero delivery fees on your first order when you download the DoorDash app in the App Store and enter code Spirits. Don't forget that's code Spirits for 25% off your first order with DoorDash. Subject to change, terms play. And now a word from our sponsor BetterHelp: Life can absolutely be overwhelming and a lot of us feel burned out without even knowing it that might kind of sneak up on us until we feel like a lack of motivation, some irritability, fatigue and more. For me that can mean like not being excited for stuff during my day or just feeling a sense of overwhelming dread and looking forward to things that should bring me joy and BetterHelp Online Therapy wants to remind you to prioritize yourself. Talking with somebody can really help you figure out what's causing stress in your life and what you can do about it and I do therapy every week with my therapist whose name is also Amanda via BetterHelp. BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist. So you don't have to see anybody on camera if you don't want to. It is much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/spirits That's better H E L P.com/spirits. And now let's get back to the show.

ERIC:  Alrighty. So it is summertime which is I mean I would argue one of the primetimes for just having a nice cold drink.

JULIA:  That is true

AMANDA:  Totally. I love you're on your pineapple print tank, Eric. You're really rocking the summer look. 

ERIC:  Pineapple print tank. 

JULIA:  Living the dream. 

AMANDA:  Living the dream. 

ERIC:  I'm loving it it's nice can't wait to go outside and mow the lawn earlier this morning. lovely lovely time but you know what's going to be an even lovely your time this afternoon when I mean, I don't want to just do the stereotypical thing but here it is, once again, ain't no laws when you're drinking Claws. 

JULIA:  Oh, you're good.

ERIC:  We've decreased our alcohol consumption in our house so by suggestions might become a bit repetitive it's usually just whiskey or some very light beverages but you know what? One of those keg of light beverages White Claws or any hard seltzer? They're lovely. They're nice and refreshing, which you usually don't actually get. Most people be like a nice refreshing stout. It's like that's truly not actually refreshing. It's just chilled. But White Claw, play a little beach volleyball, grab one of those. I mean, I wouldn't recommend only drinking He knows while you're playing some beach volleyball maybe get some actual water in there but you know what? 

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  It's- it's a lovely summertime drink, I cannot recommend it enough going back to it now that we're in that that's summer summertime time.

JULIA:  You know what like, for me, summertime tends to be like very like citrusy beers and stuff like that, mostly like light stuff. But I was at my favorite brewpub the other day, which is the Blue Point Brewery Brewpub. 

ERIC:  It sure is.

JULIA:  Which is very hard to say sometimes. And so I was like, Yeah, you know, I have my my Lemon Love Letter, one of my favorite lemon kettle sours. They have a key lime Imperial, which is like boozy as hell. And I was like, I want something a little lighter right now, but also something like different taste-wise. They have a carrot cake ale that is out of this world. 

ERIC:  What? 

AMANDA:  What? 

JULIA:  It's so good. It's nice. It's light and refreshing. And it tastes exactly like carrot cake. It's like having like a light dessert at the end of your meal. It's perfect.

AMANDA:  Oh my god. Julia, I'm visiting you this weekend? And we're gonna have to get some.

JULIA:  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 

AMANDA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  I'm gonna expect some of those in July as well.

JULIA:  Oh, yeah. You got it. We'll make it happen.

AMANDA:  Love it. And my recommendation this month is not even a local drink, which we normally do. But I have started a collection in my home of tap poles. Is that what those are called? 

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Yes. 

AMANDA:  Yeah, it was very fun. We got one for a Santa items like seasonal pumpkin ale, which I always really enjoy. And like a very worn wooden Coors one just again, not like a super favorite beer of mine. But it is like a lovely, very classic, like Irish Pub looking sort of thing. And we got out of fleamarket with Julia the other weekend. It was so much fun. I love it. And so if any of you I don't know, work in bars or places that make them and have extras that you know you want to send to your favorite podcasters while our address is on our website, spiritspodcast.com.

JULIA:  That's true. Amanda bought those two and she's like, I think I have to start another collection. I was like, Yeah, you do now. You do, my guy.

AMANDA:  You can't just buy two.

ERIC:  Two is just not enough. You need at least 10. 

JULIA:  Yeah.

AMANDA:  Exactly. So rock on.

JULIA:  Rock on. Now. Eric, you posted something in our Slack- 

ERIC:  Yeah.

JULIA:  -the other day. We need to talk about it.

ERIC:  Yeah. So- so me and Kelsey were out of town visiting her family up in New England for a wedding. And we were at her uncle's house. And he was like, hey, got a bunch of antiques from your grandparents. Are you interested in anything? And we did, we did take a Hope Chest which is very nice. No ghosts and as far as we could tell. [Julia doubts it] just a blanket. But what Well, I mean, don't let's not let's not focus on the Hope Chest because-

JULIA:  [32:29] 

ERIC:  -what we need to focus on are the three dolls. 

JULIA:  The horrifying dolls. 

ERIC:  There are three dials that we were offered. They are terrifying. We did not accept understandably. But I do want to I do want to point out that it does seem like it was one boy doll and two girls dolls. 

AMANDA:  Okay.

ERIC:  Which I mean, what if- what if we are trapped at these dolls? What if that's us?

JULIA:  You did not float that to us before this moment. 

AMANDA:  No, you didn't.

ERIC:  know I did it. Because logistically it doesn't make sense. One, we're alive to it. Two, it makes sense that we're in haunted dolls in New England currently, not particularly close to New York. So I mean, like the logistics don't really make sense but I did see it about I shared it, I was like, huh, that that does align with the current situation. The boy doll was holding a box of cookies which I am want to do.

JULIA:  You also had an expression like dear god, why is this happening to me? 

ERIC:  Yeah.

AMANDA:  That's true.

ERIC:  Which is how I am pretty much all the time. 

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  So I mean, very spooky. We'll, we'll, what we'll share that picture-

JULIA:  We'll post that picture and you can tag yourselves.

ERIC:  -on the Patreon at the extras level and maybe we'll- we'll put it on Instagram, perhaps as well. But yeah, just a little spooky, spooky thing there. 

AMANDA:  Love that. 

ERIC:  We also took a harmonica.

JULIA:  Oh.

ERIC:  I know. Very large harmonica, nothing to really report about the harmonica, but-

JULIA:  Not yet, at least.

AMANDA:  Harmonicas are always bigger than I expect them to be. I think maybe because I you sort of equated them with, like, plastic kazoos that I would get from, you know, a bowling alley, or an arcade situation, but yeah, they're like legit instruments.

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  This one seems like even if you're imagining a large harmonica, this one seems larger. This was like a professional level like Billy Joel piano band level harmonica. 

AMANDA:  Wow. Okay.

ERIC:  I have to [34:07] he's he's playing when he's he's up on stage.

JULIA:  Like you need a headpiece in order for him to play piano [34:13]

ERIC:  Exactly. Yeah.

JULIA:  -harmonica, very cool. 

AMANDA:  Which he does.

ERIC:  Speaking of spooky dolls in a room, This story that I have from Mel is titled, "The ghost in my room". 

JULIA:  Okay. 

ERIC:  I don't believe it's particularly about any spooky dolls. But we have to segue some way. 

JULIA:  Fair enough.

AMANDA:  I'm into it. Those cursed dolls are not in your room, Eric, because you wisely did not bring them home. 

ERIC:  Exactly, exactly. 

JULIA:  Smart move, my guy. 

ERIC:  So this first "...1st story happened to me when I was young. I cannot tell you exactly how old I was when it all started but...Here it is..."  "I used to live in a new house. We were the first owners and there was no history of something happening on the land where it was build so I guess you could say for sure: it was ghost free."

JULIA:  Hmm. I am of the mind that you should Google any home that you're planning on buying or building at any point and find out if that's accurate and true. Check your local government, they probably have records that can tell you like, hey, this used to be a cemetery beforehand.

AMANDA:  Yeah, a home is a big commitment to be Team Ignorant.

JULIA:  Yeah, yeah.

ERIC:  I mean, luckily mount Mel was when I was a child. So-

JULIA:  Okay. 

ERIC:  -Mel's parents next time you buy your home, or Mel if you become a homeowner anytime soon.

AMANDA:  I'll let it slide this time. 

JULIA:  I'll let it slide. You probably didn't have Google back then.

ERIC:  "The upper floor where my parent's and my own room were, had a deep blue carpet floor that felt like walking on a cloud. My room furniture was inherited from my great great aunt, the bed, wardrobe and side tables were in a beautiful carved wood. Every evening, I would go to bed before my parents and was used to hearing them go to bed later in the night trying to tip toe discreetly to their bedroom. I also had the habit of covering my ears with my blanket as I was afraid of sleeping with my uncovered ears.The upped floor where my parent's and my own room were, had a deep blue carpet floor that felt like walking on a cloud. My room furniture was inherited from my great great aunt, the bed, wardrobe and side tables were in a beautiful carved wood. Every evening, I would go to bed before my parents and was used to hearing them go to bed later in the night trying to tip toe discreetly to their bedroom. I also had the habit of covering my ears with my blanket as I was afraid of sleeping with my uncovered ears."

AMANDA:  Oh, what story were you told about bugs or ghosts?

ERIC:  Yeah, something spooky. "One night, I decided that I was too old to be afraid to sleep like this so I decided not to cover them. (I was still afraid of the dark so I always kept the shutter half closed...but let's fight one fear at a time)." 

JULIA:  Yes, that's fair.

AMANDA:  That's- that's wise. 

ERIC:  Yeah. You don't want to like do everything all at once.

JULIA:  Don't overwhelm yourself. 

AMANDA:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. no, things don't stick that way. 

ERIC:  "After everyone went to bed, the house was super quiet and I started hearing the sound of muffled footsteps. At first, I thought they came from my parent's room, maybe they were still awake or something. But the footsteps came closer and closer to my bed. I opened my eyes, excepting to see my mom checking on me but there was no one. And guess what? I could still hear the footsteps as if someone was walking around my bed." 

AMANDA:  No, thank you.

JULIA:  Oh, no.

ERIC:  "This was too much for me, I immediately hid under my blanket and after what seems to be an eternity, I fell asleep.

  

 I cannot tell you for sure how long this went on for but I could hear someone walking around my bed almost every night for quite some time. And one night, I couldn't take it anymore : I uncovered my head, carefully keeping my ears covered and said as gently as possible : "I don't know who you are, I don’t mean you no harm but could you please stop walking around my bed or in the bedroom while I'm here

?"

AMANDA:  Very, very valid. 

JULIA:  Yeah, fair enough.

AMANDA:  That's a great compromise. 

ERIC:  Yeah.

AMANDA:  Yeah. While I'm at school. This is your room. No problem.

ERIC:  Exactly. I mean, just like just a polite, polite request. I finished telling them I have school in the morning. And "...If you like my room, it's okay with me but please let me sleep. Thank you very much for your understanding. " How kind, just how kind of a child

JULIA:  This is very kind. This is- your parents raised you right? So polite. 

AMANDA:  What a [37:53]

ERIC:  "From that moment on? I never heard the footsteps ever again."

AMANDA:  Okay.

JULIA:  Okay. 

ERIC:  "But wait, the story does not end here."

JULIA:  Okay.

ERIC:  "Years later, we moved to a new house in a new city. About 6 years ago, my younger sister (who was a teenager back then) complained about hearing footstep sometimes at night coming from the attic. I had already moved out of this new house, as I was living my adult life in another part of France. But here is what my parents and sister told me :

 A friend of my dad, came to visit them and as he was in the house he offered to take a tour of the house to purify it.

Just love a friend coming over and be like, hey, I'm here. I've got my sage with me and a bunch of other stuff in this old leather bag. Let me purify your house. Well, I just happen to be here. Why not?

JULIA:  Sure. Why not?

ERIC:  "This friend is a-" oh boy. Here we go. It's a French word. 

JULIA:  Alright. 

ERIC:  And I am bad at other languages. 

AMANDA:  We can tell you. 

ERIC:  "Passeur d’âmesv"

AMANDA:  How's it spelled?

JULIA:  How is it spelled? 

ERIC:  Oh, it's spelled P A I'm just gonna, I'm gonna-

JULIA:  Yeah, copy, paste it in the Slack.

ERIC:  -copy, paste it in the Slack.

AMANDA:  You have two people here who read French. 

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  I didn't know you guys read French.

JULIA:  At least a little bit.

AMANDA:  Enough. 

JULIA:  Passeur d’âmes

ERIC:  I mean, that was pretty close. 

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  That's pretty close to what I said, passeur d’âmes. 

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  I just added a little bit– a little bit of flare to it. 

AMANDA:  I love it. 

ERIC:  "So this friend is a passeur d’âmes as we say in French." which is probably not how you say to French how I just said it, but that's how you say it. "...which means he helps souls/ghosts."

JULIA:  Like a ferryman or something like that. 

ERIC:  Yeah.

JULIA:  Gotcha. Okay.

ERIC:  Helps them "to go to the other side and whether you believe it or not, his visit that day was spine-chilling.

So, he starts his tour, entering in every room and my parents are just following him in silence. When he gets to the upper floor of the house, he asks « I feel like there is something just on top of us, do you have an attic with furnitures, clothes etc ? »"

JULIA:  Was it the aunt's furniture that they inherited?

ERIC:  Maybe- maybe. 

JULIA:  I'm guessing.

ERIC:  It's a shame that story doesn't take place on Long Island because then that we would have before the full chain.

AMANDA:  Full circle, and there was a broken surfboard in and some skis!

JULIA:  Ahhhh!

ERIC:  "So, my parents take him to the attic and he instantly says : « Oh! There is definitely something strong going on here ! » he said while crossing the attic directly towards the wardrobe I had in my bedroom back in our previous house." 

JULIA:  That was it! I told you!

ERIC:  "(Please note, that he doesn’t know anything about me or my sister hearing footsteps back then) As he stands in from of the wardrobe, he tells my parents that a man around 40 of age, died in the room where this furniture was, that he is still here with it and needs help to let go and pass to the other side. We learned later on that this man was my great great uncle, he did die around 40ish in his bedroom." Guys, me and my sister couldn't believe it. 

JULIA:  Wow. 

ERIC:  That is the story of the wardrobe. And I still have one more story left to tell you. So let me know And I'll send it in.” Of course

AMANDA:  Always yes. 

JULIA:  Yeah. 

AMANDA:  We always want follow ups Jelly too was like I have more Philippine folklore. Jelly, always.

Julia and Eric:  Yeah.

JULIA:  Always, if we read your story in you're like, hey, I have more sense that more. 

ERIC:  Yeah.

JULIA:  We love seeing repeats

AMANDA:  Send it in. To close us out, guys. I have another handwritten urban legend from Maya.

ERIC:  I love that this one looks like it was literally just ripped out of a journal.

JULIA:  Yeah, fantastic.

AMANDA:  It sure was.

ERIC:  Very cool. 

AMANDA:  And the top says. Stay creepy. Stay cool, which I love. Alright, so Maya writes, "Dear Eric, Julia, and Amanda, I decided it was finally time to write in and tell you about my haunted school/castle hybrid."

ERIC:  Oh. 

AMANDA:  "I went to school in Narragansett Rhode Island. And yes, it was a castle originally built by a man named John Hazard at some point way in the past."

JULIA:  Shout out to Narragansett my favorite Rhode Island beer. 

AMANDA:  Yeah, I know how to pronounce it on account of the beer

ERIC:  Shout out to a guy named Hazard who built a castle in Rhode Island as well.

JULIA:  Dope.

AMANDA:  "He lived there for a long time before he died and after he did the school was a nunnery and then a historic site in this little town on Rhode Island's coast."

JULIA:  Alright. 

AMANDA:  "It stayed that way until it became my high school in 2008. I didn't attend for another 10 years during my junior year 2019, me and two friends decided to see if the rumor that John Hazard was haunting the school was true with a homemade Ouija board."

JULIA:  Hold on. Let's- let's talk about the merits of a homemade Ouija board.

AMANDA:  Yeah, here's my thought viscerally. I go no, no, no. However, I love the idea of not giving Hasbro money for making the Ouija boards that they make.

JULIA:  Sure. But I just feel like I don't know if I'm going to contact spirits, I don't want the DIY do at home is just fine.

ERIC:  Yeah, I mean, like there needs to be some regulations. 

JULIA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  And like is Hasbro the best at it? Definitely not. 

JULIA:  Probably not.

ERIC:  Like we've– we've on this very podcast discuss the rules that are listed with a manufactured safe Ouija board. 

JULIA:  Safe.

ERIC:  If you're just like, throw it out there and just put in letters on a piece of cardboard, and then who knows what use it for the planchette. I mean, a lot of things could go wrong.

JULIA:  Yeah.

AMANDA:  I totally agree. Well, let's see how it turned out, shall we? 

JULIA:  Yeah.

AMANDA:  "We discovered that John does in fact haunt the school but is friendly. Mostly. We went and told everyone we could find that the school really was haunted. But me along with two different friends actually encountered him without even trying that time." 

JULIA:  Ooh. 

AMANDA:  "We were in the dining hall. So my friend could microwave some mac and cheese when we heard noises from behind the door leading to the kitchen, which was locked. My friend, the one with a mac and cheese saw a light from outside which was odd for two reasons. One, it was nighttime and to the light was an orb. I saw it too, but only from the corner of my eye. I don't remember if my third friend saw it, but I remember that we ran. Thankfully, John Hazard is not too unfriendly. Anyway, that's my story. Stay creepy. Stay cool from Maya." 

JULIA:  So I think that it is hard to tell whether or not a haunting is malevolent or not based on like, one to two interactions. You know what I mean? 

AMANDA:  Yeah, I think that it would be just like a malignant, malevolent spirit to use a homemade Ouija board to tell you, Nah, man. I'm friendly. 

JULIA:  I'm cool. 

ERIC:  I'm cool. 

AMANDA:  I'm cool, don't to worry about me. 

ERIC:  The vibes are good here. 

AMANDA:  I love mac and cheese, too.

JULIA:  Yeah, I'm just an orb, don't worry about me.

AMANDA:  Yeah.

ERIC:  Here's a floating white claw. Take it to the quad.

JULIA:  These are children! Oh, boy. Yeah, no, I wouldn't trust that, especially with your homemade Ouija board wouldn't trust it. 

AMANDA:  And let's not forget we are in a castle/high school. So I feel like you know you are a whisper away from a haunting at any time-

JULIA:  Yeah.

AMANDA:  -when you're in a castle.

JULIA:  And listen, ghosts aren't obligated to tell you the truth on those Ouija boards. He could just be a liar. 

AMANDA:  That's true.

JULIA:  Man owned a castle. He's probably a liar.

ERIC:  The only way to tell if a ghost is bad or good is once they've done something bad, every other coast. It's just it's just a waiting game.

JULIA:  Yeah, next time might be the time they go evil you never know.

ERIC:  Exactly no no you know what's happening in the ether?

JULIA:  Yeah, totally. Now I'm worried about my- my haunted chest. Uh-oh

ERIC:  The chest isn't haunted but the air outside your house is haunted.

JULIA:  Great. So my back porch is haunted. Good to know. Well, whether you are chatting with ghosts at your castle/high school or revealing ghosts in your unfinished attic remember, listeners as always. 

JULIA:  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 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 nonalcoholic 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!

Transcriptionist: KM