Episode 291: Your Urban Legends LXV - Wine, Not Blood
/Amanda reveals she is the shower ghost, Julia demands answers and closure, and Eric comes out as anti-olive. It’s an urban legends episode and the last story is CONTENTIOUS.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of climate change, blood, murder, home invasion, genitalia, sleep paralysis, animal illness, death, and bugs.
Housekeeping
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Transcript
JULIA: Hey, Julia here. A quick announcement before we get started. Spirit is doing a live show in New York City on July 15 will be in person at Caveat and live streamed online so you can see us either in person or on your computer. Tickets are available now at spiritspodcast.com/live or you can click the link in the description. We hope to see you there and now let's get to the episode.
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 291: Your Urban Legends.
JULIA: Alright, guys. We got to– we got to start this off with a story from me.
ERIC: Okay, we have to.
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: We do.
AMANDA: Julia, I love hearing your stories.
JULIA: So you guys remember how I had a creepy chest that we found in our attic that we saw it open and there was nothing inside of it?
AMANDA: How can I ever forget you offered to let me see the chest in question when I visited you a couple of weeks ago and I said no, thank you.
JULIA: You're like, you know, I'm good for now. Like, you know what, Amanda, fair enough. That's fine.
AMANDA: I'm good.
JULIA: So I have been saying hey, man, you know, my house is haunted. Everything's fine. Everything's cool. Everything's fine with this house, right? Might be a little haunted.
ERIC: Okay, just a little haunted.
AMANDA: What's the evidence?
JULIA: Like, listen, I haven't seen like any ghostly apparitions. I haven't heard whispered voices or anything like that. However, a ghost might have locked me out of my house.
ERIC: Okay, okay.
AMANDA: Tell me more.
JULIA: I have a wonderful house. I love my house a whole lot. Ghosts listening to this, I love this house a whole lot, please stop. But I was taking a little break from work and I decided to go check on some plants that I had planted in my backyard. I had recently– like it was a really beautiful day so I had opened up the front door to let a lot of light in but I had locked the glass storm door for the front. I also because it was a beautiful day and very hot. I had the AC going. So I went outside and behind me, I closed the like heavy glass door rather than the screen door because I didn't want to let the AC outright and I was also like well you know, I'm only going outside for like a minute or two to check on these plants. So obviously I'm not going to take my wallet, my keys and also my phone. Cut back to me trying to get back inside after I checked on my plants which are all great. There's a little piece of wood that we keep in the slider of the glass door so that you know if someone was able to jimmy the lock open, they still wouldn't be able to open the door up. So despite the fact that I did not lock that door, I could not open it.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: So I stood there in the backyard running through my options, which were. Well, I could go through the front door. No Julia, you don't have the keys to the storm door. Well, I could get a bike and ride it to where I know my parents have a spare set of keys which is like a mile and a half away. And I was like well no Julia, you don't have the keys to the sheds so you can't get a bike out of the shed. I was like okay, I don't have my phone. I don't have my car keys. I can't call anyone to come pick me up. So what I ended up doing is walking a mile and a half to my parents' house getting the keys having one of them drive me back to my house and then letting myself into my house. So thank you, ghost, I got my steps in that day and luckily I have not been locked out since but the ghost did try to lock me out of the house. I'm convinced.
AMANDA: I'm terribly sorry about that. That's frustrating. And I think all of us have had the experience of being locked out just the one time hopefully and then if you're anything like me you buy one of those things with a keypad and code that you can lock near your house in case that ever happens again.
JULIA: That is smart. I probably should do that. Normally we have a keypad to our front door but again, the storm door was locked so I couldn't get access to the keypad.
ERIC: It was darn storm doors. If we just didn't have storms. None of this would have happened.
JULIA: There you go.
AMANDA: Have we considered not having storms?
ERIC: [3:54] I think if anything humanity has decided more storms. Hotter storms, windier storms.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Worse storms all around.
JULIA: Yeah, so the ghost thankfully has not locked me out since and has not played any other tricks on me but you know what? I was pretty sure that I secured that piece of wood so that it would not fall down when I close the door and yet there we were.
ERIC: Can't trust wood, can't trust the storm door. Just, who can you trust these days?
JULIA: Can't trust anything these days.
AMANDA: Well, Julia, what a lovely handwritten letter with the most gorgeous envelope I've ever seen cheer you up at all?
JULIA: Obviously, it would. Oh, my god that is so pretty.
AMANDA: This is an absolutely gorgeous letter from Stephanie, with a skull, a martini glass and they rocks glass on the front and not an actual wax but a drawn-on wax seal on the back.
JULIA: Whoa!
AMANDA: Which is amazing because I was getting nervous with real wax seals that are like fall off or have some kind of issue in the post. But this was like watercolor painted, it's so beautiful.
JULIA: The attention to details that our listeners put in is truly incredible.
AMANDA:
Highly recommended. So Stephanie writes, "Hey, creepy cool Spirits friends, longtime listener, first-time caller here. My name is Stephanie (she/her) and I have a 19-year-old college junior at UW Seattle when you mentioned school breezeways in Urban Legends 43, I knew I had to write in and also an excuse to write a physical letter." Always Stephanie Thank you.
JULIA: We love it.
AMANDA: "I went to Inglemoor High School about 45 minutes Northwest-ish of Seattle. If you look up pictures of the school, you can see the covered walkways that connect the buildings. The story goes that the architect who designed our school lived in California and neglected to consider the weather of the rainy city. I assume that would count as a hometown logical answer for you, Eric."
JULIA: There you go.
ERIC: Thank you.
AMANDA: "On the hidden swimming pool side of things, I have two mention. The first actually existed at St. Edward State Park, which is close to my house and connects via trails to my elementary school. The park has an old seminary building that was recently transformed into a hotel. But before it sat mostly empty for years, there was a pool building which was open to the public when my brother was little but closed before I can remember it. The empty pool is always kind of creepy to picture and the seminary is/was definitely haunted, whether by the supernatural or resident rodents of unusual size. The second pool does not exist. But I remember there was a major rumor/joke at my high school about the hidden rooftop/underground swimming pool. I love that they– they sort of made both versions of that work. It was one of those things you mentioned to students who didn't know the school well enough to see if they would believe it."
JULIA: Yeah, that's always the like the trick or the thing, right? It's being like, Oh, well, have you guys seen the swimming pool? And you're like, what swimming Pool? Oh my God, tell me about it. And they're like, Oh, it's on the roof. I'm like, Yeah, that makes total sense. Totally. 100%
AMANDA: "Totally, totally. I have one of those moments when writing this when you wonder if you actually remember something right or if you just dreamed it. I have narcolepsy with cataplexy. So vivid dreams are a side effect of my meds."
JULIA:
Whoa.
AMANDA: "This was in regards to the High School Swimming Pool stories. So hey, maybe I just made up a new urban legend by accident."
JULIA: Oops. Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "Anywho, I hope you're doing well loving on your animals and eating good food. I would send you pics of my dog and cat but I don't have physical pictures because phones. I do have a couple of recommendations for you." And then Stephanie lists a few recs for us. "One is a Hollow Kingdom or a crow tries to survive in the apocalypse in Seattle. Legends of Tomorrow, the TV show."
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "Which gets better starting with seasons two or three. You agree, Julia?"
JULIA: Yes, I do.
AMANDA: "And the Prose Edda I read this for a course called Vikings and it was kind of hilarious. You get the original Norse myths with titles like 'Thor and the Giant Hymir Go Fishing' Stay creepy Stay cool. Have fun and don't die, Stephanie."
JULIA: Yay! We have to start reminding our listeners not to die at the end of episodes.
ERIC: I mean, I think it's one of those things you don't gotta say like don't– don't die.
JULIA: I feel like maybe if we just like you know put our minds towards not dying, maybe we just like straight up won't die.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Though you know I have a couple stories in mind for later in the episode where like dying isn't the end of the fun. So I'll save those teasers for the end.
JULIA: There you go.
ERIC: Oooh, exciting. Well, I have some emails that we can get to before the end of the episode both strangely enough from Amarillo.
AMANDA: Oooh!
ERIC: I opened up one I read it, I went, oh, Amarillo, so exciting. Good, good little, good little batch of stories in here. I opened up the next one that had a catchy title, more- more stories from Amarillo, I double check different people.
JULIA: Whoa!
ERIC: So we'll just do both of these stories. They're both kind of like roundups kind of got a bunch of different stuff in them so it was just two emails we've got one from EP that we'll start with and then we'll jump right into the one from Raine.
JULIA: Alright, let's do it.
AMANDA: I can't believe that what synergy.
ERIC: Yeah, I was just like like this keeps happening. This keeps happening-
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: -where emails are related whether Julia picked emails from the same person completely like for the same episode but at different times.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Like what are the odds?
JULIA: It's fate, man, it's fate.
AMANDA: It's fate.
JULIA: Everything pushing towards Amarillo, is that Texas?
ERIC: I sure hope so. I've been assuming it's Texas.
JULIA: It'd be funny if they're too different Amarillo is like in two different states.
ERIC: So this first email from EP is titled The Nat and the U.A.O.
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: "My hometown of Amarillo already has its small share of spooky buildings and urban legends including a haunted antique mall "The Nat", a haunted grain elevator, and a few apartment buildings and hotels with seriously sketchy pasts." Now, I said something recently on an episode a few months ago that I think elevators seemed particularly haunted these days. This- this one is not about the elevator but point for me about haunted elevators being a weirdly common thing.
JULIA: I will also say I think almost all if not most antique malls are probably haunted.
ERIC: Definitely.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Definitely. I just watched Toy Story 4 for the first time. I don't know if you've seen that.
JULIA: No.
ERIC: But there are a bunch of living ventriloquist dummies that are identical on that movie and it's real, real fucking scary at times.
AMANDA: Hate it.
JULIA: You know what, man? There's nothing scarier than a creepy doll or ventriloquist dummy it's just a fact of life.
ERIC: Oh, there's a doll that is creepy and is the regulator of the 4 dummies.
JULIA: Naturally.
ERIC: So I mean it's it's quite– it's quite a film. "This is the building-" The Nat "-that most people think of when they thing of ghosts in Amarillo and our most recent possible cryptid. The Natatorium started out as a swimming pool when it was built in 1922" two years younger than my grandmother.
JULIA: The synergy.
ERIC: "And had been renovated later on when the pool was covered up by a dance floor. It was a very popular place to be with names like Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Guy Lombardo and Little Richard, Roy Orbison, and Buddy Holly and the Crickets performing there over the years."
JULIA: Whoa.
ERIC: So like, quite, quite the group.
AMANDA: I'll say.
ERIC: "Apparently there's the spirit of a woman with a red stain (wine not blood) on her white dress who spent many long hours in the gambling hall and just never wanted to leave. Back in the 90s, a team of ghost hunters investigated the building and their cameras kept turning off but they managed to capture the EVPs of voices of guests, music, and singing. The building is now an antique mall." I mean, just all the creepy things you've got pool, dance hall, and now antique mall just like so many different creepy things could be in all those places. "is now an antique mall and is also apparently still haunted." See that, you gotta you got to complete your renovations.
JULIA: There you go.
ERIC: You can't just fill in the pool, put on dance floor and then eventually turn into antique mall, you got to make sure you're doing all your requisite ghost removal as well.
JULIA: It needs to be a full teardown.
ERIC: You can't just get rid of the asbestos, you got to get rid of the ghosts too.
JULIA: That's true. Both of them bad for people.
ERIC: "Recently though, outside our local zoo, the security cameras captured a photo of a "creature" in an unauthorized locked gated area of the zoo." So this is a different story than the The Natatorium. "Through the tall chain link fence in the photo is an upright figure on 2 legs about the size of an average human that looks as though it has fur on its head and down its back, it has ears, and a tail like a lion. The picture was circulated on the news and the public was asked for their guesses." I love that they're like. what do you guys think it is, the public? I'm sure we will get any completely buckwild responses.
AMANDA: Yeah, that's the real maneuver of like it was the person's idea who doesn't then have to sort of comb through the tip line where it's like, mmm, let's ask the public.
ERIC: Yeah, what do they think?
AMANDA: The people who have those questions are never the ones who have to read all the answers.
ERIC: We're not going to actually scope out the zoo-wide diet as an investigation to actually figure out what this might be. We'll just ask the public.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: "Some of the guesses were a random person trying to sneak into the zoo, the Kentucky Goat Man visiting Amarillo." you know just like the goat man's in from out of town, [12:52], go visit the zoo. "a costumed zoo worker and therefore just a publicity stunt, a skinwalker, and a furry caught on camera." Just the full range of different things it could be.
JULIA: Okay, so you guys might recall, but this was actually shared on our work Slack. Where it was people were like, is this a chupacabra? Is that a person with a strange hat? What do you think? And so-
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: -if you'll recall, I truly believe that it's just someone's really good fur suit. I truly believe that it's just a furry out there having a great time maybe doing a photo shoot, who knows?
ERIC: I don't know any furries personally, as far as I know. But the one thing I gather about fur suits is they don't see particularly mobile like, obviously you can walk around a convention and other things and do whatever you want to eat your fur suit, but it just feels like they are pretty big. And I've been in a mascot costume which is somewhat similar. Which just feels like I don't know I'm not running past the zoo in Amarillo in a fursuit potentially but you know what? Who knows? Who knows?
JULIA: I feel like they only released a still though so I don't know if this person was like sprinting or something.
ERIC: That's true.
JULIA: Or if it was just like, you know, casually strolling by.
ERIC: The picture I recall I did seem to have some speed on it.
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: But I, maybe I mean it could just be like the lights looking weird because it's one of those nighttime shots and there's like a bug flying by that makes it look fast like it's got anime lines going one.
AMANDA: It look kind of like a low res camera at night like a still of a video image, which definitely implies motion to me but I think Occam's razor is that it was a fairly inexpensive like nighttime trail camera.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah, they have no idea what it is. But regardless, it's been dubbed as the U.A.O. or unidentified Amarillo Object. Someone donated 80 security cameras to the zoo to help solve the mystery. So maybe we'll have an update on this one, one day.
JULIA: That's so many security cameras to donate to the zoo.
ERIC: That is a lot of security cameras.
JULIA: Oh my goodness.
ERIC: I'm sure the zoo would have just rather have gotten the money.
JULIA: Yeah, probably. You know.
AMANDA: That's fair. But I mean, listen, we're giving them free publicity on our podcasts so something worked.
JULIA: So we should get free tickets to that zoo forever in Amarillo just saying.
ERIC: Exactly.
AMANDA: October 2023: Halloween live show: Amarillo Zoo. Our fees are reasonable.
JULIA: Eric, I want to jump back really quickly to The Nat and the like introduction of this woman ghost wearing a white dress that is covered in red stain definitely not blood, wine instead.
ERIC: Definitely wine. Definitely wine.
JULIA: How do they know that?
AMANDA: That was my first thought.
JULIA: How do they know that? Did they ask her and they're like, is that blood and she's like, oh no, I spilled my Cabernet Sauvignon. I'm like, what? How? How do they know that?
ERIC: I mean, depending on the detail of the ghost, you could be getting the coloration and like wine is going to stain probably a little bit less dark than blood also like the way it's it splashes wine could have a different pattern.
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: Whereas blood usually so and obviously you can get– you can get dots and blood pattern analysis from Dexter or whatever and like figure out that kind of stuff. But I feel like- I feel like if you have a good enough high quality enough ghost, you could tell if it's wine or blood.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: I don't know. I just I would never have the confidence to look at a ghost and be like, I bet that's wine.
ERIC: Maybe she's also holding like a spilled wine bottle or something.
JULIA: Maybe I hope so.
AMANDA: It's true.
ERIC: Maybe, there's extra clues around.
JULIA: I just like this really fancy ghost like cradling a glass of wine as she strolls through this antique mall. Bless her. Bless her heart.
ERIC: So our second Amarillo email comes to us from Raine and she writes, "Heya it’s me, a person you’ve never met. How’re you doing?" We're doing great. We're recording the episode.
JULIA: We're doing great.
AMANDA: We're doing great, yeah.
ERIC: "In my years of living I’ve experienced a saddening low amount of creepy shit. But, one of my close friends seems to be a magnet for said creepy shit. I’ve collected hers and my one (of my own stories) here. First I’ll start with mine."
AMANDA: I think it's nice to have a friend to whom creepy shit happens.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Because then you have the stories without having the first-hand experience. Much like having a friend with like a summer house or a boat, or a dog or kid you get to just enjoy all the upsides without any of the responsibility.
ERIC: I think this is kind of what we're slowly developing between the three of us.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Where each of us has spooky stuff going on that we will deny.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: But the other two people are saying no, it's definitely so now like I have a haunted house that I don't believe is haunted. Julia has a haunted house, she doesn't believe it was haunt. Amanda, you need to get something spooky going on your life that you will deny but me and Julia are like no-
AMANDA: I'll work on that. I'll work on that.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: -it's definitely spooky and you should evacuate.
JULIA: I also think that it's very similar to like having a friend whose life is very like dramatic and a lot of stuff happens to them and you get to hear about that juicy gossip but not experience it firsthand. That's kind of the vibe.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: That's kind of the vibe.
AMANDA: Yeah, are now that we are all partnered and like have friends who are still dating. It's like, wow, that sounds chaotic and kind of bad.
JULIA: Mm-hmm.
ERIC: So Raine continues, "It was the middle of the night about eleven years ago. I had woken up-" can you imagine that 2011 was 11 years ago doesn't see right. Anyways.
JULIA: Wild.
AMANDA: No, no, it doesn't.
ERIC: "I had woken up for no real reason, but I had always had bad insomnia. Anyway, I had sat in my bed for about five minutes just waiting to go back to sleep. Just when I was about to when I felt a flick on my forehead. I didn’t see anyone but I swear I felt it. Just then, I heard the shower turn on. I could hear the shower curtain open, then close. I didn’t sleep that night."
JULIA: Ghosts don't need to shower, what the hell?
AMANDA: Oh my god that's terrifying.
ERIC: "This same occurrence happened time and time again, until I was about eight."
AMANDA: WHAT?!
JULIA: Did you hear the shower turn off, hold on, no, did the shower just stay on for the rest of the night, or did it eventually turn off and do like, ghost came out and toweled off like I need to know the details here.
ERIC: We simply don't have the information. We simply don't have it.
AMANDA: Wait, I might be I might be the shower ghost in my own house. Because this might be it.
JULIA:
There it is. There it is, Amanda.
JULIA: Explain yourself.
AMANDA: So I get migraines from time to time and I'll wake up in the middle of the night and have a terrible migraine. There's a few things that I have to do take my Excedrin which has caffeine in it which means I'm usually awake I need to like drink a cup of tea and showering is one of the things that makes my head feel better because just like the temperature difference of like hot massaging on my head feels good. And so today like 12 hours ago at three o'clock in the morning I woke up and had to take a shower to make my headache go away and I texted my fiancee, Eric who was sleeping beside me that way in case he woke up in the middle of the night and didn't know where I was/heard the shower on I just texted him like a migraine like doing my steps, I'll see you later. But I was thinking at the time like man I will be fucking freaked out if I woke up and it was dark and I heard the shower and my fiancee wasn't next to me in bed like I would be terrified maybe it's me maybe my haunting maybe it's like I also want my downstairs neighbor like I would think is really weird if I heard my neighbor downstairs having a shower three in the morning I was so conscious and worried about my perception of myself and now I'm having an email read to me and it's exactly the same haunting, what?
AMANDA: Spooky. Kelsey often thinks I am a murderer but I come into the bedroom a little bit after her and I don't know what I could do about that. She goes to bed very early and usually I go to bed with her, but sometimes I stay up a bit later. And sometimes she just freaks out in a very adorable way. But often, like I don't know how to help you with.
JULIA: You can announce your presence.
ERIC: She just like convinces herself she like wakes up to a sound and like assumes I am in bed and like there's another person so it's like must be a murderer.
JULIA: Sure, sure. That makes sense.
ERIC: "This same occurrence happened time and time again until I was about eight. (It started when I was 5-ish) It was then when I thought, alright I’m done with this bullshit. So that night I got up and walked down the hallway into the restroom and opened the door. Inside there was…. Nothing. All the lights were off and the shower wasn’t running. From then on I never heard the shower again. I asked around my house and nobody no one said they heard it run. So…. shrug." Here are two quick stories from my friends. "One night her and another friend were at the elementary school park at seven-ish. As the sun set they headed home. On their way, they saw an old man standing under a lamppost."
JULIA: Nothing creepier than an old man.
ERIC: And under a lamppost. How terrifying. "He turned his head and looked at them. He waved at them and smiled. Both of them had a bad feeling in their stomachs and began walking the other way. Once they gained some distance, they looked back at him. he was gone."
JULIA: Classic.
ERIC: "The only person near was what looked like an unhoused person. He was standing looking into the alley. It looked like he was wearing a beanie, but then he grabbed his “hat” and pulled it over his face. When he did there was loud squelch."
JULIA: I'm sorry, what?
AMANDA: What?!
ERIC: That's where the story end.
JULIA: I'm sorry, WHAT?
AMANDA: NO!
ERIC: [21:49]
AMANDA: I need more information.
JULIA: I feel like that we need to get better answers. We need to like I need closure for these stories, unacceptable. Unacceptable.
AMANDA: Seriously.
ERIC: I did start by saying this is just a grab bag of stories from Amarillo and like what I meant it just like that's all that we saw. We saw him just kind of squishes is face out and that that was it spooky beanie.
JULIA: Horrifying.
ERIC: He's got a bag of holding that he's converted into a hat.
JULIA: I don't like it.
AMANDA: Oh, I was thinking like skin suit, you know? Like, you know-
ERIC: Also bad.
AMANDA: A new face on your face.
ERIC: No idea.
AMANDA: I don't like that.
ERIC: "The other story took place after she moved into a new apartment. Her room had a window right next to her bed. That night she heard heavy breathing. She looked out the window and there was a man looking in. the apartment was on the fifth floor."
JULIA: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
ERIC: That's it.
JULIA: That's it?
ERIC: That's the story. Just another spooky thing. I like these because they're like, prompts for like spooky tales to tell them the dark side of things. And I can imagine this creepy image drawn for each of these little tales. But like there is there's nothing much more than that. I like it is like here's just a little taste of a creepy event and I'm loving it.
JULIA: Was there a fire escape like I need I need answers here. I need answers here.
ERIC: Raine wraps up her email with, "I hope you enjoyed these stories. If you like I may tell you the story of-" get ready for this one. "The Texas Testical Tickler" I don't know if that's a ghost or someone in jail. But I do want the email regardless.
JULIA: I also, Raine, if you send us an email it needs to have a conclusive ending, it needs something.
ERIC: We need to know something, we need to know a little bit more about some conclusion.
JULIA: I need reactions from your friends, I need something here. You can't just tell me this is what happened and then no closure at all.
AMANDA: Agreed.
JULIA: Did they run away after they heard the guy's face squish like I need to know these things.
ERIC: I can only assume they ran away they must have ran away.
JULIA:
I mean, yeah, maybe.
ERIC: They made it obviously everyone's okay.
JULIA: But I don't know that maybe that friend got got eaten but by the squishy face man I don't know.
ERIC: Well, there we have a quite a grab bag from Amarillo.
JULIA: There we go. Well.
ERIC: A lot of spooky stuff for us to investigate if we ever go down there.
JULIA: Texas.
AMANDA: Seriously.
JULIA: Well, I have a story about an olive ghost but before we do that, I think I need to get a refill.
ERIC: Me too.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
[midroll]
AMANDA: Julia, welcome to the Midroll.
JULIA: Amanda, thank you What do you got over there that smells delicious.
AMANDA: It really does. I have some nachos made with vegan cheese.
JULIA: Oh, I like, I like a lot how did you get it to melt so well? Vegan cheese never melts well.
AMANDA: You got to know, you got to know.
JULIA: You knew all the secrets. Just like our newest patrons, Amanda. They know all the secrets and they knew it by joining us here on our Patreon. So thank you to Sam, Secret Admirer, Astrid, Kelly, Jana, and Raksha.
AMANDA: You are the absolute best and you along with our Supporting Producer-level patrons always get a scoop of Nacho with like exactly the right ratio of beans to cheese to pickled jalapenos to sour cream to walk. Amazing. It's a real skill. So thank you to our Supporting Producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Daisy, Froody Chick, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Kneazlekins, Lily, Little Vomit Spiders Running Around, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi and those legends, Julia. The legend-level patrons after whom specific kinds of nachos are named at their little bars.
JULIA: Whoa.
AMANDA: Arianna, Audra, Bex, Clara, Iron Havoc, Morgan, Mother of Vikings, Sarah, & Bea Me Up Scotty.
JULIA: I can also make a promise to you right now, if you are listening to this and you sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/spiritspodcast, every time you eat nachos from now on, the nachos won't be soggy. They will have the perfect consistency at all times.
AMANDA: Oh damn.
JULIA: That is a metaphysical promise I'm making to you, our listeners right now.
AMANDA: Julia, I know you're powerful. I didn't know you were that powerful. That's patreon.com/spiritspodcast.
JULIA: I'll do my best.
AMANDA: So Julia, apart from winning Jaws trivia at your local bar for the second summer in a row.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: What are you reading, watching, and listening to?
JULIA: I also want to say we got every single answer, right. And the guy was like, wow, I have to make the questions harder next year. We're like, Bob, if you want to, sure.
AMANDA: Bob, we'll be here.
JULIA: One, I would recommend hey, like spending time in your community becoming regulars at a restaurant or a bar or a shop that you really like and just like being noticed by the people in your community, become a person in your community. It's very important. Also, I'm going to highly recommend rereading a book out in the sunshine during the summer months, because I love that.
AMANDA: Hey, for several years I re-read The Bell Jar. It's like in one sitting at the beach like four or five years in a row. I was in my early 20s. And that gets too dark for me now, but I totally agree something about summertime means rereading books just hits different for me.
JULIA: I'm rereading The Wayfarer Series by Becky Chambers right now, naturally, because it's one of my favorites.
AMANDA: I love that.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Perfection. And I know that we updated y'all at the beginning of this episode. But also if you're listening in the present or the future, you should come or watch in retrospect, our live show at Caveat on July 15, you should come in person in New York City, you can come to the live stream or you can watch the video on demand, the VOD whether it is right now for you July 2022. Or if it's the far future, you can still do it. It's at spiritspodcast.com/live
JULIA: It's great. We're gonna have a great time I've seen into the future and I know it's gonna be a great live show. So please come out and enjoy the show with us.
AMANDA: I'm so ready. I'm picking up my jewelry. I'm getting my pre-show hair cut today so that it's like exactly 10 days old, which is my sweet spot-
JULIA: Nice.
AMANDA: -by the time we have our live show, it's gonna be awesome.
JULIA: I love that for you. I also love the other member shows here at Multitude including Horse which is a podcast about ridiculous stories, internet drama, and some of the biggest and baddest personalities out there today all from the world of basketball. Listen, I don't watch basketball. I probably if you listed the city couldn't tell you what the name of that basketball team was. But I love Horse Adam Mamawala and Mike Schubert are the hosts and they kind of take you through what you need to know about the unbelievable history and culture of what basketball is. New episodes released every other Monday. You just have to search Horse in your podcast app or check out horsehoops.com Because basketball is more than what just happens on the court.
AMANDA: Julia, you know this was a great show concept because there are now like 20 shows that are kind of ripping off Horse.
JULIA: Whooops!
AMANDA: Which are all about basketball as the cultural force that it is in the US and all over the world. So listen, check out one of the original shows. Check out something new about basketball news and culture every week. Look for Horse.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, I recently you know it was a late Sunday morning. We had just moved a bunch of furniture in our house the night before and so I woke up kind of late and I woke up to the smell of baking bread and I was like oh no what is Jake doing? I'm so excited. But what he was doing was taking one of the loaves of bread of sourdough bread that we had gotten from Wildgrain and had put it in the oven and it was ready to go for delicious fresh bread when I woke up in the morning, Amanda, it's the best morning ever.
AMANDA: I gave one of our frozen Wildgrain loaves to one of my friends because there was a ton of stuff in the box and my freezer is only so big and it was also crammed full with all of the stock I had just made. So I gave it to him and then he texted me a few days ago that was like, yo I really impressed the date by putting that in the oven while she was over and I was like damn, Spence, good job.
JULIA: Yes, and it is super easy. You can impress dates but also not have to do a lot of like stressful baking Wildgrain is the first bake from Frozen box for artisanal bread. They also have like amazing rolls and pastries and handmade pasta which I'm making pesto soon to have-
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: -some of the handmade pasta with its incredible. Here's how it works. You sign up you choose which type of box you want to receive and how often and then Wildgrain delivers for free a box of breads, pastas, and pastries with easy-to-follow instructions every item bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less. And if you're traveling or if your freezer is already full, you don't have to give it away to other people to impress their dates, you could just reschedule skip or cancel at any time. And if you are hungry, just listening to what I described to you right now for a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box plus free croissants in every box going forward when you go to wildgrain.com/spirits to start your subscription. You heard me free croissants in every box and $30 off your first box when you go to wildgrain.com/spirits. That's wildgrain.com/spirits. Or you can use the promo code Spirits at checkout.
AMANDA: Julia, I am hungry now and you are making me think about what my dinner plans are going to be after work today. And I think I am going to order a big sushi dinner from our favorite local sushi restaurant via DoorDash. Because there is nothing like coming home at the end of a long day or looking up and realizing it's like 2 PM. And there are no lunch places around your office. But you can get something delivered to you on DoorDash and as a person who often kind of overlooks those material comforts and then realizes like oh shit, like I really do need to do this DoorDash is a lifesaver. So often for me, we use it multiple times a week and it's awesome whether you want to get delivery from your favorite chain that's all across the US or a neighborhood staple. And one of those businesses that you're becoming a local at you can do that on DoorDash. They now allow you as well to get like late night ice cream or if you forgot a key ingredient for dinner, you can get something delivered or just stocking up for the week. And they also have offers all the time on the app like a certain percentage off if you pick up or if you get a grocery order delivered to you. So there's lots of stuff to enjoy in the door dish app. And these days, you can also get safe outdoor drop off you can have contactless delivery where the deliverer puts the item on your stoop or in your front door, and then you come and get it later.
JULIA: And for a limited time, our listeners 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 a $10 value and zero delivery fees on your first order. When you download that DoorDash app in the App Store and enter the code Spirits don't forget, that's code Spirits for 25% off your first order with DoorDash. Subject to change terms apply.
AMANDA: Subject to change terms apply. And now finally, a word from our sponsor BetterHelp. Julia, there are a lot of ways that we take care of our minds. And I know for both of us that might be a bath, it might be reading in the sunshine, maybe it's seeing friends going to the beach, enjoying the outdoors. And it makes total sense that you need to maintain your brain to keep it healthy. Just like moving your body in a way that feels good getting enough sleep or doing like, routine maintenance on your car, or changing the filter in your air conditioner. There's routine maintenance you need to do to keep things healthy and working.
JULIA: And a big part of that, at least for you and I know is going to therapy and BetterHelp is a great way of connecting to a therapist who can help you kind of exercise your brain to make it a healthier brain.
AMANDA: Even for me living in the middle of New York City, I was really struggling to find a therapist that was taking new patients that I kind of vibed with you'd have to pay for your first session or if you wanted to switch it was like a whole nother rigmarole. And so BetterHelp has been a super convenient way for me to get therapy every week and I went through a couple therapists I switch therapists a couple of times and it was really easy and free in the BetterHelp app to switch therapists, which is not how it works normally.
JULIA: Yes, and you can get matched with a therapist in under 48 hours, which is huge. And what I really like is that they offer either video or phone or live chat sessions. So it makes it really easy to like not feel anxious going to your therapist, which kind of defeats the purpose of going to therapy in the first place.
AMANDA: Yeah, a couple of times. Like if I'm working on something difficult, I like to do something with my hands, like do a puzzle or knit or you know, like what are my plans. And so sometimes I'll do my therapy just with voice and not with video so that I can kind of move around and think and really focus on what's happening. And I love that BetterHelp is flexible enough to let me do that. So listen, 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.
JULIA: Alright, so we're back at it again and it's summertime and normally I'm not an IPA person, but when I went to the beer distributor, it seemed like everything that they had that was in the fridge was an IPA. So I took a chance and I grabbed a four-pack of the six-point brewery pineapple resin hazy double IPA, and I might be an IPA person now. I don't know.
AMANDA: Oh, wow.
JULIA: I don't know.
ERIC: This is amazing because my recommendation is going to be anti-IPA.
AMANDA: Oooh!
JULIA: Hit me with it.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: I'm just saying, hey, are you a white guy in 2022 with a mustache?
JULIA: I'm not.
ERIC: Julia is not and also based on our survey results you listening also probably are not.
JULIA: Probably not.
ERIC: But if you are and you're like, hey, it's up a dive divers a cypress of IPAs. Let's just have a pilsner. Let's just have a pilsner.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Let's just have a nice lager. They're great. I've had a couple local ones recently when I was out at restaurants. It's been nice and refreshing to kind of just have like a quality beer that wasn't packed full. Now there's a place obviously I'm not I'm not negging. Julia's recommendation. That sounds lovely when I'm there after this is probably airing after the live show, but I'm probably gonna want one of those. But you can also there's other beers out there. And there are some light, refreshing, nice, simple, clean ones. I highly recommend. Make sure you go to a local brewery check them out. That's all I gotta say about it.
JULIA: There we go. Alright. Well, you know, pick the lighter beer this time and not the IPA. There you go. People we solved your problem.
ERIC: Team Eric or team Julia, hashtag us on Twitter.
JULIA: No, because I'm usually not an IPA person. This one was just particularly good. And also it was very boozy. It was like 9% for a double IPA, which is impressive.
AMANDA: I'm gonna stay right out of this debate. I don't like IPAs to say that I have recently been enjoying a hyper local spirit, the Saint Agrestis or Agrestis Distillery which has both alcoholic and nonalcoholic negronis, which is such a great drink to have in the summer. You can either you know have it right from the bottle, or you can serve it over ice with like a citrus twist orange or lemon or something like that. They make all kinds of like digestifs. But they're most known for their negronis. They have like bottled negronis and then like bitters and other kinds of liquors, and gosh, they're delicious and now they have a nonalcoholic version too. For everybody out there who wants a refreshing drink that it doesn't have any booze in it.
JULIA: I love that. I love that. I'm gonna have to get one next time I'm in town.
AMANDA: So good.
JULIA: So y'all, I have an email here from Anna. And she is titled it, The Olive Ghost Has Been Getting More Serious Lately.
AMANDA: Oh.
ERIC: Oh, no. I don't know what that means. I don't know what more serious ghost means, but I am thrilled to find out.
JULIA: Excellent. So she starts right into the drama into the action. "I moved in with my new husband almost two years ago. He has lived in this fairly new, nice, and well-maintained apartment for about a year longer than me. I believe this place is 10-15 years old, so not the kind of place most thought of for a haunting. For context, this is a rural town just outside of a major city in the Midwest United States. I have never thought about ghosts very much. I would consider myself "agnostic" towards them. So I don't know if they exist or not, but I am open to conversations about both ideas. (Ghost stories ARE fun, though!) This apartment is slowly changing my mind. We would notice sounds that my husband had never heard in his year of living here alone, but we just said, "The neighbors are hammering at 11pm? That's late, but no judgement", or, "The water heater must be acting up. We'll call maintenance" We just glass it kind of living in an apartment-style vibes.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: "After talking to our lovely neighbors, they had not been hammering. Maintenance checked, and the water heater was fine. Occasionally, things will fall off the counter tops. The first time this happened, it was a half-full can of olives, because we had just made a supreme pizza for dinner. (Olives are great on pizza, fight me)."
ERIC: Okay. I will fight you.
JULIA: That was Anna writing that but I also agree olives are great on pizza.
ERIC: Olives are anti-flavor. They're bad on everything.
JULIA: They're just salty, briny. Why are they bad on everything?
ERIC: I hate them?
JULIA: Okay, fine.
ERIC: I hate 'em.
JULIA: It's fine. I'll continue doing this podcast with you.
ERIC: I respect you and the listener, but I hate 'em.
JULIA: So Anna says, "My husband and I, along with our one cat were comfortably in the bedroom at the time. Olives were all over the kitchen floor, but I had set the can firmly in the middle of the countertop. Hence the friendly nickname, "Olive ghost". This has happened with items a few times since, but OH MY GOSH, I just had my hands off of my desktop as I was leaning back in my chair, thinking of what to write next, my cat comfortably bathing on the other side of the room, when a stray AA battery just tumbled off the desk from 2-3 inches away. No joke. It's like they know I'm writing about them. I haven't even gotten to the most compelling and creepy parts of this experience." So like that was an intermediate res kind of here's a haunting that just happened to me as I was writing this email. So thank you, Anna.
ERIC: That's amazing.
AMANDA: You know I can't get enough of those hauntings.
JULIA: So she continues, "I have had trouble sleeping in the past, but I have never had actual sleep paralysis until moving into this apartment. For the last few nights, it has happened very frequently, but it has happened occasionally in the last two years as well. As I'm falling asleep, I feel myself immediately going into REM sleep, and I feel myself half-dreaming and slowly becoming paralyzed. (You're not supposed to feel yourself become paralyzed. That's a normal thing, but you usually aren't aware of it.)"
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: "It feels so helpless as I, aware that I am paralyzed, go into a random dream situation that I can't control. Sometimes, I can start myself awake, but other times, I have to make sounds to have my husband shake me awake. In my dream, I am shouting because I am in a dream within a dream within a dream and I don't know what's real. But he says I just make sad and small, "AH, AH, AH" sounds until I wake up. It's really scary."
ERIC: Oh, no.
AMANDA: That's sucks.
JULIA: Yeah. "The thing that really prompted me to write in today is this: Olive Ghost is using my phone."
ERIC: Okay.
JULIA: "Last night, I was up at 2 am after some bad dreams and I was looking at my phone - both for distractions and to remind me that this is the real world. I saw my google search history, and everything I saw was something I have recently searched, except the most recent one: "There is no meat in your kitten"
AMANDA: What?
ERIC: I hate that. That is, that is a series of words that just it's so uncomfortable to hear.
AMANDA: Oh boy.
JULIA: I know, right? "I'm sorry? That is so ominous and creepy. We do have a cat with significant muscle atrophy in her old age. Neither of us are known to actually talk in our sleep, and my google voice option hasn't been activated anyway. I've tried it, but it's never worked. I doubt it could pick those random words up. I can't stop both laughing and being creeped out by that."
AMANDA: Wow, that's pretty scary. And if you've never like sleep texted or sleep-Googled before, like, that was a habit. That will make sense. But I feel like you would notice.
JULIA: Yeah, maybe this is the first time that it's happened and the first time that she's noticed, but I don't know.
AMANDA: Oh boy.
ERIC: I recently read a book where a plot point is that someone breaks into someone's apartment and in order to let them know they were there they just do a very vulgar search. So it's like the last leg that comes up and it's very creepy. It's a terrible thing for something that suddenly Is it what you search just in your history.
AMANDA: Yeah, seriously, your phone really feels like a part of your body or environment in so many ways. And that's like a really that's like waking up with marks on you. That's what I sort of equate that to.
JULIA: Yeah, wow, that's a great point. That is the kind of like modern equivalent Look at that.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Anna finishes out with one final short statement. "When I moved in, I was putting decorative stuff - cookbooks, an engraved cheeseboard, etc. - on top of the kitchen cabinets. I found something that my husband had never found from the previous tenants. It was a sandwich baggie containing strange stones and other artifacts. It had a note in it in a language I couldn't read. I'm pretty sure it also had a lock of hair in it - not sure if it was animal or human. I NOPE'D that baggie right out of there into the trash. That's so scary, right?!? But now I wonder if that baggie wasn't summoning something, but trying to keep something away. Stay Creepy and Cool Always, Anna"
ERIC: I think the wording of a language I couldn't read makes it for me a little less ominous than like a language I have never seen. That makes me feel like it's not like ancient ruins or something like that. Just like I can't read this.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Cause if I can identify it but I can't read it that's a little less good but still all bad all bad 100% of the stuff.
AMANDA: I was all on board for this mysterious bag of rocks and artifacts which you know I got you until the lock of hair for whatever reason that is really what tipped me over to the edge of like oh fuck knows it's so spooky because a sandwich bag and also like notebook paper and presumably a ballpoint pen right like that means it's modern. This is not like a 1800s cloudy glass jar full of a liquid. For whatever reason it being newer makes it a lot less scary to me until we get to the lock of hair the fact that it's new and has a lock of hair is an unholy combination I do not wish.
JULIA: Also, like you brought up a great point Amanda which is like this is definitely like a modern thing this little baggy the sandwich bag but keeping in mind that this apartment buildings only probably like 10 to 15 years old.
AMANDA: Yeah
JULIA: So it's all- it's all modern baby. It's modern baby.
AMANDA: Now, what to do, what's the right call to do with a bag like that? Do you keep it? Do you throw it? I feel like my instincts honed on this podcast are telling me that just tossing in the trash is the wrong way to go. But I don't know what the right way to go is I think it matters if it's sort of like in a wall you know, like somewhere that is meant to be permanent like a time capsule almost. Or if it was like, Oh, this was you know, like in the back of a closet and someone forgot to clear it out.
JULIA: I think you leave it where you found it. So it seems like this situation was you moved in. Nothing creepy had happened yet, right? And then you found this bag and you're like, oh, this bag is weird and then you throw it in the trash, and then creepy stuff started happening. So I think that you made a mistake by throwing out what was probably like a bag of protection or something by like a practicing witch, you know?
ERIC: How were the rocks described again?
JULIA: It was described as a sandwich baggie containing strange rocks.
ERIC: See, see.
JULIA: Sorry, sorry, strange stones and other artifacts.
ERIC: Strange stones, even the word stones compared to rocks makes stones are more magical but rocks.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Yes, they are.
ERIC: I don't know why that makes sense. But it does.
AMANDA: I'll tell you why Eric, because stone implies that it's been worn down by water and time.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: And you're like lovingly selected as opposed to a rock that you turn up when like tilling a field.
JULIA: Common.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah, I hate it.
AMANDA: I totally agree.
ERIC: I don't know what you do with it to properly dispose of or if you keep it but you fucked up that's for sure.
JULIA: I just want to know what was strange about the stones and what the other artifacts could have possibly been?
AMANDA: I know.
ERIC: When you look when you looked at them you saw how you died.
JULIA: Ah, that makes. Classic.
ERIC: You know, the classic who hasn't-
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: -come across a strange so that whispered to you the type of your death.
JULIA: A strange stone that showed you how you died of course naturally, why didn't I think about.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Naturally, speaking of things hidden in homes? Do you guys want to close on a final scary tale from Aoife?
JULIA: [whispers] Yes.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: This is titled, "Ignorance can be bliss."
ERIC: Don't I know it.
AMANDA: Aoife writes, "Hi Spirits Podcast, First of all wanted to say thank you for the great content. I’m a big fan, particularly if your urban legends and have a few of my own. I’m Irish and have a few haunted manor stories (not a castle, sorry!) but this story actually takes place in The Netherlands where my Mam is from. My Mam has been living in Ireland for most of her life now but every year we would go to the Netherlands to visit my family. When we were all children we obviously all went together and we would stay with my Oma (grandmother) and Opa (grandfather). Their house is an old farmhouse that they converted about 40 years ago. When they were renovating, they opened up the attic of the house so now when you walk into the small entrance hall, there is a stairs in the middle that leads up to a mezzanine and on either side of the mezzanine is a bedroom."
JULIA: Mezzanines are haunted. I don't I don't care if it's like because it's not a balcony. It's a mezzanine.
AMANDA: Say more, because I think they're cool.
JULIA: I think they're cool, but I also think they're haunted. If you have like a space in which it is an old manor house and it has a mezzanine, haunted.
ERIC: Every McMansion also kind of has a mezzanine technically. So does the Cleveland guardians stadium and I love seeing a good ol good ol America's pastime from the mezzanine and I've never felt haunted there.
JULIA: I mean, every theater has a mezzanine but like I don't know something about the mezzanine it just feels wrong
AMANDA: Julia, I think what might be haunted here similar to like a grand staircase is that it does feel like a runway for ghosts
ERIC: A runway for ghosts.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: You know, because it's not like a hot like any long hallway a wraparound porch a widow's walk, dare I say at the top of a home like it is kind of a space that is promenading and asking for lady and white to kind of stride past.
JULIA: Yes, Amanda, you've nailed the whole image on its head. What I was picturing when you said mezzanine was being on the ground floor and then seeing a person like walk in and then away and then going up the stairs and they're just gone. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Yeah, no question. I mean also probably nice to walk in and have like high ceilings and then have a sort of like lofted, you know-
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: -sort of story sounds like classic excellent Dutch design a little bit haunted, perhaps.
JULIA: A little bit haunted.
AMANDA: Alright, so Aoife continues, "My parents always slept in the bedroom on the left and my brother and I always shared the room to the right, and beside our room was some attic space that was kept for storage." Now, editorializing here. Amanda breaking in, my grandparents home also had like kind of crawlspace like attic space behind the rooms like the rooms were dormers. So like ceilings that sloped and in that little sort of like end of the triangle between the wall of the room and the end of the roof was little storage space with a door that slid and as a kid that was the most haunted shit in the world to me, I would never want to go in there. My grandma had to like open it a few times to get stuff and I was like no, no, no, no, no. And of course, the bed was pushed up right against it because that is basically what that wall was designed for. And I was just terrified. I hated it
JULIA: Because it's like it's a liminal space. It's like you are in your bedroom and then you open that thing and it is like just house and you're like, oh no, that should be finished. That should just be wall, that shouldn't-
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: -secret passage into unfinished house.
AMANDA: Do you remember our classmate? I think Alyssa or Jessica or somebody had like one of those like attic crawl spaces that was a fort that like her parents let her use as like a playroom?
JULIA: I don't but that sounds cool.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And jealous of Alyssa/Jessica.
AMANDA: Yeah, I think it was Jessica cuz she moved and I'm like, Damn, I can't hang out Jessica C's crawlspace anymore.
JULIA: Probably that makes sense.
AMANDA: So Aoife, "I don’t have very clear memories of this but apparently when I was a child, for a long time I would tell my parents that I could hear people in the walls and they were scratching because they wanted to get out."
JULIA: [whispers] Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
ERIC: No.
AMANDA: "My parents would always reassure me that it was just mice in the attic or nesting birds under the eaves."
JULIA: That's not better.
ERIC: I mean, it's a little better.
AMANDA: It's a little better.
ERIC: It's not good for the house, but it is better-
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: -than people trapped in the walls.
AMANDA: "Every year I would make the same complaint. Fast forward many years and we stopped going to visit altogether as we’re all adults now. We still visit every year but we mostly go over separately and so when I would visit I would stay in a smaller bedroom downstairs. I always got a weird vibe from the upstairs and would feel as if I was being watched if I ever did have to go up there but I just ignored it. I put all my past memories down to a child’s overactive imagination... Then one year I went to visit with my then fiancé, now husband. My Opa unfortunately passed in 2015 and my Oma can’t really get upstairs anymore so while we were visiting she asked my husband and I to get stuff from the attic for her. Immediately I felt nervous but I put on my big girl pants and went upstairs. As soon as my husband opened the attic door, I froze. I was hit with a wave of fear as I looked into the dark and dusty space. I could not make myself step over the threshold. My husband went in by himself and placed everything outside the door and I just helped carry it downstairs. I was surprised by my reaction as by this stage I was a whole adult but my childhood fears came flooding back in that moment! When we came home I told my Mam what happened and laughed nervously."
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: "I told her about the feeling I got standing at the door of the attic. She very casually said “Oh yeah, you used to tell me about the people in the walls all of the time. I tried to put on a brave face for you because I was the parent but I was terrified. Before the house was converted the entire attic space was a mortuary.”
JULIA: What the fuck!? What the fuck!? What?!
AMANDA: "Excuse me mother! WHAT?"
ERIC: Why not the bottom?
AMANDA: "Apparently the original house was a farm run by a couple but the wife had a side gig as an embalmer."
JULIA: Oh my God,
ERIC: Not an acceptable side gig, hustle culture has gone too far. You can't hustle as an embalmer.
JULIA: You know, I just really love dead bodies and I just wanted to find a passion that would allow me to do that my side hustle as a full-time job.
AMANDA: Okay, listen, if this is farm country in her defense, it sounds like maybe there weren't full-time mortuary people around and maybe she was really good at chemistry or care or like, had to do it for a family member and then it just sort of snowballed. I am finding myself wanting to defend this woman and I'm not really sure why.
JULIA: Why? Amanda!
ERIC: I mean, I know I understand where Amanda is coming from as misguided as she might be. But I mean, I think it makes sense. It makes sense. You got your local country doctor, and if he doesn't know how to-
AMANDA: Right.
ERIC: -embalm someone you need your local country embalmer.
JULIA: Or you just bury the body!
ERIC: Julia, I still think it's buck wild. But I'm saying Amanda's story does hold- hold some water.
AMANDA: It's not my story, okay? This is [53:16] to read.
ERIC: I mean, I mean your explanation. Your explanation.
JULIA: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
AMANDA: I would like to question why it was upstairs.
ERIC: Yeah, that– that's because you're lugging around dead bodies up and down stairs.
AMANDA: Right.
ERIC: That's hard. That's just hard work. I've never done it. I want to be very clear. I don't know this from firsthand experience that I mean, it's just tough.
JULIA: I would love the answer to be oh, cuz it was in a flood zone. You can't have a mortuary in a flood zone in the basement. No, you got to put it upstairs.
AMANDA: An outbuilding, an ice house?
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Like lots of places like you have to get get to like, yes, it is literally dead weight that shots heavy. You have to get rid of fluids, you have to bring the body back downstairs. Like there's a lot. There's a lot of logistics and I'm very curious about all of them.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: But Aoife just finishes her email by saying, "Now, every time I visit, all I can think about is the potential spirits that are trapped in the walls and really, I was happier living in ignorance."
[Julia sighs deeply]
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Maybe if you just like open the door up but then the spirits can leave.
AMANDA: I know.
JULIA: Like, stop, stop closing the attic door just let it open, and eventually they'll wander out like like when you have a fly and it just cannot seem to find the door and you're like just go outside you stupid fly.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: We've got a fly right now and we cannot get this motherfucker out. It's we, we probably have a flyswatter somewhere in the basement but neither of us are willing to go out there and look because we don't care that much.
JULIA: And the problem is too you can't like cup a ghost like you would cup a spider or a fly and just let it outside-
AMANDA: True.
JULIA: -and like be free.
AMANDA: That's true.
JULIA: If only, if only we could just cup a ghost.
AMANDA: I know. That would be great.
JULIA: Oh God. Okay, I just want to do a quick check in none of us are parents, obviously.
AMANDA: No, we're not.
ERIC: Correct.
JULIA: If you were a parent, and you were like, I know this creepy thing about the house that we are currently in and my child keeps telling me like there's something creepy about this house, would you confirm that for that child? Or would you just keep lying to that child?
ERIC: I think you-
JULIA: Ignorance coming in hot.
ERIC: I mean, even Aoife here says she was happy to be living in ignorance.
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: So like, by her own account, that is the solution, lie. If you're willing to lie about Santa and the tooth fairy, every everybody else, then why not just lie about the ghosts? Because there's no benefit. Now you're scaring a kid.
JULIA: But like the attic still scares her, right? Like, even if you tell her Oh, it's fine. She's still like, there's something wrong with it and I know this in my child gut, you know? Like, at that point, I would just be like, yeah, do you want to move rooms? You don't have to be in that room anymore if it scares you.
ERIC: Yeah, no, that that makes sense. But I think you want to hope that they grow out of it. So if you keep them living in ignorance, and like you can do you can move them to something like that. But I think the ideal way is to keep them thinking that everything's hunky dory for as long as possible because no good is gonna come from being like, No, you're right. There's ghosts haunting your room. That's not gonna help anybody.
AMANDA: Yeah, while I'm not a parent, I did raise my youngest siblings, and I did not need to give them any more reasons to like, not do what I was telling them to do, you know? Like, you don't want to eat your vegetables too bad if you don't eat them. You're not going to grow. You, you want coffee you want mom and dad's a special bean juice, too bad you can't have it. It's illegal for kids under 12. Like do you just lie and lie and lie until the things that you need to happen happen. I think actually Aoife's mom handled this perfectly which is to confirm for your kid and be like ah, yes, what a funny story now that you're an adult we can you know, like give you a revised version of your own past much like oh, you're never allowed to drink then you're like, yes mom and got up to some stuff in college and then you know, you tell them when it's appropriate. I think this is when it's appropriate.
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: Yeah, i agree.
JULIA: Interesting.
AMANDA: Parents don't sound off.
JULIA: I feel bad for the husband who got exposed to the ghosts.
AMANDA: Well, yeah, what a brave guy.
ERIC: What a brave guy.
AMANDA: Good-
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: -good fiance.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: Well, Aoife, I gotta tell you in terms of a haunting per word of an email this is right on up there with-
JULIA: Pretty haunted. Pretty haunted.
AMANDA: Pretty haunted.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Well, remember listeners whether you are lying to children about ghosts or telling them the truth about ghosts. Remember, 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