Episode 371: Your Urban Legends LXXXVII - A Charcuterie Board for Santa
/Haunted houses are cool, but when your family all AGREES that your house is haunted? We love to see it. Follow ups, wholesome hauntings, and haunted radiators? We want to hear them all!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of blood, bugs, and home invasions.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends Everybody Loves Communism
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
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. And hey, it's a Hometown Urban Legends episode. Blap, blap, blap, blap.
AMANDA: I love it. And Julia, you reminded me, just before we started recording that last night, we were actually talking about one of our hometown facts, that looking back definitely should have been an urban legend instead.
JULIA: Yeah, probably, probably. Hey, schools are haunted. I feel like we've been talking a lot about haunted schools in the past couple of Hometown Urban Legends.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: And so Amanda texted me out of the blue—
AMANDA: As I do.
JULIA: —and was like, "Hey, do you remember the asbestos pits in our high school?" And I—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —said, "Yes. Yes, I do."
AMANDA: I was hanging out with some new friends and, you know, talking about our personal lores as you do. And I just brought up, you know, nonchalantly, like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. No. In my, like, high school theater program in the asbestos pit." And they were like, "Wait, what?" And I said, "Uh—" and they were like, "Uh, no, no. Go back." And so I—
JULIA: Rewind.
AMANDA: —I texted Julia to, you know, independently verify my memory of the asbestos pit. Unbeknownst to me, also a topic of conversation at your evening.
JULIA: Truly, like, Amanda, you texted me about that, and then five minutes later, my brother-in-law who went to the same school that we did, only a couple years younger, was like, "Yeah. Do you remember those, like, pits underneath the school? Like, one time, I, like, went down there after football practice and there was no one around. And we just kind of, like, explored them and, like, found some creepy dolls, and, like, people's SATs scores." And I was like, "What?" I was like, "Because, like, I went down there a couple of times, but only like the first three rooms, I would guess." And that—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —and that it was too creepy for me, and so I backtracked. And I thought, "Ooh, the sand and the asbestos, probably not good for my lungs as a young person.
AMANDA: Oh, the sand.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Good call. So, yeah, so our school was built in the probably late 1950s, really, like ramping up to the Cold War. The— there was like a full basement under the stage, the high school theater program that Julia and I have talked about many times. And the— the main area, the area that was, like, directly underneath the stage proper, would have been an orchestra pit in a— a— a different world, a school with an orchestra, which we did not have. We instead use it for storage for all of the, you know, lumber, and furniture, and flats, and like—
JULIA: Flats, and platforms, and doors—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —and whatnot.
AMANDA: Because, again, we were a bunch of, you know, 14 to 18-year-olds doing whole-ass construction that an adult—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —didn't look at until some man just looked at it the day before the show and said, "Good enough. That could hold weight." Yeah. But then further back, under what must have been— what's the back, like the band room and the—
JULIA: Yeah, the choir room in the band room. Yeah.
AMANDA: Just additional anterooms that, as Julia reminded me, I think were— or probably supposed to be the sort of like nuclear fallout shelter—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —you know, portion of the school, which is a thing that schools had.
JULIA: And we should not have had access to it, but—
AMANDA: No, it should have been locked.
JULIA: —there was, like, a locked door that someone had jimmied open just enough that you could kind of slide through it as a 14 to 18-year-old.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Apparently, Amanda, it went way deeper than we remember according to my brother-in-law, because he was like, "Yeah, I spent like two hours down there kind of exploring." I'm like, "That shouldn't happen."
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: "That shouldn't exist. Apparently, you went through the whole school."
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
JULIA: The whole school.
AMANDA: I didn't know that, because we were just told that the asbestos pit, which is, of course, just a room filled with asbestos and—
JULIA: And sand.
AMANDA: —sand for some reason. Maybe— is it supposed to trap the asbestos? That's not really how that works.
JULIA: Jake— this might have been a Jake bullshit line. But Jake's like, "Yeah, you know, like if you're down there, the sand is so, like, you don't have to use like a restroom facility. You could just bury it like a cat." I'm like, "I think he might be lying, but he might not be lying."
AMANDA: It sounds— it sounds like a partial lie, but I'm sure people have done that.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But, you know, listen, your— your brother-in-law and his football pals ventured further, because we— we'd take freshmen on the tour. We'd be like, "Yes. It's the asbestos room. Moving on." And I was like, "Oh, Eric, we only went there to show the freshmen." And he was like, "What?"
Jullia: And to graffiti it before we graduated.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Which was a tradition as well.
AMANDA: Which Eric and— and the new friends I was meeting were like, "Oh, that's normal. Of course, of course."
JULIA: Of course, of course. You gotta graffiti your school if you're going to graduate. Sure, sure.
AMANDA: You gotta do it. So a fun— a fun opportunity for us to kind of revisit some of our urban legends of your— I really tried to— to leave my mark, like you said, Julia. Most people signed, you know, the wall, the stairwell, the asbestos room, et cetera. I had— I was the chief of the lighting and sound crew in— in my time. And so right before we graduated, we finally got the budget to replace our ladder, which was very rickety, all metal, not grounded at all. Not ideal for lighting purposes.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And so they got a beautiful like 15-foot fiberglass ladder just before I left, and so I signed the ladder, and named The Enterprise.
JULIA: I'm so sorry that you didn't get to, like, spend more time with that ladder, Amanda. You deserve that.
AMANDA: Thank you. I was, you know, almost six feet tall, fairly broad, and using like a 10-foot ladder to reach 12-foot lighting poles, so I'm just glad I never fell.
JULIA: There were so many ways that that program could have gone wrong and killed someone, but it didn't. So that's good.
AMANDA: And here we are.
JULIA: And here we are.
AMANDA: Back to haunt you again with a whole new round of urban legends from you, our listeners.
JULIA: How about, Amanda, I started off with a follow-up email from someone who has sent us in some summer camp ghost stories earlier?
AMANDA: Oh, yes.
JULIA: So this is from Maeve, she/they. And Maeve had sent us in some summer camp stories about a ghost, where they didn't know the gender of the ghost, and so they were coming up with different names for the ghost that was haunting their summer camp.
AMANDA: Fabulous.
JULIA: Maeve starts, "Hey, Spirits team. It's Maeve." I also appreciate, Maeve, that says, "Pronounced like cave." Which is very funny to me.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: "Back to tell you about the haunted house I grew up in. But before we start, Amanda, I want to share that my granddad also grew up in"— I think it's Tuam.
AMANDA: Tuam. Tuam in Galway.
JULIA: Tuam— Tuam in Galway.
AMANDA: It's like a proper village. It's like— you know, it's like a small town, so not as unusual. But right on. Go, Maeve.
JULIA: They say, "Small world." So that's really cool.
AMANDA: It is a small world.
JULIA: So they also continue, "Sorry it took so long to get this in. I wanted to send it in before Halloween, but life got in the way." I totally understand. Totally fine. Don't ever— don't ever apologize for super late emails. It's okay.
AMANDA: Maeve, we— we needed it today, so you— you came right on time.
JULIA: So she continues, "Anyway, buckle up, this is going to be a long one. It was a beautiful bright yellow, colonial home in Manchester, Connecticut. My mom added plum-colored shutters which made the exterior look quite cheery. It was placed on top of a small hill with a sloping, uneven driveway. We had a yard full of crab grass and a couple of trees. Down the street was a massive cemetery."
AMANDA: Love it.
JULIA: "Sounds creepy, but it was one of my favorite places on the planet. It's where I learned how to ride a bike, would play there with my cousins, and would hunt vampires on Halloween with my sister, a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
AMANDA: Listen, Maeve, you— you might have to sort of explain or justify your feeling of deep peace at a cemetery to civilians, but not— not—
JULIA: Not to us. Not to conspirators.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: No, no, no. "The house, which my dad called the "Manch Ranch," was definitely not a ranch house."
AMANDA: Manch Ranch.
JULIA: "We had an unfinished basement, a main ground level, an upstairs, and an attic. I lived there from ages of 2 to 13. Let's start with the attic."
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: "It ran the full length of the house, with sloped ceilings and a single dormer with a semi-circle window looking out onto the street. Along each wall were a few doors leading to crawl spaces. My sister and I turned the back corner of one crawlspace into a blanket fort. And I distinctly remember we had a set of Pocahontas sheets pinned up as the roof." Very cute, very '90s.
AMANDA: Love it.
JULIA: "We used the attic mostly as storage. It housed a foosball table, a really ugly old couch, a defunct and massive old computer my dad thought he'd be able to fix. Notably, we had a cardboard cutout of Data from Star Trek who always scared me when I came up the stairs."
AMANDA: Yeah, that'll be a bit of a haunting visit. I'm not gonna lie to you.
JULIA: "A little light-up green alien that we would put out for Halloween, and then forget to put away, and then slap a Santa hat on it, and our family library which were a few bookcases books. The spookiest thing about the attic was on the ceiling. There was a brownish, reddish handprint slightly smudged. I remember telling my sister that I thought it was blood, but she laughed it off and said that she had put it there when she was painting the "Barton Family Library" sign onto the wall in red paint. I figured she was telling the truth because my sister was not a skilled liar. However, a few years ago, I mentioned it to my mom and she looked confused. "No," she said slowly. "That was there when we moved in."
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: "We— we only painted over it when we were getting ready to sell the house."
AMANDA: Smart.
JULIA: "So that's cool. Thanks, Mom."
AMANDA: I love that your sister was like, "Uh-uh. My— that was me— that was me right there."
JULIA: "I'm the spooky bitch"
AMANDA: I know, but, oh, my God.
JULIA: Or protecting you as the— I don't know if you're the younger sibling, but maybe she was trying—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —to protect you and being like, "No. Don't worry about the weird bloody handprint. It's fine."
AMANDA: Oh, my God. Incredible.
JULIA: "Next, the basement. It goes without saying, I think, that an unfinished cement-walled New England basement is going to be creepy. No matter what, there would always be one corner that was pitch-black."
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: "We had a somewhat faulty heated furnace tucked into the back that sometimes needed restarting, and you had to pull a series of strings to light a single bulb each as you walked further into the basement."
AMANDA: Oh, boy.
JULIA: That sounds like a terrible idea.
AMANDA: Just get some construction lights. Just string some construction lights, you— you need a little path for yourself.
JULIA: Or just like fairy string lights that plug in and you could just like give yourself like a pathway.
AMANDA: Yeah. Or Christmas lights. Put the Christmas lights down there.
JULIA: Yeah. "Now, as far as I know, nothing weird or scary ever happened in the basement, but my subconscious didn't agree with that rational part of my brain. I had recurring dreams centered around the basement for most of the decade that I lived in this house. The basement dream would start with me waking up in bed. I would hear a noise and look out into the hallway. I always slept with my door open so the cats could come in, but the cats would never be anywhere in sight. I would follow the sound down the stairs, I would start making my way to the kitchen, but the door to the basement, located in the hallway between the stairs and the kitchen, would slowly swing open, just a little bit. I would peer around the door, but there would be nothing there. And then the sound would come again. I would make my way down the stairs slowly, as quietly as I could. The fear would begin to mount, tension building at the base of my neck. As I reached about halfway down the stairs, a light would turn on. The light furthest in the basement, by the furnace."
AMANDA: Oh sure.
JULIA: "I would be able to barely make out a shadowy silhouette. It would beckon to me and I would hear a voice, not mine, in my head, encouraging me to take the final few steps down the stairs. But I would hesitate, and in that moment of hesitation, the light would flicker off. I would race up the stairs, pass the door, and slam it shut. And then I would wake up."
AMANDA: What a detailed dream.
JULIA: That's so spooky. And the fact that it's recurring, too. Ooh, no. No, I hate it.
AMANDA: I hate it.
JULIA: "This wasn't the only recurring dream that I had while living in the house. The other dream would start similarly at first. I would wake up in my bed and look towards my door. And then I would see a ball roll by. Close behind, a little boy would chase the ball. He had light blond hair that fell in loose curls. He would come back after noticing me, smile, and gesture, like he wanted me to come play with him."
AMANDA: Don't play with the ghost boy.
JULIA: Hmm, hmm. "Before I could get the chance to do that or say anything, he would turn to look down the stairs, and his face would fall. A look of pure terror would break out. Eyes wide, mouth agape. The boy would be pulled out of sight, and a moment later, I would hear a blood-curdling scream. And then I would wake up."
AMANDA: Damn. Your— your dreams have, like, very good structure. They're— they're structured for maximum impact right there.
JULIA: "It's worth noting that I haven't had recurring dreams since moving out."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "Next, the reflections. My dad used to work nights and my mom worked days, but Thursdays, my mom and sister would go to choir, so it would just be me and my dad at home until 9:30 or so at night. My dad usually spent these evenings on the computer because it was the early 2000s, we had a computer room, which was a nook off of the kitchen that probably used to be a breakfast nook or a pantry. Sometimes, because I was a creepy kid, I would stand in the hall and stare at my dad in the computer room."
AMANDA: Love that.
JULIA: I love our listeners.
AMANDA: So good.
JULIA: "When I did this, I would sometimes look at my reflection in the window above my dad's head, and I would see something else. A shadowy silhouette, very much like the one in my basement dream, would be standing behind me in the reflection."
AMANDA: Oh, boy.
JULIA: "Now, the reflection wouldn't do anything, but it certainly would send a chill up my spine."
AMANDA: I bet.
JULIA: "And then finally, the voice. Someone had died in the house. I don't know who, but it was disclosed upon putting a bid on the house. We knew that she had died"— wait for it, "in my bedroom."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "My parents told me all of this when I told them about the voice."
AMANDA: Okay. I— we always have questions about sequencing here, Julia. And part of me was like, "Okay. Did you know that fact and sort of like, you know, were imagining it?" No, no. Independent verification occurred here.
JULIA: Yup. Yup. "Pretty regularly, I would spend time alone at home. I would usually hang out in my room and listen to music. But over the music, I could hear or someone calling my name. I thought my parents must have come home, so I turned the music off, and called a hello down the hallway, only to be greeted by silence. No one had come home yet. This happened almost every time I was home alone. One day, I figured out it was coming from the radiator in the corner of my room." Which— okay, if you lived in a house with a radiator before, do you know that it is one of those things where, like, sound travels up the radiator?
AMANDA: It does.
JULIA: Which it can, the basement.
AMANDA: Comes from the basement, comes from that hot water heater. It's— it's pumping hot water all the way up to your room and sound, and clanging, and spooky messages will follow.
JULIA: I hate it. I hate it so much.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So Maeve goes, "That was my haunted house. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I'm so sorry it's so long, but it's been decades worth of occurrences wrapped into one email. I wish I could attach some pics of my lovely childhood cats who lived with me but I couldn't get them into the contact form. But their names were Casimir, Caz for short, and Madouc." Oh, apparently, these were names of characters from Lyonesse by Jack Vance, which I've never heard before.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: But that sounds fun.
AMANDA: Cute. Good job.
JULIA: "I hope you all had a wonderful spooky season. Stay creepy, stay cool, Maeve."
AMANDA: Maeve, so cute. Thanks for writing in.
JULIA: Thank you so much. This is great.
AMANDA: Well, Julia, you've inspired me to choose an urban legend also about a— sort of like hometown childhood bedroom haunting.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: Which, you know, among my favorites, just because I— I so vividly remember, you know, being a kid in my own bed. Like, I am safe in the bed, nothing outside the bed can get me when I'm in the bed. So let's turn now to this from Charlie, they/them. Titled, I officially became a member of Team ignorant.
JULIA: Uh-oh. All right. Let's hear it.
AMANDA: So they write, "Hey, conspirators, I'm a longtime listener and enjoyer of mythology and urban legends. I have been recently relistening to a lot of the hometown episodes while setting up for an event at the library I work at."
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: "However, even though I enjoy hearing about other people's ghost stories, I personally haven't had a ton of paranormal encounters. Before today, the closest I've come to being haunted is my ongoing game of "Ghosts or ADHD" where I lose something, search high and low for it, and it ends up sitting in plain sight in a place I already looked five times before."
JULIA: Yup, yup. Big mood. Very— very familiar.
AMANDA: "I still make sure to thank the ghost though. I call her Martha, just to be safe."
JULIA: Also, hold on, as of today, so this is like a hot fresh off the presses, I experienced a ghost and immediately sent to Spirits in email.
AMANDA: And, Julia, it happened on the day before Halloween.
JULIA: Whoa.
AMANDA: So just good timing all around.
JULIA: It's the spookiest time of the year.
AMANDA: All right. "That all changed today when I had the most vivid, hardest to explain ghost encounter of my life."
JULIA: Let's hear it.
AMANDA: "Backstory, I recently started working as a librarian in north Georgia, but because librarians are not paid very much, I can't dream of affording rent on my own, so I live in a house on my grandmother's property." Sounds ideal.
JULIA: Shout-out librarians. So much more of our budget in general, or taxes should go to librarians. That's my—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —hottest of takes, clearly. But also we love how many librarians, one, listen to the show and write into us. It's great.
AMANDA: You're the best. "I also have a very haunted coworker who has multiple spirits attached to her, including everyone's favorite (not really) the shadow man."
JULIA: Ah, yes, classic.
AMANDA: "So here I am, in a cabin in the woods of Appalachia, sleeping late because I just had a busy week hosting a Halloween party for the library and I'm exhausted."
JULIA: Yay.
AMANDA: It's already morning, sometime between 6:30 and noon when I fed my cats, photos to come if I can figure out how to send them." Just— just type us a little email, spiritspodcast@gmail.com. You can send whatever you want. "So I'm lying in bed half-asleep when I distinctly hear a male voice from the foot of my bed say, "Hello."
JULIA: Hello.
AMANDA: "I then proceed to freeze for a solid five minutes, processing what I just heard before rolling over and going back to sleep."
JULIA: Okay. Bold move, bold move. We love it. We love to see it.
AMANDA: "Now, I told a few of my co-workers/friends about this when I was finally ready to be conscious to the world, and K, the haunted one, told me that the shadow man left her two nights before my incident occurred and most likely latched on to me."
JULIA: Okay. This person, this coworker, too— first off, too aware of the comings and goings of their shadow man, first off.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah. This— this shouldn't be a daily occurrence. You shouldn't be, like, checking in with your shadow man every day, ask him what he's up to.
JULIA: "Yeah, it's weird. You know, like he left for a couple hours and then he came back, it was probably to haunt you. Don't worry about it, though."
AMANDA: Tough.
JULIA: What? What? I don't know what kind of relationship you have with this co-worker, but that is not a co-worker relationship, but I'll leave that at that.
AMANDA: I mean, they described them as a co-worker/friend, so it sounds like a, you know, a co-worker who's elevating to friendship, but this sounds like— K is getting very involved in your supernatural life.
JULIA: Okay. Okay.
AMANDA: "She then told me to cleanse the house, so I promptly added incense to my grocery pickup for that evening and cleansed my house later in the day. I also contacted my witchy former roommate, but I don't have easy access to the supplies she recommended, so more intensive cleansing will have to be done at a later date."
JULIA: Now, I gotta know what that witchy friend/former roommate said.
AMANDA: I know. Charlie, we're gonna have to have a follow-up, because it's— it's been a solid two months since you wrote in, almost exactly from the day we're recording this. So, you know, I— I really want to hear the updates and how your ghost/shadow man has sort of weathered the holiday season.
JULIA: Yeah, did you get them a gift? Did you— you know, like, are they your roommate now? Like, what's going on?
AMANDA: That's true.
JULIA: I need to know. They gotta start paying rent if that's the case.
AMANDA: Seriously, right? So, "Thank you for such a fun amazing podcast. You help fill the silence while I move tables and empty rooms, and I like to think the library ghosts enjoy listening to you, too.
JULIA: I hope so.
AMANDA: Well, I actually hope so, Charlie. We're very respectful.
JULIA: Yes. What up, library ghosts? We love you. Treat Charlie with respect and love.
AMANDA: Yeah. And— and maybe give them some advice about the shadow man interloper.
JULIA: Yes. And protect them from the shadow man, please, library ghosts. Do your best.
AMANDA: All right, Julia. That was Charlie, and I'm not gonna lie to you. I— I feel like I need a bit of a refill after that one.
JULIA: Let's go.
[theme]
AMANDA: Hello, hello, everybody. It's Amanda. I hope you are enjoying this episode as much as I did when we recorded it. I want to welcome first and foremost our newest patrons. Thank you for joining after our appeal a couple of weeks ago. Thank you, Jordan, Daniel, and Aster. You are so good-looking, and you are so witchy, and you're so mythological, and wonderful, and it's only a little bit because you are a Spirits patron. Thank you as well to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Ginger Spurs Boi, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah and Scott. And our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. If you would like to join these distinguished ranks and enjoy all of the bonus stuff that we have to offer on Patreon, including 372 times 2, which is bear with me, 744 recipe cards, go on over to patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Now, speaking of podcast, I have a couple to recommend to you today. First, over at Multitude, we're doing all kinds of great stuff, including gearing up for a year filled with really interesting celestial events. That's right. We have eclipses and all kinds of good stuff happening in 2024. And there's nowhere I'd rather learn about them than Pale Blue Pod, an astronomy podcast for people who are a little overwhelmed by the universe but do want to be its friend. Hosted by our friends, astrophysicist Dr. Moiya McTier, and comedian and writer Corinne Caputo. They demystify space one topic at a time, and it'll make you a lot more sort of feel with awe about the universe that we live in. It's— it's a very, very good listen. Go on and listen to Pale Blue Pod every Monday in your podcast app right now. And secondly, I've been listening to a bunch of political podcasts recently. And if you told me this a few years ago, I'd be very scared and overwhelmed. But I have been getting a lot of solace and sort of solidarity from listening to podcasts that expand my worldview about not just what's happening in the world or in the United States right now, but what's possible. And one of them that's providing me with a really interesting education that I definitely didn't get in school is Everybody Loves Communism, where a bunch of educators and activists take you through some of the texts that you may have heard of, like the Communist Manifesto, or various writings by Karl Marx and Lenin, and a bunch of other important historical figures in a way that you can really get behind and that I can really understand. I've been doing some puzzles, listening to the podcast at night, and it's been a great time. So if you, too, are looking to learn a little more about the communist and socialist texts that exist out there, check out Everybody Loves Communism. One of the things I've been doing to feel a little more excited about getting ready in the morning and happy about my appearance is playing with the length of my hair. I've kept it the same length for, like, six or seven years. And I'm growing it out a little bit to see, you know, what I can do when I have it not short, short, but sort of like bob short. And it makes me realize how hard it is and knowing it is for your hair to grow in. And I was so grateful when we got the sponsorship from Kitsch, which is a wonderful haircare company with all kinds of beauty essentials like satin pillowcases, shampoo, and conditioner bars, and this really cool, like, scalp oil serum that can help your hair grow in faster, which I've been using for a few weeks now and really love, like, massaging my scalp, and waiting 10 minutes, and then washing it out. It's just like a lovely practice. And I'm very excited to report back in, you know, a few ads from now and sort of see how it's working. 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Now, I know growing up didn't have access to THC or CBD, or any kind of cannabis-based products in a way that felt, you know, accessible, affordable, legal to purchase. So I really appreciate that Microdose Gummies are available if you want to, you know, feel more creative, feel at peace, feel relaxed, and even specifically for sleep. If you're looking for something to help you fall asleep in a way that you can wake up the next day and not feel groggy or anything like that, which I highly recommend and I tend to use my Microdose Gummies to do. Microdose Gummies deliver perfect entry-level doses of THC that help you feel just the right amount of good. And, hey, pro tip, you can always just have half. You can have half, you can have a little nibble, you can have a quarter, and sort of see what it's like for you. I really appreciate that these helped me wind down and sleep through the night. I, otherwise, am going to be waking up and having trouble falling asleep. 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That's B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-E-N, ., C-O-M, and use promo code Spirits for $20 off. And finally, we are sponsored this week by Blueland. Now, again, beginning of the year, trying to be reflective, trying to cut down on my, you know, impact on the environment, on my purchases, particularly, plastic. And I love that I don't have to think about any of that stuff when doing the sort of like cleaning essentials and stocking up my house, because I've used Blueland for years, guys. They are a wonderful company that make low impact, low plastic or no plastic stuff. They're looking to eliminate, actually, single-use plastic, period. So they're reinventing cleaning essentials to be better for you and the planet. Basically, they offer refillable cleaning products. So you buy one set of bottles one time and then going forward, all you do is you reorder refill tablets, which starts at 2.25. They look adorable like TUMS. 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JULIA: Amanda, we are back from our refill, and I have to say I am really in love with the seasonal cocktail menu at this new cocktail bar that I've been hyping up now for a while for you. I apologize I haven't taken you there yet, but we'll get on it.
AMANDA: You will, I— I trust.
JULIA: But last time we were there, Jake had this absolutely incredible cocktail that was this bar's is play on a New York Sour.
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: So it was rye whiskey, like a spiced pear syrup, Angostura bitters, lemon, honey, and then instead of doing like a— a red wine floater, they did a cinnamon Pinot Noir foam. And it was—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —wild. So good.
AMANDA: I really have to come out. That sounds so good.
JULIA: I— you know what? I'm usually like, oh, like a flavored foam is so like, you know, gastro and, like, kind—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —of cliche. It works so well. And like the problem I find with something that has like a floater is— as you start to drink it, one, it's either all you taste or it gets mixed in too quickly, and then like—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —what was the point of the floater in the first place? Having it be a foam was such a brilliant idea to remedy those two problems I have with drinks that have floaters.
AMANDA: Hmm. So good.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. What about you? What have you been drinking lately?
AMANDA: We went— we have a new tradition of going on Christmas Eve for, like, a fancy steak dinner and cocktails with my dad and his girlfriend. And so, we went to a place that you recommended called Analogue in the West Village.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Across the street from my favorite beer bar, Arts and Crafts, which is so beautiful, but my dad's girlfriend doesn't love beer. She's more of a cocktail lady, so we went there instead. And I'm glad we did, because I had a drink called Plum Struck, which they described as bright and tart, made of moonshine, UME plum liqueur, which I had never had before.
JULIA: Ooh. It's like a pickled plum, right?
AMANDA: Yeah. Red grapes and lemon. And it was so well-balanced. It was so delicious. There was like a— a touch of funkiness, but mostly just like a bright, kind of flavorful taste of the UME. And it was so incredible. If I see a bottle of UME plum, either liqueur or liquor, I'm not sure exactly what it is.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I will 100% pick it up because I could see myself just having like half an ounce plus like Seltzer, you know, over ice, like it was so refreshing.
JULIA: Like a spritzer. That sounds amazing.
AMANDA: Exactly. Yeah.
JULIA: That bar also has a incredible cocktail, which they call the chips and salsa, which is like— It tastes like chips and salsa. It's— it's truly one—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —of my favorite cocktails I've had in a really long time.
AMANDA: Eric got it and it came with a couple chips, and he was like, "Whoa."
JULIA: I love it so much. And also like did they do the little lime on the side where they— like, you can squeeze it on the chips or into the cocktail?
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: And it changes the whole flavor.
AMANDA: So good. All right, Julia. I have a little New Year's gift for you, which is—
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: —another follow-up from a relative's perspective of an urban legend we already told.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Yay. More of this. So this comes from— the name that they gave is Sisters in rowhouse and pronouns, she/her. And the subject is Haunted rowhouse, the sisters version.
JULIA: Ooh. Okay.
AMANDA: I don't know if that was a Taylor Swift reference, but I'm into it. I'm into it. All right. So sister said, "Hey, y'all, I've been a fan of your podcast since listening to Episode 311 where you told my sister's urban legend."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Since then we've actually spoken with each other about our experiences more, and a few things have come up that I never knew."
JULIA: This is the ideal situation. I have so many follow-up questions after so many of these, and getting a secondary perspective, or y'all asking each other questions and, like, reiterating your experiences. That's my dream.
AMANDA: Julia, we are healing generational trauma here on this podcast.
JULIA: I need more like parent-child—
AMANDA: yes.
JULIA: —and also sibling interactions after sending emails in and hearing our reactions.
AMANDA: I'm— I'm so happy. Thank you so much. "So as my sister described on that episode, I too woke up many times from the distinctive sound of chairs falling on the kitchen floor." Do you remember this as the—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —the kind of like the legend we talked about?
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "I used to think I just incorporated real life sounds from the day into my dreams, and would wave everything I experienced off as my imagination, until these two events that I'm about to share."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "I was asleep one night when I woke up from a loud whisper in my ear."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Worst-case scenario.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, have you had that happened to you? Because recently, I was down in Florida, visiting my parents. And I woke up with a start, because I swore I heard my mom, like, say my name through the door. And then I, like, got up to check and she was still asleep. And I was like, "Oh, that's weird. I don't like that."
AMANDA: No, I haven't. I've certainly like heard noises or woken up and, you know, wasn't sure why I woke up and then realized that like, you know, Eric was calling for me again or, like, the buzzer buzz or something like that, but not yet.
JULIA: That's so interesting. I feel like that happens to me fairly often where I hear like— I don't know, like, either I'm falling asleep or I'm like, on the verge of waking up, and I can, like, hear people saying my name in, like, voices that I hear often, like my parents' voices, or— or Jake or something like that. And it's like, really— I don't know. I'm like— my— my thought process is, "Oh, it's just my brain kind of cycling through noises I heard through the day." like this— listener said in their email. And now— now I'm not sure if that's a normal thing or not.
AMANDA: I'm sure a lot of people experience it. It's not one of the ones that I have yet, but let's— let's see.
JULIA: I might just be haunted. I don't know. Who could say?
AMANDA: "I'm not really sure what the person said exactly, but I didn't get frightened. It happened a few times that I got woken up like this in the middle of the night, which I then thought was just my vivid dreams. But it hasn't happened to me since we moved away from that house."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "So in my state between being asleep and awake, a few seconds passed before I heard distinctly the sound of a kitchen chair falling on the stone floor, like usual."
JULIA: Hmm. Great, great. Cool. So good.
AMANDA: I would usually ignore the noises from downstairs during the night, but for some reason, I decided to examine the kitchen this one time. I guess I wanted to actually discover one of the chairs on the floor for once. So I walked downstairs into the darkness without turning on any of the lights." As you do.
JULIA: Like you do as a child. Sure.
AMANDA: "The living room was calm and quiet and the hallway to our front door was too. As I turned the corner to the kitchen, I saw all the chairs in their usual places. So for the first time, I got confirmation that no one picked up the chairs in the morning before I could wake up."
JULIA: Oh, okay, because that was a potential thing. Sure. Going through all the logical explanations. We love it.
AMANDA: You wake up in the morning and you're like, "Ah, yeah, mom and dad, you know, opened the blinds, and put on the coffeemaker, and picked up all the chairs that fell overnight."
JULIA: But— and wouldn't your parents like— I— I feel like if it was me, and like my parents kept waking up in the morning and finding fallen over chairs. They would be like, "Julia, why do you keep knocking the chairs over?" And I would be like, "I'm not."
AMANDA: In my house, it would just be a roulette of siblings blaming each other, or then assuming that like a raccoon got in or something and like was—
JULIA: "It seemed like a raccoon got in."
AMANDA: I don't know. We— we constantly have problems with raccoons in our garbage.
JULIA: But like coming into the house and just knocking over chairs. I don't know why that's so funny.
AMANDA: "So I stood in the middle of the dark kitchen and all of a sudden felt this overwhelming sense of fear. 'Why the fuck did I leave my bedroom?' I thought to myself."
JULIA: Great question, small child.
AMANDA: "And started heading upstairs. Now, as I passed the stairs to the basement, I got chills down my spine and refused to look down the stairwell. Something I would usually do without a problem during the daytime. Instead, I sprinted upstairs as quietly and quickly as possible. I closed the door to my room behind me and laid down in my bed, really confused as to why I left the safety of bed in the first place. I hated being alone in the big house in the darkness, so why didn't I at least turn on the lights? I fell asleep and woke up the next morning still confused, but unfortunately never spoke about it, just waving it off as middle of the night paranoia, and me being scared of the dark."
JULIA: Oh, boy.
AMANDA: "But when I heard my sister's stories of waking up from hearing the kitchen chairs, I immediately started thinking about that strange night. I'm still wondering why both of us woke up from this specific sound so many times and what that night was calling me down to investigate."
JULIA: Just the— the secondary confirmation, I mean, y'all gotta talk about these things. You can, like, casually mention it at breakfast the next day.
AMANDA: Talk with your siblings.
JULIA: Do it, talk to your siblings. Talk to your parents.
AMANDA: Talk to your housemates, I know, I know. "So my second story is the stranger one of the two."
JULIA: The str— oh, boy. Okay. Here we go.
AMANDA: "This time I was awake when it started, so my memory is even more vivid. I might have been 14 or 15, and during this period, I used to watch YouTube a bit too late some nights." It happens.
JULIA: As— as you do as a child. Sure.
AMANDA: "Whenever this was the case and my mom would get up to drink water or use the bathroom during the night, which was rare, but sometimes happened, nevertheless. She would see the light from underneath my door and scold me, of course, for staying up too late. To give you some background as well, my parents' room and mine were wall to wall and the doors were almost turned toward each other because one of my walls was at a weird angle. This meant I could always hear my parents going in and out of their room and would also usually see their shadows in that gap underneath the door as they passed by." Already spooky, Julia.
JULIA: Already spooky.
AMANDA: "Another thing to know is that the whole family's rooms are close to each other, all fanning off the landing that leads downstairs. My sister's room and mine, however, were the ones that allowed us to hear people walking in the stairs the best. Mine was right above the stairs, and hers was the first room you reach when you got up to the landing. I can add, too, that only me, my mom, and my sister were home the night in question." So—
JULIA: Oh, okay. Okay.
AMANDA: That night when I was watching my phone, a small light on, that would have been visible from the outside if you were looking for it. All of a sudden, I see the lights turn on in the hallway outside our rooms. There is a light switch to these lights both on the bottom and the top of the stairs. I quickly turned off my light and took my headphones out so I can hear better what was happening. Now, the headphones were only covering one of my ears so that if my mom walked by, I could quickly hide my phone. I heard someone walking upstairs. I thought it was really weird. I hadn't heard my mom coming out of her room or walking downstairs first, because she was in bed when I got in bed. The stairs creaked in all their normal places and the footsteps were slow, but clear. I was also confused why my mom turned on the lights, because usually if she had to get up to use the bathroom or get water in the dark, she would just do that and not turn on the lights. I was thinking that maybe I hadn't heard my mom getting out of her room and walking down stairs, because I'd been distracted from the video. She must have had a hard time walking in the darkness, I thought, but still, it was very unusual. Now, I didn't hear anyone opening any doors and I didn't see a shadow moving around. I stayed awake though, getting a bit of a strange feeling in my stomach. Why was someone still standing at the top of the stairs? Was it my sister walking around? The light stayed on and I looked at that small space under the door for any movements for what felt like a really long time before I fell asleep."
JULIA: I'm too anxious of a person. I— my immediate thought would have gone to home intruder. Like, immediately—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —I would have just like— because I remember like being this age, right? Like, in— in my, like, early to mid-teens and being, like, left home because my parents were out or something like that. And, like, hearing noises in the house, and like immediately going downstairs to, like, look at the back door, and make sure, like, no one had come in that way or anything like that. Like, I—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I— I don't know. Like, I— I wouldn't have been, like, just laying in bed. I would have been like, "I need to investigate and make sure that everything's, like, okay, and there's not a home intruder happening here.
AMANDA: Oh, me, too. Or I would have assumed that one of my siblings was like, you know, eating all the snacks in the middle of the night or, you know, was confused. And I— I would a thousand percent have gotten up and been like, "What?"
JULIA: What are you doing? What's going on?
AMANDA: So I woke up the next morning and walked downstairs to find my sister and mom in a conversation over breakfast around the kitchen table. "Good morning," my mom said. "Now that I have you both here. I just wanted to say that the last person awake has to remember to turn off the lights before going to bed." I froze, turned to my sister, and saw that she was looking back at me. "I thought that was you in the middle of the night, mom," I said. "And I thought it was you," my sister said to me. My sister looked pretty concerned and I'm guessing I did as well, but our mom seemed very unbothered and just repeated that whoever goes to bed last must turn off the lights."
JULIA: "It must have been one of these kids, you know? I'm not worried about it at all."
AMANDA: From your mom's perspective, I understand that she's like, "Ah, classic my two kids blaming each other for the thing." I'm sure that happened, too.
JULIA: Classic irresponsible teens.
AMANDA: But my sister and I confirmed to each other that we both stayed the whole night in our rooms. We also checked the front door to see if it was still locked, which it was, and presumably had been overnight. After that, my mom just shrugged it off and blamed the creaky old house, and said, "Eh, one of the light switches must have been on in the middle of the night. Like, someone left it kind of in between on and off, and at some point, the switch just turned on." Now, I don't remember having any other conversation about this night in particular, but I do remember my sister saying that she was sure it was me for some reason, and remember seeing the lights turned on, which made her look at the time. Apparently, it was 3:00 AM on the dot."
JULIA: The witching hour. The witching hour.
AMANDA: "I don't know— I don't know if she still remembers the incident, but it sure was etched on my brain."
JULIA: Guys, gotta check in with each other. This is the whole point of this follow-up.
AMANDA: You must. And your mom for that matter.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: If you're— if you're able to talk to your mom, I'd love to hear her perspective on what happened in that creaky old house. So the story concludes with, "I know there are explanations for both of these incidents, as my mom have said, but I know those stairs. I walked them for 16 years. I know what they sound like. And if my headphones had been on when I heard the steps, I might have been quicker to wave everything off. But I waited in the dark for someone to walk into one of the rooms. I know the sounds of those chairs hitting the floor, and they were as distinct as my sister explained. So when she talked to me about her similar experiences, the only thing I could possibly say was, "Yeah, well, that house was super haunted." I know it might be strange, but I always felt so dumb believing that these incidents were anything but explainable, so talking about them as a teenager didn't seem like an option to me."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "I hope you enjoyed getting my side of our haunted childhood. There are many more, and me and my sister is still trying to figure out which incidents we have in common."
JULIA: Oh, yeah. Please find out which ones you do have in common. Send us another email. I want to hear all about this.
AMANDA: And yeah, I want your mom's perspective if she is able to give it, but thank you, Sisters in the rowhouse.
JULIA: Oh, gosh. Amanda, I have one last one. A light one to kind of close this out here. This is from Betty, she/her, and she has titled it, My Mom is a Magician.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So Betty writes, "Hello! I've been catching up on some episodes now that the Fall semester is over. Thank every god and entity you've ever discussed and will ever discuss on the show #teacherlife."
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: "And you mentioned that you needed some more urban legend submissions. I have already submitted my spooky stories, but after racking my brains, I realized that I have some wholesome family, quote-unquote, 'urban legends' from my childhood that might be worth sharing, even if they aren't like the typical urban legends you usually read on the podcast."
AMANDA: All right.
JULIA: "For background, my mom is probably the kindest person I've ever met in my entire life. She is a preschool teacher. Her Facebook is full of pictures of flowers and butterflies that she sees during her walks."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "And she is extraordinarily thoughtful and caring. I could write an entire thesis about how wonderful she is, but I digress. When my brother and I were little, she did her best to feed our imaginations and would find creative ways to make magic for us. She, of course, went all out on classic things like Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, but she also had some more out of the box ideas. Before getting to those, though, I should mention that my dad does not have a sweet tooth, so my mom told us that Santa needed something more substantial than cookies to sustain him on Christmas, which is why we left Santa a meat and cheese platter every year, a tradition we carry on to this day."
AMANDA: Oh, my God. That's so wholesome. I love that.
JULIA: I love that so much. I'm gonna start doing that for— if I have kids, I'm going to 100% be like, "Santa doesn't actually like cookies. Santa really loves a fancy artisanal cheese and we're going to pick one out for Santa."
AMANDA: Santa needs a Cave Aged Gouda, or whatever kind of cheesy you would cave aged.
JULIA: Santa needs a Clothbound Cheddar.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah. There you go.
JULIA: "Now onto those more unique, quote-unquote, 'legends' that she created. I don't know how she came up with it, but she used to get these frosted green doughnuts every St. Patrick's Day, and would tell us that they were brought by leprechauns."
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: "When we were in kindergarten and lower elementary school, they were just like on the kitchen table when we woke up. But as we got older, she would hide them and tell us that the pesky leprechauns were playing a trick on us and that we had to go find them."
AMANDA: Adorable.
JULIA: "I have a very distinct memory of being in maybe second or third grade and seeing a green orb outside that I followed up into our playhouse, which was a wild structure that my dad made out of old telephone poles with a climbing area made of mooring ropes."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Your parents seemed cool as hell.
AMANDA: It seems like you had essentially a childhood in a pirate ship, which sounds great.
JULIA: "When I got to the top of the doughnuts were inside on our little picnic table. I know now that my mom hid the doughnuts, but I swear I saw that green light, and believe to this day that I really did because even if it was my imagination, it felt so real." I was recently talking to a friend of mine about like— the, like, magic that parents make around, like, the holiday season and stuff like that, like the— the magic of Santa Claus and the magic of Christmas, and like Easter, and—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —Tooth Fairy and stuff like that. And I'm like, "You have to do so much to make that so magical for your kid." But like the fact that they remember it years and years and years later, that is kind of like the beauty of it, right?
AMANDA: Julia. I— I try to be very present during our recordings, but I did just take a moment to text my mom, like "Wait, did you make a bunch of leprechaun surprises for us on St. Patrick's days?" Because I remember distinctly one time there was like Irish soda bread and like a trail of flour on the kitchen counter with, like, you know little thumbprint footprints. And, yeah, that's like— that's extraordinary. If you do that for your kids, that's— that's amazing. And listen, fellow adult children, if you remember some of that shit and you're like, "Damn. That was— that was so good." Text— text the parent or a guardian. Do that.
JULIA: That was your parent caring about you.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: All right. "So the next, quote-unquote, legend is super bizarre and was actually my brother's idea, but my mom ran with it."
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: "One summer when I was probably in fourth or fifth grade, there was a small brood of cicadas that were emerging."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: You remember that?
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: "My brother, who was in middle school at the time, told me that if you find a cicada shell and wait until the next day, you'll actually find a nickel under it."
AMANDA: What?
JULIA: "Naturally, I believed him, and spent hours searching for cicada shells. My mom after learning about it, asked me to show her where all the shells were, and then she put nickels under them after I went to bed."
AMANDA: That is so cute.
JULIA: "I was overjoyed the next day and collected quite a bounty. It's a good thing that it wasn't one of those 17-year broods, because that would have been a lot of nickels."
AMANDA: Yeah. It should have been like— you know what? The— the cicadas, they— they save it up. And so every 10 shells gets a quarter.
JULIA: Hmm. Smart. "I don't know if my brother intended to trick me or wanting to profit a few nickels from the ruse, but the way my mom went all in just so I would believe in magic and wouldn't be disappointed basically sums up who she is as a person. I was the weird kid who searched for fairies and other mythical creatures through a 'seeing stone' well into middle school. I used to be embarrassed about it, but now I recognize how special it was to be full of such belief and wonder longer than most. And I fully credit my mom for giving me that by creating magic for me and encouraging my imagination." And then she writes, "Damn, I got a little teary-eyed writing this and I'm glad I get to see my parents for Christmas next week. Thanks for joining me in my walk down memory lane. This is a little outside the realm of normal Urban Legends Episodes, so I totally understand if you pass it over." We didn't. This is adorable. "If you do decide to read it though, I wonder if it would be cool to ask the audience if they have any individual, quote-unquote 'urban legends' from childhood in a similar vein. That would make a really wholesome episode." So yes, if you have a wholesome urban legend that maybe your parents did for you as a kid or something like that, send those in because I think that would be like really sweet to do as like an urban legends round up.
AMANDA: I would absolutely love that. You know what, Julia? I would love to save that up for April Fool's Day week.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: Because that holiday puts me on edge, and I hate embarrassing people. So this feels like the absolute perfect antidote to have a— a little, you know, Spring Equinox beginning of April, wholesome Urban Legends special, but we need— we need your feedback, people. We need your stories, so please send it in.
JULIA: Send those in. I think they're so cute and they're so sweet. And it makes me feel like, you know, the magic of being a parent and stuff like that. It's really nice.
AMANDA: And, Betty, send this email to your mom.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: You should forward it to her.
JULIA: Send it to her, or send her this little clip here where— where we read it, so that she can hear— you know if you're embarrassed about sending it—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —you can hear it from an outside perspective or something.
AMANDA: Aw. You're a good mom, Betty's mom.
JULIA: Yeah. So Betty finishes, "Either way, stay creepy, stay cool, and try to keep physically warm in New York winter, and enjoy your holidays.
AMANDA: Thank you.
JULIA: What a— what a beautiful and wonderful note to end on. I love it so much.
AMANDA: incredible, incredible curation, Julia. And thank you so much, conspirators, for sending in your messages. We'd love your urban legends, especially if they're wholesome. But go on ahead and send those. You can email us directly and attach photos of your pets at spiritspodcast@gmail.com or use the contact form on our website.
JULIA: And remember, listeners, as you're creating a little magic in your childhoods, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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