Episode 409: Your Urban Legends XCVII - The Most Metal Girl Guide Trip
/We let Girl Guides get up to the wildest stuff. From age-inappropriate field trips, handsy ghosts, and the return of the Half-Perched House, this episode has us riled up!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, lack of consent, medical mistreatment, capital punishment, execution, and sex.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends voting for Spirits in the SIGNAL AWARDS!
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at https://spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Check out Join the Party (a fellow Signal Award nominee!!) at https://jointhepartypod.com
Sponsors
- BetterHelp is an online therapy service. Get 10% off your first month at https://betterhelp.com/spirits
Find Us Online
- Website & Transcripts: https://spiritspodcast.com
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/spiritspodcast
- Merch: https://spiritspodcast.com/merch
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/spiritspodcast
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/spiritspodcast
- Tumblr: https://spiritspodcast.tumblr.com
- Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/group/show/205387
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
AMANDA: Hello, ConSpiriters, Amanda here. I want to take a quick minute before the episode to tell you that we were nominated for an award, the Signal Award, in fact, which rewards excellence in podcasting. And we need your help to win the Paranormal and Horror category. So between now and October 17th, please help us out by going to vote.signalaward.com and put in Multitude to help Spirits, but also Join the Party and Pale Blue Pod win our categories. Thank you. And now, enjoy the episode.
[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 Amanda, the spookiest season has started. Ooh.
AMANDA: I'm locked in, baby. I wore a sweatshirt on my walk to work today. I couldn't be happier.
JULIA: Yeah. We accidentally both wore overalls today, and my overalls are, like, fall has begun, and Amanda's like, "Please, summer, last one more day."
AMANDA: Which is the opposite of our real personalities.
JULIA: That's true. No, I don't want necessarily summer to end, but I do fucking love fall, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah. And I'm like, "Get out of here. Let me wear my layers. Let me wear, you know, my long pants, my sweatshirts, my little hats." I am ready to go. I am locked in, Julia, as the memes are saying.
JULIA: Now, are you ready to be locked in, Amanda, to a response to a previous episode?
AMANDA: My favorite thing? Yes, please.
JULIA: Yes, I know. I know you are. I know you love it. All right. This is from April, she/her. It is titled The Half-Perched house current resident, response to Episode 402.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: It's all happening now. It's all happening for us.
AMANDA: Oh, my God.
JULIA: "Hello, Amanda and Julia. My name is April, and you may know a little about me from my sister-in-law, MyKayla."
AMANDA: Yes. MyKayla, you came through. I love you.
JULIA: We love it. We love to see it. I know there was a whole incident where— when we last left off with the Half-Perched house.
AMANDA: Give us the recap.
JULIA: You'll remember that MyKayla went to interview several people, including Jake and April, about the house. However, every recording, every instance of this story, including several computers, all died because of the telling of the story.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And now, April is here, responding to us firsthand, and I am so excited. Okay.
AMANDA: Never tell me podcasts aren't journalism. This is journalism.
JULIA: I did not go to journalism school. Please do not hold me to the same standards as journalists.
AMANDA: Julia, we hold journalists to no standards. Okay? Do it.
JULIA: All right. I am responding to Episode 402, with MyKayla's update. "Yes, I live in the half-perched house in Connecticut with the infamous man in the dress shoes. The house is fairly quiet and nothing too strange happens most of the time."
AMANDA: That's not enough.
JULIA: I know. Most of— that's so like— those are doing so much work to the sentence is "fairly quiet" and "nothing too strange happens most of the time."
AMANDA: Incredible, incredible.
JULIA: "However, just as MyKayla had mentioned, when we were discussing the man in the dress shoes before she came to visit and record our conversation, it was my phone that had mysteriously gone missing."
AMANDA: Wow. So not even, like, the recording was static, or the phone fritz, but just outright missing.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, she continues. "When I found it, it was under my couch, but it was broken. It looked as though someone took two fingers and pressed as hard as they could and broke the glass and some of the LED screen beneath it."
AMANDA: What?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: This isn't like 2012 anymore. I— like, I feel myself getting forehead wrinkles. Okay. This isn't 2012 when, you know, putting your phone on the desk at the wrong angle could shatter the screen.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Like, I dropped my phone in the bathtub yesterday, it's fine. We've proceeded quite a lot in phone technology, and that is bananas.
JULIA: Yeah, it's scary. It's scary and bad. Let's say that. The fact that this potential spirit can physically fuck up an iPhone— I'm assuming it's an iPhone, but it might not be. It could be an Android.
AMANDA: Smartphone.
JULIA: A smartphone. In a way that you can see it like that, extremely scary. Do not like.
AMANDA: Hate it. Please continue.
JULIA: All right. Well, she continues. "It was very eerie. Not to mention this happened on October 31st."
AMANDA: On Halloween, April?
JULIA: Yes. "On All Hallow's Eve, the man was able to cross the veil and physically break my phone for having disgust him."
AMANDA: I mean, thank you for your service. Seriously.
JULIA: "I would agree with MyKayla that I do have my own spirit-related incidences, such as living in a haunted house when I was just three or four years old, and many other similar things." April—
AMANDA: Come on in. April, you're in.
JULIA: April, listen—
AMANDA: You're in it now. You're in it now. MyKayla got you in. You're in.
JULIA: Listen, April, I understand if you haven't listened to a ton of our other episodes.
AMANDA: It's okay.
JULIA: I understand you're probably listening to them because your family keeps getting mentioned. Fine. Totally cool. The thing is, whenever someone says a statement like that, I then have to follow it up with you can't just say that. You have to tell us what the other incidents are.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So please write in again. It doesn't have to be about the half-perched house. I want to hear your other similar incidents and what it was like as a three or four-year-old living in a haunted house.
AMANDA: Yeah, April, April, you're like the, you know, the partner of, like, a person who I am friends with in another area of life or, like, one of my siblings, you know, I started dating somebody, and I'm like, "Wait, wait, we're gonna be friends, though. Like, it's— you know, you are— I'm so glad that you make Austin happy, but like, also, we're gonna be friends." And so I welcome you into the fold. I invite you whatever amount of, like, Faraday cage writing in from a library, like, handwriting, and then xeroxing, and then faxing this letter into us that you did. Please do it again, because I need to know all about your stories.
JULIA: I would also recommend borrowing the laptop of someone you dislike so that if it breaks—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —you know?
AMANDA: Like, Jerf at work. Just like, "Oh, yeah, Jerf, let me just, like, use your computer real quick."
JULIA: Man, Jerf's just been really messing up the weekly reports, and so, I don't know, guess I'm just gonna have to break his computer by talking about the man in the dress shoes, whatever.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: All right. To continue, "To add to the occurrences, it is possible that MyKayla and Jake are the ones with the connection to the man in the dress shoes, because ever since her last visit to record our conversation, we have had nothing happen in the house. However, after recently speaking with her about her follow-up in Episode 402, she mentioned that her work computer that she had wrote the story on had shorted, and she had to call IT. This leads me to think that the man has attached himself to her, or that he has lost power in the half-perched house." April, that's great. Sounds like wishful thinking on your behalf, but we'll continue.
AMANDA: Julia, let's not forget that April's around Jake all day, who's like— it's fine. It's fine.
JULIA: It's fine. I, like, tried to blood curse a kid when I was a teenager, but it's probably fine. Like, whatever. It's fine.
AMANDA: I survived. It's fine.
JULIA: "I believe that the man in the dress shoes may have lost some power in the house because of all the friendly and protective spirits that dwell within."
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: Okay. Okay. I feel like we didn't talk about any of the friendly, protectful spirits that are out there dwelling in this house, but—
AMANDA: But I get it where, like, if he's losing the war, so to speak, right? Like, if you live—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Like he's seeding some ground to some, like, helpful spirits that want people to, you know, coexist with them peacefully. And then the man in the dress shoes is like, "Meh."
JULIA: Yes. Well, so April is very kind to give us some examples of who might be lurking around here, which is—
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: —"MyKayla and Jake's grandfather's ashes, our family dog's ashes, and my own mother's ashes all reside in the house with us, and I truly believe that they protect us from any harmful spirits that visit. While unfortunate things have happened to some of the people that Jake spent time with in college, it is unclear whether it is due to a sinister spirit or just plain old life. For example, who can say why all of his college roommates have passed on over the years before some of them even reached 30?" April, what are you talking about?"
AMANDA: Oh, Jake, baby, that's sad.
JULIA: That's sad, but also extremely cursed. Extremely cursed.
AMANDA: Extremely unlikely.
JULIA: Oh, boy. "All for various reasons," she also adds onto here.
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: Like, it's not just like everyone is— like, as an example— a kind of cliche example, but everyone got the pharaoh's curse, and now was dying because of that, you know? Like, it's a 1950s movie. Nope, just various reasons.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: "It is hard to say if the man in the dress shoes has followed Jake or is a presence for both him and MyKayla. Yet, while nothing can be truly proven to be him or not, we know it is best to not invoke him while inside the house or especially close to All Hallow's Eve."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "I also have used precaution in writing about him this time, also using my work computer rather than risking my own PC or cell phone."
AMANDA: That's it. That's it.
JULIA: "Especially since I do still live in the house."
AMANDA: Your work is responsible for replacing that ThinkPad, not you.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. "Well, if the man in the dress shoes decides to make his present known once again, I will be happy to give you an update. One of these days, I may just write in about that haunted house that I used to live in as a child for it is the reason I believe in the other world. Also just a side note, Amanda and Julia, you have met me and Jake once at your Boston live shows."
JULIA: Fuck! What?
AMANDA: The one that the Winchesters were also at?
JULIA: Gosh. Oh, my goodness.
AMANDA: I think something happened that day, Julia.
JULIA: Something did happen that day.
AMANDA: Something— so Ma Winchester and family were there, Jake and April were there.
JULIA: Are we cursed now? Is that what's happening here?
AMANDA: I mean— okay, Julia. So three weeks and one day from today—
JULIA: April was also the winner of the raffle that day, so I'm actually kind of convinced that April passed on whatever's going on to us now.
AMANDA: I mean, honestly, Julia, it's been good for me since the Boston live show. Like, things have been pretty much on the up and up.
JULIA: And I— also, I want to, secondly, say that I have to apologize to April, because she did say, "I have been listening to Spirits for eight years since Jake recommended it to me, and I've been hooked ever since."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So I'm sorry I yelled at you before about needing to send in those emails. That's on me. I apologize.
AMANDA: I mean, still send in the emails. It's like we got drunk and we're like, "Give me your number." And it's like you've had my number, but I'm glad you want to text me now.
JULIA: Yes, yes. Exactly. That's exactly the vibe. It's like, we should be frie— we should be following each other on Instagram. You're like, "We've been following each other on Instagram."
AMANDA: "I followed you for a while."
JULIA: "We've been mutuals for, like, three years. What are you talking about?"
AMANDA: Oh. Tough.
JULIA: So I apologize. She finishes with, "Thank you for taking the time to read through this. It's been a pleasure being a longtime listener to your podcast. Until next time, stay creepy, stay cool."
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: I got really worked up on that one, and I apologize to the listeners—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —for how worked up I am, but man, that was good.
AMANDA: You know, that's great. What I did want to point out, though is, you know, three weeks from the day this episode comes out, is the eve of All Hallow's Eve.
JULIA: So we'll have to see.
AMANDA: And so I do need to know from April, from Jake, from MyKayla, what's going on, on Halloween this year. Are you okay?
JULIA: Listen, Jake seems, and I mean this in the best way possible, reckless when it comes to the ghost, so maybe you should do a quick summoning. I don't know.
AMANDA: Jake seems great.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Clearly, y'all have the taste to come to our live shows. This also makes that Boston live show, which otherwise had, I'm gonna say unpredictable vibes.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: The vibe was a little off. However, it is the live show at which the most people who have written into the podcast have physically attended.
JULIA: Yes, which either makes it blessed or cursed, and I don't know which.
AMANDA: Maybe it couldn't deal with the combined weight of April, Jake, and the family Winchester.
JULIA: Yes, that's true. That is true.
AMANDA: Oh, incredible, Julia.
JULIA: I'm sorry that I have to make you follow up that one, but what you got for me, Amanda?
AMANDA: No, listen, it's— that's fine.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I have one— I like, Julia, when people write in with sort of like queries for us to solve, things that they've been debating with their, like, significant other, or their friends. And they're like, "We need to hear sort of the final judgment on this."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And so this is such an email from Sam, she/her, titled Handsy Ghost Doesn't Do Consent.
JULIA: Hmm. Okay.
AMANDA: "Hey, Spirits. My name is Sam, longtime listener, I've written to you before about some of the haunted happenings in my life, but today, I wanted to tell you about a recent non-consensual encounter that my husband had with our friendly neighborhood ghost."
JULIA: Here's the thing, and I'm gonna preface this, and it might be a hot take, I'm not sure. I don't think a lot of ghosts are super into consent.
AMANDA: I would agree with you.
JULIA: Part of me is like, "I want to give these ghosts the benefit of the benefit of the doubt. Being incorporeal makes it hard to get consent for a lot of things, but— yeah."
AMANDA: You know, they have to sometimes be persistent, I would say. They have to, you know, like, kind of whisper to you over and over until you hear it, type of thing. But—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —I feel like, you know, the good ghosts that we're looking for, you know, does have patience.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And if they— if you firmly and kindly say no, then they go, "No worries," and—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —go away.
JULIA: Yes. We've talked about how politeness usually ghosts respond well to it, so—
AMANDA: So I'm curious what you're going to think of this, Julia. So Sam continues, "My husband works night shifts, and he was sleeping while me and our two-year-old son were playing outside for most of the morning one day. When he woke up later that afternoon, he said, 'Did you come in and touch me while I was sleeping?' I looked at him with a confused expression, "No, I didn't.' And he replied, 'Huh? I could have sworn you came in and, like, lovingly placed your hand on my side while I was sleeping.' I mean, sweet.
JULIA: Well, yes, the fact that the connotation he got from the touch is lovingly, is pause-y, but, yeah. Okay, okay. That's— it's so classic horror movie too, is, like— the, like, disembodied hand or, like, the feeling of a hand, and then you turn around and no one's there, so—
AMANDA: "So I was floored, because I had cleansed the house not too long before that. So I said, 'Wait, show me.' He proceeded to place his hand on my side with what I can only assume was the same weight. And I looked at him and said, 'Nope. Absolutely was not something I just did.'"
JULIA: Nope, nope.
AMANDA: "So the sound he made next was something between a whine and a siren, as he had a little bit of a panic attack."
JULIA: I'm gonna try to reenact that, which is— [whines]
AMANDA: Very good.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "Meanwhile, I was also panicking because I was about to spend the night alone in the house with a gropey ghost."
JULIA: No. Well, to— I mean, the— what is ever about to happen in this email has already happened to you.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But if it hadn't, I would have been like, "Well, it happened to him, and not you, and maybe they're only interested in him—"
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: "—and not you."
AMANDA: Yeah. Or maybe they're like, "Oh, you're both working so hard. While Sam is taking care of your kid, I will make sure your husband is happy."
JULIA: "Let me make sure I give him a little ghostly massage, because he's been working hard."
AMANDA: Just a nice little pat. It wasn't the— you know, nothing for the ghost.
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: Just a little, like, reassurance. "So later that evening, he kissed my cheek and said good night as he went to work, leaving me, quote—"
JULIA: I thought you meant the ghost. I was like, "What's up?"
AMANDA: Oh, no, no. "Leaving me, quote, 'alone' in the house with my son. I did my personal cleansing ritual and hoped for the best. I do find it interesting that the side of the room that he was groped on was the same side I saw the silhouette of a man standing over our bed one night while my husband was on the night shift."
JULIA: I feel like that's context that I should have had before, and I'm not telling you how to write your emails or anything like that, but I'm just saying.
AMANDA: I was thinking the same thing. Like, it's only two paragraphs in, but it felt like that was a reveal.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "It's been a few weeks, and the house has been mostly quiet, except recently, when I hung my hat on the hat rack and turned around only to hear my hat fall on the floor. I assumed like, 'Oh, I hadn't hung it correctly. I'd missed the peg, whatever.' So I picked it up and put it back on the rack, only to start turning my head and see out of the corner of my eye, my hat sliding up off the nail and then popping into the floor."
JULIA: Absofuckinglutely not.
AMANDA: "At this point, I got annoyed."
JULIA: Annoyed? Interesting. Not the reaction I would have had.
AMANDA: "I slammed my hat back on the rack and said to no one in particular, 'If you do that again, I'm cleansing the shit out of this place.'"
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "And the hat stayed."
JULIA: Again, that's— we were just talking about ghosts really respond to politeness, apparently, also threats.
AMANDA: You know, a firm boundary doesn't always have to be delivered with, you know, love and kindness. Sometimes it could just be like—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "—Hey, not okay." And it sounds like Sam has either reached that tonally or has successfully scared the ghosts off by using the word cleansing.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: So that's the story.
JULIA: I love this. I love the boundaries being set, for sure. When I say I love this, a lot of that I didn't love, but I like that there so far has not been any groping of you.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I like that it seems like your son so far has been safe, which is great. Hopefully, he doesn't grow up to be a creepy child. Fingers crossed for you.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But while we consider the ramifications of what happens to two-year-olds growing up in creepy houses, why don't we very quickly grab our refill?
AMANDA: Let's do it.
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AMANDA: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the refill. Amanda here, and like I did at the top of the show, I want to let you know, first and foremost, that we've been nominated for an award. I can't believe. It's October. It's spooky season, it's urban legends. Oh, I'm so excited. And we need your help to win a Signal Award. What you have to do is go to vote.signalaward.com, and put Multitude in the search bar, because Spirits has been nominated for paranormal or horror podcast. Pale Blue Pod was nominated for Best Science Podcast and Join the Party is nominated in the gaming and actual play category. So we need your help before October 17th, 2024. Go to vote.signalaward.com and help us out. That link is also in the episode description, so thank you in advance. I really want to win. I want to win an award. I want to be an award-winning podcaster. Okay? So help me and Julia and Bren, who today is celebrating one year of being our wonderful editor and bringing so much joy and sound design to this podcast. So Mazel Tov, Bren, thank you so much for joining us. Let's win an award, fam. Huh? I would also love to thank our newest patron, Gus, who's actually been a patron for many years, but recently went annual, upgraded their pledge and went annual, which we highly, highly appreciate and recommend, because it lets you support the show for a full year at a discount. And that's a win-win all around. If you would like to support the show, you can go ahead to patreon.com/spiritspodcast to get all kinds of goodies like a bonus hometown urban legends episode. We just posted one last week for September and all other kinds of great stuff, like recipe cards, director's commentary, tarot polls at the start of each season and more. Thank you to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Hannah, Jane, Jeremiah, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Scott. And our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. Lots going on over at Multitude, including the fellow Signal Award finalist, Join the Party, an actual play podcast, of course, with tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling and collaborators who make each other laugh each week, a fantastic show you should listen to. We're coming toward the end of Campaign Three, and so if you want to be with us, with the group, as we finish the campaign, now is a really good time to start listening from the beginning of season four in your podcast player. Julia and I play plant and bug folk pirates, and it's incredibly funny, and I love it so much, and it's a huge part of my life in a way that I never imagined DND would be when I was a kid, being told, like, "Eh, that's not for girls," and kind of like, kicked out of the gaming store. So if you share that with me, and you want to learn about TTRPGs, and you see people getting excited about DND and you're like, "Okay. Like, sure. Yeah, I bet it's good." You should listen to Join the Party, because we teach you how to play DND and all kinds of tabletop roleplaying games. We tell wonderful stories. There's sound design and music, and just gorgeous storytelling. So I know if you listen to Spirits, you'll like it, too. Check us out at jointhepartypod.com or look at Join the Party in your podcast player. And finally, this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, you guys know I love the spooky season, but I don't like scary stuff. I don't love a jump scare. Don't love a haunted house. That's Julia's thing, and I love it for her. But for me, I am way more likely to face my fears in therapy than I am to face it in a haunted house. Therapy has been a really important tool at different points in my life to help me navigate life changes, like when I was preparing to graduate college, when my parents got divorced, when I was going through just some struggles and dealing with my depression and anxiety changed as my life changed. So I really appreciate that BetterHelp is a way that if you can't access therapy safely or affordably where you live, it is a really good option that's entirely online, convenient, flexible, suited to your schedule. If you need to do therapy in a way that is remote and at times a day that maybe would be unusual or uncommon to find a therapist in your area around, I want you to know about this tool. So overcome your fears with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/spirits today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits. And now, let's get back to the show.
[theme]
JULIA: Amanda, we are back. And I gotta ask you, what have you been enjoying lately, cocktails, mocktails, any sort of drink-wise? What's been doing it for you lately?
AMANDA: Yesterday, I had a real craving for a fancy sandwich. So while I was working, Eric went out and got, like, nice smoked turkey, some prosciutto, some nice bread. Like, every element was, like, a little nicer than normal. And something that he picked up was the Half Sour Cider from Brooklyn Cider House, which I really love.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: And it is so bubbly, and it is the perfect, like, dryness to crispness to, like, a little sweet, but not too sweet. It really is a very, very perfect apple cider.
JULIA: That sounds really, really good. I have been getting into the fall season. I really like this because, like, the two flavors of fall are apple and pumpkin, right?
AMANDA: That's right.
JULIA: There is a bar near me that is currently doing one of my favorite drinks, which of the summer, really, which is a Rocket Fuel, which, for people who don't know what a Rocket Fuel is, it's basically like a pina colada, but then they do like a floater of 151 on top of it.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Because, like, it tastes like rocket fuel and blasts you the fuck off. But a local bar near me is doing a Pumpkin Rocket Fuel for the fall, and it is—
AMANDA: Elite.
JULIA: Oh, it's good shit.
AMANDA: What element is pumpkin?
JULIA: I think they swap out the coconut, kind of pina colada flavor.
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: For like a pumpkin spice situation. I'm gonna send you a link at the end of this, Amanda, so you can see the video of it, but it looks, like, so good. It's so good.
AMANDA: I love that, especially because I feel like, you know, more and more on climate change, like September into early October is just sort of like extended summer. And so I love the idea of a frozen drink with fall flavors, like the frozen non-alcoholic apple cider slushy that we get at farmer's markets most Saturdays in fall.
JULIA: Yeah. Or just getting your pumpkin spice latte but in the iced form. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: That's all year round for me. The—
JULIA: That's all year round.
AMANDA: —slushy in particular, next level.
JULIA: All right, Amanda. I am gonna start us off on this back half with an email from D called How I Maybe Met the Ghost of an Alleged Assassin. Also D put a couple of content warnings at the top here for murder, capital punishment, incarceration, colonialism, late-stage capitalism, creepy kids, and creepy adults. "Hi, Amanda and Julia. I've been meaning to send this creepy tale for almost a year now, but my job has been draining me of most of my creative energy."
AMANDA: Fair,
JULIA: "Luckily, putting up my Halloween decorations has put me in a more cheerful, less exhausted, spooky storytelling mood. Before I begin, I'd like to say that I think of myself as a, quote, 'rationally superstitious person.' If there's a perfectly logical explanation for a strange event, I'll accept it. But if there isn't, I'm more than happy to blame it on the supernatural." I feel very similar.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: I— that aligns well with my personal beliefs. I like it. "It probably helps that my mom's side of the family has a reputation for seeing ghosts. My mom and I do ghost tours in nearly every city we travel to, and often come home with no flash photos of vibrant orbs in pitch-black vaults or translucent human faces peeking through doorways. We even had a run-in with three solid bodied ghosts at a historic home in Savannah, Georgia, which wasn't even supposed to be haunted."
AMANDA: Oh, damn.
JULIA: "But that's a story for another time."
AMANDA: You bring the fun.
JULIA: I know there are stories for another time. Just back-to-back emails. Just hit me up with all those emails. I know it's a little bit hard to, like, write these, especially when they're meatier stories for meatier episodes, but I just— I don't like waiting. I don't like waiting. It's like reading the first book in a series and then being like, "I have to wait three years for the next one. Are you kidding me?"
AMANDA: Terrible. I've, Julia, finished some series recently that are, like, 20 to 50 books long and started in some cases the early' 90s, but usually the late '90s. And so when I catch up, I'm like, "Wait, you mean I just read 35 years' worth of books, and now I have to wait?"
JULIA: Still wait? Oh, no, I don't like that.
AMANDA: I don't like it.
JULIA: So D continues, "My story today begins in my hometown of Ottawa, Canada, a world capital with its fair share of ghosts. More specifically, in the Carleton County." I think this is pronounced jail, but it's spelled in the Canadian way.
AMANDA: Yes, it is pronounced jail.
JULIA: "Which is supposedly one of the most haunted buildings in North America. The British spelling in the name alone is haunting enough, because I've always thought that G-A-O-L looks an awful lot like ghoul."
AMANDA: It does.
JULIA: Thankfully, we Canadians have since adopted the American spelling of J-A-I-L.
AMANDA: I was about 31 when I learned that that word was not pronounced Gaol.
JULIA: I'm pretty sure I found out about it on this podcast that that's how you—
AMANDA: Same. Yeah. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —pronounced that word.
AMANDA: About last year. Yeah.
JULIA: Truly wild. "After the old jail was shut down in the 1970s partly due to the inhumane treatment of inmates."
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Fair. Let's shut that down.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "The Victorian era building was converted into a hostel."
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: "To this day, guests can sleep in the former prison cells. The hostel owners used to let ghost tour groups and paranormal researchers explore that part of the building that hasn't been converted into guest rooms. I first visited this section on a haunted walking tour with my Girl Guide unit in the early 2000s." Why did our girl scouts not do cool shit like that?
AMANDA: I mean, probably there are no cultural sites on Long Island, a mostly post-World War Two suburb, bedroom community, but—
JULIA: Amanda, we have Kings Park. We have haunted things here on Long Island. We could have done it.
AMANDA: We should have done it.
JULIA: I'm just so mad.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Why were your Girl Guides so much cooler than our girl scouts? That sucks.
AMANDA: That's incredible. I also love what they're called guides, like guides to what? Like to life? It's great.
JULIA: They guide you on the trail of life, baby.
AMANDA: Right?
JULIA: You know?
AMANDA: It's so good.
JULIA: What are we out there scouting? Who fucking knows?
AMANDA: Who knows?
JULIA: "It's been 20 years, but I still remember being equally freaked out and fascinated by the stories I heard. Unfortunately, the hostel announced that as of 2024, the entire building would be closed to outside visitors (boo capitalism). Deciding to take advantage of my last chance to revisit the jail (without paying to sleep in a city I already live in), I booked a haunted walking tour. So, on a rainy night in late October, I found myself standing in the cobblestone courtyard of an ivy-laden castle-like edifice."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "As we were walking to the jail, our guide had recounted the story that had most vividly captured my childhood imagination, the murder of Thomas D'Arcy McGee. Hailed as one of the, quote, 'Fathers of Confederation' D'Arcy McGee was an Irish-born politician who helped negotiate Canada's semi-independence from Britain (50 years before Ireland would win her own independence). Although he originally supported Canada becoming full independent, D'Arcy McGee later became a royalist, which, as you can imagine, alienated much of Ottawa's Irish community."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "Fun fact, he used to live in Boston and condemned the US as a cautionary tale for what happens when a former colony completely breaks ties from the British monarchy."
AMANDA: Weird flex, but okay.
JULIA: Weird flex, but okay, my guy. "In the wee hours of April 7th, 1868, D'Arcy McGee was shot and killed by an unknown assassin outside of his boarding house. Anxious to arrest somebody, anybody, for the murder of a high-profile politician who just happened to be best buds with Canada's first prime minister, the police zeroed in on 28-year-old Patrick Whelan, an alleged Fenian, which is an Irish Independent activist."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "Despite the lack of concrete evidence, some say witnesses were even bribed to testify against him, Whelan was charged, incarcerated, and later hanged on the grounds of the Carleton County Gaol, steps away from where our group was currently gathered. Right up until the end, Whelan protested his innocence. His final words were a heart-wrenching, 'God save Ireland and God save my soul.' As our guide proceeded to regale us with accounts of security guards and other tour guides who allegedly met the ghost of Patrick Whelan, I happened to look up at a large, brightly lit window above the entrance to the jail. From my last visit, I recalled that behind this window was a trap door on which Whelan and other protesters stood before their execution. Behind the trap door was a short landing off the building's main staircase. I vividly remember our Girl Guide leaders hollering at us not to run on this section of stairs as we joked around that Whelan's ghost was going to haunt us." I mean, kind of the fun joke that girls would make in the 2000s, for sure, for sure. Yeah.
AMANDA: I mean, yeah.
JULIA: "I was just about to return my full attention to the tour guide when I saw a shadow flip past the window at lightning speed. It was taller and thinner than a human silhouette with almost a triangular head. Several seconds later, a series of normal human-shaped shadows moved at normal human pace across the window, one-by-one. At this point, several others in my group had started looking at the window. Catching our gaze, our tour guide laughed, reassuring us that those shadows were just the previous tour group."
AMANDA: Oh, good.
JULIA: "But I seriously had my doubts about that first shadow, irregular head shape. Could a human really run that fast across such a short landing?"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "After making way for the previous tour group to exit the building, our guide led us up that same main stairs. First, he diverted us to a door off a different landing where we toured what remained of the original cell blocks. Then he brought us back toward the landing with the trap door, which, as I suspected, was much too short to run full speed across without smacking face first into the stone wall."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "To my discomfort, a noose was now hanging above the trap door, which was definitely not there when I visited with my fellow eight-year-olds."
AMANDA: I love how they were, like, the Girl Guides are coming. Okay, they can definitely walk over the trap door that will plummet you to your death, but just remove the noose. Like, hmm, a little bad taste.
JULIA: Seems a little bad taste, yeah.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "Although the iron bars and plexiglass barrier were still in place to keep the overly curious away from the trap door, there was also a glass-paned wooden door in front of the barrier. This door was swung completely open, revealing a pock-marked stone wall behind the panes. Nothing else. Up until this point, I hadn't taken as many photos as I normally do on a ghost tour. For one thing, visiting the jail as an adult and learning about the horrific treatment of the inmates had saddened me. In my mind, they were no longer ghostly boogeyman, but instead real people who had suffered injustice through our so-called justice system. For another, as an Irish-Canadian who now knows more about British colonialism than I did as an eight-year-old, I had a lot more sympathy for Patrick Whelan. He at least deserved a fair trial before being hanged for a crime that he may not have even committed. But despite my misgivings, I was still morbidly curious, a ghost-tour lover who couldn't resist the chance to catch something spooky on camera. So before stepping aside to make room for the others joining me on the landing, I snapped a quick photo of the trap door. Like the tour guide 20 years previously, our current guide mentioned that this landing was a main area where people have reported seeing or feeling a ghostly presence. Some have even felt a pair of hands pushing on their backs as they descend the staircase to and from that landing. I remember feeling hands on my back during the first visit, although those were probably another girl guide that was just trying to mess with me. I didn't feel any hands this time, but instead, at the end of the tour, as I was walking back to my car, I took a second look at the photo that I had taken. Do you remember that glass-paneled door that I mentioned? I caught a portion of it at the top left panel of my shot of that trap door. In that panel was the wispy but unmistakable impression of a long masculine face with an untrimmed beard and mustache."
AMANDA: What?
JULIA: "I immediately texted the photo to my mom, who used to be a Girl Guide leader, and remembered the story from her many visits to the jail." I love that they— every year, this is a trip for the Girl Guides. That's awesome.
AMANDA: Yep. Yep.
JULIA: "She wrote back, 'He looked just like Patrick Whelan.'
AMANDA: Mom! What?
JULIA: "Enclosing the photo of Whelan's Wikipedia article, where he sports mutton chops and an Abe Lincoln-style beard, though no mustache. But while the ghost was most likely a former inmate, I'm not 100% convinced that this is Whelan. Even though I try to picture him with untrimmed facial hair, his face doesn't look long enough to match the ghost face in my photo."
AMANDA: I feel like we're moving past the fact of a ghost face in your photo too quickly.
JULIA: You know, D says early on that this is something that happens often to D and D's mom, where it's like, "We went to a bank vault and there's vibrant orbs, even though we didn't use flash, or we see a lot of photos of translucent human faces peeking through doorways." So I think this is kind of par for the course for D.
AMANDA: You know, anything can become quotidian if you do it enough, Julia.
JULIA: That's true. That's true. D continues, "But then again, that weird shadow I saw was much longer than a regular human shadow, so maybe people just kind of stretch out after they become ghosts," which is a fascinating new theory for here on Spirits Podcast. And now I'm just picturing all ghosts the longer they're around, just slowly stretching out more.
AMANDA: Yeah. Like a— like a cord or a sweater that loses elasticity.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Like, oh, Julia, we're in our 30s now, so we keep getting commercials about collagen and—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —maybe ghosts, you know, it starts the collagen and it ends with, like, the space between molecules as your molecules start entropy style, floating further and further away from each other.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, D has attached the ghostly photo, and then also the Wikipedia page for Patrick Whelan, so that we can make the decision on our own whether or not this is the same person. Would you like to go ahead and look at it?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Here is Patrick Whelan.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. No, that's an Abe Lincoln beard, for sure.
JULIA: And this is a picture of the ghost. Now, this was the trap door here.
AMANDA: Ah. There's definitely some opacity there.
JULIA: Yes. And then there's a little bit more of a zoomed in version of the face there.
AMANDA: Yeah. There's— that's something. There's something on that glass.
JULIA: You can kind of see it.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Interesting, interesting.
AMANDA: Creepy.
JULIA: That is creepy. That is creepy.
AMANDA: Damn, dude.
JULIA: So D continues, "As for me, I'll probably never know who I encountered that spooky October day at the old jail. But I do know that I will forever be haunted by the ghosts of British colonialism in Canadian society, our glorification of the Fathers of Confederation, our Girl Guide—"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "—units, which really have no business bringing eight-year-olds to haunted jails."
AMANDA: UH-hmm.
JULIA: "And our spelling habits, both past and present. Thanks for reading, D."
AMANDA: D, that was an incredible email. Julia, I do think, though, that we've overlooked an important possibility here in identifying this ghostly image.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: What if it's a hipster backpacker?
JULIA: I don't know if the reflection of hipster backpacker would have appeared that way in the photo.
AMANDA: So I've stayed at a number of hostels in my day.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: Usually, you know, rooms where between, like, four and 12 people, you know of the same sex, like, will be staying in bunk beds. Did it all the time when I was, you know, a teen going into college and had perfectly nice experiences. People also hook up in hostels, Julia. They hook up.
JULIA: Oh, yeah, people hook up in hostels.
AMANDA: You know, I've punched my ticket. I've enjoyed it very much. And so I would imagine that the thing that's difficult is when you are rooming in a room of, you know, eight or 10 people—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —the whole thing is it's cheap because it's communal. So Julia, where are you gonna get your jollies in the hostel? The answer is either sneaking in during cleaning hour, during the free breakfast when no one else is there, or perhaps going to the out— sort of edges of the hostel. Perhaps you take a handsome or beautiful person to the trap door and have sex on the stairs, and so maybe someone tragically, pleasurably died.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, I thought you were saying that the photo that we just looked at was the reflection of a hipster backpacker who might have been part of the tour, and was just, like, behind—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —D when she was looking at it?
AMANDA: No. No, Julia. Someone who orgasmed to death.
JULIA: Something, something the petite mort as an orgasm.
AMANDA: Or maybe, why do ghosts gotta be only when we die? Why can't ghosts— ghosts are impressions, right? Why can't the petite mort make a petite ghost? And it's just a little impression, just a little flash. Just little like, "Oh." You read romance, there are stars behind our eyes, Julia. We know how orgasm is, like, literarily rendered, okay? Maybe— and in moments of extreme passion, a sense memory is embedded in the wavy-leaded glass of an 1800s jail.
JULIA: Now, Amanda—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —I'm gonna say something—
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: —and I don't want you to take it as an insult.
AMANDA: Uh-huh.
JULIA: This is the horniest you've ever been in my presence, and I'm scared.
AMANDA: I'm simply—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I'm entering my peak as a woman in her mid-30s and I—
JULIA: Oh, don't say we're in our mid 30s yet. No, no, we got a couple more years 'til that.
AMANDA: No, I'm 32 It's okay. I'm just asking questions, you know?
JULIA: You are just asking questions. I would say my immediate thought was, who hooks up in a room with a noose hanging? But then I remember that people very often have sex in cemeteries and—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —so I take it back?
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: I don't know.
AMANDA: Also, it's possible to hang the noose for tours and take it down other times.
JULIA: That seems like a pain to do.
AMANDA: It does seem like a pain.
JULIA: They only take it down for the Girl Guides, Amanda, but that's only once a year.
AMANDA: Yes. The annual tradition of the eight-year-olds visiting the jail. You gotta—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —make sure it's safe. I'm just asking questions here. Well, thanks for that email. Julia, can I close this out with another email?
JULIA: Yeah, bitch. Yeah.
AMANDA: And Julia, then I wanted to close out with something that I think will transition us well to next week. So this is what I'm going to call a short and sweet urban legend, maybe a short and spooky one.
JULIA: Short and spooky.
AMANDA: And this came in from Cora, they/them. Sometimes urban legends will come in where there's a lot of substance there, but a short amount of words.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And so I want to open up and invite us to revisit this genre. So here's Cora's, for example. "Hi, Spirits. So my story happens a few years back, 2021." Staggering that was a few years ago. "When I was at my first year of church camp in New Hampshire."
JULIA: I fucking love a church camp story.
AMANDA: I can't believe church camp still happens. Like I know it's not a thing of the '50s.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But I just— I love it.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "It was a normal, fun, chill church camp, but there is a story that goes along with camp."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "So going around in 2021 was a story that a girl in one of the cabins was acting strange."
JULIA: Spooky.
AMANDA: "Apparently, she was sitting up in her sleep, staring at her counselor in her cabin, in the bunk next to her, while all of us were asleep. And this led to a whole story of people saying that she needed to be exorcized. A priest had to come perform an exorcism."
JULIA: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, first off, this girl probably is just a sleepwalker or something like that.
AMANDA: She's okay. She's okay. She's got some stress. Her body's working it up.
JULIA: And then this also makes me think, "Now, do Catholics have church camp?" I feel like Catholics are not church camp people. I feel like it's more Protestant-based.
AMANDA: Less so. We, at least, of our suburban Catholic upbringing did not have church camp available to us.
JULIA: But the fact that they're saying it's a priest that needs to come.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: It does kind of maybe assume that it's a Catholic church camp. Interesting. Wouldn't have thought that.
AMANDA: I don't know. I'm curious. Right? Often we'll have that— be called like a reverend or minister or something.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But Julia, again, it's a short and spooky story, because this is the final sentence of the email.
JULIA: That's like four sentences.
AMANDA: "It was funny, because at one point, this one girl heard the story being retold and wondered who it was about." Well, it was about her.
JULIA: It's because she doesn't know. She's not aware of the fact—
AMANDA: I know
JULIA: —that she's like doing spooky shit when she's sleeping.
AMANDA: I know.
JULIA: It's not her fault. Oh, I feel bad.
AMANDA: It's not her fault, but it does unlock for me a very interesting conversational prompt of what urban legend would you most like to be secretly about you?
JULIA: Ooh, that's fun. You remember the Semler one with the ghost girl living at the cul de sac?
AMANDA: I'll never forget Semler
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: It's me. I want to be Semler. I want to have a ghost dog and be a little creepy child.
AMANDA: I think any urban legend when, like, you don't take care of, like, the land, and then something, like, strikes back at you.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: I want that to be about me. Like, if there was a— an urban legend about people who, like, cut down— who, like, put in sod, right? And, like, cut down, like native grasses, and then replaced it with, like, monoculture. And then, you know, they had some kind of, like— woke up one day and all their sod was brown, like that would be me.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And I would just be secretly, you know, sleepwalking and, like, using some kind of herbicide that only targets sod and not any—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —other kind of native plant.
JULIA: I like that for you. I like that it's also— well, because of your prompt, it has to be, like, an unconscious thing you're doing. So I really like the idea of you're like, "You fuck this grass so hard that I'm dreaming about it, and now I'm doing sleepwalking things."
AMANDA: So good.
JULIA: That is very good. And Amanda, brings up a good point, which is a lot of times we do choose the emails that have, like, a lot of substance to them, because it makes it more enjoyable. It makes it so that, like, you are really in the story with us and as we're telling them. But we don't really dig into the kind of short and spooky. I'm gonna go short and spooky, that's the official title now.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: We don't really dig into the short and spooky ones. So next week's episode is going to be another hometown's urban legend. I know we're not like, "Ooh, we're going a different schedule than we usually do."
AMANDA: Back-to-back.
JULIA: But I really want to enjoy and honor and have, like, discussions, much like we just did about these short and spooky stories. So next week, short and spooky hometown urban legends, get fucking ready for them. It's going to be fun.
AMANDA: Folks, we cannot wait.
JULIA: And the next time that you are— Amanda, this is your fault, the next time you are having sex in a hostel that used to be a prison, remember, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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