Episode 167: Your Urban Legends XXXI - Boy Toy is the WRONG Phrase
/30 is the sexy one, 31 is the light hearted one. That’s what everyone says, right? Also featuring recalibrating your creepy-meter, just some casual human bones, the Bobcat Goldthwait of the imagination, and more!
This week, Julia recommends Killing Gravity by Corey J. White. Grab tickets to our L.A. live show at multitude.productions/live!
Our episodes of Hannahlyze This! Scary - It’s What We Like and Spooky Stories.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about home invasion, human bones/graveyards, animal death/remains, ignoring boundaries, the threat of violence and aggressiveness, car accidents, family member death, attempted strangulation, sickness (swine flu), and threat of fire.
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Transcript
Julia:
Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about an new story from around the world. I'm Julia. Amanda has absconded off to LA, so it's just me today. This is episode 167, Your Urban Legends, Part 31.
Julia:
First off, sincere promises that this episode is definitely last sexy than our last Urban Legends episode. It is still the same level of creepy, so you can look forward to that. We want to thank our newest patrons, as well, for being there for all of the creepy moments. Those are Tyrie, Hannah, Allison Anne Parker, and Alison Hendrix, and they join the ranks of our Supporting Producer level patrons, Phillip, Megan, Deborah, Molly, Skyla, Samantha, Sammie, Neil, Jessica, and Phil Fresh, as well as our Legend Level patrons, the light of our lives, Britney, Josie, Kylie, Morgan, Kyla the Husky, BM Me Up Scotty, Audra, Chris, Mark, Mr. Folk, Sarah, and Jack Marie.
Julia:
Amanda brought the drink this time around. She will tell you a little bit more about it when we get back from the refill, but it was the Winter Blend from Downeast Cider House, and let me tell you, it was delicious. I am usually not a cider person, but something about this blend just really hit it home for me.
Julia:
At this point, Amanda would usually ask me what I've been watching, listening, reading lately, and I'm going to recommend Killing Gravity by Corey J. White. If you like stories about redemption and channeling your anger into useful ways and sort of the ways government fucks us, this is a great book. It's quick and short, and there is a very good sequel that I'm about to start, so check it out. That is Killing Gravity by Corey J. White.
Julia:
If you are in Los Angeles, there's only a few tickets left to our LA live show that we're doing with Join the Party. You can get tickets at multitude.productions/live. Seriously, you'll want to come out for this. I have such a fun show and game planned for us, and I really think that everyone's going to enjoy it.
Julia:
And finally, next week we're doing our Myth Movie Night. We're going to be watching Gretel and Hansel. It is a new movie that is currently in theaters. If you have the chance to see it, I highly recommend it. We are going to be talking about the way that Grimms' Fairy Tales have been retold over the course of generations and how those stories have grown. So I think it's going to be a great conversation, and I hope you join us with it. And without further to do, enjoy episode 167, Your Urban Legends Part 31.
Amanda:
Hi guys. This one's on me. I got too creepy last time.
Julia:
You did.
Amanda:
This time, I am bringing us all a bunch of lighthearted, helpful ghosts.
Eric:
That's what they always say. They say 30 is the sexy one, 31 is the lighthearted, fun one ...
Amanda:
Is that what I-
Eric:
... that isn't that spooky.
Amanda:
Schneider, as someone on the other side of 30, is that what I have to look forward to? Is 30 the sexy one?
Eric:
Oh, oh, I mean ... I don't ...
Julia:
Oh no.
Eric:
I don't want to kiss and tell.
Amanda:
Fair.
Eric:
But I will tell you, 31 ...
Julia:
Hot.
Eric:
... is not the lighthearted one.
Julia:
No? Okay.
Eric:
Your body just ... You hear about it. I mean, we've done surgery watch on a number of these. And there's not a current update for surgery watch, luckily, thank God.
Julia:
That's good.
Eric:
For the first time in months. Your body really does ... Something happens in those late 20s, early 30s where you're like, "This is the body now."
Julia:
This is just it. This is what you got.
Eric:
That's not a joke, that's not a joke, and it will happen to you, too.
Julia:
No.
Amanda:
Can I begin with a mildly creepy but also helpful ghost?
Julia:
Yes.
Eric:
Yeah.
Julia:
Do it.
Amanda:
So this comes to us from Katie, who writes, "This is a personal story about my friend, a mix of the things she told me and the things I have witnessed myself. A few years ago, while living in an apartment, my best friend had taken her children to school and daycare. She returned to her home later that day, and when she walked into her daughter's bedroom, she saw, 'I love you, Mommy,' in a little heart written on the mirror."
Julia:
Uh-uh. Nope. Nope.
Eric:
I hate this already.
Julia:
Already bad.
Amanda:
"Now, her children at the time were four and six. The four year old couldn't write, and the six year old had six-years-old handwriting, and the words were well written and definitely not by her daughter."
Julia:
Nope, nope, nope.
Eric:
You know what this is? This is a classic The Boy.
Julia:
Oh no.
Eric:
Spoilers for the next 15 seconds of The Boy. It turns out there's a tiny doll that isn't the boy, but there is a man living in the walls.
Julia:
No, bad. Is this the one on Netflix?
Eric:
Spoilers are over if you've jumped back in. I think it's part of the Annabelle cinematic universe. I think it's part of that. I don't know if it's on Netflix or not.
Julia:
Yeah, it's creepy doll. A woman has to go take care of creepy doll?
Eric:
Regular family has to go to creepy house and take care of house for some reason. Son becomes enamored with weird boy toy that is there.
Julia:
Weird boy toy.
Eric:
Boy toy is the wrong phrase.
Julia:
Nope, it's the correct one.
Eric:
It is a porcelain doll that is in the simulacrum of a boy.
Julia:
Nope, I love it and you're wrong, I'm sorry.
Amanda:
Well, this one gets worse because, "The writing on the mirror appeared to be in a thick, waxy substance such as a bar of soap. But being a millennial, my friend didn't own a bar of soap, she just used liquid."
Julia:
Correct, mm-hmm (affirmative). Correct.
Eric:
Hold on. Hold on.
Julia:
Yes.
Eric:
Millennials use bars of soap.
Julia:
Mm-mm (negative).
Amanda:
No, they don't.
Julia:
No, bud.
Amanda:
They don't. They use body wash.
Julia:
Unless it's fancy bar of soap from Lush.
Amanda:
Yeah, or their shower gel.
Eric:
This must be one of those elder millennial, younger millennial shifts.
Julia:
Perhaps.
Eric:
Like with Pokemon, where it's like really there was a cutoff age where you were either into Pokemon or you weren't. Turns out somewhere around the turn of the 80s to the 90s, bars of soap no longer became useful to the new millennials.
Julia:
Bar of soap unwieldy, bar of soap hard to handle in shower when all wet. Me and my loofah, just a little bit of shower gel and I'm good to go.
Amanda:
Yeah. It lathers real nice.
Eric:
But I don't trust those suds. Those suds are ... they're ephemeral. They're not there for the long-lasting cleanse that you need sometimes. I know that as I hold that bar of soap to my flesh, it will cleanse me.
Amanda:
Yeah, so does that smooth, smooth substance really get at that dirt?
Julia:
Mm-mm (negative).
Amanda:
No, it doesn't. It doesn't scrub.
Julia:
No. The loofah does.
Eric:
It definitely gets at that. New Head Heart Gut, soap, no soap, or body wash.
Amanda:
Who's going to say no soap?
Eric:
We know people.
Julia:
Who's the au natural one of the family?
Amanda:
Well, we return to this very millennial haunting, because obviously, Katie's friend took a picture of this writing.
Julia:
Nope, hate that.
Amanda:
And when she opened the picture to look at it, she noticed something in the corner of the photo. There was light brown hair and a frilly yellow shirt.
Julia:
Mm-mm (negative). Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Friendly yellow shirt does not make less creepy. Sorry.
Amanda:
There were no-
Eric:
Wait, frilly or friendly?
Amanda:
Frilly.
Julia:
Oh, I heard friendly. Friendly shirt does not make it better. Frilly shirt, even worse somehow.
Amanda:
I mean, yellow's kind of an inherently friendly color, I think, and this is not happy.
Julia:
Well, yeah. I was thinking ghost smiley face shirt.
Eric:
Some would say the best color.
Julia:
Some would be wrong.
Amanda:
This is a long product placement for the MultiCrew. So, no limbs or skin were in the photo, just the shirt and the hair hanging against the wall in the photo at waist height, like a kid. "She double checked the bathroom and saw nothing there at all. She then searched all of the girls' toys and all of their clothing and found nothing similar to the yellow shirt in the photo. After that, a series of small, odd happenings began: giggling when the girls weren't home, the sound of toys moving in the playroom, toys being in different places than they had last been touched, and once, she woke up in the middle of the night while at a hotel to see someone standing at the end of her bed, only no one was there when she turned on the light.
Julia:
No. When the haunting follows you, bad.
Eric:
Yeah, how did this paragraph start?
Julia:
"A series of small, odd happenings began."
Eric:
Hey, hey, you got to recalibrate what a small happening is.
Julia:
You really do.
Amanda:
Oh, Katie. Okay. "At the end of the year, they moved and had a local paranormal investigator come to bless their house. Nothing helped, and my friend claimed it only made the little girl mad. She didn't feel threatened by the girl, but apparently she got upset and threw a tantrum after this happened, making a mess of the playroom. It was attached to their youngest daughter, they determined, because the ghost never let her sleep. She was only five years old and being treated for insomnia, taking melatonin every night, but it didn't help because she was frequently still awoken in the middle of the night by the little girl wanting to play.
Julia:
Hey, don't bring a paranormal investigator into your house to get rid of them. They're investigators.
Amanda:
That's true.
Julia:
They are not experts in the field of getting rid of them.
Amanda:
That's true.
Julia:
Call some sort of religious expert, because they will have more experience in this rather than Zak Bagans lookalike who's like, "Oh yeah, the ghosts, they're totally here."
Amanda:
Very good advice. "I tried to convince my friend that it wasn't just a ghost at this point, because why would a little girl be so connected to the earth that even blessing the house didn't do anything but anger her? Plus the girl was following them from house to house. Not very ghostly ...unless they had an object she was connected to," which is a very good point.
Julia:
Or one of the children.
Amanda:
Fair. "I wasn't the only one who told her it was probably a demon, but she refused to believe me. One night, while my friend and her wife went on a date night, I went over to babysit. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and I put her kids to bed with no issues. An hour later, the youngest comes out of her room crying and said she wanted her mom because she couldn't sleep. Not wanting to bother them, I offered to lay down with her until she fell asleep again."
Julia:
We have just revealed new information about this couple, and it's that they're a queer couple, which is even more concerning to me.
Amanda:
I know. Now I'm deeply worried.
Julia:
I'm like, "You should know better. You are not straight white people."
Amanda:
Yeah, you have things stacked up against you and you do not need demons on the list as well. "I turned on lullabies and laid in bed with her, my back to her open bedroom door." Always bad ...
Julia:
Bad.
Amanda:
... when someone mentions an open door in urban legend, by the way.
Julia:
Bad. And also, not facing the door. Bad.
Amanda:
"Slowly, she started to fall asleep and I was just about to get back up when the house stirred. Down the hallway, I heard the slow and steady creaking of the floorboards getting closer and closer. Small feet were taking careful steps down the hall until they were able to peer into the bedroom. Every hair on my body stood up in that moment, a shiver running down my spine. I could feel the presence staring at me, and I curled around the little girl protectively. Minutes passed as I remained on edge, only for the feeling to suddenly disappear out of nowhere. The house went completely silent. I waited for a few minutes in case she came back before I returned to the living room to watch Netflix." Got to know what you watched, Katie.
Julia:
Yes.
Amanda:
"Another hour passed, nothing happened, until the-"
Eric:
Probably The Boy.
Amanda:
"... tingle went down my spine again. I could feel her behind me, staring over the edge of the couch. 'I don't want to play,' I told her instinctively, hoping my voice wasn't shaking with terror."
Julia:
Concerned that that was your instinct, but all right.
Amanda:
"A small huff of hair brushed across me ..."
Julia:
No.
Amanda:
"... but the feeling of being watched disappeared and the rest of the night passed without incident."
Julia:
Hey, guess what? Hair is extremely creepy in hauntings. I'm not a fan.
Amanda:
Yeah, same. "Another year passed and they moved again. I hadn't heard much about the little girl, so while I was visiting, I asked if there had been any more activity. Still the normal giggling and movement in the toy room, she told me, but they'd become used to it by that time. We went into the older daughter's room as my friend showed me the decorations she was planning to put on the walls when suddenly the light went out. I jumped off the bed instantly and turned on the bedside lamp ..." good instincts ... "but my friend just sighed and told me to ignore it. Still, after a few moments, I went over to the light switch to turn it off, hoping that maybe turning it off and on again would fix it. The moment my fingers touched the switch, the light snapped back on. It was then my friend told me their youngest daughter no longer had sleeping issues or was bothered by her, but their older daughter had begun to experience the same insomnia."
Julia:
Jesus.
Amanda:
"That day as I was leaving, I stared at the house and felt her staring back."
Julia:
Jesus. Just-
Amanda:
"'I don't want to play,' I told her once again, as I drove away."
Julia:
Well, good choice. Jesus, I hate when hauntings get so bad that they just become resigned to the fact that they're being haunted. They're like, "It's just the light ghost again, ugh."
Amanda:
I do like the assumption, though, that the ghost just wants to play and that she is just hanging out, she just wants to play with the kid. Maybe the younger daughter made it clear she didn't want to play ball, so she went to the older daughter. And yes, the effect is terrible, but I did find it a little bit charming that Katie's reaction was, "Don't want to play."
Julia:
I mean, I hope that the child ghost doesn't want anything else besides to play.
Amanda:
Yeah, that's-
Julia:
That would be concerning.
Amanda:
That's definitely the best case scenario.
Julia:
It's like, "I want to play and also take your soul to Hell. Play with me."
Amanda:
"Play with me."
Eric:
No good. No good at all.
Julia:
Nope. Not a fan. So, I have another one.
Amanda:
Ooh.
Julia:
It is titled, Yo I Saw a Ghost So I, Uh, Followed It and Found a Shrine with an Animal Skull at the Center. And that's sent in by Phillip, and he writes: "I just listened to Urban Legends 19 and felt like I needed to share a couple of ghost stories. I should say, even with the stories, I don't believe in ghosts." Listen, fair. You do you.
Amanda:
I kind of don't either, and yet here we are.
Julia:
Here we are. I still am going to give you advice on your hauntings regardless. "I have two stories. The first is about my dad's first encounter with a ghost and the second is the one I mentioned in the subject. These stories aren't connected, so feel free to skip either one." I'm going to include both.
Amanda:
Ooh.
Julia:
I'm feeling generous today.
Amanda:
Got a two-for-one, like one of those popsicles.
Julia:
So Phillip writes, "I grew up on the West Coast in a house over 100 years old, and a few years before we moved in, the old family grave in the backyard was removed." Already off to a great start.
Amanda:
Oh, Phillip. I have so many questions.
Julia:
"I only learned about this bit recently when my parents found some human bones under a rental house of theirs and made a joke about an old graveyard, but that is a story for another time." Jesus.
Eric:
Some human bones.
Julia:
Just some casual human bones.
Eric:
Just some human bones.
Amanda:
That's also 100% the best case scenario. Like, "Yeah, there was a graveyard. We got permission to remove it. Guess they forgot some."
Julia:
"Whoops, our bad."
Eric:
I would argue the best case scenario ... no human bones.
Amanda:
It's the best case scenario, I should specify, for finding human bones.
Julia:
Sure. Okay, so, "My mother always claimed that the house I grew up in was haunted, and me and my dad never believed it. The house had random noises, it had cold spots, but me and my dad would always just blame it on the house being over 100 years old. Shortly after I moved out, my mom seems to have decided to up the odds of her and my dad dying from ghosts and they moved into an even older house."
Amanda:
That's very impressive for the West Coast.
Julia:
It is.
Amanda:
Not a lot of 100-plus-year-old homes over there.
Julia:
"A bit about this new house," speaking of which. "The previous owner died in it and it has a well beneath part of it that has been completely bricked in with a small hole punched into the brick wall with the well in it."
Amanda:
Oh no.
Julia:
Oh Jesus. "At the stop of the stairs to the second floor, there was a hidden storage place behind a wall. There is now a door there to get to it much more easily, and there are a bunch of random storage places behind walls that seem to have small openings that you had to crawl through in order to get into."
Amanda:
Hate that. Now, I am the biggest fan of all time of built-in storage, like lovely built ins ... and we traded links all day long, Julia ...
Julia:
We did.
Amanda:
... about old houses with cute built-ins. That does not extend to crawlspaces, or like my grandma had. She has a dormered top floor of her home, and behind where my mom's childhood bed was are just sliding doors with big old crawlspaces.
Julia:
Nope, hate it.
Amanda:
You can fit a bunch of storage in there, which I'm sure is great for a family with kids, but for me, terrifying.
Julia:
But also, a person maybe, that you didn't know about.
Amanda:
Yeah, no. The old Bart Simpson's twin living in the attic. No, no, no.
Julia:
So, "My mom immediately claimed that the place was haunted, but it was a nice ghost and is fairly sure that it is the previous owner of the house. She has seen the ghost through windows when she was outside and heard him walking around, and my dad and I shrugged it off as it just being an old house. Well, that was until one night in bed, both my parents were watching TV in their room and suddenly the edge of my parents' bed near my dad's feet sinks down like someone was sitting on the edge of the bed."
Amanda:
Oh, I hate it.
Julia:
"My dad freaks out a bit at this," as one does, "And my mom tells him, 'I told you so."
Amanda:
Mom, not the time.
Julia:
"So my dad does the sensible thing when you don't want to make a ghost mad and politely says, 'Excuse me. I'm trying to watch TV with my wife before we go to bed. Could you please leave our room?' At this point, the bed lifts back up as if the person sitting on the bed stood up, and my parents claimed to have heard steps walking out of the room and then the door to their room that they normally leave open ... they live alone ... closes itself.
Amanda:
Oh.
Julia:
So, ghost went, "Goodbye."
Eric:
That's, I mean, polite, but also maybe ... Do ghosts not know they're ghosts? Why are they so spooky?
Julia:
That's a great question.
Amanda:
That's a good question, Eric.
Eric:
Welcome to my Ted Talk.
Julia:
Go for it.
Eric:
It's lots of me telling you stuff and you telling me stuff talk. Why are they so creepy? They don't have to make footsteps and close doors while being invisible.
Julia:
I don't think they choose how corporeal they are.
Eric:
So what we're saying is, ghosts just don't know that they're creepy?
Julia:
I don't think so. I feel like you're just existing in the area that you exist in. I don't think creepy humans know that they're creepy necessarily.
Eric:
I mean, that's definitely true.
Julia:
Yeah. So why would a ghost?
Amanda:
I think at a certain point, the ghost ... when it's a fresh ghost, you know?
Julia:
Yeah, you know, that fresh ghost.
Amanda:
I think they know. They know they're dead, they're mad about it, they are haunting. Or they have unfinished business and they leave you messages on your smart TV or something. I think over time, the ghost gets caught in more of ... Or not caught, but falls back to just a loop or a rut of same behaviors, which is where you get the Victorian ghosts just gliding along the fucking widow's walk or whatever. So I think, Schneider, that over time they forget that they are ghosts and therefore don't know that they're creepy.
Julia:
Hmm.
Eric:
Hmm.
Julia:
I would almost argue the opposite, that newer ghosts don't realize that they're dead.
Amanda:
Hmm, maybe.
Julia:
And then that's why they do kind of weirder, wilder things. And then ghosts who have kind of fallen into the pattern are ones who are like, "Well, I got nothing else to do."
Amanda:
And so they're just deliberately fucking with you.
Julia:
Yeah.
Amanda:
All right, all right.
Julia:
Yeah, cool, cool, cool. So, the second story is, The Sacrificial Shrine That Kept Finding New Spots in the Woods. So, "There are some woods near where I grew up, and occasionally at night, me and a few of my friends would go play Capture the Flag in them at night ..." like you do when you're a teen, sure. "One night as we all gathered in the woods ... about six or seven of us in total ... and were starting to go over the teams and rules of the game, we saw some strange lights just floating off in the distance."
Amanda:
Oh no.
Julia:
"And of course, as kids, we decided to send someone off to investigate, and as the youngest, off I went." Don't send someone by themselves. That's terrible. Awful. Don't do that. "And as you may have guessed from the title, I didn't find any floating lights, but I did find a stump with what I think was a coyote skull on it and bones and rocks arranged around it."
Amanda:
Classic kids hanging out in the forest.
Julia:
"Now, I did do the stupid things and went to check out the floating lights by myself, but I wasn't going to double down on that, so I booked it back to my friends ..."
Amanda:
Okay, good.
Julia:
"... told them what I saw, showed it to them because they didn't believe me, then joined them getting the hell out of the woods." Good choices. Solid teen choices. "Now the fun part. The next day we went back, and the shrine wasn't there. We looked all over the woods and couldn't find it."
Eric:
Mystery shrine.
Julia:
Mystery shrine. "A few weeks later, back in the woods late at night, the shrine was found again, but this time it was in a very different bit of the woods. This ended up happening one or two more times before one of my friends did something rather stupid. He took the bones home and threw him in his trash." No.
Amanda:
No.
Julia:
Stupid. You should have thrown yourself in the trash.
Amanda:
Very good.
Julia:
"He was thinking the bones were all from the same person trying to mess with people. This did not stop us from finding the shrine a few more times over the next year, and we were never able to find it during the day. Now, I should say, those woods are next to an elementary school." Bad.
Amanda:
Oh no.
Julia:
Extremely bad.
Amanda:
Our elementary school was just next to Lindsay Lohan's house.
Julia:
Also, we had woods in our ...
Amanda:
We did have woods, we did have woods, it's true.
Julia:
Yeah, okay. So-
Eric:
We had woods next to our elementary school, but when we went looking through them, we mostly just found an old fire pit and beer cans and cigarette butts. A shrine of a different type.
Amanda:
And what I now understand to be condoms.
Julia:
Ah, yes.
Amanda:
That at the time, I don't think registered.
Julia:
You were like, "Oh, balloons." Okay, so ... shut up. Now, I should say-
Eric:
The sexy urban legends are back.
Amanda:
Oh no.
Julia:
They're back, better than ever.
Amanda:
Now every urban legend is just a little bit sexy until we get to 69.
Julia:
"Now, I should say these woods are next to an elementary school. They covered a couple of square miles and on the edge of the woods and the schoolyard, there was an old abandoned building that everyone at the school claimed was haunted. The building was torn down before the beginning of the school year one summer, and after that building was torn down, the shrines we had been finding for roughly a year stopped showing up in the woods." That's the end of the story. What do we think? We think a evil entity living in abandoned building?
Amanda:
No, I definitely think weird kid. Weird kid. And I group myself into that, to be clear. Just making shrines and wanting to mess with people and finding it really fun.
Julia:
That's fair, that's fair.
Eric:
Just one weird kid.
Julia:
Yeah. One weird kid, one weird kid.
Eric:
Hopefully just one. If it's multiple weird kids, then something weird is happening.
Amanda:
I know. Then there's ...
Eric:
I mean, something weird is already happening.
Amanda:
... some cause for concern.
Eric:
Yeah. You don't want a small cult forming amongst the children.
Julia:
That is fair. You definitely don't want that.
Eric:
I've got a story that bookends ... not bookends, I guess ... bookends right before the break, I guess. Perfectly with what you just did, because this also involves a weird friend.
Julia:
Ooh, I love weird friends.
Eric:
So this message comes from Allie, and she writes, "Being the resident weird friend as a kid ..."
Julia:
Hey.
Eric:
"... I wish I had this podcast a long time to indulge all of my creepy knowledge needs."
Julia:
Pew, pew, pew.
Eric:
"My best friend introduced me to it and I've been such a fan. All right, here is my own spooky tale."
Amanda:
Also, best friend, good job introducing Allie to Spirits.
Julia:
Good job, best friend.
Eric:
Nice work. "When I was three, my family and I were visiting my grandpa and step-grandma. Being so young, I don't really remember this, so this is mostly my family's account. One night, I was sitting in my crib and my mom heard me talking to nothing. She asked who I-"
Amanda:
By the way, guys, I heard the word crib and went, "Oh no."
Julia:
Oh no.
Amanda:
Amanda, it's just a crib.
Julia:
It's just a child. Just a child in a crib.
Eric:
So she was talking to nothing, and her mom came in and asked who she was talking to, "And I told her the old lady was making faces at me and I wanted her to stop."
Julia:
Oh no. Oh no.
Amanda:
Oh.
Julia:
Don't like it.
Eric:
"Eventually, I quieted down and fell asleep. Later that night, my mom heard me talking again, this time louder. Again, I yelled, "Stop!" And again, my mom asked what was happening."
Julia:
I'm glad this small child has boundaries very early on. Good for them.
Amanda:
Yeah. I know.
Julia:
Also, usually when it's an old lady ghost, it's like, "A grandma came to visit me," and then the grandma's dead. But this is like, random old lady that we don't recognize, which makes it a thousand times creepier.
Amanda:
I know. Good for the child, though. Like, "No, I don't know you."
Julia:
Set those boundaries. Stranger danger.
Amanda:
Hell yeah.
Eric:
"I commanded her, in my three-year-old speech, to tell the old lady to stop pushing me. Almost immediately, I lunged as I was pushed."
Amanda:
No.
Julia:
Oh my God.
Eric:
"Obviously scared, my mom scooped me up and took me downstairs. I stopped her halfway down the stairs, pointing at a picture and telling my mom that that was the lady who was scaring me."
Julia:
Oh no.
Amanda:
Who was it?
Eric:
"Who was in the photo? My grandmother's aunt, who died 20 years prior to me being born."
Julia:
That bitch.
Amanda:
Ooh.
Eric:
I've expected a lot of interstitial comments during these. I've never expected that one.
Julia:
She pushed a baby.
Amanda:
That sucks.
Eric:
I'm not arguing with you that it is the correct comment, I was just shocked that that was the comment you made.
Julia:
Fair enough. She's mean mugging a child and also pushing them? She's a bitch.
Eric:
"We left soon after. I never complained of an old woman tormenting me again, but now I thank her for a really cool story to tell at parties."
Julia:
I hope the mom threw out the painting or the picture of the great aunt being like, "No, no. No more of this, please."
Eric:
So that is our story from Allie.
Julia:
All right. Well, why don't we go grab a refill and then we can tell a couple more spooky stories.
Amanda:
Let's do it.
Julia:
We are sponsored this week by gc2b. You can get 10% off your first order by going to gc2b.com and using the promo code SPIRITS at checkout. gc2b is the original chest binder designed by trans people for the community. It is a gender- and identity-affirming apparel company that was started in 2014 by Marli Washington, who is a trans man of color, whose goal was to create something safe, accessible, and comfortable for people of all shapes and sizes and colors. gc2b always aims to accommodate and celebrate the full spectrum of humanity in order to uplift the amazing community that surrounds it, and it is designed with the true you in mind. They have three different styles. They have a half, they have a tank, and a racerback. I really find the racerback stylish myself. And they have five shades of nude and then seven other colors, and it's a wide variety of colors. I particularly like the gray, but that's just me. Honestly, it means that there is something for everyone.
Julia:
And they have two shipping warehouses, one in the US and one in the UK. If you're trying to order from the UK area, I would go to gc2b.io. And they have a free sizing assistant, so if you're not sure what size you should be getting, you could just reach out to their care team at support@gc2b.info. If, for whatever reason, their team suggests the incorrect size, they will always cover the full cost of the exchange. So no worries about being out of money if you got the wrong thing or you're trying it for the first time. And the company is dedicated to donating products to organizations that can redistribute binders to those in need. In 2019, they donated 3,593 binders with the support of 34 organizations. And since it's black history month, they are trying to do something philanthropic for the most marginalized people in their community, so this month folks can order a piece of apparel or accessory from their Safe Travels collection and 100% of the proceeds go to an amazing project that distributes money to black trans women so that they can self-determine their safest travel methods and avoid harassment or harm during their commutes.
Julia:
So again, you can get 10% off your order on gc2b.co by using the code SPIRITS at checkout. Thanks, gc2b.
Julia:
We're also sponsored this week by Calm. The beginning of the new year can sometimes be a little stressful. It's a lot of new projects coming up and stuff like that, and Calm is there to help create new habits for our happiest and healthiest selves. Calm is the number one sleep app for relaxation and meditation. Calm has Sleep Stories, which Amanda has told you about thousands of time at this point, which are basically bedtime stories for adults. You can hear stories narrated by Levar Burton or Nick Offerman. They also have soothing music from artists like Sam Smith. They have guided meditations, breathing exercises, so much more that will help you relax and de-stress.
Julia:
And if you go to calm.com/spirits, you can get a limited time offer of 40% off a Calm Premium subscription, which includes hundreds of hours of programming. So again, you can go to calm.com/spirits for 40% off a Calm Premium subscription. That includes unlimited access to Calm's entire library, and new content is added every week. Again, that's calm.com/spirits.
Julia:
And finally, we are sponsored by ThirdLove. ThirdLove is doing bras a little bit differently. They believe that everyone deserves to feel comfort and confident every single day, and with the right support, they can do that. By taking the Fit Finger quiz, you can find your perfect fit in 60 seconds or less. Over 15 million women have taken the quiz. It's actually fun to take, rather than a bit of a slog, and you find out how your breast size and shape can determine how your bra helps to fit your body. So different styles for different boobs. It's all great.
Julia:
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Julia:
ThirdLove knows there's a perfect bra for everyone, so right now they are offering our listeners 15% off your first order. You just have to go to thirdlove.com/spirits to find your perfect fitting bra and get 15% off your first purchase. Again, that's thirdlove.com/spirits for 15% off today. And now, let's get back to the show.
Amanda:
We are drinking this week, by the way, the Winter Blend from Downeast Cidery, which I had the pleasure to visit a few weeks back. It was completely full of Bostonians and their dogs and babies ...
Julia:
Of course.
Amanda:
... and I was like, "Yep, this is right." But it is a most delicious cider. It is spiced. When you can get it on tap, good lord, it is so delicious but also very, very solid in a can. I have to limit myself to only buying six packs and not multiple six packs because it's just always appropriate and I would drink two a day for the rest of my life.
Julia:
Yeah, no, I love a spiced cider. I think there's something about hard ciders that kind of gets lost in translation when you make them hard, but the fact that it is spiced so well really balances it out.
Amanda:
Totally. I have a couple of short, fun ones. What if I kind of spiced them in between your guys' urban legends? How does that sound?
Eric:
That sounds great.
Julia:
All right.
Amanda:
So we're going to start here with a subject line that caught all of our attention, The Void Queen and Her Gremlin Subordinates.
Julia:
Tell me all about it.
Eric:
I love this one.
Amanda:
This is from Camillish Pillish, she/her, who writes, "Hey Spirits. I've been binging your whole catalog while biking to my karate classes."
Julia:
Oh, incredible.
Amanda:
"I've been wondering if I should send you this story for a while. In the end, I was inspired by the pool fairy in episode 10, since this story also begins with me."
Julia:
Yes, do it.
Amanda:
"When I was a small girl, we lived close to our great aunt who took care of me and my brothers. Sometimes my aunt would take my brothers back to her house, since she also had to care for our great grandmother. And me, a couch potato since the early days, would stay in our house because I didn't want to get up from bed."
Julia:
I don't know if you're a couch potato if you're biking to karate class, but ...
Amanda:
I know. "As I got older, my aunt just started leaving me alone in my house without warning since she trusted me enough not to die while she was out."
Julia:
Oh no. I hope it was a significant amount older and not like ...
Amanda:
Yeah, like 12 plus.
Julia:
... "Well, you're nine now. You can figure it out."
Amanda:
"Sometimes when I was alone, it seemed as if the entire universe fell completely silent. No voices, no outside sounds, I don't even remember hearing my own breathing. Then I would get this image really clear and consistent, but also as if I was seeing something my mind couldn't comprehend. I always imagined a pair of gremlin-like creatures, very reminiscent of Hades' minions in Disney's Hercules, even though I hadn't ever watched the movie, and to this date I still don't know how I know that there are characters in Hercules that look like that, but I just know."
Julia:
Maybe you saw a commercial that you don't remember seeing or something like that.
Amanda:
Like a Disney toy, McDonald's tie in or something.
Julia:
Yeah. I feel like Bobcat Goldthwait just exists in your mind and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. He's a very distinct human.
Amanda:
I mean, maybe so because, "These gremlins would be talking among themselves on a completely blank space about something I could never understand until a creepily heavenly voice spoke like something that was an angel but just not quite. She ... her voice had a womanly pitch in my mind ... would say something unintelligible, but in a powerful way that would never fail to send shivers down my spine with cruel and cold power. The gremlins seemed to be terrified by this as well, and at that point in the progression of the story, I would usually rush to the computer to play something to drown out the silence and with it, the visions of the void queen."
Julia:
This is so interesting to me because I think about the anxiety I feel when I'm left alone in a house by myself with nothing to distract me and it definitely manifests similarly to this. Not with the weird demons or anything like that, but the desire to drown out the void.
Amanda:
Well, that's a good point, Julia, because Camish continues, "I saw a post noting a similar experience someone else had on Tumblr, so maybe I'm not the only one who has imagined stuff like this. But in general, the visions stopped when I got a phone and could always have some background noise, like the wonderful Multitude podcasts," and to this day, Camish is terrified of complete silence and a white void.
Julia:
Mood.
Amanda:
And just finishes out the email by asking if we've ever heard of a void creature and if we think of the void as an unending darkness or an infinite blank.
Julia:
Huh. You know, I'd never thought of it as an infinite blank before, but now that I am living my own drama through you ... sorry, listener ... yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. That imagery makes a lot of sense.
Amanda:
Well, I just really appreciate this image of a ... I'm picturing ... was it Cate Blanchett who played the Ice Queen in the Narnia movies?
Julia:
Yes.
Amanda:
Yeah, I'm picturing kind of that style of a void queen.
Eric:
It was Tilda Swinton.
Julia:
Oh, it was Tilda Swinton.
Amanda:
Oh, I knew it. Cate Blanchett's weirder sister.
Julia:
Tilda Swinton.
Amanda:
Tilda.
Julia:
I love it.
Amanda:
I don't know. Growing up in a house with toddlers, I too do not abide silence and when studying, I would have to go to the lounge of the library and not the study rooms because it was just too dang quiet for me.
Julia:
Yep, nope, don't love it.
Eric:
I've got an email from Rangsley.
Julia:
Ooh.
Amanda:
Ooh, what a name.
Julia:
What a good name.
Eric:
Titled, Sleep Paralysis or Playful Spirits?
Julia:
It's either one or the other.
Amanda:
What a mood.
Eric:
She writes, "I know it's a common thing and sometimes people experience being haunted by a demon, ghost, or spirit that is supposedly just a hallucination created by our panicking brain, but I've only had sleep paralysis twice where I have these dream visitations, and both of them in Singapore, which I've often been told is very haunted."
Amanda:
Oh.
Julia:
Interesting. I'm going to have to look up some Singapore urban legends and stuff tonight.
Amanda:
I know. Singaporean listeners, we would love to hear your urban legends.
Julia:
Hit us up with those.
Eric:
"The first was in my college library."
Amanda:
Hey, speaking of.
Eric:
"This was my first term of my freshman year. My friend and I booked one of the smaller rooms a week before finals to study. After a few hours, I got tired and decided to take a nap. I rearranged three chairs together and went to sleep. Some time later, I woke up hearing a guy softly reciting something over and over. I looked across and saw my friend still sitting across the table from me reading her book, so I thought she let a friend of hers come in and study with us. I was about to go back to sleep when I realized the guy was pacing back and forth really close to me as he recited ..."
Julia:
Nope.
Eric:
"... specifically behind the chairs where I slept."
Julia:
Nope, bad, don't like it.
Amanda:
Uh-uh. Don't ever be behind anyone. That's my advice.
Julia:
Nope. Nope. Just don't do it.
Eric:
Don't ever be behind anyone.
Julia:
Just always have your back against a wall at all times.
Amanda:
That's how I sit in restaurants. Don't you sit with your back to the back corner of the restaurant?
Julia:
Well, you know, Amanda realizes that every time she goes into a restaurant, she is a Italian mob boss and anyone could come for her at any time.
Amanda:
Also family members with drama.
Eric:
Be emotionally behind your friends. Never be physically behind your friends.
Amanda:
That's it.
Eric:
Spirits Podcast, 2020. "I could vaguely see at the edge of my vision his arm as he swung it in the air above me from time to time. And then I remembered that my three chairs were placed with the backrests actually touching the wall ..."
Amanda:
There you go.
Eric:
"... with absolutely no way for a person to get behind. At that moment, I felt the guy grin maniacally."
Julia:
How did you feel it? How did you feel it?
Amanda:
Ooh, no.
Eric:
Don't like that.
Julia:
Don't like it.
Eric:
Don't like feeling a grin.
Julia:
Don't like it at all.
Amanda:
Don't like it at all unless it is my own.
Julia:
Oh Jesus.
Eric:
"I panicked and struggled to move but couldn't. I couldn't even make a sound when I tried to scream. I kept persisting, and after a scary two to three minutes, my hand finally moved and grabbed the table. I pulled myself up to sit hurriedly, shocking my friend across from me. I looked back and saw only the wall. I asked my friend if anyone had come in and she said no. She asked me why I woke up suddenly after sleeping for just about 15 minutes. Suffice it to say, I wasn't sleeping anymore after that and just continued studying."
Julia:
I think ... and this is just me. I don't suffer from sleep paralysis. But I can imagine that sleep paralysis in a public place is very, very bad. I feel like I would ... I just wouldn't be about it. I feel like if it's in the privacy of my own home and in my bed next to my partner, that would be one thing. But when it's in a public place and no one else is acknowledging the horrifying thing that's happening to you, that's terrifying.
Amanda:
That is absolutely horrible. Speaking of body watch, I have been getting extremely intense back pain recently ...
Julia:
Oh no.
Amanda:
... where after you sit very still and not move for 40 minutes, and when that happens in public, I have more often than not had to just sit in the bathroom because that's the only place that you could sit and not move and no one will bother you. And it is bad.
Julia:
Yeah, no, I am so sorry.
Amanda:
I'm trying to remember why I brought up this anecdote, and failing.
Julia:
Public places.
Amanda:
Public places versus the privacy of your home. Thank you, Julia.
Julia:
You're welcome. I got you.
Amanda:
In the privacy of my own home, I don't care and no one is judging me.
Julia:
That is true.
Amanda:
And in public, not true.
Julia:
Fair enough. Got them there.
Eric:
We have a second story as well.
Julia:
Ooh.
Amanda:
Ooh.
Eric:
About the two times Rangsley had sleep paralysis.
Amanda:
Rangsley, what a name.
Julia:
The second time.
Amanda:
I'm sorry that you've experienced this, but I'm-
Eric:
Actually, Rangsey.
Julia:
Oh, okay. Also a great name, though.
Amanda:
Great name, Rangsey.
Eric:
"The second time was at my hostel room in the early morning. It was the-"
Amanda:
Love a hostel haunting.
Julia:
Hostel haunting, Amanda's favorite thing.
Amanda:
Hostel haunting.
Eric:
We are really in a very specific mood today.
Julia:
We're a little punch drunk.
Eric:
You guys were also in a very specific mood last week. I just finished editing recently the Mothman episode and you guys were really on a sort of level for that one that we haven't been in a while, I feel like.
Amanda:
It's great. Julia is in person with me in the studio this week. It's just great to be able to look in each others' eyes and vibe on these urban legends.
Julia:
I'm on three hours of sleep right now, so that's going well for me.
Amanda:
I'm on a lot of coffee and emotional distress, and this is just Spirits Podcast.
Julia:
Sprits Podcast: booze, a lot of coffee, emotional distress.
Amanda:
Yeah. Mix the coffee with the cider, here we are.
Julia:
There we go.
Eric:
We're coming up with a lot of good T-shirt slogans in this episode.
Julia:
We got to think about them.
Amanda:
True, true.
Julia:
We're due for another T-shirt anyway.
Amanda:
We are, I know. People, buy up those beanies and we'll be able to make a new item.
Eric:
"It was the morning of an important exam, freshman year, second term. I woke up at what I thought was probably about 3:00 AM and almost instantly felt a heavy weight on top of me, though nothing was touching me. I felt something distinctly female floating just above me." You have an amazing sense.
Amanda:
I was going to say.
Eric:
You felt both a grin and a female presence. Very, very honed into the surroundings.
Julia:
I want to be aware enough of gender where I know what that feels like.
Amanda:
I know. I truly would love to calibrate in that way. But very, very poetic. Very good.
Eric:
Also, I don't want to question life choices or anything, but why were you at a hostel the night before a very important exam?
Julia:
Maybe-
Eric:
That seems like a prime time to be at home.
Julia:
Maybe their dorm.
Amanda:
This could be a vocabulary difference. Yeah, this could mean dorm, potentially.
Eric:
I'm just thinking like, "Well, took a quick trip to Italy before my exam."
Julia:
"Now I got to fly back."
Amanda:
If you are, you are doing much better your freshman year than I was. I was just thinking to myself what a specific energy second term of freshman year of college is, and how I just listened to Autoclave by The Mountain Goats on repeat for four months as I walked through the snow. Yeah.
Julia:
That's correct. Yep.
Eric:
"I felt this joyous laugh rolling off of her, although I couldn't see or hear her."
Amanda:
Feeling a laugh. Amazing.
Eric:
"I fought against the weight in vain, not even able to move a muscle. I tried to scream to wake my roommate sleeping on the other bed, but my voice didn't come out. Finally, I decided to scream profanities at the thing, complaining that I had an important exam in the morning and didn't have time for this shit."
Julia:
Sure, sure. Makes sense.
Amanda:
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Eric:
"I then heard an annoyed, "Tsk," from her and both she and the weight disappeared."
Amanda:
Like, "Aw, you're no fun."
Julia:
Very respectful.
Eric:
"I turned to look at my roommate who was still sleeping soundly, cursed at the thing again, telling it not to come back, and went back to sleep. I've never had sleep paralysis since. Sometimes I think my brain probably made those two times up due to exam stress. Sometimes I think I probably did get a visit from some harmless and very playful spirits looking to scare me for fun. We'll probably never know for sure."
Julia:
This has me thinking about college stress, and for the first time in a while, I had a college stress dream the other night.
Amanda:
Oh really?
Julia:
Actually, you were in it, Amanda.
Amanda:
No.
Julia:
Where it was like I got basically shamed for never going to the school library and not knowing the rules of the school library.
Amanda:
Oh, that happened to me, too.
Julia:
Okay, cool. And so at one point, you were like, "I need to check these books out," and they were like, "It's time for the presentation, though." And you had to stand up and give a presentation to someone and people were talking behind you, so I went to yell at them and the librarian gave me such a look of disdain that it woke me up.
Amanda:
No, Julia.
Julia:
I was like, "I feel so much shame. I need to get out of this dream." Then I woke up and it was 6:00 in the morning. I was like, "Oh, this sucks."
Amanda:
Well, you were being such a good friend in that moment.
Julia:
I was trying.
Amanda:
I'm sorry that you were punished by being woken up.
Julia:
Those girls were being bitches to you. I was not here for it.
Amanda:
Thank you.
Julia:
You're welcome.
Amanda:
I would absolutely expect to do the same for you in one of my dreams.
Julia:
Thank you. I appreciate that. All right, you got another one Amanda?
Amanda:
I do. I do.
Julia:
You going to pepper in another one here before I go into my story?
Amanda:
I sort of went with a modern ghost theme today, so this is a modern 2000s ghost with a heartwarming twist.
Julia:
Ooh.
Amanda:
From Lexi.
Julia:
I do love a heartwarming twist.
Amanda:
You all mentioned that you needed some more modern ghosts, so here's a ghost straight out of 2007. "I first heard this story from my sixth grade science teacher, who had a friend who was a youth group leader."
Julia:
Oh boy. That's a lot of things.
Amanda:
Yep, yeah. Schneider, pay attention here. "Seeing as neither of those people would have the motive to lie about this to some sixth graders ... I definitely believe in ghosty shit ... I've chosen to believe it's the truth."
Julia:
I'm so intrigued as sixth grade science teacher and youth pastor being the paragons of truth in this story.
Amanda:
Yeah. I bet both of those folks lie all day long, like most of us.
Julia:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). They're people.
Amanda:
"The story goes that there were two brothers a few years older than me who had gone on the school band trip to Europe. I don't know if this is a common thing elsewhere, but it sure is in Minnesota."
Julia:
Just to Europe? That's wild. We went to Disney a couple times.
Eric:
We never did a school band trip, really.
Amanda:
We had a illegal trip to London where our high school theater program was like, "We cannot organize trips, but if you happen to be taking a trip to London over this winter break, here's where we'll be."
Julia:
"Here is all the flight information, if you happen to be on it. Wink."
Amanda:
Yeah, exactly.
Julia:
"And here's the hotel that some of us are staying at. Wink."
Amanda:
"Don't get caught drinking underage," which obviously the seniors did.
Julia:
Always. Always and forever. I'm so glad I never went on that trip. I would have made such bad decisions.
Amanda:
I just saw a lot of theater and went to bed early, Julia. I don't know about you.
Julia:
Okay. Well, I would have made bad decisions.
Amanda:
"There dad was a chaperone on the trip and tragically, partway through, he had a heart attack and died suddenly."
Julia:
Oh no.
Amanda:
"This was traumatic and awful for the brothers, and they had a hard time coping with their sudden loss. But a few months after their dad passed, the youth group leader convinced the boys to come on a ski trip up north so they could spend some time with friends and hopefully have a normal teenager weekend." I imagine going on another trip was a big moment for them, so I'm glad they did.
Amanda:
"The boys agreed and the trip itself was uneventful and fun. However, the bus ride back is where it gets spooky. As the youth group rode home on the two school buses they'd rented, the weather got worse and worse."
Julia:
Nope. Bad.
Amanda:
"The wind was picking up, the snow was falling faster and faster, and driving conditions were deteriorating quickly (typical Minnesota)."
Julia:
Damn it, Minnesota.
Amanda:
"The youth group leader was on the second of the two buses when he saw the bus in the lead go careening off the road toward a ditch."
Julia:
Oh no.
Amanda:
By the way, I'm watching Veronica Mars right now. This is extremely triggering to me. "When something that big goes skidding off the road, there's no chance of it magically avoiding the ditch. But it did."
Julia:
Oh no.
Amanda:
"The youth group leader watched as that bus that was flying into the ditch lurched back onto the road and came to a gentle stop. The second bus had already started to slow down when they saw this veering happening, and then they stopped so they could check on the kids in the first one."
Julia:
Sure.
Amanda:
"When the door opened, most of the kids were shaken but okay. The brothers, however, were screaming. The youth group leader rushed to them, but the only work he could get out of them was, 'Dad.'"
Julia:
Oh no.
Amanda:
"Once they calmed down a bit, they explained their reaction. As the bus hit the ice and headed for the ditch, the boys saw their father come out of the snowy woods and give the bus a mighty shove back onto the road."
Julia:
Whoa.
Amanda:
"They'd seen him clearly, looked him in the eye, and after he pushed the bus, he vanished. I love the idea that the people we love never really leave us, and I think about this story all the time, even 12 years later.
Amanda:
A bonus story: When my parents were young, something was haunting their house and scaring the crap out of them. It went away after a while, but came back when I was born."
Julia:
Uh oh.
Amanda:
"The entity eventually tried to strangle me with the mobile that hung above my crib."
Julia:
Oh no!
Amanda:
"My mom saved me. When we moved when I was five, the spirit moved with us."
Julia:
No.
Amanda:
"One day, my mom could feel it with her in the entryway. She was getting real sick of this shit and assertively told it to, 'Leave my family alone.'"
Julia:
Jesus.
Amanda:
"She slammed the door and it hasn't bothered us since."
Julia:
I love that it was like, oh, very heartwarming and then it's like, "Get the fuck out of my house, demon."
Amanda:
And I read this because Lexi also adds, "I got my mom to listen to Spirits as well, so please say hi to Sally. She's the coolest person I know."
Julia:
'Sup, Sally.
Eric:
Hello, Sally.
Julia:
Way to just kick that demon out of your house by sheer will of force.
Amanda:
Sally, you are truly parenting goals. And just to finish the email, Lexi writes, "Eric, please give your pups some chin scratches."
Julia:
Give them.
Eric:
I can do that, literally right now. Give me one second.
Julia:
Do it. On mic.
Eric:
Here's some Foley of my chair ...
Amanda:
Give us that Foley. Give us that Foley.
Eric:
... rolling, rolling.
Julia:
There he is.
Eric:
Here we go. A little chin scratch for Henry. He's the one I can reach right now.
Amanda:
Aw.
Eric:
Looks like he doesn't understand why or what is happening.
Julia:
Fair enough.
Amanda:
Aw.
Julia:
He is a dog. He doesn't understand podcasts.
Amanda:
Well Lexi, thank you. Sally, you're great. And that's all for me for this episode.
Eric:
There was a real big gearshift between those two stories.
Julia:
There is a whiplash situation there.
Amanda:
Yeah, there is a full emotional arc.
Eric:
Both in content and the speed you read them. You really ramped up in the second one. You were like, "Here we go."
Julia:
"Here we go, just get out of the way."
Amanda:
I mean, it was all in one parenthetical, so I feel like the momentum of the original text made me do that.
Eric:
I loved it. I loved it.
Amanda:
Thank you.
Eric:
Julia, you've got a palate cleanser for what has been just a wild ride of an episode, quite frankly. Let's hear it.
Julia:
This is from T and she wrote an email called Former Worker at Haunted Distillery Verifies Infamous Theater Cursed in Tale from High School Days.
Amanda:
Julia, I saw that you tagged this email as yours and I yelled, "Fuck!" to my apartment.
Julia:
You're welcome. It also says, "Palate cleanser/Eric safe/Julia and Amanda will super enjoy/fun."
Amanda:
Aw, I can't wait.
Julia:
All right. "I first found out about Spirits after Julia's guest appearance on this past summer's Hannahlyze This. Then you all did an absolutely magnificent job of dissecting a haunted tale from my West Virginia distillery ...
Amanda:
Yes!
Julia:
... on Hannahlyze This's Halloween episode, so I decided I had to really check Spirits out."
Amanda:
This was the October 31, 2019 episode of Hannahlyze this and it has our names in the title. It was very fun.
Julia:
Yes. I will link it in the show notes. "So here is my tale. Even though I said it was Eric safe, I suspect Julia and Amanda will get a way bigger kick out of it. Starting with my sophomore year in high school, I attended a brand new school. It had been built less than two years before my tale takes place, so you'd think that it wouldn't necessarily be a target for any building-related creepiness. However, if shenanigans are going to happen in unlikely places, I think we all know that the drama kids are going to have something to do with it."
Amanda:
Hell yeah they will.
Julia:
"Our very first spring musical was going to be How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying ..."
Amanda:
Classic.
Julia:
"... which was, as y'all might say, a bold choice for a company's first musical. Despite the weird anachronistic bits that were tricky to update and sexist lines that we had to navigate, we ended up truly loving the show. We loved building the giant sets, we loved hanging out at school at all hours rehearsing. We just loved everything. Some of us ... not me, backstage crew for life ... also loved the spotlight. You know that one person, the one who just loves all the attention? The one who loves all the attention so much that they stick out in a club that is nearly crammed full of people who love attention?"
Amanda:
Oh, I sure do.
Julia:
"In this tale, that person decided to do a thing during tech week ... during the first day of tech week, so unthinkable that it boggles the mind even after all these years."
Amanda:
My eyes are so wide.
Julia:
"We were taking a break and idly talking about theater superstitions when someone brought up the Scottish play, referring to it as such, of course. This one person stood up with a gleam in her eye and said, 'That's all ridiculous. Watch. Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth. See?' Within about half a second, the shiny new fire alarms in our shiny new building ..."
Amanda:
No!
Julia:
"... all loudly and emphatically went off and strobe lights began to terrifyingly flash."
Amanda:
Oh my. This is a theater superstition, by the way, that if you the word Macbeth in the theater if you are not rehearsing the play Macbeth that it is a curse on the production. You have to run outside, circle the building three times ...
Julia:
Spit over your shoulder.
Amanda:
... salt, spit over your shoulder, whatever your tradition is.
Julia:
"We evacuated into the weird darkness of nighttime at school to the student parking lot on the side of the building ..."
Amanda:
Probably no one was there.
Julia:
"... closest to the auditorium, hearing the fire engines screaming our way. The directors were talking to the coaches of some of the teams, who were also there that night having a sports banquet in the cafeteria."
Amanda:
No.
Julia:
So there were some people there. That's something at least.
Amanda:
The poor banquet.
Julia:
"It was pretty surreal. As the firefighters pulled up in all kinds of apparatuses, we immediately wheeled on the perpetrator. 'You know you have to fix this, right?' Our settled upon remedy was to have her do three laps around the parking lot as fast as possible since the auditorium was unavailable, come back, and recite the first part of Puck's final speech in A Midsummer Night's Dream. 'If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear.'"
Amanda:
Yes, very good.
Julia:
"Moments later, one of the firefighters came to talk to the adults. Turns out, despite the fact that nobody at all was in the kitchen at the time, a small fire had started in there due to a faulty light fixture, and that somehow burned itself out without causing too much damage. They called someone in to repair the light that night, and we were actually allowed to go back in long enough to put some things away and grab our stuff. Tech week went without further incident and the perpetrator was humbled, and the show was a success. I'm curious as to whether or not you guys have ever personally dealt with the dense and storied superstitions of theater, and what procedures you might have heard to reverse the curse of the Scottish play. Thank you all for everything you do. Bravo, T."
Amanda:
Aw, T. What a story. Well told.
Julia:
Excellent, excellent. I feel like a very classic version of the Scottish play curse, though usually the effects are not so immediate, I feel like.
Amanda:
Yeah, yeah. It's more of a general cursing of your production. Though if the worst thing to happen during your tech week and your run is that that happened, that's pretty dang good.
Julia:
Yeah. I think it was an early warning rather than a full on subsidy of the curse.
Amanda:
Yeah. I think our version of that ... I do recall people running around shirtless outside, but I don't know if that was just teenage boys.
Julia:
I think that was just that one particular teenage boy that I'm thinking about, which I didn't mind seeing him shirtless. Whoops.
Amanda:
Yeah, it was fun. People have thrown salt over their shoulder and definitely the spitting. But the worst thing to happen to us in one of our productions that I remember was kind of plague of both real and imagined swine flu that took out like dominoes a very prominent person in the play, and then their understudy, and then their understudy, such that we had to do the production with an assistant stage manager with a script standing on stage. It was still fun, but it was like, "Geez."
Julia:
Did he really end up also getting swine flu?
Amanda:
Yeah.
Julia:
Wow, okay. I don't remember that, but I believe you.
Amanda:
Maybe it was that the main person did and then we had to move up three understudies.
Julia:
Yes.
Amanda:
I see.
Julia:
And it was so late into the game that the understudy understudy ...
Amanda:
It was like days before.
Julia:
... didn't have anything memorized, so we had the scripts in front of him and we were just like, "He likes betting on the horses, so that's what he's reading all the time."
Amanda:
Yes. And then secondly, as we were about to open Hello, Dolly!, the day of opening, a blackout related to torrential rain, I think?
Julia:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It was a nor'easter, I think.
Amanda:
Yeah, exactly. The whole school had no power, and we hadn't focused any of the lights, so ...
Julia:
Whoops.
Amanda:
We didn't get power, if I recall correctly, until about 4:00 PM that day and the show went on.
Julia:
Yep. Three hours to focus all the lights. Impressive.
Amanda:
Listen, I've done more with less.
Julia:
You have. You're very talented in that way.
Amanda:
No one trained me. I was just there.
Julia:
I know. You just learned from experience.
Amanda:
Here we are. Well, T, we really enjoyed that. Thank you for writing in.
Julia:
Yeah. So I think that is the end of our ... particularly creepy. I feel like it was a good balance of creepy and cool this episode. But it was very eye opening for a lot of things.
Amanda:
Listen, chin scritches with some modern ghosts.
Julia:
I called an old lady a bitch.
Amanda:
You did.
Julia:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amanda:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Eric:
You did.
Julia:
That did happen.
Eric:
You did do that.
Julia:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amanda:
And above all else, listeners, remember.
Julia:
Stay creepy.
Amanda:
Stay cool.