And That's Why We Drink - E206 A Vengeful Lady Fish and Biscuits with Bear

Episode Date: January 17, 2021

Welcome to episode 206! This week we learn that hell hath no fury like a vengeful lady fish, or at least someone who's extremely into mermaids. Em covers the paranormal stories of legendary location Pyramid Lake, including the people who have seen the bottom and are too scared to tell us about it. Then Christine covers the chilling story of the Cleveland kidnappings of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus by true monster Ariel Castro. And don't be surprised if Christine's dad tries to give you dried blueberries next halloween... and that's why we drink! Please consider supporting the companies that support us! Escape to Britain and beyond without leaving your seat. Try Acorn TV free for 30 days, by going to Acorn.tvSee for yourself why TRUFF is the biggest hot sauce on Instagram and Tik Tok! Get 10% off site-wide when you use promo code DRINK at truff.com!Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders AND two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/DRINKTry 5 pairs of glasses at home for free with Warby Parker at warbyparker.com/DRINKDownload Best Fiends FREE today on the Apple App Store or Google Play!Go to FunctionofBeauty.com/DRINK to get 20% off your order!

uh welcome christine how are you today oh boy i am doing great m thank you so much how are you doing it sounds a little like a talk show where i was like how are you today on my show and you went oh good to be here and i'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm glad you're here also. Otherwise I'd be talking into space and I would look like a crazy person. Oh, I miss you, Christine. I haven't talked to you in a while. I found a tweet yesterday that you had tweeted like, oh God, when we were on tour and I think it was 2018, like fall of 2018. And you had posted a picture of me, Deirdre and Linda, like looking, drinking wine and looking around your mom's house renovations. And it was so cute. I was like, I miss this. I miss you. I miss being able to hang out with you and drink wine with Linda.

I miss how the house looked. But yeah, you can't all win. I know that looked. That was during our practice tour. Yeah, the mini one. Philly, DC, and New York is like audience practice, which I don't think anyone knew before now. But there was our mini tour before we actually made a big tour. Yeah. Oh, so many fun times. Yeah, it was fun. I missed showing you my town, even though we were only there for a hot second.

I know, but it was such a beautiful friendship moment where I got to see where you grew up. Anyway, I'm feeling nostalgic this week. How are you? I'm okay. I'm fine. What's wrong? No, it's no, no one's listening. It's fine.

It's fine. I'm fine. It's fine. I just want to apologize in advance i have a big old cup of water here um oh your brother just texted me uh wait why what does he want on your business uh-huh uh we've got a friendship that's fine he texted me too is this a group text or did he text you about something different he texted me individually he said ha ha ha yeah christine sucks i love that you just phrased it as the way that like in a way to imply that you said it first and he was agreeing with you.

So screw you. It's like I woke up and said, good morning, Zandy. Your sister's terrible. No, I want to apologize because I have a big cup of water with me. I was using my microphone for something else yesterday. And I realized there was a very weird sound. And I also saw someone tweet out that my audio didn't sound too clear in the last episode, that it sounded kind of crackly. And at first I was like, what are they talking about? And then when I use the microphone, I was like, I know exactly what they're talking about. And here's the thing. I had my dosage for my ADHD meds changed. So we're back to the, I'm currently like having like a hot flash and I'm freezing at the same

time and I have dry mouth again. So the sound that someone was hearing was literally my gross spit trying to save itself and like parachuteing away. So I'm going to stay hydrated as often as I can this week. So hopefully you don't hear that sound anymore. Oh, wow. Well, I'm sorry stay hydrated as often as I can this week so hopefully you don't hear that sound anymore oh wow well I'm sorry to hear that um I'm trying to hydrate but only because my skin is dry that's all I don't have any fun reasons for it oh well that's fine you look great though oh wow well thank you I haven't washed my hair in three days so I really appreciate it I'll text your

brother about it later though I'm sure you will And I'm sure he's already sent it. No, Christine, you look great. No, I mean, I'm fine. I just like, I got to do this all over again. So anyway. Oh, wait, I have something fun. So have you watched the show that everyone keeps trying to tell us to watch called? The Suffering, Suffering Death or Death? No, Surviving Death, Suffering Death.

That sounds like my kind of content, suffering death, but surviving death. I am obsessed. Obsessed. I watched all of the episodes. They're each like an hour. They're like movie length. I watched all six of them. And my sister came over for a little sister sleepover.

And we ordered Indian and we watched like three or four of the episodes and she was we were legitimately kind of freaked out each episode something different like some of them are past lives some of them which you know is just like my jam some of them are about mediums uh some of them are about uh like seeing dead people or near-death experiences it is oh they talk a lot about like spiritualism and stuff and have the old photos. Oh, and the Society for Psychical Research is like headlined. I know, they're like headlined the whole thing. And they talk about all the like founders and oh my God, it's so good and so interesting. So thank you to everyone who recommended it.

Okay. Netflix knew I wanted to watch it and they were like, please just finally do it. Netflix knows that I want to watch it too And they were like, please just finally do it. Netflix knows that I want to watch it too, because it's all that shows up. But I just haven't. And I just, I don't know what my deal is. I think I'm just it's part of my commitment issues, where everyone's like, you have to watch this thing. And I'm like, oh, now there's this pressure on me where I better enjoy it. And then I freak out that I'm like, I shouldn't watch it. Because now what if I'm disappointed, but then I decided a year later to watch it and I'm like blown away. And everyone else is like, yeah, okay.

We knew that. We told you. But I mean, I feel like you and I are both similar in that way where somebody tells us to do something and we don't want to do it. But then you and I are also, we're not above saying, oh, I never saw it if we watch it and hate it. I mean, Marvel Monday has really become a place

where people suggest like really, I'm sure, amazing content. But every time I'm like, I'll add it to the list. But like, I can't confirm that I'm going to see this. I'm so sorry. There's no list. I have a surprise fact for all of you. There's no list. There's a list that is not written down anywhere.

It's a running list in my mind of like things I haven't done. And like, I call it the disappointment list. But no, okay. It does sound interesting. I'm not gonna lie. But I will say what happens in two days from now, which by the time this comes out, my brain will have exploded. What is on Friday, WandaVision comes out? Oh, yeah. Oh my god, Christine, I have to tell you? Okay, because you're on the East Coast now, I have to call Eva in frenetic panics now because you're asleep in the middle of the night. Oh, sorry.

So I called her. I'm pretty sure this happened. I called her intentionally so I wouldn't think this was a fever dream. I need to tell you something big and everyone needs to know and nobody can talk about it on Twitter because we can't get me in trouble. What did do so i went on bumble bff and i i think i i don't

oh literally that person just texted me so no that's fine that's a sign what is it so i became friends with someone on bumble bff and this is like the first one to hit it off this is the first one who has made it past the yeah we just talked about how we both deleted the app yeah well here i am oh god i can't keep up with m so she's passed the test on bumble conversations she graduated to hey let's exchange social media and then she graduated to here's my number and we've been texting homie's cousin is friends with the scarlet witch no and when i tell you wait who's the scarlet witch what's that my just smiling on behalf of all the listeners who are like i don't know what that is don't worry i don't either but let's pretend

oh my god that's crazy i know it's marvel it So I, she's, first of all, my new true love, because remember, I told you a while ago, I kind of retired my love for Miss Brie. And I needed to- No, you literally never told me that. Huh. Interesting. I've been telling a lot of people and I lose track. But yeah, Miss Brie, I something happened. I fell out of love. It was just a really intense love. And it was, I think, bound to kind of hit a dead end. Was it the time that that one person that I won't mention, because I also don't remember their name, was like, she's actually kind of a bitch.

And you and I were like, why would you say that to us? Oh, and it was someone who might actually know her. Yeah, and it was like a working relationship that we couldn't jeopardize. I was like, oh, could you maybe introduce us one day to Miss Brie? And they were like, I don't think you want that. And I was like oh could you maybe introduce us one day to miss brie and they were like i don't think you want that and i was like oh that was really rude i was like

do you know what also my heart um no that wasn't it there was genuinely something where i i i came to a realization where i was in love with captain marvel played by mystery ohie herself. Got it. So then I was like, oh, now I got to love someone who like, isn't just a superhero. And then I found, I was sleeping on, let's be clear, Elizabeth Olsen.

I always thought she was a cutie pie, but Miss Brie had my heart. So I wasn't paying attention. Love is blind. Except not. Cause I was looking at Miss Brie. In the background. Yeah. I think, I think I was primed to love her because she was in my home all the time. But I mean, Elizabeth Olsen has always been a honey. And Scarlet Witch is like,

very beautiful. Let's just leave it at that. I could go on and on and on. But so I within the last during quarantine, I have really discovered my real feelings for her. And she's Scarlet Witch. And she's about, she's like the next big brain melting sensation of Marvel, which comes out on Friday. Wow. It's like, it's the first of like five Marvel TV series that are coming out that are all connected to the movies. And it's going, I'm not, I know you don't care. And I'm not going to get into't care and i'm not gonna i care i care because

you care yes but you wouldn't understand any of the words that come out of my mouth because they're like literally marvel alien words but let's just say that this tv series one marvel in general is going to explain like 10 different movies it's like has things that are going to answer all these questions we've been having and it's just me getting to look at Elizabeth Olsen for six hours. Anyway, Bumble BFF person can maybe be my connection to her. That's pretty crazy. Which means if we hung out out of politeness at some point,

she'd have to be like, so what do you do for a living? And then I'd have to mention the podcast. And then she'd like an Avenger would know our podcast. And then I would also pray she wouldn't ever listen especially to this this is the hidden episode nobody can know that's why I'm saying nobody even tag her as a joke because like if I become friends with her she can't know that this happened that this conversation is out in the world she can't know you gotta play it cool

for yeah for the chance that me getting to know an Avenger and being one degree away from Captain America please god don't mention this. But everyone just squealed together across the nation. The end. I'm very happy for you. I'm very excited. This is very big news. Thank you for telling me.

You're telling me. Okay. Anyway. Wow. I just. Okay. Anyway. Should we cancel the recording? Are okay i'm not but we should

cancel so i can breathe for a second anyway welcome to that's why we drink where we tell a paranormal and true crime story i have a story for you christine would you would you like to hear it um no we'll give it a minute okay i'll sip my water and rehydrate wetting my whistle yeah sure okay i got time by the way did you ever go here in boston regina pizzeria um yeah in boston yeah i was like they have one in la oh yeah i miss boston pizza i miss boston i miss uh boston pastries oh Oh my God, I miss Boston. I really, Boston cuisine. Great Italian.

Old Italian. Like mob Italian. Like the OG Italian. Oh, so good. And Polish food. Oh, so good. Especially if you're in the north end and you go to that Regina Pizzeria, the original one. If you are within walking distance of their meatball slice i'm so

fucking jealous of you okay here's your story christine you waited long enough this is um this is a an urban i feel like it's not right to call it an urban myth it's kind of just a sorry my dad just texted me and said i'm walking to your house with tea you can't do that oh my god are we about to have a guest appearance of bernie or no he says i'm walking across the bridge to kentucky i'm like turn around this is why you can't move closer to your family hey hi uh i have a job where I'm home all the time. Pop on over. Okay, I just said I can't see you right now. But he has cookies. What do I do? Why is he doing this? Literally, I haven't seen him in weeks. And all of a sudden, he's like,

I'm walking to your house from across the bridge across the state line. I love you. But you chose this life. You chose it. You paid for it too. Because you literally moved across the country. I i'm gonna say blaze wants to see him poor blaze i was gonna say poor blaze he's gonna be like me and my father in law just eating cookies he's talking about my dad's e-bike that he's obsessed with he rides his e-bike around the bridge uh to come see me anyway sorry i just panicked i'm glad i had my like tex on here because he would have shown up and that would have been chaotic. You know what would have happened if I lived within walking distance of my father? He would not bring me cookies. That's for damn sure. I would try to bring him cookies and he'd text me and be like, get off my property.

He wouldn't text you. Remember when he discovered the cloud? He would just climb into the cloud and be like, get out. Get off my cloud. He would just scream at me until I heard him on the cloud. And then I'd be like, oh, I got it. Oh, daddy. Sorry if you hear this. My bad. It's okay. Enjoy your bike and your cookies and your bridge.

Enjoy your e-bike. Sounds like a classic 60-year-old man, by the way. Sounds like a dad move right yeah he loves his e-bike so it was originally considered an urban myth i'm i'm gonna say more it's like a legendary location legend location um just because it's got some historical stuff to it but also there's i'm just gonna tell you what it is. You can. You can. I was going to say Atlantis, but probably not. No. Atlantis, I think, would be too big of a story for me to be downplaying like this.

Not that this isn't an important story, but this is me telling about Pyramid Lake. Ooh, what's that? So it's, I don't know. I keep trying to define it. It's a location that happens to have some legends and lore to it let's just say okay um so it's 35 miles northeast of reno nevada nevada okay i always want to wait update good news my dad says new estimated time of arrival is 4 30 p.m take me out so now he's just waiting till we're done recording sorry i just wanted i was sweating a lot so i needed everyone to feel relaxed with me

you know the fact that he is giving you an eta on the bridge on the cloud bridge on the bridge what's your gta i gotta know bernie poor bernie has to turn around on his e-bike on the bridge now you've given him a him a reason to ride again. You're right. Another ride, another bridge, another set of cold cookies now, I guess. Although he doesn't make cookies. What is he talking about? They're probably like fiber cookies or something gross.

One of your weird German bakeries where I couldn't pronounce anything. So, okay. Can I say one quick thing? I'm sorry. bakeries where I couldn't pronounce anything. So okay, I say one one quick thing. I'm sorry for Christmas. My dad gave me a he wrapped up a wine decanter. And I was like, well, it's really thoughtful because my dad no offense, but he gives really strange gifts that usually aren't applicable to life. Okay. Yeah, exactly. And so I was like, wow, a wine decanter. That's kind of like thoughtful. And so I was like, Thanks, Dad. And he's like, Well, did you open it? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, well, open the box. And I was

like, stop. What have you done? It was filled with granola bars from Costco, like Kirkland brand granola bars and dried blueberries from Kirkland brand Costco. And I was like, dad, why have you done this? And he was like, well, remember I told you I bought Halloween candy for all the kids and you refused to come pick it up. Is that Halloween candy? That's literally what he gave out to children on Halloween. How did he not wake up on November 1st with egg and toilet paper all over him? I'm telling you. And I said, I was like, I'm really busy.

I can't pick up those candies you told me about. So I never picked them up. So instead, for Christmas, months later, he put them in a wine decanter box to to fucking get me when i'm you know my guard is down and then he it was filled with granola bars and i was like wait so where's the wine decanter he's like oh i'm using it for myself and i was like well you don't drink and he's like i know i put my orange juice in it this man is so every father feels like they're kind of they're also wondering if they're senile. Like there's like, they're kind of dancing around putting things in places for no random specific people.

I was like, you don't drink and you live alone. And he was like, I know, but I put my orange juice in it. Anyway, I just had to say that because when he says I'm coming over with cookies, I'm like, are they cookies? Or are they blueberries from Costco that are free? Or are they slates of stone by the pond? It's entirely possible. It's always Kirkland brand though, so don't worry. I love a good Kirkland brand. He's on to something there.

Anyway, I'm so sorry. Please continue. I think he should apologize. I think you're- Oh, he certainly should apologize. I'm still waiting on that apology card and it has not arrived. Oh my gosh. You know what?

And all I thought that whole time was like your brother is in danger because he is turning exactly into your father yes for for a logical reason he gave you a pinata of beans for your birthday for a logical reason that he then put on the internet and was like it's hilarious and everyone was like literally what are you doing at least he knows that he should film his mistakes. That's true. At least he uses it for entertainment value and YouTube views. That's right.

You should just do a thing where you start giving your dad as weird of shit as he can do. Maybe I should do it. And just see what his reaction is. Because to him, it might make total sense. He's like, oh, oh, a pinata of beans. I don't know how to do a German accent. And he'd be like, this is perfect it would make okay well i gave him a yo-yo because i always try really hard with my gifts for him and usually it's kind of like oh that's nice okay but this year i was like you

know what i'm gonna give him a yo-yo i feel like he would like a yo-yo so i gave him a yo-yo not knowing what would happen he opened that yo-yo he started walking around the house with it and he goes did i ever tell you about billy panama and was like, what? And he's like, Billy Panama came to my town in Germany and he did all these yo-yo tricks on stage. And he had a free bike for anyone who could do the same yo-yo tricks. So yeah, I mean, I guess if you could just like give your dad something random. Your father sounds like if he grew up in like the 20s, he would have been like that guy who always spoke in scat or rhyme. Just like he would disappear into the shadows after he gave you a hat.

Yeah. Okay. Anyways. Go on. Jesus Christ. Oh my God. Dad, stop. Interrupt.

He needs to be involved at all points. And we allow it, by the way. That's the problem, yes. Okay. I'm listening now fully. Tell him that next time I hear from him, I want a scat about beans and pinatas and breakfast and cookies. He's going to say, what is a pinata? And then at the end he'll go, happy Halloween.

Okay. Pyramid Lake is 35 miles northeast of Reno. Let's try the fourth word of my notes again nevada yeah i always want to say nevada okay um fun fact about pyramid lake is it's also one of the ipad's home screens oh fun fact fun fact here's a funner one uh one of the most famous home screen pictures is called bliss and it was taken in 96 and then in 2006 uh here was one of the most famous home screen pictures is called bliss and it was taken in 96. And then in 2006, uh, here was one of my deep dives.

Can you tell? Uh, and then in 2006, like as a 10 year anniversary, he, the photographer retook the same picture. Is it the drop the water drop? No,

I don't think so. It's, but it's a side, but you can do like a side by side and see how they look after 10 years. Um, anyway, so pyramid lake is fun facts about the lake is that it is, I think so. But it's a side, but you can do like a side by side and see how they look after 10 years. Anyway, so Pyramid Lake is, fun facts about the lake is that it is 125,000 acres, which makes it one of the largest natural lakes in the state. And another fun fact is it's only 10% of the area of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, but it holds 25% more volume.

Real? How? Oh. Whoa, man. How? the great salt lake in utah but it holds 25 percent more volume real how oh whoa man how i don't know okay i don't know i'm not a scientist but anyway so it's smaller but deeper i suppose okay does that make sense yeah Yeah. I don't know. Sure. Okay. Not a scientist. Okay. So the Pyramid Lake is also the only habitat in the entire world for a specific type of fish that's been around for over 2 million years. Oh. The fish are called kwee-wee. Kwee-wee. No. Kwee-wee.

Kwee-wee. Okay. Okay. So that name comes into play in a second. kweewee okay okay so that that name comes into play in a second so the native people who lived here originally were called the piute tribe and their traditional name was actually kweewee taikata i think and it meant like that type of fish eaters so they ate that fish love it so that was their original name or what they called themselves i guess i'm not really totally sure what a traditional name is but we now know them historically as the piute tribe okay so they lived there blissfully uh until 1844 and then fucking white men happened

they always do specifically the one of the guys, his name was John C. Fremont, who discovered it. Uh-huh, yes, yes, yes. He walked up to all the people there and said, I found this. And they went, no. Look what I found. Right. Imagine if you're holding candy. Oh, I'm sorry, like a Triscuit or whatever your dad fucking gave you.

Blueberries. Dried blueberries. And then I grab them out of your hand. And then I give them back and say, look, I found these for you. Except instead of giving them back. And also, instead of giving them back, I kill you. And that's a great analogy you just created there. Really.

I don't even know if that's true. I'm not a historian. Okay. Okay. But, yeah'm not a historian okay okay um but yeah i'm not a historian but i know enough to say that white men fucking in 1844 john c fremont quote discovered it and named it pyramid lake so i don't like that it's named what the white guy what the colonizer fucking called it but that is what we call it i'm shocked you didn't call it fremont lake but okay amen amen um so apparently pyramid lake he picked that name with his big genius man brain um because there was a pyramid shaped rock in the lake and wow but the

rock itself was called tufa rock so why wouldn't you just fucking call it Tufa Lake then if you wanted to be it's a big old pyramid well that's why so the lake also was the site of the Paiute War or the Pyramid Lake War between the northern Paiutes and the colonizers so when that area was being settled or I guess the northwest area

of Nevada when it was being settled it was no surprise, a massive disruption to the Paiute people in terms of like their food and grazing lands. And so like, let's not forget the fact that the colonizers were kidnapping and assaulting, I'm just saying that word so no one feels triggered, but very aggressively assaulting the women and girls in that tribe. So in retaliation, the Paiutes decided that they were going to raid one of the colonizers' businesses. It was called the William Station. It was basically like a saloon stagecoach, like a stagecoach station and a general store hybrid.

It was like all three of those things in one. So they decided they were going to raid William Station. And the raid happened on May 6th, 1860. 76 colonizers died. And we don't know how many Paiutes died, but we know up to 500 fought. Oh, wow. So we don't and we don't even know zero to 500. And I'm guessing it's not zero.

Right. So people say this is kind of like one of the little ghostly tales of of this is that people say that you can still see the colonizers from this battle riding around the lake also another thing about the lake is that its original lake that it was a part of so i think this is just like a small part of a once bigger lake it was called uh Lake Lahontan. And that lake, or the lake as we know it now, was formed about 2 million years ago, around the same time that those fish showed up. They just showed up. They moved on in.

We didn't like it when this place was bigger, but we like that it's cozy now. So just this part, I'm not sure about Lake Lahontan or its history or why we only talk about this part of that lake now, but according to Paiute legend, Pyramid Lake was actually made from the tears of stone mother. Oh. And so I'm going to tell that legend. That's very interesting. I just, I never heard of it.

So I refer to the man as man because I don't know his name. I just said man the whole time. So also, because there was a quote I was going off of for this story, I tried to paraphrase it. But the first sentence was, there was a man known as the father of all natives in the area. And so I just call him man. so he was known as the father of all natives he came to the area and he lived in the mountains and while he was here he met a woman in town and this woman liked him but was married to someone else named bear which is a dope name that's my dad's nickname he goes by bear just fun fact fun fact. Fun fact for everybody. Little Bernie bear.

He literally signs his emails with an emoji of a bear. He discovered emojis this year. Yeah, he loves it. That's actually pretty heart melting. You should have really stopped there when you were introducing him to people. It's just been like, this is the guy who signs himself as an emoji. Also, nothing else happens. I try, but then he shows up on his

e-bike and i'm like i can't control his actions you know wow now that i know that anyway sorry bear yeah so man who's the father of all meets this woman when he comes into the area and the woman likes him likes him but she's already to Bear. I guess they're having some troubles at home and she's looking for a way out. And Bear could sense this. He was very jealous of the man. Oh no. So one day Bear and the woman got in a fight, I assume over the man, I'm not sure though. And she ended up winning the fight. She knocked him down and killed him with a club. Oh boy, oh boy. Women. And she ran off and she was like, I'm gonna go find the man.

And she knew that he lived in, I think it was called Stillwater Mountain in the area. And she's like, I'm gonna go find him. So during her, let me, I feel like my mouth feels dry, which means people's ears are probably bleeding. So let me- Oh, I don't hear it, but you do you.

So part of the legend is is all of her travels and what she experiences on her quest to find the man in the mountain sure one of them happens to be that she found a giant who wanted to eat her so she killed him by turning him into stone so she's two for two on the murder so far oh no um but she turned him into stone and you can apparently still see him today so there's a rock formation that's known as the giant that tried to kill the woman so finally she gets to stillwater mountain where the man is and once she sees him she hides from him because she's afraid that he won't like her back oh so which is wait very uh it's like very somehow typical behavior of what all of us have done at some

point, like working really hard to get to that one thing, but then you won't follow through at the end. Yeah, yeah, you're too scared. So, so she's hiding. And at some point, he sees like the woman's tracks and is like, can you just come out? I know someone's hiding. You're not great. It feels like in high school when you like hide behind your own locker but you're also much wider than a locker and everyone and like your feet are on the ground yeah wide open and an

empty hall and i was like i see i see you can you just talk to me oh so she climbs out of her little hiding spot and uh he sees that she's really tired from her travel asks her to stay and if she wants any food and while uh he's feeding her he asks her to stay with him in the mountains i think that means indefinitely not like hey you want to hook up i think it means something more intimate than like you trying to yeah not go home yeah yeah wetting the whistle i think it's wet the whistle i don't want to even do that because my whistle isn't wet enough don't do that never mind she ends up staying the night but first of all imagine i i'm sure there's like some really like wonderful part to this legend but the

way that i was trying to paraphrase it makes it sound like it's like kind of sillier than it might be or maybe it's meant to be silly i'm not totally sure of the context here but i got a chuckle out of it i don't know what i'm supposed to so sorry if that's offensive but he asks her to stay the night but then she like refuses to be anywhere near him so she sleeps outside by the fire and then every night that she stays it's she gets closer and closer to him every night like she's going to trust him but it was just like she's sleeping by the fire and then she won't go in the house but she's sleeping by the door and it's like oh i'm imagining like this guy's perspective of like wow i invited this girl to stay and she like imagine a tinder date or i guess if it's not supposed to be a hookup or

whatever but imagine having someone stay over for the first time and she's like i'm gonna fall asleep on the floor by the door over here outside in the front yard at that point it's okay like i'll just call you tomorrow but anyway as time goes on she gets closer and closer almost as if she's learning to trust him more and more and when i say as time goes on i mean five days alone like not even not even a full week by the fifth day she marries him so her trust level went from literally negative a million to a thousand real quick um so i guess he was doing something right. She was probably like, this guy doesn't think I'm weird for sleeping by the fire.

So I guess it's a great test. She was testing him all along. Ladies, ladies and gays, if gays, they isn't ladies. Why, why am I saying that?

If you really want to test your man, sleep outside on your first night together. And he's not welcome. The further away you can sleep outside. This sounds exhausting and cold that's actually that's the new version that's yeah i see okay 21 thinking right there okay so kick him out of his own house make him sleep in nature and you sleep on his bed comfy and then in five days if it works you know he's marrying yeah

or marianne if you're that quick to rush into things and also don't tell anyone we told you to do that because it seems like terrible another thing you should not tag us in on twitter after this yes um so anyway they get married they have kids i guess on day six at this point um but their first born is a like a troublemaker like not not a cool dude apparently they have a lot of kids a few of them are troublemakers and a few of them are not and one day the troublemakers and the non-troublemakers started uh getting in a fight or they were just like sibling banter and the man got really frustrated and decided he was going to separate them which like that sounds fair like okay you go in okay, you go in this corner,

you go in this corner, time out, time out. As in like, you go over there and take a breather and later you come back. No. Oh, no.

Okay. Separate them. Oh, no. And so this is a quote from him, which like sounds exactly like something my fucking mother would say to me. I want you to think of the most culturally Jewish woman with her wonderful like ability to guilt her child into anything.

Ready? I'm ready. I'm going to separate you now. I shall go up to my home in the sky. And when you die, you will come to me. I will be in my home in the sky. And I want you to think about what you've done to send me there.

It's like, think of your dead mother while you disappoint me while you're at it. You're sending me to an early grave. Oh my God. It's the most motherly guilt trip ever. There are so many times in my childhood where I can think of the most mere inconvenience I gave my mother. And she's like,

I'm going to die one day. And you know what? Oh my God. I'm gonna die one day and you know what oh my god I'm not alone here I feel like there's quite a few cultures where uh there are it's known to like oh your mother's gonna really make you fucking hate yourself for it oh yeah oh and I'll still tell her today I'm like you destroyed me and she'll be like I did nothing also I so don't say things like that to me now. How could you even say such a thing?

Yeah, my mother still is like, I would never say that. And I'm like, what do you think? I didn't make it all up. She's like, yes, I think you invented all of it. My mom's like, where did I go wrong? And I'm like, hmm. Let me take that scroll that weighs 50 pounds and throw it into the sky or whatever the hell truly i mean this couldn't sound more like my mother and when i say couldn't i don't mean like hypothetically like this is

something my mother has said to me i'm gonna go to my house in the sky i'm gonna die now because i can't tolerate you and when you feel bad by then um okay here's the full quote i'm going to separate you now i shall go up to my home in the sky when you die you'll come to me all you have to do is then it gets like really existential all you have to do is follow the dusty road which apparently is the milky way and you will reach my home where i shall be waiting someday i hope that you will all come to your senses and live together in peace so it like yeah exactly that's how they get you christine that is oh no it's working it went then i'm gonna die and this isn't even manipulative or toxic but also i'm gonna finish this off with something that's warm and now what are you gonna do anyway bye anyway now i'm gonna get away with it a hundred more times in your childhood okay so

true like old school father fashion he takes the troublemaker kids and tells them to go west and then they never come back oh hi i guess he was like get the troublemakers out of here the ones that haven't caused me trouble you can stay but then they have this like additional guilt because he's like take care of your mother and then he basically dies okay he walks up the mountains by himself and eventually walks so high he reaches the sky and i think that's kind of like a leaving earth he's he's leaving sure but it's just like okay you go over there and never return you take care of your mother. Cause I'm not here anymore. Also, I'm going to die.

Catch me when you can. But I, I mean, it's just like, I know that this, I'm not trying to poke too much fun at this story, but it's just like that particular part. I read it. And like,

I read it in the middle of the night and I was like, am I reading my diary? You're reading my diary. Walk up the Milky way and you'll find me the dusty road leads it's a green day lyric actually it was i mean it's a i understand the message that's that's not totally passing me but it was just like i was really invested in this story but then it was a bunch of sharp turns of like she's outside but then they're married but then they have kids but then the dad like goes into the sky goodbye yeah yeah oh it is very

relatable wow so i i really if i really hope i'm not upsetting anybody by poking fun at it i i don't at all mean that it's not no it's a great story important story it's just i'm seeing some inconsistencies and it's kind of wild anyway so the the troublemakers who went off to the west that story tells the history of how the pit rivers tribe was created apparently because the all the people out west they originally came from this area but then they moved west so oh i think i i hope i'm not butchering that but the story goes that the children who went off built their own tribe and they became the rivers but then the people who stayed home that the children who went off built their own tribe and they became the Red Rivers. But then the people who stayed home are the people who became the Paiutes.

The good guys, by the way. I love that they're like, we're the non-troublemakers. Yeah. I read that too. And I was like, hmm, I wonder if there's a little friendly rivalry between them. But so anyway, he walks up the mountains and up into the sky. So the Paiutes, the children that were still at home, they were apparently, you know, still not making any trouble. They were, you know, strong together as a family. But the whole time the mother mourned over her children who went west. I mean, she lost her kids. Right.

Which also then like, let's talk about the toxic father figure there of like, I'm going to rip your children away from you. Oh, true. Which I don't even know if that's something that was considered at this time. But I read it in the mindset of a 2021 person. And I was like, Oh, I don't know about that. Yeah, yeah, it's troubling. But so she mourned her children going out west and never coming back. She cried and cried and cried. And she apparently cried more and more each day. So one day, the woman goes out to the mountain, and she's looking towards the pit river land. And she just sat there and cried until her tears formed a lake, which became Pyramid Lake. Oh, I just got a little goose cam.

I know. So she sat there and cried for so long that she herself turned to stone. And she still sits there to this day and there is a rock formation at pyramid lake called stone mother wow that's such a cool story yeah i have like chill like i mean it becomes really powerful i mean it's it's so anyway it tells the story of how this lake came to be um is what i was trying to get at so another fun fact is apparently on the longest day of the year, the public near Pyramid Lake will all gather together or they're invited to gather. I don't know if this is like a real annual thing or it's I'm not sure how often it really happens. But

the public is known to gather around Stone Mother and the Pyramid Lake area to pray for healing, which is really sweet. Oh, so there's an anthropology paper called questions of sovereignty, Pyramid Lake and the Northern Paiute struggle for water and rights. And so here's a which is really sweet. So there's an anthropology paper called questions of sovereignty pyramid lake in the northern Paiute struggle for water and rights. And so here's a quote from some of the Paiute tribe council members as of 2010. The water is our life. Our being was created by the stone mother. It has always been our main goal to take care of the water creatures. The lake is everything. The lake provides a spiritual foundation for our people and every aspect of the lake is everything the lake provides a spiritual foundation for our people and every aspect of the lake is tied into our lives faith and identity so the water is super important beautiful yeah and it's the pyramid lake is still known to have like crystal clear water and really

amazing fishing but because it's still a reservation you need a permit to even visit so i think that's one of the reasons why it's probably so well preserved because you can't just waltz on over and that's yeah probably for the best yeah for sure so the lake is also full of some lore slash mystery slash ooze and oz mainly pyramid lake is said to have been the home of or still the home of a mermaid oh oh by the way follow us on cameo everyone i just got a notification that someone asked for a cameo oh nice i didn't you know it's never mind um okay i was just gonna get on a rant and i'm just like trying to try to look professional here. Oh, we're doing a great job.

But no. So anyway, if you would like a personal shout out from us, you can book us on Cameo. Shameless plug. Yeah. So many, many of the legends have something to do with either a mermaid or a mermaid like creature. So apparently the native legend to this is that the mermaid was this gorgeous, you know, mermaid lady, ladyfish. And she married a member of one of the locals in the Paiute tribe. They were madly in love, but the tribe disapproved of them being together and banished the mermaid to keep her away from one of their own and her husband.

Oh, okay. made to keep her away from one of their own and her husband oh okay so she was super bitter obviously and she vowed revenge on any member of the piute tribe who ever comes near pyramid lake vengeful ladyfish sounds terrifying hell hath no fury like a woman fish unscorned i say it i've said it before a ladyfish scorned oh shit look you know what i have the confidence i'm sure an unscorned ladyfish is also extremely dangerous i had the bravado and that's what matters so i did i mean i i felt it in my soul you know i mean good so leave me alone okay okay uh so apparently yeah, so a vengeful mermaid who is not a fan of the Paiute tribe is what I'm taking away from that. She's still said to wander the shores, which makes me wonder how she's wandering without legs. But maybe she's just kind of swimming in the low tide.

That's very scary. Rolling around. Oh, God. She is apparently always waiting for someone of the Paiute tribe to appear and do some sort of bad luck on them, I suppose. So apparently the Paiutes who live near the area, though, or at least in today's world, have a different version, or at least according to the Paiute tribe museum. And they also have a visitor center. They say the story is different, where this literally starts on the California coast. They say the story is different where this literally starts on the California coast.

And while on a family vacation, a Paiute man met and fell in love with a mermaid like creature from Cali. Oh, my God. OMG. Those Cali girls will get you every time. She's like, OMG, are you a Paiute? I love you. So. We're unforgettable. Days of Zooks.

Yeah. You know, I know. That song was actually written about a mermaid. Right. That's what Snoop said. I said it here first. Oh. I said it to you first.

Okay. Got it. Yeah. So yeah. So a Paiute man fell in love with a mermaid-like creature. So I'm not sure how mermaid she was. Maybe she was just like one of those girls who loves mermaid stuff a little oh the sushi where she laid on the thing and they put sushi on her like she's decorates her whole

home with like seashells um that's probably what it is maybe so uh he proposed to her and brought her to uh pyramid lake to meet his tribe but they told him to bring her back to the sea yikes oh ouch what what a what a harsh thing to say uh and so apparently she cursed them and soon after this happened two piute women were washing their clothes in the river one of them had a baby with them and she uh so she kept the baby uh kind of perched under a tree while they were washing their clothes in the river just to keep an eye on the baby. Apparently, at one point when they weren't looking, this snake thing came out of the river. Oh, this is where I get confused because I thought we were talking about a mermaid. But now we're now it's turned into a snake.

Okay, well, mermaid like. Mermaid like, yeah, like yeah scales it's a snake it's actually a large he fell in love with a large snake let's all just say it well if she was cursing them maybe she like had it like she like was personality wise a snake you know like they tweet out emoji when like making the grass yep trusted uh-huh snake in the lake snake in the lake that's what i always say also maybe part demon oh okay that's good so i don't know how we're gonna frame that into the the theory we just came up with but yikes so okay just to recap because it's a lot so this specific story goes that a guy brought the mermaid to his tribe. They said, bring her back to sea.

And she cursed them. And soon after this, two women who were washing clothes in the river, one with a baby under the tree. There was a snake that came out of the water when they weren't looking who ate the baby. Oh, my God. Then we think it's like magical or demonic in some way because the snake then turned into a baby. Oh, what? or demonic in some way because the snake then turned into a baby oh what so it like took its place like shape-shifted made it look like it was their baby maybe the mermaid ate a snake became a snake baby oh my god you just solve history okay i mean i maybe that's just the story and we just

didn't get it but i mean that makes more sense than anything that was going on in my head which was just tumbleweed um so the snake forms into the baby so the the women don't know that anything ever happened to the baby yeah after they've washed their clothes the woman that was the baby's mother decides oh my baby needs to be breastfed so she puts this snake demon baby oh up to her naked chest and it bites down with a real vengeance oh no oh no and now we have a true crime on our hands so um basically it's so bad that they now run from the river to the tribe. Imagine having a baby and a baby snake hybrid biting down on you there so intensely that you also run to the public and everyone sees this thing dangling off of you. And so all the tribe members are desperate to release the baby's grip off of her, but they can't do it. So they call for a medicine man who apparently made a deal with the snake.

The medicine man was like, aha, that looks like a demon. I got it. And told the snake, if the woman can be fine, you let go of the woman and she's restored back to health, then you can be free to live in the lake and we won't bother you. Okay. restored back to health then you can be free to live in the lake and we won't bother you okay so the first story is kind of like there's a mermaid that is in the water the second story i told is that a something serpent mermaidy like is in the water but was banished to the water banished or agreed with made a deal with the devil but in both versions it's something mermaid like and it's a dark presence or provides a curse to the lake right so that's one creature that they think is in

the lake another creature that's in the lake they are called water babies oh have you heard of these it sounds really familiar yes there's a reason you might think it sounds familiar okay so water babies apparently these are humanoid creatures with webbed hands so they move through the water yes which also sounds kind of mermaid like so i'm not sure if water babies and mermaids are separate in terms of creatures in the lake or if they're seen as two different creatures that live amongst each other right but it's a it's a humanoid water creature. They are said to be vengeful. And they're said to be responsible for all negative events. So like equipment malfunctions, or boating accidents or disappearances. So it might actually probably it sounds similar to the mermaid thing. So that might this might just be another

theory of what the creature is. Some say that the water babies target fishermen and drown them, which is terrible. There was a YouTube video about water babies. And one of the commenters said, water babies just want to hug you around the neck, right under the water. Now that sounds about right. You're spot on. Some also say that if you hear or see a water baby, you'll just have bad luck. And others say that they you hear or see a water baby, you'll just have bad luck. And others say that they are known to steal children. Oh, good.

I mean, they really run the gamut. Either it's bad luck or horrible crimes against your children. Yeah. So that's why apparently one of the legends is a lot of people will say they hear a crying baby near the lake and you try to go save it. But they're luring you into the water to drown you. Oh, no. So the water babies apparently take three different forms there's the younglings the braves and the elders so it just kind of sounds like they're aging over time but um right the younglings apparently are known as

chubby not really pretty but they have an irresistible charm. And I was like, okay, you don't have to really call me. And then Christine. And so, and apparently as they get older, they become prettier. So like the baby, they're like, it literally said not as pretty as the elders.

Oh, okay. Rude. The Braves are androgynous teenagers. I was like, okay. Sounds like everyone else these days. Yeah.

They like lightweight clothes that are easy to slip off so they can get into the water faster. Checks out. Yeah. And they are amongst all three of the types of water babies. They are the most good. They are the most likely to punish people for doing something wrong. They'll play harmless pranks. There's one story that people went out and like had traps for foxes and stuff. And when they woke up the next morning,

all the boxes were stacked. Like it was just like, and I'm sure that maybe in some way that was punishing wrongdoing because you were catching animals or something. I'm not, I'm not really sure. But they do little pranks, and they're least likely to harm you. And then there's the elders that are also androgynous, and drift in and out of consciousness for most of their time. They're more concerned with the spirit world than the physical. Oh, okay. Yeah. So interesting. If you see a water baby, that's what each of them are about. I guess each of them will also drown you. I'm not totally sure like which one is baby, that's what each of them are about. I guess each of them will also drown you. I'm not totally sure like which one is the one that's going to hurt you.

I would imagine the youngling, since they're the ones that look the most like babies. Right. But maybe they just become less, they have less murder homicidal tendencies as they age. Oh, that's nice. So fun fact,

water babies aren't just in pyramid lake but apparently they're also in a random area of idaho on a thing called massacre rocks oh dear which like it sounds like a terrible band uh it does but uh it's so these rocks are called massacre rocks in idaho and they're it's also said to be haunted by water babies, actually. So in the two places where they're best known, they are said to haunt those areas. This area, just to give some information real quick, when the natives lived there, there was severe famine and the villagers decided they didn't have enough food anymore to feed new mouths. I'm trying to fill in why it's called massacre rocks um so as new babies were being born because they already decided there wasn't

enough food left to feed these mouths if women were having babies they were forced to go drown them oh god so that they wouldn't end up dying anyway from starvation it was seen as like the yeah yeah so apparently there it's also haunted because fishermen will hear babies crying at night and they'll go out to save them and it's one of the reasons that that lore has stayed consistent is because allegedly every spring there's at least one fisherman who drowns and the lore kind of continues through that i mean it could just be but it's likely someone's going to drown if enough people are out in the water every spring,

but it gets perpetuated that way. So anyway, why you might think that Water Baby sounds similar or familiar to you is because it was actually a kid's movie in 1978. What? It was an older movie for us, but it was from from the uk and then it came to the us a year later but it was one of those really cool back when they just discovered like how to do live action and put cartoons in the live action so it looked like yeah like a roger rabbit situation it was one of those movies here's the synopsis that this is from wikipedia you can just go find

this but i just wanted to read the storyline of Water Babies to you. When a 12-year-old chimney sweep, a 12-year-old chimney sweep. That's about right. They were little because they had to climb through the chimney. They had to be children usually because they had to get in the chimney. Sorry, fun fact. That is a fun fact. Also, child labor laws, but okay.

Well, yeah. So when a 12-year-old chimney sweep named Tom is wrongfully blamed for being a thief, he makes a run for it with his dog Toby, and they end up jumping into a river. I think what this synopsis isn't saying, in between sentences, is that

they might have almost drowned. Uh-oh. They encounter anthropomorphic underwater creatures, and before he can return to the surface and clear his name, Tom must rescue his friends, the water babies, from the enslavement of sharks. Yikes. Oh my god, what?

I like how you're like, that's how Christine knows these things. Like, what on god's green earth? I saw a picture of the actual movie, and it looked real fucking creepy, and I was like, this looks like something Bernie, the bear, by the way, would just like play on you in your house. Oh yeah, he did try to find the most traumatic films and just play them over and over i'm looking it up water babies dried blueberries and watch a movie about the enslavement of these little water babies from sharks terrible i'm looking at it now and i'm actually frightened uh no i definitely doesn't that look like something renata and bernie would

give you it sounds like something all my german relatives probably watched in dubbed in german which makes it even scarier looks like a cautionary tale about maybe drowning or child labor laws or sharks but leaving from chimneys yeah i mean there's a lot of problems here oh god so that movie was actually based on a book from the 1860s. Oh. So Charles Kingsley wrote the book, The Water Babies, a fairy tale for a land baby, which I think is hysterical. That's cute. And the book was originally actually like a satire.

I think it was like a weekly article or something. It was like meant for a magazine and they would write in these little passages about the water babies. And then eventually it became its own book. And that book is what inspired the movie. Okay. But the whole point of it ever even being created in the 1860s, or why they were writing the satire for this as an entry for this magazine. The water babies were originally a way for the author Charles Kingsley to support Darwin during the time that The Origin of Species came out. Interesting. Okay.

I'm not going to get into it, but let's just say it is outdated. How is it? It's from the 1860s. A few, several groups of people might feel insulted by the things. Oh, okay. Great. But anyway, so the actual book itself is about Tom, a young chimney sweep who falls into a river

and is turned into a water baby and is given a bunch of different like moral life lessons. And then when he passes the test, he becomes a human again. Okay. What I thought was funny about this, because I was reading the synopsis, I just pulled all this about the book from Wikipedia.

You can go find this if you'd like, but you know how in all of these like fairy tale stories, there's like a wizard or like a wise sage that's supposed to guide. So, Oh God, what was it? They were, they were three fairies and the fairies names were Mrs.

Do as you would be done by. Stop it. Mrs. Be done by as you did. Shut by. Oh my God, stop it. Mrs. Be done by as you did. Shut up. And Mother Carrie. Poor Mother Carrie. We were like, okay, we have enough golden rules in there.

You just show up. Oh, poor thing. Anyway, another couple little like fun quips I liked from the book is that apparently after he becomes human again, there's another from this from the book is that apparently after he becomes human again uh there's another main character in the book named Ellie and it said that they never get married because in fairy tales the trope of like the prince and the princess get married in the book it says that Tom and Ellie never got married because quote in fairy tales no one beneath a prince or princess ever marries and I was like that's a weird jab at fairy tales, but also funny.

Yeah. Okay, I guess. And so I thought that was at least an interesting way to end it versus like they lived happily ever after. It is. Instead of happily ever after, Tom became a great man of science. Okay. Okay. And since then, it has been adapted into multiple musicals and radio series.

So. Why are people obsessed with these water babies? They're freaking me out. What a concept. Okay. And since then, it has been adapted into multiple musicals and radio series. So why are people obsessed with these water babies? They're freaking me out. Concept. So anyway, before I end, I'll say, so Pyramid Lake was fed by the Truckee River. This is just like another weird little theory. And people are like, what? I don't understand how this is possible. Okay.

It's fed through by the Truckee River, which is basically outflow from Lake Tahoe. So Lake Tahoe, Truckee River, and then it feeds into Pyramid Lake from the south, but it only comes in that way. But then Pyramid Lake doesn't have an outlet after that. So the water all becomes evaporation over time. So there's no water that would be passing through on the other end sure but bodies that have disappeared at pyramid lake

are being found in other bodies of water where water isn't flowing to have brought the body there what so they're like if it's evaporating there's no water to push it into these we're finding the bodies later how's it happening so they're not totally sure so like a couple most of the bodies have resurfaced in lake tahoe which was like over 60 miles away and they're like how the fuck is this happening the rumor is that there must be underground tunnels that we don't know of that are connected to bodies of water but there's no real um the one of the local rumors is that jacques cousteau himself explored this lake in the 70s and whatever he saw down there we're assuming the these tunnels are he was exploring them in a like a little mini submarine in the 70s and when he came back up

he was like really obviously shaken by whatever he saw. And they were like, what's going on? And he said, this world isn't ready for what's down there. What? Okay. Now, but that is a fun way to kind of get some notoriety. You just go somewhere and turn around and go, you're not ready. And everyone's like, what did she see? I hope Jacques Cousseau was just taking that submarine ride and was down there so fucking

bored. And when he woke up, was like I'm gonna freak everyone out and just never say a goddamn word that's just like the ultimate move yeah but just to like confirm that though there are other divers in Pyramid Lake who have been said to have their diving gear ripped off unexplainably

oh dear and they've apparently these divers also said you don't want to see what I saw down there okay I love how everyone's like, I saw that. I'm not going to tell you. It's like, no, no, no, that's not how it works. The most equipped therapist on earth can't rattle me. I'm never going to tell.

So anyway, whatever is down there maybe is attributed to underground tunnels or how things are getting moved through the lake. There's the mermaids. There's the water babies. There's also, last but not least their version i feel like every fucking lake has one of these a sister monster to nessie to lock oh yes and so this is the tahoe tessie oh i've heard of that so just to do a quick little feature on tessie tessie dates back to the piutes and apparently even the piutes said that tessie was so i don't know if they called probably not old tess you know her they said

that this creature was so highly regarded that speaking of them was unthinkable like it was just something you didn't fucking do oh wow okay get that name out of your mouth i wonder if that is connected to like the serpent thing that has like bad luck oh true true true true true maybe they were like we just don't even want to test it no um apparently if you did talk about the creature it could cause blindness or death oh well i mean that explains it i mean yeah that alone sounds like bad luck to me fun fact tessie is still spotted today, but there was some sources that said that you can only see Tessie in June during even numbered years. Okay. That seems interesting.

Okay. More believable in one way and a lot less believable in another way. Yeah, it's strange. Yeah, it's strange. Yeah, it's unique. Also, the sightings are the people that still see them or report seeing something say that it's a snake like being that surfaces and then disappears again into the water. So very Nessie tendencies. Yeah, one of the local business owners actually saw Tessie in the mid 80s while doing a commercial shoot, which had to probably be very fun. Oh, yeah. People describe this thing as a large snake up to 20 feet and some have

reported that the monster makes wakes in the water the size of a boat so wow boat-sized wakes next to boats is pretty terrifying and the thing that's most interesting is a lot of people have reported that it has a surprisingly small head for how big its body is. And, and the head moves up and down, unlike a snake that would move from side to side. Yeah, true. So that's why they think it's serpent like, but they don't want to call it a 20 foot snake, which either way. I don't know which one I would prefer. Same, same, both bad. So there are so many reports of Tessie that Pyramid Lake ended up actually, or Lake Tahoe in general ended up being uh the place that was decided on for the location of a global conference in 2004 where they did discuss things

like tessie in one of their in one of their lectures about unidentified swimming objects or us oh love that apparently all these creatures can be identified as USOs. Love it. Which I wish like 210 episodes ago I knew because that would have explained that would have helped me explain a lot of things. So if the theory about underwater tunnels is true, this was something they talked about at this lecture. If the theory about underwater tunnels is true, then that could explain that one, there might be more than one Tessie.

And two, it could explain how we, there might be more than one Tessie. And two, it could explain how we only see them sometimes because they might have another home and they just travel back and forth as they please. Wow. Again, just like Nessie, a lot of people think that the most likely thing is that Tessie is either mud in the water, or a freshwater eel, or probably a large sturgeon, which it's always a sturgeon, which at this moment, I would also like to call out the person on Reddit, who was very obviously trying to give me like a subtle, not so subtle wave, because I follow my Christian stories, obviously. So the Duggars have, there's a one called Duggar Snark on Reddit that I'm that I follow, where it's just a bunch of people like me who watch them out of horror.

And someone so I told you last time we talked about Sturgeons. Yeah, that one of the Duggars had a baby and named him Spurgeon. And then we had a whole episode called the surgeon Sturgeon named Spurgeon. Right, right. Someone in Duggar Snark within the last month posted about that Duggar's child and literally referred to him as the surgeon sturgeon named Spurgeon. Oh! And I was like, I see what you're up to. I am not going to call myself out, though, because I don't want people knowing what my username on Reddit is. But I do want you to know that I heard you it's water baby four four it's rice pudding nine and i'm always crazy four four four shut up but um but yeah so i did see what you did there i recognize

you and i hear you but i am not going to out myself on reddit thank you amazing and that's the story of pyramid lake with a cameo from pessy and the surgeon surgeon named spurgeon and water babies yay and water i love that you mentioned truckie river because as i was looking at the water babies picture which looks like a creepy baby doll floating in the water uh i was thinking about truckie who was my sister's doll when she was a baby, she named her doll Truckee and she would drag it around by its feet and just like throw it and stuff. And so she would freak out anytime anybody like went near it or like took a seat or anything like that. And then she would like hurl it across the room and my mom would go, Francisca, like

treat her nicely. And she's like, she's just a doll mom. But then, you know if if she wanted to keep her seat or whatever she'd be like you're hurting truckies feelings i love how she would use it as like almost like a uh like you know how little kids are just the devil yes manipulation tool of like this is all until it's gonna help me out until i need it to be a real person yeah but truckie is what she named her doll and then she would get new dolls and every single one was named truckie so now we call dolls truckie

so when you said truckie i was like looking at the water babies and going like this is too close to home i have uh and i was gonna say we as a collective i'm an only child though so just me myself and i uh in the in the house growing up when I was a little kid, me and my parents would call blankets buja because apparently before I would call blankets buja before I could say blanket. And they knew I was talking about blankets because anytime I would point at something and want it or I would be screaming for a blanket, the only thing that would stop me from crying is if they gave me a blanket after I was calling out for a buzha right and so um yeah blankets are buzhas I have no idea how it's spelt I like to think there's three z's and a silent x

you tell me I love it sounds like bougie a little close I never even thought of that that's the first thing that came to my mind I was like damn you would oh i was thinking like zhuzh like a zhuzha yeah bougie and zhuzh if we get me a bougie next year that says bougie and i can have a bougie bougie i'm gonna lose my fucking mind and you have to zhuzh it up because it's the fab five are coming over bedazzle it and we would have your bougie boot oh my god this is giving me my my you can do just go to do your thing i am losing it holy crap i don't know what happened there my brain really really overwhelmed oh that happens on the show okay so I have a story for you that I've wanted to cover for a long time. And it is a an Ohio story. And it is the kidnapping of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus in Cleveland, Ohio. Okay, I don't know. I was hoping it would be something

I knew. You might know it when we start talking about it timeline wise because it was huge news a few years ago and uh it was pretty dramatic when it happened so maybe you'll remember but okay so I know real quick I really I'm digging little baby Krampus and you're I know look I put him behind uh put him on my geo shrine here wait I know look at that oh what a good boy that's a good boy so let's see i'm gonna start with michelle knight so 21 year old michelle knight was at a family dollar store in cleveland ohio on august 23rd 2002 asking for directions from the store clerk when a man offered to help her she recognized the man as ariel Castro, an elementary school bus driver and the father of one of her friends. Okay. He said to her, I know where it's at. I can take you straight to it.

It'll only take me five minutes. So Michelle agrees. Okay. Little did she know that this would be pretty much the last time she saw the outside world for many, many years. Oh, okay. Done, done, done. Wow. I thought you were just going to say little did she know this was her, it was going to not be a good day. And I was like, well, we've gathered that. Yeah, I was going to say that, but I thought I'd be a little more dramatic. It worked. I'm intrigued. Definitely. Okay, good. So Michelle had a tough time growing up. She recalls growing up in Cleveland. I loved the area. It was really beautiful, but I hated my home life. So she had a really hard childhood. She

and her family lived in their car for a while. When they did move into a house, it was big, but didn't really have anything in it. There wasn't a couch. They didn't have a stove to cook food on. They actually cooked their food on a space heater. And Michelle remembered that it took four hours to cook one hot dog for the family. So they didn't really have any comforts, could barely sustain the family. So with the family situation, Michelle kind of became the maternal figure to her younger siblings. And Michelle at one point was interviewed in 2000. So before this story took place, back in 2000, she had been interviewed and she told the story of helping deliver her brother when he was born. So she was like a grown up real fast.

Yeah. So she had experienced severe emotional and physical abuse. A male relative sexually abused her when she was about 12 years old. So at 14, she ran away feeling safer on the streets than she did at home. She actually slept inside a she slept under park benches for a while. Then she ended up sleeping inside a trash can. She was only four foot two and was able to get a blanket in the trash can. And that's where she slept.

And by the way, Cleveland is fucking cold. It's one of the coldest towns because it's right on the lake. So it's a very cold ass place so she slept in a trash can for for a while she also found solace in a baptist church which she was drawn to because of the music and she went regularly but unfortunately at one point one of the churchgoers recognized her and called her father so michelle's dad picked her up and she was forced to return to high school where she was like an outcast and she was bullied pretty drastically. She had kind of a terrible time. And so she connected with a guy, an older boy at school, and they began a sexual

relationship. And that was kind of her like safe haven. But soon she discovered she was pregnant. And she said she wanted to be the best mom she wanted to be a better mother than her mother was and so eventually she gave birth to her son joey and it was as you can probably imagine really difficult uh she had to go out and find jobs to be able to afford you know taking care care of Joey. She often had to leave her son with her mother and her mother's boyfriend because she had to work. But unfortunately, her mother's boyfriend was very abusive. And at one point, he was drunk and grabbed Joey by the leg and fractured his knee when he was a baby. So she had to take him to the hospital, meaning social services got

involved, and they took joey and put him into foster care so despite michelle trying to be you know the best mom you know she just couldn't make ends meet because her own parents were abusive to their grandchild every fucking time i think it's gonna get better you just say why would you think that at this point in our also especially when the end of this story is she wouldn't be seeing the sun for seven years exactly exactly why did i this is just background this isn't even like the story this is just like her background which is just terrifying her actual life sounds like a whole crime like exactly like its own fucking story okay so on her way to a case management meeting she stopped at the family at a local family dollar store because she was lost

and thought she needed to ask for some directions so while she was asking for directions a man named ariel castro her friend's father came up and said hey it'll take me five minutes to show you where you need to go. Got it. But instead of driving to the family court where she was due to see Joey, he took her to his home. And his explanation was that he had to pick up his daughter, her friend. And while he was at it, he wanted to show her some puppies. So classic. His textbook textbook, his daughter not surprisingly did not live with him and even more shockingly there were no puppies um so once they were inside the house he said to michelle you're not gonna leave for a long time good night okay i know it's well he really just went from i'm keeping this low key to welcome to hell.

Welcome to hell. Yeah. No warm up. No. Wow. Just straight there. Horrifying. Wow.

So he said, you're not going to leave for a long time. And then he started undressing himself. And as Michelle remembered, she dropped to the floor begging him to let her go. She took out a photo of Joey and said, I need to get my son. This can't happen. I need to get to my son and he ripped the picture of joey up in front of her and said you will never see him again whoa i mean it's just like i'm like on page one of the story and it's just like

zero to a hundred already i mean i don't know if it's the adhd meds but goose cam yeah me too i mean it's i'm not on adhd meds so don't worry it's not just you'd be like the uh the sample control yeah i can't be a good control group because i'm also on lexapro and clonopin and propranolol don't worry i have too many drugs in my system for that that's the slogan of our podcast yes yikes um so he ripped up the photo of joey said you're never gonna see him again he then put her in a really gross decrepit room of his house he bound her with an extension cord wrapped around her legs arms and neck shoved a sock in her mouth to muffle her scream and basically left her there for several

days so this is where things get even darker and more triggering and traumatic so just a heads up um he would rape her multiple times a day and he would put on loud music so nobody could hear her screaming uh she said later on she said it was difficult i had to go blank anytime he was doing anything to me i had to go blank anytime he was doing anything to me i had to put myself in a different place well sure i mean literally disassociate yourself out of that situation oh my god oh my god and uh another way that she distanced herself from him was that she refused to call him by name and instead referred to him as dude to like keep her distance from her abuser and kidnapper there's so few

things you can do in that situation do whatever you have to i know and i think that's really fascinating that that that even occurred to her like i'm not even going to use his name to like keep that distance which is really fascinating i don't want to like dignify this yes yeah exactly so eventually michelle's family reported her missing following her sudden disappearance but remember that she had run away as a teenager earlier so they were like oh she's probably just running away she was probably upset she lost custody of Joey and so no one went looking for her so she just was reported missing and then that went out the window and they just kind of assumed she had run away from her family from her son and from her life so it was it just makes it extra sad when you read it about it and

watch the stories because like nobody was looking for her you know it's just really fucking sad i mean it's like what's the story the girl who cried wolf or something or like and by the end like she like genuinely needed help and people like weren't there and like i mean it's just so terrifying i mean isn't that the boy who cried wolf but yeah i like that it's a girl better it's a modern version maybe i'm i might be butchering that entirely well it's just like an old like yeah it's like an old story the boy who cried wolf and he kept he had some a flock of sheep and he would scream wolf and people would come running and there would be no wolf and then one day there was a wolf and he screamed wolf and nobody came because he had cried as many times and then the wolf ate all the sheep kind of similar in terms of like you know

she kept running away running away and then now nobody was looking for her when she yeah that's so sad that's so it is really sad i mean she did only run away once but yeah it but still it is no no but it's true like they just kind of were like well this is her track record so that's so this must be what happened. And you just wonder how often that happens, which is just really sad. So fast forward a year. I know. I know it's bad.

That's going to happen a few times, unfortunately. Oh, me losing my fucking breath. Great. Well, fast forwarding and the you losing your mind. Yeah. Both side by side. I mean, you haven't even gone to the other two fucking people yet. No, I haven't. I know. I'm on page two. It's really bad. Oh my God. So fast forward a year on April 21st, 2003, a day before her 17th birthday, 16 year old Amanda Berry got up and got ready for her job at a local Burger King

in Cleveland. She later on remembers, quote, I almost called off of work that day because the next day was my birthday. You know, what if? What if I would have called off that day? But instead, she went into work. And while walking home, a vehicle started to follow Amanda down the street. And the man inside asked her if she needed a ride home. And again, she recognized Ariel Castro as one of her friends and classmates' dad. So, like, you just think, oh, I know this guy. I've met him. I mean, look, if my friend's dad was, like, I mean, yeah. If they were like, oh, right.

If Bear showed up on the bridge on his e-bike and said, hop on. That man will murder me. To be fair, he can't really lure you in with candy because it's literally dried fruit and nobody wants it. I'd be like, let me see the candy first. I'd be like, show me. I know your fucking tricks. Don't even. He's like, it's a stale granola bar in my car.

I know the best steakhouse in the world. I would be in that car. Like, it's not hard to lure me in. No, and it's one of those things where me in no and it's it's one of those things where you're like oh it's a safe like your guard is down of course um let's just say like a prime example is when we were in portland do we remember the story of portland oh no musk what did i do do you remember musk i ended up musk nobody else i've never covered. No, you haven't. Musk is a person, by the way.

Like you say, I haven't covered Musk. First of all, it was a true crime in terms of if lying is a crime. That was a real because the way that I met Musk is because someone at our live show and you know who you are. I don't know who you are anymore, but I know you know who you are. I don't know who you are anymore, but I know you know who you are. I don't, but you do. Because at the meet and greet, someone was like, Portland has the best steak. You got to go to this place. It's open until 2 a.m.

It's got the best steak in the world. And I was like, okay, well, it's midnight, and I am hungry, and it's steak. I'll go, and I went, doo-doo- I went and I went all the way to the steakhouse at two in the morning and it ended up being literally like a sex house remember yes I remember and I stayed because I was not going to judge I was like we are sex positive here and I just want my fucking steak and I sat down and let's just say I was surrounded by a lot of, let's just say that apparently once midnight hits, then it becomes like after hours. It's not just like a strip club. Like once midnight hits, it becomes like an experimental sex house.

And I saw a lot of things and a lot of people doing a lot of things to each other. And I sat there quietly waiting for my fucking steak. And this very naked woman kept, I mean, it's like, I know like part of their job is like kind of like get all touchy feely on you,

but I am so scared of that and so like i'm just so vanilla and she kept trying to be like touchy feeling and like because i was like i just i just want my steak also yeah you always describe yourself as like the most vanilla person when it comes to that really I was like, I would like- This is not my comfort zone. She did this thing. Okay. It was like to a vanilla person, it was just like really shocking, like really shocking.

And I like went back to the hotel that night and like knocked on your door and Eva's door at like 3 a.m. And I was like, I gotta tell you what I just saw. One of them, I remember, this is when I felt the stupidest in my entire life, which I know you know the story because I couldn't shut up about it. One of the things that this touchy-feely waitress was doing, because she's supposed to be all hot and get me bothered or something.

As she was taking my order, she took her naked butt and lifted her butt cheek and then scooted up to the table and let let her hand go. So her ass would like slam onto the table. And I said, you almost knocked over my Shirley temple. And I was like, I just want my steak. And then this person made me wait around for the steak. And then I found out later, like the kitchen closed an hour early.

And while I was sitting there waiting for this fucking steak that never came uh musk came onto the stage and i'm not gonna it's too it's too it's very too for our explicit podcast it's too x-rated yeah let's just say there were like remote control cars with dildos involved and i gotta forget about the remote control cars she had weights inside her and then she literally punched a man in the face it was and i was just like god this better be the best take of my entire life and i walked out having done nothing except lost money yeah and lost a part of your vanilla innocence I think okay and you're Shirley Temple they probably were pissed they were like this

dude's not even drinking and like I was I was how could I I was in a state of shock I'm amazed that you uh survived that ordeal because you were very traumatized speaking of traumatizing things like this story i'm so sorry for having interrupted it i just no no no but i just said like how i mentioned how easy it would be for someone to tell me anything and literally one of our fans suggested this place and i was like to be fair like that was somebody we didn't know and you still apparently don't know it was a stranger who by the way could have like told me to go to a random location and then waited for me to see if i'd appear and then they could have killed me like it was right i mean musk could have fucking punched me in the face

that i probably almost did punch you directly in the face punching range but my god musk oh boy well so exactly so if you trust somebody who you've never met to tell you where the best steak in town is and you should show up, then like you're going to trust your friend's dad who just wants to give you a ride and who you've met. It was a life lesson that I had to go through so I could tell everyone listening to us, don't do it. Just don't don't trust anybody, especially. You gotta like take a note from Bishy Sini and just fucking Yelp a place, please a place please next time and before you show up where a stranger tells you to go certainly should have and check it really would have saved me a lot of therapy money scroll through some of the photos on yelp and see you know what kind of remote control cars are up in anyone's business and they were okay okay we're gonna have to do an after hours special

just on that maybe we'll do a patreon bonus i just talk about my my the darkest night of my life anyway zoom my therapist and we can just get in a three three-way call here betterhelp.com right exactly some poor therapist on better help knows all about musk they're just like oh not again and this isn't to shame. We're usually very sex positive people. I'm not shaming anyone. You're into what you're into. I don't care.

It's just I literally just wanted a steak and is not into the whole sex club thing. I just, I just, it's not my thing. And I was stuck there because I decided I was too hungry to leave. So please go back to your true crime. I'm so sorry for monopolizing. No, you're not. I think we all needed a little bit of a break there because it's getting heavy. And that's a perfect example. Don't listen to strangers. Don't listen to anyone. Don't listen to people, your friend's dad. Don't listen to Bear. And if your friend's dad says, hey,

I'll drive you home from your shift at Burger King, be careful. And to like this guy also was a school bus driver, by the way. And so people knew him. He was an elementary school bus driver. He was like a figure that people recognized. His daughter had a lot of friends who knew him. So this wasn't like, oh, some stranger danger situation. Right.

She knew him. So he was like, OK, I'll drive you home. And she's like, like yeah that'd be great so he said his daughter her friend was at his house and would amanda like to go see her so she's like sure yeah i'll go see her so castro drove her home to his white two-story house on seymour avenue and in the car he was apparently talkative he was talking about his kids and how one of his kids apparently worked at the Burger King Amanda worked at. And so they were just chatting away.

Nothing seemed off. They were about to go see her friend. And when they arrived, Castro said his daughter might be taking a bath. So we'll just wait. And he said, hey, let me show you a tour, give you a tour of the house. So Castro took Amanda upstairs and showed her something, which at the time she kind of dismissed as like, OK, I guess I'm just going to dismiss this. There was a hole in the door where a doorknob used to be. And he had her look through the through the hole.

And she saw a woman sleeping in a bedroom in front of a television set. And we later learned and Amanda later learns that that was Michelle, who had been there for a whole year and was sleeping in the bedroom on a mattress. So Amanda remembers, quote, he took me to the next bedroom and it was just really dark in there and he didn't turn on the lights. And there was a little like a little room off the bigger bedroom, kind of a big closet. He then took me to the basement and he taped my wrists and he taped my ankles and he put a belt around my ankles over the tape. He put a helmet over my head and he said just be quiet and don't make any noise and i'll take you home so he changed chained her to a pole all of those things wrapped around her he chained her to a pole shut off the lights and left her in

the dark with the tv on she started screaming and crying she said nobody came i was so scared i was going to die i didn't think I would ever make it home. And I watched a 2020 special on this and she described how the helmet kept fogging up because she was crying and it was like a motorcycle helmet. And she was like, I was just like sobbing and I couldn't see. And it was, I mean, it's just really traumatic. Oh my God. So at this point, her family realizes she's missing. There's no reason for her to be gone. So her abduction makes headlines and Amanda's watching her mother and sister on the TV in the basement. So the TV is on. She can literally see her mother and sister talking about her on the

news. And she said, that kept me going. And I said, you know what? I'm going to make it home to you. As long as you fight, I'm going to fight. That's so heartbreaking. Yeah. Also, it's like, it's so, this is like, not to like be a slight at all. It's like bus drivers, but like, it's such a random person who would be involved in your life. Yeah. No one would be looking at that person.

It's a tangential connection that you wouldn't, exactly. Yeah. It's not like, oh, the best friend or the roommate or. Yeah. Or like the boyfriend or yeah or like the boyfriend or somebody like really intimate with a real history with you it's just like literally the random guy in town people happen to know that why would you pick that person out of the lineup exactly and it's so weird because it's such a it's such a brief connection you wouldn't

yeah you'd never connect those two people it's like oh he looked familiar but i don't know him very well or no one like i don't i don't have a relationship with any of my neighbors like no one would think it'd be my random fucking neighbor but that person knows where i live like i mean it would make sense if they wanted to hurt me like they could hide me pretty fucking easily no one would ever look at them like god don't get any ideas people sorry he's talking about ways that they're gonna get abducted and killed it's just with our show i feel like every time i hear a story of yours i just realize how easy it could be to it's a dangerous fucking place man somebody yeah the

world is terrifying um so on the fourth day of her abduction which was april 24th 2003 amanda said castro moved her to an upstairs bedroom and chained her to a radiator she was missing for a week when her family received a call from her cell phone oh so of course they're excited and they answer the phone and it's ariel castro and he doesn't say who he is but he calls on her cell phone and he says i have mandy and according to amanda's sister nobody called her mandy except people who knew her so he knew her well enough to know like his daughter called her mandy because they were friends so he knew her nickname but still there was no connection because he was such a removed person out of her life yeah um and he said she wants to be with me and that

was all he said so it was 2003 and the fbi had just started developing technology to track cell phones and so they were able to narrow down that her phone had been used in like a certain block radius like a 30 block radius and it's so upsetting because they got so close like they were in that area uh an fbi agent named tim kalanick said we spent about a week around the clock in that area hoping the phone would be used again, but he never used her phone again. So if he had used the phone again, they probably would have been able to pinpoint where she was being held. But it was like so close yet so far.

And they were driving around the house and there was no way to know where she was. But she was in that radius, which is just so dark. Meanwhile, Amanda was stuck in this like really filthy room in his house it's about the size of a closet um she described the mattress was old and nasty it was just disgusting um she was tied up by a five foot chain and she said she had enough room to get up and use the bathroom uh but she had to use a garbage can to like go to the bathroom in jeez in the room which was obviously filthy um and it was really difficult to sleep because she had this five foot chain so anytime she had to turn over she would have to like lift the chain off of her to move so she was

never having like i mean why would you have a good night's sleep in that situation anyway but like yeah it was a restless sleep yes and it's just part of like the the torture of this is like she just can't even be comfortable in a room yeah so other than that he castro gave her food he gave her like a bag of chips or crackers or fast food every now and then and the other kind of sick twisted thing is that he never allowed amanda and michelle to contact each other to, like, commiserate with each other. So there was not even. Did Michelle know that Amanda was there? Okay.

Yeah. So they knew of each other's presence, but they weren't allowed to speak or connect in any way, which made it even worse, obviously. So a year later, again, a whole nother year later, on April 2nd, 2004, Castro decided he wanted a third prisoner for his house. So he found Georgina De Jesus, who is 14 years old. So the youngest so far. Oh, my God. About five blocks away from the street where he kidnapped Amanda. And Gina was friends with Castro's daughter, Arlene.

So again, another daughter's friend. I have a question. So, so all three of them, if they were all friends with his daughter, in theory, all three of them knew each other, right? I'm not sure if they knew each other beforehand. Maybe they knew of each other. Yeah, I'm not sure. Because at this point too, Michelle wasn't listed as missing because people just assumed

she ran away. So they definitely weren't going to connect those two. Right. Yeah. So they, they presumably were one degree separated yeah i'm trying to think of like in terms of like oh if his daughter had a birthday party he would invite all three of them and they might have yeah passed each other that's a good point it literally doesn't matter i was trying to think if they knew each other well interestingly they're also a couple years apart so i wonder too like they didn't specify if maybe he had multiple daughters. I'm not sure, to be honest with you, because they were like three years apart in age. So they didn't even, you know, they weren't even in the same class or anything.

Right. So a little bit odd. I don't know if it was the same daughter. Maybe it was different daughters. But, yeah, they presumably had crossed paths at some point, which is also disturbing. Imagine being my fucking daughter. Oh, God. I know. I thought about that, too. yeah they presumably had crossed paths at some point which is also disturbing imagine imagine being my fucking daughter oh god i know i thought about that too like your dad's using you as the reason to like kidnap your friend i mean it's horrific it's like unthinkable so on the day she

was kidnapped gina and arlene the friend the daughter were actually heading home from school and then they went their separate ways and only moments later a maroon vehicle pulled up on the curb and she recognized Arlene's father at the wheel. And he said, hey, have you seen Arlene? I'm looking for her. And she was like, oh yeah, I just saw her. And he's like, oh, can you show me where she went? Like hop in and show me where she went and I'll drive you home. So she's like, sure. Yeah. So she gets in the car and she said, I was kind of freaking out a little bit when he didn't turn around. But then when he started talking to me about his daughter and how he was going to take his daughter to the mall and stuff, I kind of relaxed. So, unfortunately, instead of going to find his daughter, Castro drove Gina to his house where he asked her to help him move a stereo. And once inside, Gina was like, things are off.

He's being really weird and his behavior is bizarre she said quote he was like fixing his eyebrows and trimming his mustache and cutting his nose hairs uh and then she said he starts to like touch me and stuff and then i'm like what are you doing you could go to jail and then he switches up saying, well, okay, you're going to go home now, but you can't go through the same door you came in. So that's like her summation of it. But basically he's like starting to get feely with her and she's like, don't do that. And he's like, okay, you're right.

I'm going to send you home, but you have to go through a different door. And it happens. I guarantee a door into a locked fucking room or something. It's in the basement. Fuck off. Yeah. So, yeah, exactly. So he led Gina to the basement where she said he grabbed her and chained her up.

She said he didn't make it tight enough, so I threw it over and tried to run, but he sat on my back and pinned her there. So her family filed a missing persons report. And, like, they're similar in age but again she's 14 so she's even younger than these other two and 14 is really little yeah i mean so it's 16 obviously but 14 is even younger so her family reports are missing almost immediately but similar to the last two kidnappings they just couldn't figure out who would have done this and why and it's just such a perfect crime of like i'm safe enough for you to get in the car with but like you said not like an uncle or a cousin or someone you would know well enough to

be a to be suspicious of right um so all three of them are now like captive in his house and initially he worked really hard to keep them separated and uh he didn't permit them to talk to each other which kind of kept you know which is another control method, I guess, to keep them under control. Or so they can't conspire to get out or something. Yeah, exactly. They couldn't commiserate. They couldn't learn anything from each other. So Gina said he was always there watching every move.

It was like he knew everything, every move that we did. And they were occasionally allowed out of their rooms to do chores around the house. Like they were expected to clean the house every now and then. But they had to obey stringent rules. And he was watching them the whole time. They weren't allowed to speak, that sort of thing. He also did an even next level fucked up thing, which is that he started to like so distrust in them of each other. So like he played them off of each other.

Got it. And the way he would do that is he would treat them differently. So, for example, it seemed like Gina was his favorite for a while. I mean, she was like, quote, the newest member of the house and also the youngest. And so he would, for example, get her food from really nice restaurants. And then he would only give the other two like crackers and he made sure they knew this and she would get and Amanda described it later as like, it's simple things like clothes or food. But at that point, you're so desperate and you're thinking like all you have are your bare necessities yeah exactly and so if you're seeing like this other girl gets a new sweater you're like well

what the fuck i'm in this fucking chained up room why don't i get that and so that created like distrust and jealousy and just made it even worse so am Amanda, I mean, the way she filled time basically was by writing. So she was, she asked for a journal and he actually brought her a journal and a pen to like keep herself busy. So she wrote in notebooks, on napkins, in her diary, and even on fast food bags. So Robin from 2020, when she would like had her show how it worked. So she got a McDonald's bag and she said, you would tear the sides where the glue is and like spread it out and it became like this huge blank piece of paper and she said that would last her about a week of writing so she used anything she could find it's like a surface to write on and interestingly she actually created like a

coded like a secret code to i was gonna say so it's so fascinating and like she reads some of these entries later on which is like so wild but she created like a secret code on every day she was raped she would write like the number of times and so she was keeping track because she said later if they found her body or if they found him she would want them to like figure out that this is how many times he had you know know, violated her. Right. So they basically she had a black and white TV and that was all she had to kind of connect her to the outside. And this is also surreal because she was watching TV channels talking about her. So it's so trippy.

I mean, like next level creepy. So she was watching she would watch the Montel Williams show a lot. And the psychic he often had was Sylvia Brown brown and so she would watch this all the time and she she said she desperately hoped her mother would go on the program so that sylvia brown could tell her that she was all right and like give her some sort of comfort and then one day her mother in 2004 literally got on the show and so amanda's sitting there and they're like, now we have the mother of missing 16 year old or 17 year old Amanda, Amanda Berry. And so.

Sylvia Brown must be so fucking nervous at this point. I've got someone who can confirm or deny everything I'm about to predict. Well, so she literally said, I'm sorry, she's not alive. And so she told, I mean,

there's a lot of issues with Sylvia Brown in general, but so she told, she watched as Sylvia of issues with sylvia brown in general but so she told she watched as sylvia brown told her mother that she had died and she was like confident and i watched the clip and she's like i hate to tell you this but there's no other way to tell you like she's dead she's gone also like can you imagine the like watching your it's something that luckily none of us will ever have to experience or but i guess in this exact one case there's always that chance like watching someone see your reaction to finding out that you're dead but you're dead i mean really you're right it's like so surreal especially

your mom i like the like i i can't imagine a more heartbreaking thing to watch and also it not being true and you're out of control like you have no way of being like no it's me like i'm here like keep your hope up and so yeah sylvia brown basically said like no she's dead sorry and her mom like broke down like i mean her mom had totally broke down and it was like she said the worst fucking thing to watch um so she said i just broke down crying because i couldn't believe sylvia brown said that and then my mom broke down crying so that hurt even worse then even worse than that three years into her disappearance amanda watched as her mother's death was announced on the news so her mother would never get to know that she had been alive the whole time oh my god that's the most

heart-wrenching part of like you yeah whoa okay she said that had almost completely broken her like that was that would have i'd be destroyed yeah and she said so her mother's name is luana miller and she had died of heart failure um this was just like totally heartbreaking so michelle the first woman who's, oh my God, I almost said adopted, Jesus Christ, abducted. Very different. Also was kind of using her family as like a motivation to keep going and survive. So Michelle remembers, if it wasn't for my son Joey being out there and hoping to come back to him, I don't know what I would have done. So, you know, now Amanda's mother has died.

And so she has to just hope she can get out to see her sister. Yeah. And so in 2006, shortly after her mother died, Amanda suddenly had a new motivation to survive because on her 20th birthday, she realized she was pregnant. special that she felt like her mother had died and had given her this baby because she knew like her when her mother had died she realized like she needed a reason to survive yeah sent a baby to her which was like the most oh god it made me cry wow um so she suddenly realized she was pregnant uh she said she was terrified she said how i mean i barely eat and i'm chained to a wall and i have a bucket for a bathroom. So this must just be like terrifying, like a next level fear of like, now you have a baby to take care of. Yeah. So all the women at this point had encountered pretty horrific sexual abuse from Castro. Michelle had become pregnant five times, but miscarried each time because she had been starved and beaten by Ariel Castro. So I mean, mean i mean i'm not shocked i

mean with like the the way that she was her body was being handled exactly and he was clearly abusing the shit out of her um so on christmas day 2006 amanda gave birth to her daughter jocelyn castro had brought home an inflatable kiddie pool for her to give birth in because he didn't want to mess on his hands. That's a quote from the show. And Michelle helped deliver the baby because, remember, she had helped deliver her own brother years before when she was really young. So she delivered the baby. And apparently Ariel Castro sat in a chair and read a book about childbirth in the corner trying to like catch orchestrate it yeah because he wasn't going to take her to a hospital obviously it's a lot like do you ever see room

with yeah three that's what i was thinking of like this whole time this story yeah wow so amanda like originally struggled with the concept of having a child with her like abusive captor sure i said quote this is his kid. You know, how do I feel about that? And she resembled him a lot. But then I would look at her and I just felt like she's mine. She's mine. So she was able to kind of separate even though he did look she did look a lot like her father. She was able to like separate and say, like, no, this is my child. And yeah, it's not taking that away from me. gina said later that having little jocelyn there was like a really nice distraction and like a welcome change of pace in the house some some

brightness added some brightness to the house gina said it was fun because i was able to get away from the situation when i was playing with jocelyn jocelyn made me forget everything so jocelyn was just this like little angel that appeared and like brightened everybody's lives and brought a lot of happiness with her. But as she started to grow up, Amanda was like, how do I explain all this to her? Like, I'm raising this child in this room. And it was really sweet. She had set up like a little elementary school and they would play like imagination games where she would say, okay, I'm going to walk you to school now. And then she would say like, okay, bye. See you after school. walk you to school now and then she would say like okay bye see you after school and like put her you know down at like a

little chair and say like now learn your alphabet it is like room yeah it is and and she would and there were pictures of it and she had like you know handmade little like alphabet posters for the wall and she was just like raising her in this tiny room, like room. Like room. So she was like, how do I describe being chained up? Like, what am I supposed to say to her? And he told the girls that it's hard to say women or girls because one of them was a child. Two of them were at this point older. So women, girls. And we're not saying females.

Right, right, right. Exactly. Right, right, right. Exactly. So he told the women to describe their chains as bracelets to try and normalize like why they were chained to a radiator. When Jocelyn was about two or three, Jocelyn asked her dad, Castro, to please take the chains off of her mom. So he did because he sort of was like a softie around his little daughter. Right. sort of was like a softie around his little daughter right and um as jocelyn grew older he started allowing her more and more freedoms so even though the women slash girls were locked inside every time castro would leave the house he would let jocelyn play in the backyard she would go to the park with him or to sunday services with her dad so he was kind of like becoming a different person with her as far as like he was letting his guard down in a way and he was softening to her not to them obviously like they're still chained

up to a radiator but to the little girl he's taking her out with him and stuff imagine being jocelyn now and in therapy being like when i think of growing up like oh i'd go to the park yeah and then i would run on home to my mother chain to the wall and tell her about how much fun i had and i wish she could come with me it's really heartbreaking yeah it is and amanda too at this point is nervous because she's like oh she loved him her dad and he loved her but she's also nervous like is he he has problems is he touching her is he doing anything and she has no control over this it's also the sickest part like at least like with like in room because that's the only other it's really similar yeah like at least which like this isn't great but like the the guy that was holding miss

brie in the room and like they had a son together like he was really fucking detached from that kid and it's almost better because like that kid had a better chance of like not being connected being okay yeah not being connected in case they ever escaped like i mean the the worst some of the worst stories that i ever hear are when there's like cases of assault and that leads to uh someone being pregnant and then there's like custody it's like get the fuck out of here with that. So like, that's just an extra level of mental torture of like, now I have to deal with this guy.

But you wonder too, because is it better that she was able to like leave the house and like have somewhat of normal experiences rather than being chained up all the time or, and he didn't abuse her as far as we know, or as far as they've said. So also at least like he wasn't treating her the way he was treating the other three so yeah i mean it's definitely like all bad as we like to there's no

right answer it's just all terrible but yeah it's something to think about and it is and i want to cry too yeah and um i mean spoiler alert but this is kind of what helps save them in the end is that he kind of softens to the daughter and like kind of loosens his grip on like being controlling and having that kind of control over the other three. So at this point it's like, how is nobody suspecting him if he's running around with suddenly a small child, where's this child coming from?

Like what's going on? And it's just the wildest thing because nobody fucking suspected it and uh there is a book called hope a memoir of survival in cleveland and the author mary jordan describes it as castro was very clever you can't underestimate how smooth he was if you walked on the street you didn't see that he had put a door and nailed it to those windows and had quilts up because he had pulled the curtains he always tidied up his front lawn his house was a mess because he was a big hoarder but he was very clever he said hello to neighbors he was sweet he drove the school bus he was good to his friends he just had a double life and when he walked inside his front door he became a whole other violent person and what would happen

in terms of jocelyn going to school because like he he there's no way he risked like the girl going to school and talking about her mom yeah no so she went she just did the schooling like in the room with her mom like her mom did like that little school at home and okay i thought that was just like all pretend okay i mean it was pretend like she was like oh now i'm gonna drop you off at school but it was like their bedroom no i'm saying i thought the whole scenario was imaginary not that education was taking place also uh wait what like did she go to school no like did she like have an education or no okay that's got it yeah yeah so he didn't he like took her out every now and then to go to the park but like rarely and also sometimes she was allowed to play outside but that was it so

got it inside she was quote unquote learning from her mom who pretended to be the teacher. It was like just kind of she was trying to. I know she also got like an added perk as a mother of like, oh, and you can have some like like school books so you can be the teacher, too, or something. I don't know. I mean, I think maybe he bought her like coloring supplies and stuff, but nothing like real education wise, you know, nothing like structured. So then we fast forward to May 6, 2013, and now it has been 11 years that Michelle, the first abductee, has been in this fucking house. So May 6, 2013, there is an opportunity finally for the women to make their escape in an unexpected way, which is Jocelyn. So this is how Amanda tells the story. So Jocelyn goes downstairs and then she

runs back up and she says, I don't find daddy. Daddy's nowhere around. She's like, mom, daddy's car is gone. My heart immediately started pounding because I'm like, should I chance it? If I'm going to do it, I need to do it now. And this this shockingly she tried her door of her bedroom and it was unlocked and she said this was the first time in 10 years that castro had left and she had tried the door and it wasn't locked he always locked her door when he left the house but he was kind of letting his guard down now because he has this little girl running around and he lets her like go in and out of the room so he left the door unlocked so she was shocked that her bedroom door was unlocked um and downstairs the front door was open but wired with

an alarm and beyond it there was a storm door that he had padlocked shut so she was able to squeeze out one arm of this out of the storm door and she's waving her arm around and she's screaming somebody please help me i'm amanda berry please help me and this is not the guy you want to be anybody so a neighbor saw her but was too afraid to intervene and basically was like uh i don't feel comfortable in this scenario and fucking kept walking oh my god say something guys this is like the ultimate, like, what an asshole do you feel like now that you almost let her go back to the life she was living. Yeah, truly. So she said, after I got to that locked door and the guy, like, didn't help her and walked away, I was like, he's going to come home and this is going to be the end.

But that is when another neighbor, Charles Ramsey, showed up. Amanda explained he kind of, like, started trying to pull on the door, but he couldn't get it open either. So he kind of like kicks it and he's like, there you go. Finished kicking it and you can get out. So she was able he was able to kick it from the outside. She was then able to kick it from the inside and the door open and she was able to run out into the front yard of the house. So she had him call 911. She spoke to the operator. She was

terrified because she was convinced that still he would come home and somehow get her back inside and kill her probably. She said, I don't know why he left that day with the door unlocked. I will never know. And she said, first, it was so unreal. So she called, you can hear the 911 call. She says, this is Amanda Berry. I've been missing for 10 years please come help me and it's like as the dispatch you must be like what can you imagine yeah so wow he said when the cops got there i told them there's two other girls in the house so within minutes police started flooding the street they stormed the house where gina and michelle were hiding in their room they didn't know what was going on they just heard a lot of ruckus and thought like castro was hurting amanda

they just weren't sure what was going on but as soon as they heard the word police uh michelle swung the door open ran out and like hung hung on to the officers and wouldn't let go well probably literally the first person she's seen in a decade yeah the first person and like somebody who is not going to hurt her yeah also imagine being a detective that was on the case like 10 years ago who was just patrolling and patrolling and patrolling but not going into any of the houses being like i looked at that house hundreds of times and when that cell phone like they were driving around that area for an entire solid week 24 7 we're driving around 10 years later like you have no idea where that detective is they might not even they might have a totally different job now and they're just like that fucking house this entire time and it makes me wonder like what other fucking houses

are you walking past and you have no clue what goes on beneath oh yeah you know under in the basement or behind closed doors it's it's that's the worst um so when gina told police i'm gina de jesus uh she said it was the first time she had heard her own name in five years. And Castro had made them all use different names. And I don't have the names that they use. I don't think they like to talk about that for obvious reasons. But he had given them like other names to use to like, and he called them his wives, like he had a whole twisted idea of what, what were him. And actually, they they had been boarded up in his house for so long that after 10 years they got out and the flashing lights of the police were so bright they could barely like

keep their eyes open that's how dark it was inside their captivity so obviously next their families arrived i mean seeing those photos is just one of the most powerful yeah powerful things yeah it's it's pretty wild um like seeing amanda's sister in the hospital with her it's just crazy so gina's father felix described it as a dream he thanked the lord for bringing his baby back amanda's sister beth welcomed her with open arms and her first thought was oh my god she's so skinny but she's still beautiful um i mean it's been like 10 years the thought of that is just bonkers. She said she had the biggest smile. I could just feel her love. And as for Michelle, she was brought to the hospital. She had been, I think she was probably treated physically the

worst out of all of them. She had been so severely beaten. She had lost her vision and she had nerve damage. And again, she had like miscarried five babies like he was really really horribly abusive to her um and her mother told the press that she hoped to reunite with her daughter and introduce michelle to a younger sister that had been born during the time she was captive but michelle chose to not meet up with her family and kept her distance which her story is just tinged with a lot of sadness because no one was looking for her. And then she got out and she couldn't even face her family. I mean, her mom's boyfriend is the reason that her son had gotten taken away in the first place.

So it's awful. So Castro, who is 53 at this point, was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison on August 1st, 2013 after he pled guilty to 937 counts of kidnapping, rape, and aggravated murder. At his sentencing, Michelle stated, I've got my life back. I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning. But unfortunately, he was found dead in his prison cell after dying by suicide on September 3rd, 2013. So he was there for like a couple weeks that's and he took his own life and they were just like it was horrible because they were like you know we suffered for so long and he just fucking for fucking out yeah it's almost it's

crimes like that where you wish you could prolong life just so you could make them suffer longer yeah that's what that's what gina was. I want you to suffer a thousand years. I want you to know what it was like or feel what it was like. Yeah, and Gina was saying the same thing of like, I was hoping to watch him rot in prison for the rest of his life. And he just took the way out. So again, they had no control. Again, yeah, again.

They just couldn't even keep him. I mean, yeah, it's really fucked up. So in 2015, Gina and Amanda graduated from high school, which was obviously a big deal. Gina got to have her quinceañera, which she hadn't had. She disappeared when she was 14. Gina and Amanda together wrote a memoir called Hope, a memoir of survival in Cleveland, written alongside two Washington Post journalists. And that's kind of where they describe a lot of the details we've talked about, but obviously even more in the book, if you want to read that.

And Gina herself in 2018 founded the Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children and Adults to help families, you know, deal with the media and figure out how to go to police and the best way to search for missing loved ones. And the foundation's headquarters is located on the same street on Seymour Avenue where she was held captive for 10 years. Wow. So in 2018, the Daily Mail reported that Michelle's son, so Joey, the boy that she was going to see that one day, his new family had unfortunately made the decision to not share the identity of his birth mom with him. So apparently Michelle said she understood the decision and she has photographs of Joey that his adoptive parents send her. And she's just happy to see he's like growing up and having a happy life. So as far as we know, she's now happily married to her husband, Miguel, and has changed her name to Lily Rosely. And she just hopes to one day be able to see her son down the line when, know things change or when he grows up i guess wow and so since her escape michelle has become an advocate for victims of sexual abuse she released two memoirs and she told nbc news that since escaping she has found it hard

using a lot of the things that we now take for granted so for example cell phones or smartphones she said oh my god cell phones were smartphones. She said, oh my God, cell phones were such a pain in the butt for me. It was just beepers and flip phones when I was kidnapped. And now she has to figure out he is like TikTok and like Snapchat and stuff. No. And so Amanda still lives with her daughter, Jocelyn, who is now 14 years old. And according to a 2018 interview, she described Jocelyn as so kind hearted. She loves animals. She's outgoing.

She's a little sassy. I think she gets that from me. I'm just so proud of how much she's grown as a person. She's very caring. And a lot of kids her age are not like that. So that is the story of the Ariel Castro kidnapping house in Cleveland. 10 years. Holy shit.

And they managed to get their way out. Thank God. Wow. That is heavy. That's a heavy one. Yeah. Cleveland 10 years and they they managed to get their way out thank god wow that is uh heavy that's a heavy one yeah I mean I'm so thankful they made it out but like it just goes to show you don't know what people are really like behind the scenes oh my gosh I'm surprised I didn't know about it I should have used it completely just passed me I suppose I didn't know about it. I should have. It completely just passed me, I suppose. I didn't know if you remembered when they escaped, because I remember that being a huge thing that they got out of the house. I don't know. Maybe it was just because I was in Ohio.

What year was it? 2013. I don't know how I missed that. The sad thing is there are so many horrible stories like this that they kind of, you know. They shouldn't have to blend together. It's another news story. I know. I know.

It's horrible. Wow. What did the shows that you watched or what were the documentaries? Oh, so I watched a couple of things. So 2020, ABC News did. All right. I wrote it down here. So ABC News did a special called Trapped.

I watched a 2020 special. I just am obsessed with 2020. So I watch everything they do. And then there are are also those books which i did not read all the books but they're a lot of the information came from those books so uh their memoirs which are also great wow so yeah it's that my friends now time for some cookies with bear listen you deserve it cookies with bernie sounds like a terrible german spinoff a cautionary tale indeed like cookies with bernie or biscuits with bernie or oh my god horrible honey with the bear uh

no because he calls his his girlfriend honey all the time and i'm like does she call him honey bear that's probably where it came from so that'd be so sweet and precious um okay well i guess it's better than stinky witch to be fair like nothing's better than stinky witch in terms of uh pet nicknames and relationships i think allison has it the fucking worst um okay well anyway thank you so much for listening to and that's why we drink uh another episode of ups and downs we should just call this show the roller coaster at this point if you want to find us anywhere you can go to and that's why we drink.com and our socials are at the m schultz and xt and cheaper and if you would you can also find Em at the Steakhouse Sex Dungeon

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and take care and don't get in any cars with anybody and see something, say something. And if you know Musk, tell her. Tell her I say hi, wink. Just walk away slowly. Just walk away slowly. And don't. Unless you're into it.

Don't give her a remote control car if you're hoping to see that car again. Because you might not ever see it. If you know Musk and she, for Christmas, got you a remote control car, I be wary of where it came from that's all yeah wash your hands and that's why we drink yay