And That's Why We Drink - E301 Jack-o-lantern Moths and Spooky Smiles

Episode Date: November 13, 2022

Trick or treat! We're trying to prove that it's always spooky season for us, so today Em is bringing us the history of Halloween traditions. Then Christine covers the wild, harrowing and empowering tale of Susan Kuhnhausen. And FWIW (for what it's worth), we think Mondays are out and Cabbage Nights are in... and that's why we drink!If you want check out one of many great self-defense programs with us, check out Gracie University, gracieuniversity.com

four minutes after our scheduled time and we're recording this is a record that's pretty remarkable remarkable remember the one time when eva didn't show up and we somehow figured it out yeah within like 15 minutes like that was impressive but four minutes i mean come on i mean to be fair it is probably because of our bad attitude today yeah the vibes are off i don't know what the situation is not with each other but just like i just woke up and i just know that the day and i are not going to get along it's just monday you know monday morning and eva was like how was your day and before i got on and emma was like oh fine and then i hopped on and eva was like how's how was your flight home

christine i was like fine i was like poor eva's like just trying to lighten the mood and we just have bad i know she's maybe that's why we started so early because she's never like left in such a hurry. She just wanted to be out of here. I don't blame her. I think maybe that's why the vibes are off because we never record on Monday mornings. So maybe I'm just like, I feel like we always record on like Wednesdays. Maybe you just feel the vibes of the rest of corporate America. Yeah.

I'm like, oh, I'm back. Yeah. Not again. No, I felt, you know, speaking of the vibes are off. I like did not see you at all. We've literally did an entire show together and I think I spent maybe five minutes with you. Maybe like if that, because we did the LA show and I flew in that day and then Eva and

Rachel and I got tattoos. Have you seen my tattoo yet? No, I literally didn't. Oh my God. Here's what happened i got to um the i got to the venue which like i think it's it was also weird because like like hometown shows are so weird to me and i know are weird i know it's a it wasn't necessarily the same for you this time because you don't live here but it is very odd to not go through like the rigmarole of like a car and a hotel and then staying away from your family and your friends.

And not really knowing the city. Yeah. And then having to get a plane the next day. Like it was just really weird that I could be at the theater and in 20 minutes I could be on my couch watching TV. It's just like weird, like complete change of environment. And so it was already weird because I didn't see you at all until the show because you were out doing your own stuff. And I was just like sitting at home on the couch. And then I drove to the theater, didn't see you until we were on stage because I couldn't get to the green room because I can't do stairs still with my stupid heart.

Then I saw you on stage. And then by the time we were like all wrapped up you it was you were so sleepy and you were already in the car and we and you just drove off and i went i just drove home and i just went oh okay i'll see you in texas i guess we were like there like an hour after the show but you and eva have so many friends i have like one friend in la and they were like 25 people were there they were all eva's friends i was like oh my god i feel like we had like a a room full of uh we were we look like strangers we looked like divas with a whole posse posse and i was like damn everyone that came downstairs to the green room after the show i

was like i don't know who you are i don't either and they they knew us from watching us for an hour on stage so i was like wow this is a weird dynamic yeah but anyway it was weird because i i saw you with my eyes and we talked to each other through a scripted show on stage and then after that i you just were in the car and left and i went well i'll see you at the next show then and it was see you in texas like i didn't get to ask you how your flight was i didn't even know you got a tattoo. It was fine. What's your tattoo, Christine? You don't even know what it is? No.

Oh, my God. Okay, he still has the bandage on, so it looks a little gnarly, but he's a moth. Is that a moth? Oh, my God. He's a moth. Why didn't you put little glowing red eyes on him? You could just put those two little circle pieces of tape like two little red dots whenever you want oh you could put googly eyes on him oh that's fun now that is something yeah so i got this moth and um actually the tattoo artist ended up coming to

the show which was hilarious oh i think i do remember hearing about that or something. Yeah. Ash is their name. And so we went and got these tattoos and I wanted a moth, but I didn't want to tell you because it was a surprise, obviously. A surprise that we never even did because we didn't have time. It's certainly a Monday surprise. But yeah, so I was like, oh, I'd like the moth. And she goes, well, which one? And I said, oh, this one. And then she goes, oh, the jack oh, I'd like the moth. And she goes, well, which one? And I said, oh, this one. And then she goes, oh, the jack-o'-lantern moth.

And I went, that's what it's called? What? But yeah, it's a jack-o'-lantern moth. I'm going to try and show the camera here because it has like different little hair. Now that's a detailed moth right there. She's got fuzzy little hairs on her ears i know i love her um we can post a photo on instagram because i oh and that was the other thing i wore the same shirt that i wore when you took me to get my first tattoo in 2017 so i had eva take a photo

of me holding the other arm out like you took a photo of me with my first tattoo very sweet i do weigh like 45 50 pounds more than I did in that first photo. So it is going to look like a before and after that I'm not trying to do. But also, especially because your other tattoo is a different animal. And you're like, look at the transformation. It went from an elephant to a mom. And also that shirt now has so many holes in it. And my mom keeps telling me to throw it away.

And I just refuse. What shirt was it? It's that little pinstripey drapey shirt. And it just has so many holes in it. And my mom keeps telling me to throw it away. And I just refuse. What shirt was it? It's that little pinstripey drapey shirt. And it just has so many holes in it. And my mom yells at me every time I wear it. But it's my tattoo shirt. So all right. Hey, you said it officially here.

So you have to keep it now. Well, if you want to see the moth, folks, you can go on our Instagram. I'll make Megan post a photo of it. Well, that's very fun. But I, yeah, I heard something about the tattoos and then I meant to ask you, but it's poor Eva. Whenever we're about to go on, I'm just like such a ball of nerves for no reason. It's really like Charlie Brown's teacher, like when someone's trying to talk to me,

I'm like, I am half half here I'm so sorry but like my brain is just so like my primal instinct thinks I'm not gonna survive the next five minutes so I am tunnel visioned on everything else so I remember hearing Eva say oh we got tattoos and then I think I said like oh tell me about that later I was like I don I don't care. I was like, I do care, but I just can't. My brain would not allow me to absorb it today. I'm so happy you got to have a little fun in LA though because I really, somewhere in there, I knew you got a tattoo with Eva,

but I also was afraid that you just like got off a plane and just were alone in LA until the show. So I'm glad you had fun. No, Eva was kind and took me under her furry moth wing. Oh, that's so sweet. I, do you think, what, can I see the detail again? Is it too detailed that you can't color her in every now and then with a little crayon marker?

Oh, I could color her in. She's like a little coloring book. You're totally right. That's what I was going to say. Like with enough tattoos and a baby who's about to start coloring everything. Oh, you're so right. You really should just get like a circle, a square and a triangle who's about to start coloring everything oh you're so right you really should just get like a circle a square and a triangle and like put it on you somewhere

just let her go to town you know so eva says to be fair um you said i will be so excited about that after the show what a passive aggressive sorry stop talking to me. I did not mean to. I'm sorry, Eva. No, I like it. I think I was trying to assert a boundary while also not being fully cognizant of my surroundings. And be honest with your feelings. You don't want, you're like, I don't care that Christina's once again altering her body without telling me. I do. I do.

I want to be part of the pack. I was just also so scared I was going to die for no reason. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know scared I was going to die for no reason. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, this or that. Things to focus on. All right. Well, I'm glad we had a good show.

We are in our last handful now. And I know I keep saying it, but I'm really in my head. I am trying to actively really enjoy the last couple ones because I know this is it. Well, you're not doing a good job considering you think you're going to die every 10 minutes. That's my brain, but my heart is very excited. Okay, good. It's also a little broken. I can never trust it again, so I don't know where I stand totally.

Interesting that... Oh, what are you drinking before we start? Oh, I'm drinking an iced pumpkin spice latte with oat milk. Thank you. What are you drinking? I'm drinking an H2O latte with oat milk. Thank you. What are you drinking? I'm drinking an H2O, baby. Yeah, got it. It's a Monday morning and I certainly didn't drink any water during the weekend.

I said Starbucks it is for me today. I will probably get Starbucks as a little ha-ha treat afterwards. Ha-ha. Okay. It's interesting that your little moth fella has a name jack-o'-lantern because what the episode is it's involved yeah so um i have uh that was the dumbest guest guest ever is that what our episode is about like it kind of is why else would you have said that's so interesting you say jack-o'-lantern

i'm i feel like i'm just really slow with the connections today and i apologize it would be very silly if i actually was just going to throw a fun fact to you and then the story's totally different it has nothing to do with anything um no i've got a lovely lovely cousin megan who listens to the show and uh cousin named megan i know i know how do i not know this because i actively don't mention her why else with a name like that i know and uh so she uh she has does a lot of sees like a lot of like our instagram live streams and i guess uh she saw that our halloween episode that i just covered i basically did a choose your own adventure because i let you pick from three of the main topics that were suggested

and then i got a personal a text being like you know what that's not what you promised in an instagram live stream for what you were going to do for halloween this year and i went oh well of course megan you would call me out on my bullshit uh didn't even know it but apparently there was bullshit to be called out and um basically she let me know that i promised somewhere in the world uh that i was going for halloween i was going to cover halloween traditions oh like why things are the way they are when we celebrate halloween okay that's really fun so i guess you're getting two halloween episodes out of me folks so i know halloween just technically ended well no because the one that just technically happened

was winchester which we haven't even talked about oh my god but two weeks ago was halloween so now we're doing like a three in a row like we're sandwiching spooky yeah we're saying we got we got you got a big episode and then you got a halloween and a halloween on the other side so that's what i'm gonna cover um uh and then press pause on that should we talk about the winchester mystery house oh i don't know i didn't know if you didn't bring it up on purpose or no totally blanked because Eva literally right before we hit record was like you can talk about the Winchester mystery house and then you actively didn't and I was like okay maybe we're choosing not to no I just my brain just forgets things like a goldfish I never know I always want to be like on the same page and

then sometimes I'm like okay we're deleting this page got it to be fair I would also like to be on the same page but my brain really takes the reins sometimes and goes what page there's no book there's no fuck books let me throw it out the window oh my god go ahead tell them if you haven't listened to that our 300th special spooky episode i flew out to freaking san jose and so did em and eva and we went to the Winchester Mystery House just to record our 300th episode. And it was so cool and magical and creepy and fun. And on Patreon, we have a video walkthrough that we're going to post just for patrons of the actual house. But the episode itself, we covered ghost equipment. And then I told our listeners stories.

So you might not have even expected it if you were listening. And I pulled your story. And you were like, what the hell? This isn't even a listener's episode. But I pulled a bunch of stories about people who had gotten EMFs. We even played some EMFs. Oh, my gosh. It was so fun and so creepy.

And we were in the carriage house at the Winchester Mystery House when we filmed it. So it's also on YouTube. Oh, Em, it was a great time wasn't it it was a great time it was especially nostalgic because winchester was our first episode ever and so for us to have talked about it because we also did a like a revival 2.0 episode of it so at least for me to have talked about it so many times and to have done the research so many times to be in her house and we got to be alone in her house which was the crazy part like it didn't even feel like we were on like a normal tour we were just we got around the back doors tour oh and shout out to our tour guide who like absolutely was um a homie because there was a bunch of halloween uh like they were setting up for halloween so they had all these like crazy

decorations where things might jump out at you so the winchester house at night as they were trying to set all that up also became like a weird jump scare attraction uh yeah and our tour guide amelia was like not having it either with all the jump scares and i was like you're supposed to be the one who knows what's going on and is leading us but we were all in the same boat of like maybe a disembodied head will fall from this beautiful ornate ceiling oh my gosh it was it was a cool the coolest tour ever though also um shout out to like i don't know if it's like work ethic or like um just a drive like doing what you love or something but amelia really fucking loves the winchester house and oh it was so fun like um just a drive like doing what you love or something but amelia really fucking loves the winchester house and oh it was so fun like i just i was throwing all these facts out that i feel like

tour guides aren't even talking about and was just like clearly clearly vibing with her job she also does all the social media so if you follow tiktok us the winchester mystery house is tiktok by the way um it's we fangirl a little bit we were like you're behind the tiktok by the way um it's we fangirled a little bit we were like you're behind the tiktok that's amazing because we we watched the tiktok they're very they're very very clever uh little videos and i'm just impressed every time so anyway uh not only was she funny she was very nice she's also a massive fan of sarah winchester she showed us all the goods she taught us about all the behind the scenes ghosts uh she told us about uh oh but yeah the carriage house we were that we were in apparently was also sarah winchester's car wash that she just randomly built

one time built a car wash attached to the carriage house so that the carriage could just be rolled on in and washed like a shower amazing amazing it was a it was a blast it was a uh a hootenanny it was and uh a lot of that footage will be on patreon our walkthrough tour it was just uh it wouldn't work for in the actual episode so but the episode of us in the carriage house is also on youtube um or the audio version and it was a blast and i also want to thank everybody who sent in stories that they didn't know I would be reading on the show. Some of the emails were from like 2017. So they probably don't even listen anymore. But you know, if you know that person, let them know that I gave them a little shout out on the on the show. Yeah, come back. Finally, you're their story five years later.

Oh, no, but it was it was such a good time. So I hope everyone enjoyed watching us also try to be cameramen away from Zoom, which was scary. We had to remember how tripods worked. Yeah, and memory cards. Okay, but other than that, yeah, it was a great time. Now we're back in Halloween, our Halloween bullshit. I know. Yeah, well, I apparently just can't let go. Everyone else is like trying to get in the turkey spirit and I'm like not having it.

So just to really, I guess, salute Halloween one last time on our way out of 2022, I will be coveringeen traditions today and these are not uh like anything super religious like it doesn't really focus on like any um like pagan or it's more like the silly stuff like trick-or-treating and oh okay yeah okay what's silly about trick-or-treating i take it very seriously it's very silly but it's also very spooky stuff i gotta be honest uh had no idea about so much of this okay oh i'm excited okay here we go so first of all obviously uh i'm just gonna be talking about some of the nowadays sillier things like trick-or-treating but they all did come from like serious stuff um so it's important to for me to acknowledge that like there's a lot of halloween traditions that are out there that either started uh from serious matter or we just don't know where they came from at this point because halloween has so many ancient roots and so many different

cultural traditions so um a lot's just been blended together over time and really the i don't i can't really trust every source because a lot of it is oh well you know it's said that this it's said that this and all we can really do is share the stories and good faith and um and roll with it so that being said great halloween is the night before All Saints Day, which is actually a Catholic holiday. And it's over a thousand years old and it honors the saints and the Virgin Mary, which I feel weird telling someone who went to Catholic school their whole life. No, listen, it's a pretty fair assumption that I've immediately forgotten everything that was taught to me. Well, to me, that was brand new information. I was like, get out of town. So for anyone else who somehow missed that mark, there you have it.

Fun fact, the date for All Saints Day has changed so many times over the centuries, but eventually they landed on November 1st because even like the pope was over it and was like this is the official day so uh he decided november 1st and the night before october 31st uh ended up becoming all saints eve or all hallowed eve because hallowed meant holy um that's where we got all hallows eve which i somehow missed every history and linguistics class of my life because i really thought all hallows eve hallow just didn't even think of the word holy i don't know what i thought but in my mind i felt like a hollow like sleepy hollow sure well that's fair but like think about like hallowed ground means like holy ground didn't

even click didn't not a little bit um so uh yeah so that's how october 31st came to be the day and that being said it's also thought halloween comes from uh the celtic fire festival sauen which we've discussed fire fest 2022 uh man sorry i really have to control my thoughts because i almost really went on a tangent about fire fest we've done enough of those about fire fest in our lives the silence you heard was my brain trying to go into manual and you were like pulling the emergency brake on the train and it just like the steel grinds against the rails. There's just sparks flying on the rails. Yeah. Okay.

So it's. I like that I'm the idiot who throws stuff at the path of your train. Just like, let's talk about this. And you're like, no. I'm sorry. It's like I'm Frogger trying to get across the street, but you're all of the 18 wheelers. I'm driving every car. Sorry. So, okay. cross the street but you're all of the 18 wheelers i'm driving every car sorry um so okay so halloween

is known to come from sound which is basically uh they think it originated from the phrase summer's end um because sound is considered the uh new year of the ancient times because it was the end of the fall harvest and it was basically the transition into the darker portion of the year the winter um and communities would have bonfires and livestock would be brought in for the winter and it was just a time for a lot of rituals uh all at the same time so it was a good celebration for the fall harvest. And on Samhain, it was also believed that ghosts and fairies allegedly had better access to our world than usual because that was when our worlds were, when the veil was the thinnest. for the transition into winter for themselves, kind of like how we were getting ready for, or like we were ready for our own transition into the rest of the year.

They would also be doing their own prep work. They're like hibernating. Yeah. And so one fairy in particular was, there's a shape-shifting fairy called Pooka and they're allegedly out after dark in the fields and collecting any leftover harvest. And some think that you should bless your barn with holy water to,

or some thought that you had to bless your barn with holy water to keep them out, or else they would shapeshift. And for their own preparation for the winter, they would shapeshift into an animal that would take the milk from your cows. So it would be like. Oh, no. Like a bunny or something. They would go and steal milk from your cows.

I don't know if bunnies can do that, but. I would imagine only a calf could do that. I imagine. Like, what about like the old. The old movies of like a cat drinking milk out of a cow's udder, you know? Is that a thing? Like, what about fox and the hound todd the fox loved milk from a wool cow okay but he could get it out himself i mean i imagine it's like any version of breastfeeding right you just kind of grab it the right way i don't know i don't know does a fox know how to okay let's not get into

this conversation i mean we could really get into rober Niro's, like, you can milk any animal. Or what was that? Yeah. But yeah, they would come in and milk your cows and whatever you say. So here, one story from the Irish Folklore Commission is that some thought it was bad luck to be up past midnight around this time because that's when the fairies would come out. You and I are screwed at that. That true exactly what i thought too i was like well then i tap out i was like okay then ireland's not where i'm supposed to be so take my cow and it's milk yeah just take the milk keep the cow um and on top of all this the traditions

of the time were um a lot spookier than they are now. So because they came from, I don't know, the rules were just different of the land back then. So one of the things that they would do for protection from these fairies or from the ghosts or anything that was coming through that usually didn't. And just to make sure that you were spiritually protected, people would slaughter a chicken or a lamb and put its blood in the corners of their home or on the fence posts of their land. Oh, my. And if you did this, it was, here's the weird part.

I don't understand this part. But if you did that to protect yourself spiritually you are also like almost locking yourself in and you couldn't operate any of the farm equipment while you were going through that ritual like day or night you couldn't use the machine so i feel like you almost trick yourself into like not being able to to farm that sounds like a treat to me to not have to do any operate any heavy machinery that's a trick or a treat i guess i uh but yeah i was like oh well at least you're protecting yourself but also now you can't farm so oh you mean like because

you can't leave your house or why i don't know it was just part of the thing it that it was bad luck to operate any kind of machinery i see okay okay so i feel like it was like oh maybe you're playing a game with yourself at this point of like you're i guess you're spiritually protected but now you can't actually work or provide on your home so yeah weird um speaking of productions uh salen was not just a just a time to celebrate, but it also was a time to be extra cautious of the spirits. Which, obviously, because the veil was the thinnest. So a lot of traditions for Samhain started as ways to protect people from just general spiritual mischief. And one of them was the jack-o'-lantern.

Okay. Mentioning your little moth earlier. Uh-huh'-lantern, a.k.a. mentioning your little moth earlier. Uh-huh. And my pumpkin spice latte. Yeah. Hey. Okay. So I'm glad that you came in spirit.

I came unintentionally so prepared. Yeah. In high spirits. So speaking of jack-o'-lanterns, I have told you this before because remember for a few years, whenever we did our Halloween episode, I would do like a little trivia game with you. Yes. Do you happen to remember what I told you? Absolutely not. Okay.

Just kidding. I might. I might. I might. What's the question? Is that jack-o'-lanterns weren't always pumpkins. Do you know what they originally started out as? Oh, yeah.

Turnips or something? Yeah. Is that right yeah yes so uh this is because so people used to actually like carve lanterns out of vegetables um just because it was cheaper than having to get real like glass lanterns and smart it was renewable because you could make a bong out of an apple yes so they would use apples for bongs and turnips for lanterns. That's not a bad idea. And so people would make these DIY lanterns anyway.

But then for Halloween, they would carve faces into them to scare away the wandering spirits. Oh, my. And so I'll get into why it was turnips in a second but before i do this was another trivia question i asked you forever ago but do you remember the original name of the jack-o'-lantern oh let's see if i told you in a multiple choice you would remember it i think get turned up get turned up no turn i'm i'm yes you're right spooky smiles i don't know oh that's nice but no what is the what is the answer um it was uh stingy jack okay i genuinely would not have remembered that oh okay no i have no memory of that whatsoever

so stingy jack was the original name of jack-o'-lanterns i love that though because and it was well the first time it was mentioned in writing was in 1836 but i think the story actually goes further back than that and i want you to really sit back and enjoy this tiny little story because it's a silly one. Allegedly, the devil came to collect the soul of a man named Stingy Jack. Oh, I do vaguely remember this already. So the devil was like, Stingy Jack, it's soul collecting time. You're not spending enough money on your Starbucks. Step it up.

time you're not spending enough money on your starbucks and jack it up jack asked the devil fine i will go with you but uh let's get drinks first and celebrate my life and the devil was like i cool cool cool why is it all so stupid in all these stories he's like oh okay i'll have a beer yeah see that's why if he's this stupid why is anyone scared of him you know i'm saying so uh jack is like fine i'll go down to hell with you but uh let's get some drinks and the devil's like that sounds like a great idea uh and at the end of the night uh i guess when they're both a little fucked up jack oh they had more than one drink huh yeah well it's the devil can you imagine him just taking a sip of something you're right no no no he's just like jaeger shots of jaeger something like ever clear yeah um so they're a little messed up and jack didn't have enough money to pay for the

drinks which apparently was like no shit it was apparently crisis number one that he couldn't afford his drinks. You'd think the devil would just have like conjured drinks, but I guess they went to a true bar and he couldn't pay the bill. And so he said something to the devil and was like, Hey devil, you know, it'd be real cool is if you could turn into a coin or something so I could use you for the bill and then we could both get out of here and then you can take my soul to hell oh my fucking god and so the devil was like that sounds

like a great idea i'm gonna shapeshift into a coin instead of just being like i'll take you to hell right now and we don't have to pay for these drinks because i'm the devil and i don't pay for my drinks but okay i guess i'll become currency real quick so all right he shapeshifts into a coin and in that moment jack grabs the coin and puts it in his pocket next to a silver cross and trapped the devil in coin as a coin. In his little pocket. In his little change purse, I guess. So I guess he could hear the devil going, let me out, let me out let me out and jack promised to release the devil if the devil would not come back for 10 years which like why wouldn't you make the deal like a thousand years

or something 50 at least the rest of your life yeah but apparently a decade was all jack needed to see the rest of the world so both of these two are just dummies they should just become buddies they should like they are and they're just not admitting it i think they're flirting they are there's something going on between them i know so jack promised to release the devil if he got 10 years uh before he had to go to hell so the devil agrees and leaves him alone for 10 years a decade later the devil comes back and jack says okay fine out like you got me you're like it's time for me to go. I think I need to have one last meal though. You should climb up the apple tree for me so I can eat an apple before I go.

Which is like, why is he going to, why is the devil going to do the physical labor of getting you a meal? Like why? Yeah. So, um, anyway, the devil's like, that sounds fair to me. um anyway the devil's like that sounds fair to me so i guess i'm gonna just go get go climb that with my bear hooves and go get you an apple um and also what a terrible last meal and i know i'd be like i don't even want the meal i don't want an apple are you kidding me take me back to that bar where we had ever clear yeah uh and jack saw that he climbed up the tree and while he was in the tree jack carved across

into the tree trapping the devil in the tree uh which is it's a it's wild how i thought the devil was like so powerful but like you carve something into a tree and he can't even leap out for himself i mean i feel like i'm just inviting some terrible shit, but like devil seems like a real moron in this story. Absolutely. And Zach Bagans right now, I'm like, you idiot. Come at me.

I'm really not trying to antagonize the devil. I'm just like stunned at how easy it was to trick him. Maybe as you say things, just kind of morph your voice into Zach. Just, just in case. I feel like I just need to do a side of the cross over and over. Just in case.

I don't know. Your Catholic school is showing. It is. It is. It happens sometimes. So the devil's stuck in the tree now and Jack makes the devil promise you will never return. I will let you out of the tree but you can never return or take me to hell. Feels like he could have just said that like from day one, but yeah, like he, it took him 10 years to come up with that idea for round two. Yeah.

So the devil's like, fine, I won't, I won't ever take your soul to hell, which like, okay. One, uh,

one day in the future, Jack dies. And now all of a sudden he has his face with the afterlife and he's denied heaven for his behavior, like antics with the devil. Fair enough. But then he walks to over to hell. faced with the afterlife and he's denied heaven for his behavior like antics with the devil fair enough but then he walks to over to hell um he's like i'm desperate and heaven won't take me can you please take me and the devil says that he promised to never take him to hell and you know

the devil always keeping his promises always keeping his word that guy and uh but he couldn't bring him to hell and so basically uh jack was stuck he couldn't go anywhere so he ended up in this purgatory basically oh my gosh begged the devil for mercy and so uh i guess in a fit of grace i don't know the devil uh threw him one little flame one little like ember um so that way he could at least always have light in his dark and jack decided to put the little flame into a turnip lantern that he's apparently carrying around in purgatory i don't understand who wrote this i feel like i feel like the drunk devil on everclear is trying to recap it um so he had he found a lantern it happened of all the vegetables to be made of a turnip and he was like oh i'll use that flame and at least have a lantern with me in eternity

and this is how he became jack of the lantern thus jack-o'-lantern aha okay i feel like somebody's dad somebody was like a little kid was like papa tell me a bedtime story and i was like well one time yeah i feel like sky i feel like it almost started out coherent and as the as he told the story he got sleepier and it just evolved into like chaos yeah he was like he was like turnip it was a turnip it was a turnip lantern yeah um so just to add to the turnip side to things eventually when irish immigrants came to the u.s where pumpkins were more native to the americas and better for carving and just more accessible um the irish who would use turnips most often as late as lanterns ended up changing it to pumpkins and i think uh some versions of the stingy jack story have also

turned over time where the lantern he had was also a pumpkin so um but anyway that's how we have a pumpkin instead of something else well i have a fun fact for you about um jack o'lanterns that i saw on Instagram the other day. And I think it was some meme account for millennials, like talk 30 to me or one of those. But basically they said there's a hack where you can carve the pumpkin from the bottom. And you pull all the insides out through the bottom because they're attached to the bottom. You pull all the insides out through the bottom because they're attached to the bottom. And then you can just put a candle or whatever, a light directly on the bottom and put it in there without having to drop it from the top.

And it keeps it from you can carry it by the stem and it keeps it from rotting so quickly. It was I think the world was changed we i think we all got like a version of that video and it at least i did and it also blew my stupid mind i was like i was like how have i how's nobody ever told me this i was like this is something that like it was a hack that almost died with our grandparents or something like how did we how who how it's one of those things like i feel like i always find out hacks or i'm like how am i how did i go through life for this long and not know something i can't believe it and and i was wrong about the account i don't know what account it was but i'm sure it was uh making the rounds on different but i mean pretty genius i would say it truly i it's just like how did i live 30 years

and not a single person felt the urge to tell me about this? It's honestly embarrassing. Yeah, for all of us. For all of us. Now our kids are all going to, like, just grow up knowing this hack because we all saw it on TikTok 30 years ago. You know? It's frustrating. So thank you for the PSA in case anyone's not on TikTok, by the way. I met someone who's our age and not on TikTok and I was flabbergasted. I was like-

I think there are a lot. Probably, but like, I don't surround myself with people like that at all. Oh, okay. I mean, I'm rarely on TikTok. I told you I found this on Instagram, so. Yeah. Well, too late.

I'll judge you separately. We own a business together. You can't leave me. I know, but I'm here to keep you young with the TikTok trends, but- i just told you the trend you told me the instagram real trend to be fair act like you told me this information you didn't even come prepared with this tip i came prepared with this tip well i uh i met someone who's i was like oh you know the tiktok trend and she was like no and i went what oh my god m i don't know what happened my brain was like oh you know the tiktok trend and she was like no and i went what oh my god m i don't know

what happened my brain was like wait a minute i can guarantee you like a large proportion of our listeners are not on tiktok i can guarantee you a large proportion of our listeners are on tiktok well yeah but like let's have them duke it out in a poll oh god okay uh and okay back to the pumpkin so the pumpkin uh story also became associated not just through the stingy jack story um but also because it got mentioned in sleepy hollow which is like one of the first popular horror stories in our in the country so the two things together had the pumpkin right because the thing the head the pumpkin head yeah which by the way was episode 188 if you want to go listen to the legend of sleepy hollow what's his name disembodied head guy it could oh the headless horseman headless horseman thank you um and uh yeah so those two things

combined are how pumpkins became the staple of halloween for us um actually uh there's one historian named cindy ott who says that the first known image of a pumpkin being like a jack-o'-lantern is 1867 and it was oh harper's weekly so oh that's a long time ago so fun fact if you were going to time travel to the 1870s you would still find pumpkins for halloween decor thank god i know uh actually it'd be more like the 1880s because that's when a lot of references start showing up of jack-o'-lanterns in like i i guess in like uh like marketing campaigns or posters or written in books but can i say something yeah kind of stupid but that my brain, you know, I can't, I'm so self-centered, I guess every time we say like the 1880s, I think about like how my

house was built in the 1880s. And it just makes me wonder like, what if there were, what if they decorated pumpkins here in the 1880s? With the very first jack-o'-lanterns. Yeah. And now I'm doing it like so many years later. I don't know. That would be very cool if the ghosts can still see what you're up to. they're like oh people still do this you know and they're like why are you

cutting it from the bottom what the hell is wrong with you that's actually a great point they probably there's probably so many life hacks in general that have just been lost to time and they just roll their eyes every time they're like it's amazing that they came up with this kind of technology but don't know how to carve a fucking pumpkin but don't know how to like she's drinking a pumpkin beverage coffee beverage out of a plastic container but she can't cut a fucking pumpkin open i guess once you have you've got other people to to make pumpkin spice lattes why would you ever me yep yep no that is very fascinating i i don't think about it in terms of my apartment but i think about that same thing in terms of like um i'm like i have a lot of

nostalgic like tchotchkes from like my family and so if it's been passed down to me i'm like wow this also existed at a time where like this was on the news and yes i always think that too i'm like where did they put it yeah house and stuff i love that or i'm like what what was the style back then what were they wearing when they were carrying this around things like that probably not the like giant onesie pajamas and fish flops you were wearing they're so embarrassed of like swover all culture you know overalls in like a tie-dye bathroom so the 1880s is the where we start seeing a lot of references for jack-o'-lanterns being used in halloween decor so all the way through your home's history jack-o'-lanterns have existed here uh and if

there were ever any irish immigrants that uh lived in your home it could have been turnips for all we know how fun maybe maybe throw a little turn up their way this year and see what happens that lived in your home. It could have been turnips for all we know. How fun. Maybe throw a little turnip their way this year and see what happens. Also keeping in spooky line, let's talk about some of the Halloween games that people used to play in Ireland. And a lot of them had to do with like predicting the future. So I think we should bring a lot of these back.

I love it. And they were like games kind of like bobbing for apples but uh there was one for turnips well this one is it's all food based isn't it so like this one's actually beans or nuts um and you would put two you would put two of them beside a fire and one would represent uh gross a boy and the other would represent a girl but you know let's if we were to change things up it would just be a person and another person uh-huh and if the beans or the nuts if they stayed next to each other all night by the fire they would one day get married but if one of them like ever rolled over at some point during the night and meant that they wouldn't be together what an interesting uh fortune telling experiment 10 year old me would have eaten that shit up though and i

would have stared at a bean by the fire all day eaten it up maybe if it was cooked after it's being by that fire toasted peanut yeah honestly though like can you imagine like what a smart way to just get your kids to sit fucking still like just stare at this one nut for hours and make sure it doesn't roll away watch this pinto bean yeah it tells the future there's another tradition where people would hide items in cakes kind of like king cakes today um but instead of it being a little baby it's a uh it's horseshoes or rings a big ass horseshoe that doesn't sound right to me but apparently they were maybe they had like little toy versions of horseshoes instead of like a big metal horseshoe the size of half a cake just crack your tooth right open let's pretend there's like a little horseshoe yeah thing like a little pony

size yes exactly um they also had rings uh that you could hide in cakes and if you found the ring in the cake it meant you were getting married soon so it's very like throwing the bouquet um or the horseshoe meant good luck um which i i like the concept but i've never understood how so many people got behind the let's hide tiny choking hazards in our food i don't either it makes me so like i just wouldn't 110 enjoy my eating experience and if there's even one percent of me that's afraid of breaking my tooth or like dying death yeah i think i'm not gonna enjoy this cake very much yeah i'm if there's like the one thing that keeps me from anxiety is food like

i don't want to exactly it's my one safe space okay so stop fucking with it well it gets even more fucked up i guess if you're a part of like the darker friend groups people would also hide a stick in the cake and it meant um it represented a coffin oh uh and then there was a p that would represent poverty so jesus but apparently it was bring down the fucking mood you're like oh cool i got the stick what does it mean again and they're like i mean you're gonna die soon sharon i like this i like to think it was like kind of their version of mash but also adding cake to the mix where it was like like no like it's like oh someone got the shack someone oh their job is gonna be you're gonna have 16 000 children exactly yeah like it was probably something like

that and it was just like oh someone got the coffin uh-oh it's a dark game i guess but i feel like they were going through some dark stuff so maybe it was like i guess they needed an outlet yeah another game actually was the origin to bobbing for apples, which is hanging an apple from a string and kids with their hands behind their back would try to bite the swinging apple, which I got to tell you sounds near fucking impossible. Yeah, but also sounds like safer and less terrifying than sticking your head in a bucket of water. That's true. You're not, you're not, you know, drowning. Yeah, at least there's oxygen to be had. But imagine being a parent of the time because apparently the in Scotland, it wasn't always an apple. Sometimes they would use a scone

covered in treacle syrup. Oh, it sounds delicious. But I can't imagine anything worse than throwing a party full of children and then having them rub basically maple syrup all over their faces. And then it's just sticky children all over my house. I can't imagine a worse time. You know they're going to be sticky no matter what you do. It's literally a swinging honey bun and you're having children throw their faces into it. All right.

That's fair. So anyway, that was the origin to it but there's also that there became a bobbing for apples version which was one of the like telling the future i remember this one it's like it's like oh if you think about your crush or something yeah or like you um i you name one of the apples after your crush or like you write the crush's name on an apple and then you have to go bobbing for that specific one. And if you're able to get it, then that means you'll be together, which like is so pre-pandemic culture. Like I can't imagine throwing my entire neck up into water and just go into town and then having someone else throw their face. Yeah. Yeah. So gross. Um, so anyway, that I'm glad that bobbing for apples has kind of turned

from like, don't get the specific apple, just get all apple and just call it a day. And by the way, if you don't know the trick to bobbing for apples, you really have to commit and just throw your whole face in and press the apple against the bottom of the barrel that's the way you win because you need to i'm not i'm just gonna go watch the pinto bean by the fire i don't think i care enough to put my face in a whole bucket of water like yeah it just seems like a recipe for disaster as i said this is no longer a a friendly uh health game healthy game i'm like oh but this is how you win in case you're still gonna do it while everyone's doing that i'm gonna go find the honey bun that someone tied to a piece of string and i'm gonna eat it and then pretend like i don't know where it went right okay so now

uh the classic classic classic trick-or-treating this has quite a backstory do you know about trick-or-treating's backstory wasn't it that where did i learn this was it from you i don't know wasn't it that you were supposed to go to your neighbor's homes shit okay you're onto it you're onto it i feel like either you taught me or i saw it on tv somewhere. I don't know. If I taught you, my brain has let it escape me. And I relearned it just for you. Okay. So trick-or-treating. One of the main traditions of the time back then was called souling.

Soul. Souling. And it was basically when. Did they need to sing a song or something? Mm-hmm. And you were dressed up and they had to guess who you were uh kind of okay sorry so no you're good so um it was when basically if you were a family or if you were on your own and you didn't have a lot of money um at the time uh there

was something called souling where people would go door to door on All Saints Eve and they would try to do something for the people of the home in exchange for like a meal or a snack or some like spare change. Like caroling sort of. Yeah so they would sing or they would dance or

they would maybe I think it originally started with like they would pray for the people who you've lost Do a stand-up comedy show but yes roast your past family members somebody's doing like a prayer session and i'm just like trying to do a roast it's that's not yeah it's not gonna work but i think it i think it originally started especially because like all saints even it happens to be like the you know when the veil was at its thinnest i think they would say like can i say a prayer for those that have passed that you loved in exchange for something on my end um and at the time in ireland uh their halloween was also called i think it's called almay's night almay's night um because it was a night where people would gather alms. Oh, okay. Or omelette night.

Omelette? Some versions of the writing were A-L-M, like alms, A-I-S, and others were A-M-L-A-I-S. So I don't know if it's omelette or alme night. I don't know. I don't know. But at the time, it was kind of a another version of soling where people would gather alms and during this a bunch of children and over time

i think it became more than just children they would dress up in masks and costumes to hide their identity so they were just a random person and they would go door to door and they would either sing or dance or perform in some way to get something from each house and so that could be food it could be money it could be just like a little snack um and in a 1930s report actually it said that om collectors uh one of the ways that they would perform is they broke the end off of glass bottles and use them as whistles. Oh, OK. Like that's innovative. Creative. Yeah.

And then for the masks that they wore, sometimes the kids would just paint their faces or wear weird clothing. But it was to always look as odd as possible, basically. They would even like just dress themselves in bags, like just whatever they could find. Because, I mean, there were no spirit halloweens back then so they were like i know so don't go back in time no thank you that's the one reason you should never time no it's too far that's the final straw so they would dress up on like potato sacks and be like oh this is so spooky um and the masks would uh were also said to be a way to hide from the ghosts and evil spirits. So you could almost blend in. You could blend in with the other spirits

so they wouldn't come get you. And in Scotland, this became a tradition called guising, which was short for disguise. And kids would go to houses and perform for treats. But geysers would dress up in scarier outfits and theirs was more with the intention of to protect them from the spirits in ireland it was

i think kind of just like a bonus so like oh also we happen to be you know but in scotland i think the intention was oh we're hiding from the spirits okay um there's an etymologist named barry popek who said that the terms all may's night souling and guising are all seen most in the 20th century and this is also where the phrase trick-or-treating comes out because or at least in 1923 there was one canadian newspaper that said halloween passed off very quietly here trick treats not tricks were the order of the evening so that's kind of a little nod to it showing up treats not tricks yeah and then in 1928 a paper in michigan uh the headline was trick or treats and then uh wrote this little passage that seemed silly the peaceful citizens lived in terror of the time each evening

when they should be summoned to their front doors to hear the fatal ultimatum, tricks or treats, uttered in a merciless tone by some small child who clutched in one grubby fist a small chunk of soap capable of eliminating the transparency from any number of windows oh so i guess in 1928 it was normal for kids to come up and instead of saying trick or treat and not do anything they would really say trick or treats like you better give me a treat or else i have a grubby handful of dial soap yeah and i'm gonna use it

on all your windows and ruin the the structural transparency of your window so it really means like if i don't get a treat i will do a trick yes that's so fun um so i guess it was like a way to hold people accountable like give maybe like originally like i'm doing this to gather alms so you better do it or else you're a bad person and deserve a trick i don't totally know where it seems like the spirituality had been already removed by the point that they were covering their windows with soap but i don't know well so by uh there's actually one paper uh in 1942 that called it a mild kind of blackmail of like that's yeah that's kind of where my brain

went yeah yeah um but so fun fact uh the phrase trick-or-treat is at least like 100 years old so cool uh and then it was like officially solidified in a 1950s peanuts comic when charlie brown said trick-or-treat or the character said it so um but as for the tricks um i know i'm i'm going over my usual time but for tricks uh let's talk about it tp'ing toilet papering have you ever tp'd somebody um no okay i'm sure you have yes so um but instead of toilet paper originally, do you know what people used? Hmm. Shaving cream? I have no idea.

No, it's much dumber. It's definitely like teenagers came up with it. It was cabbage. So in the 19th century Ireland oneen uh kids and thus teenagers would steal cabbage out of someone's cabbage patch they would go to a house of someone they didn't like and uh or like they even said in one newspaper someone was quoted saying we would find someone that was bad tempered which is like the one person you shouldn't be doing this to yeah they would knock on the door shouting halloween night and when the person would open the door they would literally just throw the entire fucking cabbage at them at the person

technically into their house but you know someone got clocked with a cabbage sure for sure for sure um sometimes it didn't have to be like waiting for them to open their door if you saw like an open window you were okay you would like basketball shoot it in i'm sorry i find that to be absolutely hysterical like i am that teenager for sure i'm like how funny though to put a cabbage through someone's window my my favorite thing is like i feel like um it just lets you know that we were not original with our thinking that using the word random all the time was like a new thing like so random clearly totally right clearly every generation at some point has appreciated the complete randomness of something like throwing a cabbage into your pure absurdity like i know what i'll do

i'll ding dong ditch but instead of run away i'll just hurl a cabbage at the person like i mean five pound cabbage at them and maybe hit them. How fucking hilarious is that? It's hilarious until I imagine now as an adult, like the windows open because it's such a nice night out. And I like, I'm doing something expensive with a lot of fragile items. And then the cabbage just comes hurling in and shatters everything. You're totally right.

I would be pissed off and it would probably break someone's window and it would probably knock my wine glass over and wake up my baby so what if you had a perfectly like a very clean windexed window and someone thought you had an open window shatters the window i only had the clean window because someone already soaped up the whole fucking window with a little bar of dial soap and i was like finally i got this thing clean and then a cabbage comes sailing through what if you were eating dinner at an open window and then the food comes like lands right in your food oh imagine if you were eating cabbage i was gonna say a soup though the irony although all those little finger prints just a small borscht um yeah i i can't imagine wanting to touch a cabbage after teenagers have

touched it and it's like fresh from a. And they run around with it and their little grubby fingers. Everything's so horrible. Maybe they use it as a bong since we know apples. I like how nowadays I'm like, wow, what a hilarious idea. But like in reality, you and I both know that we're like the old grumpy ones who are like, don't get away from my windows. I would just tell all my friends like, I got cabbaged. I got cabbaged i got cabbage sos

so apparently uh this practice of getting cabbaged uh came to the u.s with these irish immigrants and it got so bad eventually like became so popular in massachusetts specifically that halloween became cabbage night which is why now i know why. Because whenever I've taken those like dialect quizzes, it's like, what do you call the night before Halloween? And Cabbage Night is one of the options. Oh my God, you're totally right. And I was like, who the fuck calls it Cabbage Night? I think you and I even commented on that when we did it for Patreon, that dialect quiz. Yeah.

Meanwhile, like there's a bunch of grandparents in Massachusetts who are like, you have no idea the horrors I see on Cabbage Night. But yeah, so that's where Cabbage Night comes from wow and which like I I'm sad that that's a part of like someone's like really crucial history and it was like so bad that like it started getting its own nicknames and I've just never heard of it I'm like never heard of it and honestly if you had said guess why it's called that I would have come up with probably 10 different reasons that were not oh it's teenagers threw it through your windows like i would never have guessed that well in the 1960s toilet paper became a much cheaper alternative and thus tp'ing began yeah you don't need to go to a field to get that no you can just go to your local yeah uh so uh the last thing i'm going to talk about is just how bad a lot of this

mischief got and the 1900s halloween tomfoolery was rough it was getting really out of hand i mean like i can't really blame anyone i can i could see myself as a teenager like oh there are no rules on on the night before halloween and it just very quickly became like a lord of the flies situation right you give that freedom to a bunch of teenagers and like you didn't even drink in high school i didn't either but like imagining like the kids i knew who did drink and then them getting it in their head that they can just like wreak havoc. Recipe for disaster for sure. So the lighter situations were getting soaped, which was literally taking soap and just writing notes on people's windows,

which like very annoying, but yeah. Annoying, but at least like you can clean it off. Yes. Maybe the note is nice. Yeah. I'm sure the note is very kind. You are so beautiful. Actually, it's certainly not a daily affirmation while I think about it.

It's just an affirmation on each window. But you know what? In terms of acts of random kindness, we should bring back soaping and just make them affirmations in people's windows. Just don't because it's such a pain in the ass to clean a window. Well, I'm also thinking of how creepy it'd actually be if I woke up one day and someone had written on my window you are so beautiful can you imagine it says smile and then you realize it's like from the outside in and you're like what the fuck you should smile more oh my god you're right i love watching you yeah no thank you um so okay so let's leave soaping in the past so um but soaping was one of the things

also people would tie doorknobs shut so you'd get like stuck from the inside okay well that's dangerous yeah i'm so old i'm like what's a fire hazard also they would rattle people's windows which like all i can think of is it sounds like a fucking break-in. Yes, or like an earthquake. But it was to sound like ghosts, apparently. Well, yeah. Okay. Okay. Then it got real bad because now buildings are being completely fucking vandalized. Uh-oh.

There were churches that they would literally cover them in molasses. they would literally like cover them in molasses no wonder that no wonder the christian you know in the traditional whatever sense started being like so anti-halloween i like always wondered where that came from and now i'm like maybe they were just like please stop making our beautiful stained glass windows so sticky they should have just gotten in the spirit and hung themselves on a string for people to try to chew like just like a big sticky sweet little church molasses oh there's also uh here's a weird one there was a prank going around where they would just straight up paint homes completely black like in the middle of the night instead of getting tp'd someone you would wake up the next day and your house was black now that is an expensive nightmare that's laborious it's a laborious and it's probably so messy and it would be such a pain in the ass to cover up yeah you i mean you

literally have to pay painters to come completely redo your home and what if it's brick yeah yeah and if it's black paint like you're gonna have to do layer upon layer upon layer to cover that up that's that's uh that's a several month long correction that's so expensive see i'm old now i don't find any of this funny i'm just like mad on their behalf i wonder if there's a house out there that like uh is like not it doesn't look like exposed brick because it's been painted and i'm like oh what an interesting color choice and someone has to be like i got painted by halloween kids all those years ago and that's why their turnip lanterns but i have to

imagine that when they painted them in the dark it was like a big sloppy mess like i don't imagine that they like painted it very carefully in between the lines and stuff that's true it was just like they would just like maybe throw a can of paint at your house yeah that makes so much more sense for me i was thinking it was like a full-blown contracting company that honestly would be way too much work for your outcome totally right okay they were just throwing buckets of paint i don't know what that's how i know i'm old because i'm thinking of things in like full like full strategy plans of like you're like how many ladders and how did they paint safety harnesses would you need how did they tape all the edges so well before they started painting there was also arson and then oh jesus people were setting off pipe bombs and then oh my god, and then I'm thinking they're tying the fucking doorknobs shut and then starting a fire.

Like this, I told you it's a fire hazard. Also, like is molasses flammable? Like imagine if you. I don't know. Like what if you poured that all over a church and now you're just going to like set a pipe on nearby. What if like one group poured molasses or something all over it and then the next group didn't know you did that and paint's fucking flammable paint is flammable that's such a good point that like another little group could come by later combo oh yeah and then and then lock their doors oh god

yeah what if we tied the doorknobs closed thinking it was funny and then someone else set a fire or something i wonder if there was one house in town that everyone attacked more than everyone else. There probably had to be the bad natured or the ill-tempered one. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was also throwing flour at people, which is like actually like much worse than it seems because like it's getting in your eyes. If there's any choke on that, if there's any any liquid nearby it's turning into like a sludge and so there was actually um one halloween incident where 200 boys were flowered all at the same time which like oh my god how much flour

boy think like whose dad's credit card paid for that much flour and then had to find out later that their kid was probably the dad who owned the bakery and was like where did all my fucking flour delivery go now that's a small town crisis right there yes the baker is running out of bread the next morning oh so the mischief got so bad that people were like we need to create fucking mischief laws about halloween like this is getting out of control and uh like i mean in some areas kids were getting fucking shot at by like property owners because sure defending their houses yeah um and do you want to take a guess at uh well let me say this

line first and have you guess why uh halloween pranks started officially being criminalized because of this and uh do you want to know how they were able to make it official that mischief was going to be criminalized do you know what event happened that caused this the boston tea party and all their mischief i have no idea it was world war ii oh because now this mischief wasn't just mischief but it was considered treason and sabotage because they were using up resources that needed during the war effort those those soldiers need flour they need flour they need soap they need molasses they need molasses those are the top three that's what i always heard uh and so it became like an actual crisis plus a lot

of those kids ended up going to war yes i was about to say something similar which is like also uh you know the men of the house are off would be gone and so i imagine like there's like single moms at home and now you imagine like there's like single moms at home and now you're like dumping paint on their house i mean you know that's just like extra bad there's only one parent home probably raising kids and i feel like yeah you just live with a paint bucket shape of black paint on your house because like you're already trying to make everything else work the last thing you have time for is cleaning up your house. Yeah. So after the war, Halloween pranks and traditions drastically died down,

probably because all of those kids became adults and they went, we are not teaching our children that bullshit. They probably, like you said, all went to war. And then we're like, well, now we're traumatized and don't want to pour flour on people anymore. Exactly. and don't want to pour flour on people anymore. Exactly.

And then in the 1950s, U.S. trick-or-treating boomed again, but not with the mischief. Because again, they probably weren't gonna, they all probably made a deal on the battlefield that if we get home, we are not teaching our children about the Halloween mischief. And so adults rebranded Halloween because now they're having baby boomers they're having all

these kids i see and uh with that many kids can you imagine what the halloween mischief would have looked like oh yeah so you're totally right they were like we need to stop this with our generation but like but i don't enjoy that they got to do it to people but people didn't do it to them i i feel like they should have like something as small as like getting flowered i feel like you just you're asking to be flowered as an adult that's true but it's like hazing or so you know that's true it's like i did this you blah blah but that's true i think in terms of a bag of flour being thrown you i think i'm uh i think i'm i'm gonna stick with my ways for that one i feel like vandalism no i don't i don't hope that for anyone how quickly it devolves i know you're right you're right you're right yeah i

don't know i don't know if i trust anyone with a bag of flour not anymore not after learning about this uh so after the war they came back they started having kids and they rebranded halloween as like just stay in your neighborhood like don't don't run around town. Don't set places on fire. Don't. Oh, man. Just stay nearby. We'll have like local Halloween events. You can go trick or treating in your area.

And it was just kind of their intention of like, if we keep kids nearby and we have them go trick-or-treating and we give them candy next to their house they won't run off and cause mischief um so that was kind of where trick-or-treating came from it was almost like i mean it was a literal rebranding from people in the 40s who were like we're not gonna let this repeat itself because we don't want to deal with it um and so yeah that's where it came from so uh there are still some pretty strict halloween laws in some areas i can attest to uh in chesapeake virginia it's illegal to trick-or-treat if you're older than 14 oh really it's a class 4 misdemeanor oh my god i used to trick-or-treat older than 14 i mean too but there was virginia is crazy especially

in that area like in virginia beach it's literally illegal to swear so yeah they all the signs everywhere in public it literally has like like symbols that imply swearing but with a big red circle and a line through it oh come on so in virginia beach as a kid it was like you were so bad if you stood next to one of those signs and said shit like it was like oh i broke the law nowadays you can make like fun tiktoks like i know tiktokers in the law of virginia beach are you there uh go for it we've given you permission, apparently. So... Tell them we sent you. There are other laws that say, like,

you can't trick-or-treat based on however old you are. Some places, it's you can't do it after 12 years old. Some places say that if you have an adult or sibling chaperoning you, they can't also be dressed up because they're, like, participating in it. Oh, my gosh. And then, like, just so we're're clear there are critics to all these laws saying that it is not taking into consideration um disabled children exactly uh children who uh like didn't get to grow up with

trick-or-treating and now want to but they like have now been robbed of that also the big one is children of color who are always told that they look older than they are so all of a sudden they're gonna outlaw it you're completely right and the other thing is which i always wonder is like wouldn't you rather have kids walking around and like doing and trick-or-treating with the other kids and like giving them the night off to go find some other shenanigans you know what i mean like it's harmless fun you know i mean it's not like they're caught whatever whatever it's harmless fun i guess until they find one cabbage and then all of a sudden one cabbage and all history repeats itself uh but it does give us um you know the same traditions uh that we do now or things that

kids did back in the day like human corn mazes and hay rides and things like that um which are still nods to well i was because farmers were harvesting their corn and finishing up their fields and everything but it goes all the way back to the beginnings of it being like a sacred harvest celebration so some of cool some of the traditions are still there because of the ancient roots and some of them are because of getting cabbaged. So and that's Halloween traditions. I love that. And I mean, as we record this, we're still a week away from Halloween.

So for us, it feels very timely. But I hope yes, I feel like we're finally fulfilling our promise that it's always spooky season for us. And we always say that. But now we're really committing to it. I feel like it. We're still continuing Halloween celebrations. For Halloween, we'll have to start pulling little pranks on each other. But maybe not as scary as the other ones that I've been listing.

Yeah, maybe not causing property damage. Because I don't have the money for that i've yeah maybe not like causing property damage because i don't got i i don't have the money for that i will instacart a cabbage to you though for halloween okay and then i'll make a nice borscht okay we'll all be happy see okay that's the adult way to do the prank is like it's gonna be so random to their groceries but you didn't see it coming that's what makes it so funny that's hilarious i love a good harm like a truly harmless prank just a little uh a cabbage doing like the chef boyardee roll from the grocery store to your house from burbank yeah it's gonna be real gnarly by the time it gets here

just rip off the first couple layers you'll be fine okay well emothy yeah i have a good one for you today i think you're gonna like this story is it something i is there an answer at the end there's an answer at the end okay okay okay okay i know i know i feel like i put you through a lot of um uh what's the word strife strife i put you through a lot of strife dismay dismay we could probably thesaurus that and find all sorts of words that i put you through this is the story of susan kuhnhausen now susan was born in 1955 she was very outgoing very extroverted and spent a lot of times with friends. She was a very type A, just loved being out and about, had a big friend group, loved dinner, going to dinner, movies, traveling.

And she worked as a registered nurse in Portland, Oregon. And she was known to go to, for example, the local comedy club. And she always sat in the front row and had such a recognizable laugh that like people would love when she would come to the comedy shows and just sit right up front and like just a very big like personality you know what i mean she sounds like jovial jovial like so fun and so many friends um the sort of person everyone wanted to be around, but had never gotten married. Now you think, so what? Okay.

But, you know, back then, I mean, still now there's that pressure of like getting into a relationship, that kind of thing. Even when people aren't necessarily interested. And her mom and friends decided, you know what? She's been single for so long. She doesn't put herself out there. She could be in such a happy relationship. friends decided you know what she's been single for so long she doesn't put herself out there she could uh be in such a happy relationship and i mean you know from a third party's perspective

seemed like she was having a great time without a partner but whatever okay her parents and friends were like we want to get her hitched we want to get her into a happy relationship she's been single for far too long problematic but i'm okay with it for the story i guess problematic problematic uh you're gonna have to be okay with it because yeah that's why that's why i'm okay with it i'm like well things don't change so let's just roll and roll it is what it is that's what happened um so susan for what it's worth felt like she had never seen examples of happy successful marriages growing up so as an adult she was like i don't know about this like you know in my family and my friend group like i just i it's not something i've seen

and said i want that for myself she said it just didn't seem like something not the vibe it's not the vibe for me today said susan she she uh she said at one point my parents loved me but they couldn't teach me how to have a successful marriage any more than they could teach me how to fly oh damn okay btw susan had a fucking way with words which i just love a way with words and also like very clear boundaries everyone was invading that's you know i think that's probably why it rubs me so ardently the wrong way. It's like, she was very happy and clear with like what she wanted. And then her friends and family were like,

nah, you're too good for like, you need a partner. You're too good for yourself. You're too good for yourself. You need to share that with someone else. Yeah. It really irks me.

Yeah. She's very much setting her own intentions and everyone's going, um, I have better intentions for you don't worry she's like i have better intentions it's like she made herself a fucking uh uh what do you call those a vision board and then her family was like i love this for you ripped it right right the fuck up right i love this little school project you did that fun we never have to think about again this diorama of you sitting alone with your friends at the comedy club with no holding nobody's hand yeah it's not gonna work for me exactly so her mom and her friends were like we want you to experience romance this was obviously pre-tinder so they couldn't just make her a tinder

profile so instead they decided to post an ad in the newspaper in the classifieds so in 1988 when susan was a spinstery 33 so old 33 i mean are you kidding me it's just like so cringe oh my god no no no wow i'm so glad you made it by the way at 31 honestly barely barely the cutoff was coming my honestly if my mom could put out a classified uh i think every day until i was a spin story 33 she would demand results like apparently this person got yes i feel like this is very your mom move for sure definitely if i weren't with allison it would be all hell broke loose every newspaper in fredericksburg would have i wouldn't even know i'd find out the hard way people would just start calling me and be like i saw your ad and i'm like call your landline you

can't even like put your phone on silent oh my god just what a nightmare so anyway she's a lowly 33 years old it's 1988 and her mom put an ad in the Willamette week paper pretending to be Susan big red flag big red flag uh the title here's here's what she read I'm gonna read the uh classified ad for you here oh god the title is someone different okay someone who doesn't actually want you but we're writing about this anyway swf single white female oh 33 overweight but not over life don't get it twisted. By the way, that's the most mom thing I could have ever heard in my life.

I know. It's so cringe. It's like, mom, you're so embarrassing. God. Like the phrases they come up with. Oh, my God. Okay. So please say it again.

Over. By the way, mom, when you listen to this episode, please do not put that into part of your vernacular. Please do not say that. It is truly a humiliating phrase. So cringe. Okay. Single white female, 33, overweight but not over life, seeks SM, single male, who wants more out of a relationship than just slender.

Active healthcare professional, enjoys exploring NW nw exploring nw i'm assuming that northwest yeah because they're in portland okay oh okay okay okay okay interested in conversation good times with someone who is intelligent thoughtful and full of humor must be emotionally fiscally mature if you are seeking a bright funny lady who is adventurous enough to advertise then please reply okay i feel like i feel like whoever put that ad together thought i did a really good job coming across as like flirty and thriving like yes oh for sure i've got pizzazz this one sounds like she goes to the comedy club and sits front row. So I guess her mom did like capture her essence in a way. Sure.

Sure. For what it's worth. For what it's worth. F-W-I-W. So pretty soon after that, a reply came in, lo and behold. And it said, my name is Mike. I am a 39 year old DWM. Do you know what that is dwm i'm a 33 year old dw 39

year old 30 doesn't really matter 39 year old dwm something something man as a man yes dw but i don't know what divorced white male oh okay i was really i was really my head was a completely different planet i was like we're not gonna get there i was going with like like today's acronyms of like like after a.i.m everything is like you're like down with yes that's what i was thinking. Men. Men. Well. Okay. Barking up the wrong tree. Okay. I'm a 39-year-old divorced white male. I enjoy most things in nature from wandering in the ape caves at Mount St. Helens to walking on the beach at sunset.

Red flag. Red flag. If you're not saying that ironically, you know. I feel like. Walking on the beach at sunset. What time period was this? You're right. It's the 80s.

I guess back then that was a new concept. Or maybe because I feel like it became a catchphrase in the 80s of like. Yeah, you're right. So maybe he thought maybe at the time it was trending and therefore wasn't cringe yet. You know, I guess you're probably right. You're probably right. Because it worked. OK.

Susan called Mike and said, and for what it's worth FWIW again um Susan like knew this was happening it wasn't like like what the fuck did you do mom it was like oh this letter came in and Susan was like oh I'm gonna call this Mike guy he seems nice oh okay I'm glad you um let me know that because so as much as they absolutely violated her boundaries because she didn't necessarily want to be in a relationship once they told her they were doing this and she kind of was like okay yeah she was like I'll try it she was down okay cool yeah yeah I'm glad you said something d w m down with mom's shenanigans. Down with the mischief. Down with the mischief.

Down with C.N. Cabbage Night. So anyway, she's like, you know what? This mic sounds interesting. So she gave him a call. And it was January 30th, 1988. And she drew the first day. This is is very cute the first day they talked on the phone she drew a little smiley face on her kitten themed planner on that day precious i know i was like that sounds like me and you know seven your kitten themed planner currently

i still have a cat planner anyway that's besides the point um but now i just draw smiley faces like um it's not like a romantic thing i just i'm like today's starbucks day smiley yes all night psl for me i'm gonna treat myself oh this is getting embarrassing okay so mike kuhnhausen is his name he was a janitorial supervisor a vietnam veteran and a father of two young children from his previous marriage on the phone susan thought he was a janitorial supervisor, a Vietnam veteran, and a father of two young children from his previous marriage. On the phone, Susan thought he was a very pleasant sounding man. And she was very pleased about this. Susan's brother was excited and met him and said, oh, he was very nice to Susan.

They made a great pair. And so everyone was really happy. It seemed like mom's shenanigans worked. Mom's mischief. Double M. Nice. was really happy it seemed like mom's shenanigans worked mom's mischief double m nice so after spending nearly a hundred hours on the phone getting to know each other they finally met up in person in february by the way she called him the first time in on january 30th so between january 30th and some date in february they talked a hundred hours on the phone wow that's a lot

sounds like they really liked each other then they they linked up and like hit it off immediately wow okay so they finally met up in person in february and they were married uh later that year december 10th of 1988 oh she was dwm down with mike down with mike you're right she totally was so at this point susan had changed her mind about marriage she was officially dwm and down with marriage this is probably getting so annoying i'm sorry and she recalled thinking we're a couple of old hearts we can make a life together isn't that the nicest thing you've ever heard we're a couple of old hearts we can make a life together isn't that the nicest thing you've ever heard we're a couple of old hearts i'm like all of a sudden so mad at allison for never saying that to me i know and honestly i'm like i just love that she has a kitten planner and then she's

like i'm an old heart i'm like no you're a youthful fun spirit who sits in the front row at a comedy club yeah i'm an old heart who complains about like cabbages ruining my window fixtures anyway yeah okay well we complained about like just it being monday like we just found a way to have a problem we're just like whining about everything we're not dwm down with mondays that's for sure i'm owm out with mondays okay mondays are out uh cabbage night's in okay tell you pass it on i'll i'll alert the media you'll alert alert the local fredericks put a classified ad out okay so so one night mike said something odd ding ding dong dong, dong, dong. He said, yeah, I was going to say red flag immediately. Marriage changes people. This is what he says.

Who do you think is going to change more? You or me? Oh, Susan felt, oh, well, we'll change each other a little bit, but for the better, which is such an optimistic, wonderful way to look at things. And they had a great life together. She loved mike's children as her own children she was very happy and optimistic about the future um but shortly after this weird sentence of like who's gonna change more you or me things started to get kind

of rocky um shortly into their marriage mike uh i guess answered his own question and began to change i was gonna say i feel like if you're already asking that question. Yeah. I feel like if you say it in that sinister way you know the answer. Yeah you have something in mind. Right. Yeah. So Mike started to change. He stopped going out with Susan and he was a more introverted person but he had been like really on board with her extroversion and her friends and her activities. But pretty soon he decided to start staying home instead of going out with her he stopped hiking with her i assume he's have to assume he stopped walking on the beach at sunset with her i wonder if he ever walked a beach you know you know what that's a great question i never got confirmation of that but susan didn't mind um she pretty much

adjusted she said if her husband was a homebody, she was happy to spend time with him at home and they could have their at-home dinner dates, etc. And then she would cook for him and make things work for his comfort at home. And then she was able to go out when she was feeling adventurous and like she wanted to be with her friends. And unfortunately, Mike didn't like that. his mood started to turn pretty dark he seemed pessimistic depressed unsatisfied dissatisfied with life um he was just really unhappy when she would go out with friends and Susan felt that to him there was no joy in life he started just being inside all the time he never wanted to leave the house nothing ever seemed to

satisfy him no matter how hard she tried to make his life at home comfortable and happy and not pressure him he just seemed extremely unhappy so when Susan would go out with friends he would get irritated he would rant about the way she would spend money on dinner and travel but I know extra ew because not only had they never had any financial problems but susan made a substantial amount more than mike did so it was like oh well i guarantee i guarantee that was a red flag for him yeah it was sort of like came out of nowhere she was like i work really hard for my money and i want and we by the way they had no financial problems well also she said in her mom said in the ad like someone who's

fiscally fiscally responsible it's like okay well so like you've your money's already like it's not like you're in debt and worried and i'm covering all the bills or something like right you're you're good to go it's my money his own job she had her own job and it's like yeah and also she's known to like be adventurous and want to go do things like you have to fiscally plan for that if you're gonna marry this woman who like wants to go out and do things and spend her money like don't be surprised when she goes out and spends her money yeah and has fun and has fun and on top of that too like it's not like they had any financial problems so it's not like oh you need to cut back because we're late on our rent or something more important it was just like a basically just a

classic abusive controlling move like just the ultimate red flag um so anyway she was like very kind of put off obviously by this because she made her own money spent it how she wanted always had um and so was just like kind of taken aback but unfortunately mike just kept getting more and more controlling uh susan's friends recalled that whenever they talked to susan on the phone uh mike would just sit in the background listening to the conversation and complaining which must be the most irritating thing truly when you call your friend you're like can you please tell him to shut up he's just complaining about you being on the phone in the background the whole time um and so to to kind of make up for that susan would just cut her conversation short with friends which again this is like isolating behavior yeah like cutting

her off from her friends and so as the years went by she could not understand what was going wrong she and mike had lived like very comfortable lives she loved his children they spent a lot of time doing family things even mike's parents came around often they had the money and freedom to do what they wanted but mike just stayed inside and became more and more unhappy as time went on. And I will mention this. I was going to mention this a little later on, but some people suspected that Mike was suffering from PTSD after the Vietnam War. Oh, okay. Which a lot of people, you know, did after fighting in that war specifically during that time period. And Susan's brother

had actually talked to the VA about Mike's behavior. And Mike had told Susan he saw combat when he was in Vietnam. And so there are definitely some elements there where people were wondering, you know, if maybe that came into play as far as like his depression and his desire to not leave the house, that kind of thing. Yeah. So just a side note. But in 2002, after 13 years of what Susan felt like was a pretty good, solid, happy marriage, Mike told her he had never been happy in his life and wasn't sure he even knew what happiness was. Wow. And so Susan saw Mike's struggle this whole time. He was a chain smoker. At this point, he was absolutely

addicted to caffeine, specifically Diet Coke. Like he would just sit at home all day smoking and drinking pop and he couldn't he couldn't like pull himself out of that kind of hole. You know, it's sort of like a depressive sounds there's definitely something going on yes for sure for sure and eventually it got to a point where like nothing basically nothing Susan tried could get him out of his his funk his depression and she was desperate for change so she asked Mike to go to therapy with her and he refused um he said therapy was the final straw that destroyed his last marriage. But Susan basically, once again, setting boundaries, gave him an ultimatum and said, listen, we're either getting divorced or you're coming to counseling with me because like I've done everything I can. Right.

And so he agreed to go to couple therapy. But after a little while, there was no improvement. Susan was heartbroken. She said, I didn't want to fail at marriage and she didn't want Mike to fail at his second marriage well especially like someone who already was such like of little faith in marriage to begin with it's like oh I really want to prove to myself she finally believed that she could make it work yeah exactly and had seen so many others quote-unquote I don't want to say fail at

marriage, but you know what I mean? Like so many other marriages not work out. And so I think she was like, man, like this exact thing I was hoping wouldn't happen is now happening. And she, you know, had fought so hard at this point, by the way, they're in 17 years into their marriage. So they had, she had really fought hard to save their relationship, but she felt like she was the only one fighting for their relationship. So she finally gave up. She threw in the towel after 17 years of marriage. She said, I cared about him, but I didn't want to live with him anymore. I wanted to be happy again. And I say, you know what? Fair enough for you. There's only so much you can do, you know? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So in September of 2005, she asked mike to move out and

they did sort of a trial separation pending a divorce and mike moved in with his father he was still welcome at susan's home um and they actually did like keep the family together so to speak so uh she was still close with his kids and they spent time together and uh he would come over basically she wanted things to feel normal quote-unquote for the kids like she wanted them to still spend time together as a family and you know wanted yeah it was really really nice and he would come over and they would girl out or what have you um and so he did have like free reign to come over. But she always told him, you know, please only come over when I'm at home. Just for like, you know, again, pretty solid, pretty understandable boundary. Like don't come into my house when I'm not there.

I feel like so far the moral is this poor woman has never had a single boundary respected. Respected. I mean, seriously. You're 100% right. It like all started the first domino. It was like, oh, we'll just push you into a relationship and see what happens so after she told Mike you know please just only come over you're like you're welcome to come over but just make sure it's when I'm at home um something started to feel off and Susan began to suspect that mike was coming into her house while she was at work

and this is one of those things that gives me the heebie-jeebies like i get immediately yeah like goose cam just thinking of like coming home after work and being like somebody's been in here like yeah i can't imagine so violating so violating and also always wondering then like does that mean like something that someone's still here yeah that's that's true too then you're like knock on wood or something i'm like so scared that i'm gonna like oh like walk into my house and have an experience i i think violating is really the best word for it because it's like even if he's not like actively harming her in this moment like it's just a very she's it's it's the mental torture. The fear. It's violating a boundary. It's also like illegal.

It's also anyway, it's just all bad. So she started to suspect he was in her house while she was at work. So she was like, hey, I just want to be very clear here. I don't want you here when I'm not home. And one day she got home and replaced a damaged deadbolt on her front door. And when she did that, Mike made a big deal about her changing the locks. And she was like, well, why do you care if I change the locks if you're only coming over when I'm home to let you in?

So she was like, this is getting a little bit... Something funky is going on. Someone's already complaining that I say red flag too much, but I don't know how else to put it it's just like something something funky is going on how about i say that instead the gig is up the gig is up okay everybody step aside they've got a beef with each other okay so susan was starting to get like a little nervous about this but she suspected mike was just sneaking in to maybe like check her i say just just sneaking in to check on her finances and see like what she was up to now that they were separated and maybe he just couldn't handle like not knowing about what she was up to i guess i do think if you're involved with a control freak like that for so

long you you forget yourself what a normal boundary is no you're totally right if she's thinking like oh well he probably was just freaking out that he doesn't know anything about the finances like anyone else would be like that's not okay yeah maybe for her she's like that's so small compared to the other things he was controlling. Totally. Totally. And maybe she's like, oh, well, it's never become like a problem before. He just wants to know for the sake of knowing. And that's a small price to pay. You know, who knows how it was justified. But you're right.

After 17 years of that, it probably didn't seem like that shocking, you know. And she that's what she thought. She was like, I suspect he's just coming in to like check in and see what's going on um and she knew it felt wrong but she pushed her worry aside and she even left her alarm code the same as it always been in case he needed to come over uh which was 12 10 the day of their anniversary oh um even though she knew that it meant mike could come and go as he pleased. So in 2006, which was six months after their initial separation,

Susan separated their bank accounts and other finances to move forward with a divorce. And her friends noticed she was much happier since Mike had left. And Susan was once again hopeful about her future she was only 51 at this point and she said i knew i had been happy i believed i could be happy again and she hoped that mike could also find happiness in his own way even if it wasn't with her really lovely because i feel like she could have easily twisted it into uh i knew better all along that marriage was never for me but she's now saying like i want a round two eventually so yeah and she's saying you know we had our good moments and i still wanted to be happy which is really lovely and so you know her friends are seeing okay she's uh

she's just in a much better place we're so relieved that weird man's not complaining in the background every time we call her thank god yeah um and even though she wanted mike to find happiness he simply would not uh he was just getting worse and worse becoming more and more depressed especially as the divorce proceedings went forward on september 6 2006 51 year oldold Susan was getting ready to go out of town for a nursing convention. And a neighbor said Susan had asked Mike to watch her cats, but he made an excuse and said he wasn't coming over to do that for her. So Susan called Mike at 3 p.m. that day to check in with him. And she remembers he sounded surprised to hear from her. And he told her he was going to be at the beach but he left a note for her at her

house and she was like okay so she got home around 6 30 and there was a note from mike um there's a couple different quote uh sources online that kind of changed the verbiage a little bit but essentially what the note said was that mike was stressed out and he couldn't go on the way things were. He was going to go to the beach to get away for a bit. All right. So that's what the note said. The alarm was still armed when Susan got inside. Nothing seemed amiss. She went upstairs and made her way down the hall

toward her bedroom, but she kind of had another one of those, which I know I mentioned this book quite a bit, but The Gift of Fear, where sometimes your instinct knows something is wrong, another one of those which i know i mentioned this book quite a bit but um the gift of fear where where sometimes your instinct knows something is wrong even if your conscious brain is like no no nothing seems off but if yeah even slightly part of you basically in this scenario what felt off is that it was too dark in her house and she knows that she always opens the curtains in the morning and she's walking towards her bedroom and she's thinking why is it so dark in there um something is off and it seems like a

small thing but like subconsciously she knew something wasn't right right so she's walking toward her bedroom it's too dark in there even though it's still light outside and she pressed the feeling down which is kind of what that whole book tells you not to do or tries to teach you not to do even though it's human nature to talk yourself out of your instinctual feelings yeah all the time so she pushes the feeling away she's like maybe i just forgot to open the blinds this morning um and suddenly as she walks toward her bedroom a man charges out of the darkness toward her oh fuck he is wearing yellow gloves he is holding a hammer and he looks absolutely menacing almost excited like worked up and excited and she does not know who this man is he swings the hammer at susan hits her in the head and face with the hammer susan

just kick-ass susan draws upon her self-defense training from what she had taken at work at her nursing job she got her hands around the attacker's neck and she told him you are not going to kill me in my own home oh and she began to squeeze his neck until his face turned purple. Good. But she started to get, she just could not bring herself. Basically, once she got to a point where his face was turning purple, she let go. She didn't want to murder this person. And one investigator even later said, she's used to helping people.

This was the complete opposite to what her whole purpose in life is so she's an emergency room nurse like she's not supposed to be strangling someone to death you know even in self-defense so she lets go and expect him to kind of fall over back down but instead he punches her in the face so he is not giving up this fight easily she went down when she got punched in the face, but she took him with her. Oh, okay. Grabbed him and dragged him down with her to the floor. And that's where she began to wrestle with him. Okay.

Susan recalls realizing he was not going to give up the weapon. And then it came to me and I became the weapon. Oh my God. Oh my God. That's a one-liner i can rock that's yes wow wow wow so she bit him everywhere she could while they struggled she thought that at least police could link her death to him with dental records if she didn't survive which like to be thinking that in that moment is so scary and so like your brain even thinks like okay well i'll bite him so that they know who did this you know um at this point the fight had been going on for 14 minutes she's like fighting for her life in her hallway susan at one point finally got her leg on top of him and wrapped an arm around his

neck strangling him uh and susan yelled tell me who sent you here and i will call you a fucking ambulance oh wow that is so amazing wow what a fucking hero so she tried to let go to give him a chance to speak but instead he went to attack her again like he is just not giving up on this and susan suddenly realized like i cannot let this person go i have to i have to squeeze his neck until he stops moving or else he's going to kill me yeah so she squeezed his neck until he stopped moving she grabbed the hammer ran to her neighbor's house had them call 9-1-1 and then first responders were able to transport susan to the hospital by the way the hospital where she

worked as an er nurse imagine that um and she was treated there for multiple injuries including blunt force trauma bruises and bite wounds so she had bite wounds from that guy which is like oh talk about violent oh my god so she this whole time was just so on edge hoping that the attacker was unconscious but not dead she was like i just couldn't bring myself to think like what if i had killed somebody yeah um and the idea was horrifying but when police arrived they did find the attacker dead at the scene. So she had killed him. He was laying in the hallway where he had attacked her. They found a wallet, an ID in his pocket, and they found out his name was Ed Haffey.

Ed Haffey. Okay. Yeah. So Ed was a 59-year-old Vietnam vet with previous criminal charges. And what a weird coincidence. He was a janitor who workedietnam vet with previous criminal charges uh and what a weird coincidence he was a janitor who worked for mike uh-huh yeah i was wondering when when you kept saying that he was um like he wasn't giving up and i was like that's someone who's been in the military i think i was like oh interesting yeah and i was like that's mean, that sounds like a link to Mike right there of like being a soldier.

Yeah, being like tasked with something and not giving up. Yeah. So in the autopsy, the coroner found, oh, well, this might also be even more of a reason than the soldier thing. But they found a near lethal dose of cocaine in Ed's system. So that surely ought to do it. Coked out of his mind when he was attacking her as well. So even before she knew he worked for Mike, this is where exactly like that fucking book, The Gift of Fear, she was like, I think Mike might be involved.

And even her friends were like, I don't think so. Why on earth would your ex do this? And the fact that she immediately thought Mike has something to do with this is like, see, your subconscious like knows stuff sometimes. Even if you like push it down or whatever. Like the guy Gavin DeBecker, who wrote that book, The Gift of Fear, he has stories in that book about meeting with people and they say to him, like, I don't know who's stalking me. And he says, I think you might. And a lot of times people know they just they just don't have it's like somewhere buried subconscious. They that he said, you know, he asked these questions and they're like, well, this guy, you know, it would make some sense but people like to bury their those things to be those thoughts sure be more convenient or you know less troublesome but a lot of times your subconscious

like knows exactly who has it out for you so she immediately was like i think mike's involved uh even though her family was like what like that doesn't make any sense i feel like it makes perfect sense but i feel like it makes perfect sense so susan's friend went to susan's house and uh while she was there she found a backpack in the basement that did not belong to susan okay well the backpack belonged to ed halfie and so of course she's like well this is evidence i'm calling the police and so she didn't touch it they took it it in for evidence. And inside was a day planner with kittens all over it. No, I'm just kidding. That was her planner.

Oh, my God. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He had a boring day planner with no cats on it. That was the ultimate red flag. Yeah. So they find a day planner inside the backpack with a note written two days before the attack september 4th and it says call mike okay well ding ding ding yeah there was also an

envelope containing a note that listed mike's cell phone number so like hello that's obviously this hitman had mike's phone number in his planner in his day planner i wonder if the the hitman was even like i'm gonna leave my bag down here as evidence in case something happens to me so they know exactly like i think he just had no plan to let her live and was like i'll just grab my backpack because he broke in i assume he broke into the basement set down his bag went to go murder was gonna eat a sandwich, grab his bag and leave, you know? Like, I don't think he ever thought, oh, I'm going to get killed by this 51 year old lady. That's true.

That's true. Because he was a professional hitman. And I'll get to that. But basically, I don't think he ever planned to not leave that house. All right. Fair enough. I think he just left his bag down there thinking like, oh, I'll grab it. Do you think that's why he had so much cocaine in his system to like hype

him up to do it? I assume so. Yeah. I assume that that was probably part of his, um, strategy. Yeah. Process.

Yikes. So at this point, nobody could get ahold of Mike. And finally police tracked him down. And guess what? He was at the fucking beach. Like he said, Oh,

so now in hindsight, that note was an alibi he was basically saying i went yeah i guess so yeah he went to the beach that way if anyone ever found it that they'd be like oh well it says he was at the beach he was at the beach this whole time so they found him 20 miles away uh at the beach september 14th and first uh i i know i keep saying red red flag but he didn't ask how susan was it was very odd because he knew she had been attacked he didn't reach out to her her family or her friends uh essentially at this point if he were innocent he did know that a hitman had tried to kill his soon-to-be ex-wife and it didn't it seemed like he didn't give a shit so already like okay i think we we all know where this is going mike admitted to the police that he didn't know ed haffi and at that point they were like okay so then you're involved like you can't tell us you know this guy and then like expect us to believe you had nothing to do with it right

right right but of course he insisted he had nothing to do with it oh right right right but of course he insisted he had nothing to do with it and they arrested him anyway but he was at the beach it was it was it was a an absolute perfect plan look at these board shorts yeah how could i have had anything to do with this even though i know the hit man who was in my wife's bedroom and knew the alarm code and has my phone number in his planner. Airtight strategy. I don't know. I don't know what anyone is looking at me for. I don't either. So for a year, Mike denied any involvement while investigators built their case and pieced together a timeline. So they pieced together this timeline. Essentially, weeks before the attack, Mike had lost his job, which, as we know from a lot of other stories where men attack their families or their wives or partners, a lot of times that's sort of a trigger incident.

Financial struggles. He was already so threatened about her having more money than him. About finances. Exactly. And so I imagine losing his job is not helping the situation. finances exactly and so i imagine losing his job is not helping the situation um and susan had changed her brother to be her main beneficiary of her life insurance policy which mike did know so he didn't know he wouldn't get any life insurance money but their house had been paid off and so uh he had got would have gotten the house if she died which had a value of about 300 000 can you imagine killing someone over a fucking house over like a it's just no i mean no obviously i cannot but i

just can't even imagine it's like you know we hear so much about life insurance like oh 1.5 million dollar life insurance policy and it's like he knew he didn't even get the life insurance money and he's like whatever i'll still have her murdered i mean right not that not that it's like he knew he didn't even get the life insurance money. And he's like, whatever, I'll still have her murdered. I mean, not that it's a good enough reason to get life insurance money. But, you know, it just seems like a shitty plan is all I'm saying. I would just like if someone were to tell me their reason for doing something like that, I would expect it to be a relatively compelling. Yeah, much more compelling. But like a house, i'd be like okay then

i truly don't see the logic it's yeah it seems like the risk is just not there for that for that outcome you know exactly um so ed haffey had actually served nine years in prison for conspiracy to commit aggravated murder after he arranged the killing of his own ex-girlfriend in 1991 oh so we've been here before we've been here before he had arranged for her murder and she it had unfortunately been successful and she had been killed and so he had already been in prison for nine years uh on that charge and according to his relatives um for what it's worth ed had grown up in a comfortable upper middle class family um after his 2003 released from prison he moved to portland where mike kuhnhausen hired him onto the janitorial staff

at fantasy adult video okay that's where they work together cool cool cool cool so on september 6 2006 which is the day that ed attacked susan uh mike drove to the coast to the beach for a while uh before he went back to portland for the night and that next day he spent over 300 on a revolver at a local pawn shop what he left a suicide note at his dad's house that said all okay it said all i ever wanted was to be loved and every time i had it, I fucked it up. Oh, okay. So like a pretty clear, clear cut. We don't have to wonder where his issues come from. Okay. Yeah. It's very dark, very tragic, but fortunately police were able to track him down before he, you know, made any rash moves. And I mean, you know, more rash than hiring a hitman to kill your ex-wife.

But anyway, he was found. They tracked him down a week later. And after an 11-hour psychiatric hold, police charged him with conspiracy to commit murder. Finally, nearly a year after the attack, he gave in. He pled guilty. And he was only sentenced to 10 years in prison which was only one more year than his hired assassin ed had served for the same crime um so that was a little bit odd but i guess maybe it's because she survived and so he didn't get more than nine or more than

10 years i'm not sure i feel like if you're going to jail for nine years the first time around and then you do this a second time you clearly haven't learned anything and thus the time should be longer. Well, the first time, the nine years was for Ed Haffey, the hitman. Oh, okay. Sorry. And then this one is for Mike, who hired Ed, if that makes sense. Yes. Sorry. So Susan actually read a victim impact statement in front of the court okay and um these are always so powerful and she told mike at least if i believed you deserved to die i would have had the balls to kill you myself so she basically told him you hired someone to kill me you didn't even have the balls to do it with your own two hands that's like i mean this girl is full like she's apparently

overweight but not over life and she knows the one-liners are just coming at us the power of words with this one she's incredible she is um so basically she told him like listen if i was gonna kill you at least i'd do it myself you coward right just like fucking kick like one last kick yeah yeah so despite everything uh mike's sentence gave him the possibility to get out of jail two years early for good behavior god i'll never understand the system oh no no i don't think if there's any sense to be found. So unfortunately, Susan, to this day, struggles with the fact that she killed Ed. Oh, yeah.

I imagine that that's an extremely traumatizing thing to go through, with your bare hands. Especially someone who is truly, I mean, since the beginning of you describing her, she's so full of life and happy and wants to help people and like she just is optimistic joyful like the last person who should ever have to have this on their conscience yes yes because even i mean i i'm sure she was fully aware that like it anyone in that situation would have had to do the exact same thing she did but like like, right. Like, logically, I'm sure she understands, like, OK, it was his life or yours, you know, and like he was going to kill you. Exactly.

But there's still I mean, to take a life is definitely going to weigh on you. Yeah. Yeah. And if you want some more goose camp from her beautiful verbiage, her beautiful one liners, I have one for you here. Yeah. So heartbroken with guilt over killing ed even though it was obviously in self-defense susan felt that she got the hardest sentence of all

she said quote i began a life sentence i've killed a man i don't get time off for good behavior oh shit whoa but also very well said like beautifully spoken like and also like she literally had good behavior she was like a great she is probably good like only a good person and this fucking happened so like what bullshit she has to carry that with her so it haunted her to remember what she had done even though it was to save her own life um she obviously struggled a lot going even home yeah at the end of the day and like your alarm is on the alarm was on when she got home and that guy was attacking her so it's like i i can't imagine being a person who's ever had to deal with any type of break-in and then feel safe going home let alone like something

as extreme as them attacking you you know exactly? Exactly. And especially in that exact hallway. And she said, I would, yeah, she said she would find, yeah, I know. I don't know how,

how you would do it. She said she would sometimes find herself frozen in the hallway, just like with that, like, you know, memory of the attack. Well, anytime you also like walk past that room and in the corner of your eyes,

someone standing there, like that room would have to be fully well lit with cameras all the time for me to even think about still being at all i mean to like have somebody rush at you from the dark in your own home while the alarm is on that poor woman that poor woman horrible and a 14 minute fight it's not even like not that it would be better but like the fact that it lasted so long oh my god the the changes my brain would go through to oh you have to just go back to living survive yeah yeah exactly so ed haffey's aunt actually the the hitman uh his aunt sent a letter of support to susan 2010, which said, although this was a terrible thing that happened,

no one in this family has any bad feelings toward you. You did what you were forced to do. And in doing so, you spared many from the same trauma you experienced. Yeah. Which is like a beautiful thing for his relative to say, you know, like.

I think so too. To try and assuage her guilt. Although, even on top of the guilt she still lived in fear of mike's release uh she changed her driving routes she always sat facing the door in restaurants um she sold the house and moved into a house with a gravel driveway so she could hear other people approach wow it's one of those things i'm telling it's like it's you gotta have gone through a trauma to even be so hypervigilant to think about things like, well, when I move, there has to be gravel. Like, yes, this is something people don't even,

most people don't even think about, including myself. And then, you know, the, the way your mind has to survive with like hacks almost like, Oh, I can hear them coming and i'm gonna face the door just in case i mean yeah the hyper vigilance must be exhausting yeah um obviously she had never suspected before that he had would hire someone to kill her and now she was like well now he's been in prison maybe he's gonna do it again when he's out you know truly i mean that would be my first thought and like the fact that he because it's one thing i imagine to have to live life in that first house and like having to walk past the room every day where someone died and it was like you were involved in that yeah um and to have to go to have to face that trauma

non-stop but at least in those moments you can think like it's over it's just a memory it's over just a memory but there's also the true reality that eventually he comes out and this this memory isn't just a memory it could happen again right it's not even just the the trauma the ptsd of like oh it's just reliving in your mind it's like oh no that that fear is still very much present it's like it's another potential yes exactly and so that risk was still real and so she thought to herself like either he could have he could still hire somebody from inside prison or maybe once he gets out of prison he could just come after me himself i mean i mean i my first thought would be he's pissed that he had to spend all this time in jail and he wasn't even he didn't even have to deal with that

the first time he tried to put out a hit on me. So maybe now he wants to finish the job. Who knows? Oh, my God. So, you know, I mean, that's just something she has to go on with for the rest of her life. She did sue Mike for emotional damage, basically in order to make sure he didn't have the funds to pay another hitman, which is good. What an awesome roundabout way to handle that situation. Also, like, it's so sad, though, that, like, you even have to think about that. But, yeah, do whatever you need to.

Exactly. So an NBC report quoted Susan in saying, I've spent the last eight years hoping and praying he doesn't have any hidden funds anywhere. I'm hoping he hasn't found someone in prison who said, you just hired the wrong guy. Yep. God, the fear. And there's nothing that anyone can do to help you like like i mean i've only heard the phrasing but when people say like oh well the people who

say that they're gonna come back now they never come back it's like you don't know like it could be it could be i could be the one where you never know come back there's no way to talk yourself out of that fear i mean so sad it is and and like she was in an episode i watched of um who the bleep did i marry i don't know if you ever seen that show i know but i already know the premise so oh yeah it's of course an investigation discovery uh series and so she was in an episode of that and and it's really cool to hear her say all these like her beautiful one-liners like in person on camera um but it was hard to watch because she gave a few like tearful interviews near the end of the episode uh at one point she said she only hoped she could find more peace as time went on she would hope she'd someday be free from the guilt of what happened and she even hoped Mike might find his own freedom.

And she said she hoped he could one day realize how much we, his family and herself, all loved him. She just was like, I wish he would just see that we all loved him and he didn't need to do this, you know, which is really powerful. really powerful i also wonder about like even like the the side family members who were thinking like i mean they don't have they don't need to be doing this but i'm sure i would do this with like any level of involvement involvement just being like wow like she just all she ever said was she didn't want to get married like why did i put out an ad into it or yeah yeah it's just oh my god there's so many different people who can find reasons to think that they're at fault and you're totally right like obviously it's not her mom's fault that she had no but if i if i if i put an ad out for you and the person you met because

i was a murderer for the rest of my life i would be i would just be like i can't believe i totally especially because you you know i'm sure she only had the best intentions. And it's like, wow, that turned so on its head, you know, like she wanted only happiness for her daughter. And then it went so awry. So Mike Kuhnhausen passed away in 2014 from cancer. This was 92 days before his scheduled release. Wow. So he never actually made it out of prison that poor woman i

can't imagine the sigh of relief i can't imagine the sight i mean this is somebody who doesn't want people to suffer or die you know she just that relief of like at least i'm safe you know yeah yeah um she didn't like hold vengeance against him. She just wanted to make sure she was, you know, not having to look over her shoulder every minute. Yeah. And so at the time of his death, oh,

by the way, he maintained his innocence until his death, insisting he had nothing to do with the attack. And at the time of his death, Susan was still struggling with trauma and guilt. And when she first found out she'd killed her attacker in 2006, she thought about the man Ed's family and the people who might love him. And I mean, think about how just like beautiful of a soul you have to have to like kill someone in self-defense

and then immediately think about the people who loved that person and that you're hurting them like that. You know, it's just pretty amazing um so she had thought about that when when she first found out that she had killed him but she also said i did not choose this death for him i chose my life which i think is really powerful way to look at it you know good job yeah so according to willa met week remember that's the one that the original yeah the original um start full circle classified ad was in yeah susan didn't know how to feel about people calling her a hero um she didn't feel like a hero and her boss told her they're not calling you a hero because you killed a man they're calling you a hero because they want

to believe given the same circumstances they too might might survive. Oh, truly. What a beautiful statement. Like you're not a hero because you killed someone. You're a hero because you fought and defended yourself and protected your own life. And you did it with a couple of badass lines, I got to say. And you had the one-liners to fucking prove it. Yeah, no, I just, I can't, I can't imagine being in someone's shoes and being able to react that quickly or that wisely. I, I always, um, I envy people who, I mean, it's a weird thing to say envy because I don't hope or wish, I don't hope for them or wish for me to be in that situation. But I, I know as someone who freezes, like I'm, I do envy that people have an instinct to fight.

And I, I just, I'm very glad she was one of those people who had an instinct to fight. And hopefully none of us ever have to find out in that scenario, which one we would be, you know? Exactly. So online in, for example, on Reddit and on TikTok, the internet hails Susan posts like badass of the week, focusing on Susan's attack as sort of like a cool action movie hero. But Susan herself kind of focuses in other directions. I think she was never super comfortable with the term like hero or badass of the week, even though to me, i find her to be um but she basically now is able to find peace through empowering others to learn self-defense techniques

like the ones she used to save herself what a powerful woman what a good person what an amazing like legacy to leave to even protect yourself like clearly this is helping her heal too but then to help other people in the process, it's just so cool. Well, all she ever wanted to do is help people and now she's just found another way to do it. Exactly. Exactly. It's amazing. And so she wants people to know that they are capable of saving their own lives if it ever comes down to it, which I think is just a really cool concept.

And, you know, I think this might have inspired me because I've always said I wanted to take self-defense classes. I never have. But I think maybe I'll look into it. I, I, well, I hope you do. I also think, I mean, not to tell you what to do with your own child, but I feel like if you get her in young, she like will like always have that instinct of like knowing what to do. To start them early. do to start them early i've always said um you know when allison and i like pretend to talk about having kids one day i really don't care if they're um athletic or can do like a musical instrument or anything but i think my only like demand is that i will put them into self-defense as early as possible just to so they always have something in their pocket that you you know, could help them or someone else. So absolutely. I think it's really important. And, you know, I say that as somebody who's never even taken a class. So I know I feel like I need to like follow my own act, follow my words.

I know I'm one of those people who like I'm just always scared to start something in the fear of being bad at it. Well, I know you can't be any more bad at it than i already am so like i can only go up from here i have to be bad at it to get good at it exactly but i it's still scary and intimidating and so but i mean like even like i mean i've always thought it'd be so badass to do like krav maga or whatever because they like teach you how to use anything around you as a weapon oh yeah holy crap that's amazing but no i i'm happy for you if you if you how to use anything around you as a weapon. I'm like, holy crap, that's amazing. But no, I'm happy for you. If you were to start self-defense classes, that'd be so cool. Yeah, I think if anybody out there is listening and they're like, maybe I'll look into it.

You know, I just Google mapped which classes are near me. I might do some little googs after this. Yeah. And I encourage you to try it too, just to see. I mean, I know not everybody identifies as a woman who listens to the show, but I know there are specifically classes geared toward women. I'm sure there are classes geared toward just anyone in general. You know, it sounds like Susan took classes at work at the ER as a nurse. They probably had some sort of training at work.

So, you know, I think there's a lot of different angles you could take. You could do Krav Maga, like Em said. That sounds pretty badass. All I know is wonder woman does krav maga so i don't need to hear anymore i'm convinced what uh blaze does jujitsu or what he did yeah he did jujitsu for a few years in la and then um you know he hasn't really done much of it in cincinnati i don't know i think he found a place near us and then we never really because of COVID was he good at it or do you like it or he really liked it yeah he really liked it I feel like that was another I think any martial art is probably a really cool way to learn some self-defense you know oh it's certainly worth your time I've always have you seen the videos of people doing like the Bruce lee like one inch punch thing no that blows my mind

it's like you're literally like like if this is the item you're punching like your hand is this far away so you just go bam and that but like can break multiple bricks at a time can break bone it's like no wonder you're like scared of being bad at it you see that you're like that's the person i spar with at first i'm just like i need to learn how to run away i can't even do that part that one punch though i i mean i i'll never i'm fine like dying never having learned it but like i want to see someone in real life do it one time because it's just it looks it it looks like it can't possibly be real but it is real it's it's just it is so crazy it's just so out of what I'm used to. Wow. That's awesome. Go look up like a one-inch punch or Bruce Lee. I'm going to because I don't even know what that is.

It's beyond. It looks like there's online classes too. That's cool. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. But anyway, if anybody also has suggestions, hit me up. Let me know. Nice.

Yeah. I hope you have fun with that. The highlight for me, i took taekwondo at eight years old and i broke a board with my foot and that was yeah that was the that's more than i've ever done ended on a high it was it was like one of the ones where you like your leg was up in the air kick damn i know well i was i'm impressed i was flexible at eight years old so nowadays you know what i wasn't so I gotta say you're already a step ahead of me well keep us updated I want to know about your little self-defense

yeah I hope you guys keep me uh keep me account accounted for here keep me accountable because I really want to do it but I'm sure as soon as we hang up I'll go drink my Starbucks and completely forget so let me know if you have any suggestions on classes you've taken or types of martial arts. I'm just curious. Um, what a good episode. This was a very, I feel like we both had solid stories. I love that we're in the three hundreds and we're just like starting strong, you know, it took 300 episodes, but we got here. Uh, finally we broke a board with our foot. And I also like that, uh, you know, we started with a case of the Mondays and now I'm like all jazzed up. So wait, I'm about to cry.

This is so sweet. What? OK, I found an online course called Gracie University dot com and they have a bully proof summer camp. And it says every month in the United States, three million children miss school due to fear of bullies in the Gracie bully proof program our goal is to instill your child with unshakable confidence so they can overcome bullies without violence and it's like countermeasures to use verbal assertiveness non-violent self-defense techniques if they're attacked Gracie program we don't teach how to punch or kicks and this often does more harm than good we use leverage-based control holds to neutralize threats without violence.

What a cool concept. This is what I would like my kid to do. Yeah. I love this concept, fighting fire with water. To neutralize an attack instead of fight back. That's so sweet. That's so kind. I wonder who gracie is i would love to know

like how how did this who's gracie i feel like she like figured it out she's like oh i gotta protect all these little girls i love it that's i'm on the i'm on the website too they do adult classes too they have classes for little kids five to seven that's so sweet okay Gracie University oh it's not just for girls it's all kids yeah it's for grown-ups too oh very very cool I just love that it's like bully like anti-bullying you know that's so cute oh that's very lovely oh so cool wow okay well thank you for this. Okay. All right. Well, I think Leona is about to be its youngest member. Oh, Blaze and Leona can go to Jiu-Jitsu. I like how I've already removed myself from the situation.

Daddy-daughter date. Daddy-daughter date. Blaze and Leona can go. I'll stay at home. Gracie Bullyproof Test. Oh, and you can get all your belts. Oh, man. How neat is that?

Man. Okay. Well, I'm sure that's one of many great programs but how fun uh wow what a what a what a good uh episode christine i'm so proud of you good job em oh thank you i was gonna say a good for you i think you finally found a topic that ends with everyone feeling inspired so what a beautiful moment for everybody enjoy it because it's not gonna last much longer. Oh, gosh.

Okay. Well, I guess that's it then, huh? We'll see everyone in November. Or no, it is November now when this comes out. Oh, shit. Okay. We're going to sing a cool song next week. Oh, yes, we are.

Yes, we are. I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Christine has lost it officially. Do not put that kind of pressure on me. Okay, yeah, we'll sing a song next week. And that's why we drink.