And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 11

Episode Date: January 1, 2018

Happy New Year, everyone! If you're worried about staying up until midnight, these creepy af stories should do the trick. In our attempt to make a "holiday-themed episode," we instead end up dissing Furbies, crying about love in the afterlife, and mispronouncing countless words. Enjoy!

you just tape the table we just put tape on the table okay well we did that now what now we say welcome to the listeners episode well this is a listening episode did i do it right yeah is this number 11 oh god i don't know is it well it's not 10 oh well then it's don't yell at me i don't know you asked me uh wasn't the last one 10 i think so all right well 11 that's halfway to 22 i knew you were gonna say that oh getting there getting there anyway well you know what happens when this comes out what it's the first day of 2018 oh happy new year happy new year guys gosh can you believe it this is our first listeners episode of the new era it's like we're time traveling it's like we're time traveling in the plunger fort i mean we are

speaking you're hearing our voices in 2018 but this didn't actually the voice the words didn't come out of our mouths in 2018 wow wow we wow it's like a it's like a very brief time capsule yes like we're saying something and it's like hold off until 2018 and then you open this up a couple days later and that's where you are it's like when stars really like you don't see the light from stars for like seven years oh right yeah well we're stars for sure you don't hear the voices of stars until 2018 all right so we've got some good ones what did you just throw tape happy listeners episode the first of 2018 do you think we're going to get through all 12 months of 2018 doing listeners episodes or do you think this podcast will crash and burn i do not think that because as you know i like to think positive because it gets you good places in life okay because i'm gonna ride your positive

coattails you know how i feel about putting negative energy into the world you should know because you're all about like staying away from ouija boards but apparently you know i'm not gonna sit here and pretend like we didn't just play with a ouija board guys we played with a ouija board christine got me too it was one of her christmas presents let's just call it that thank you it was fine nothing bad happened except we talked to several people why is that bad you talked to people with your emf reader plenty of people told me that if i did it safely and positively and lit some candles and said good words and good intentions that it would be okay and it was okay and we closed it out and

nothing bad happened and we met a guy named walt mcheal yeah that's not even a name micky heel it was almost like mc neal yeah but make yield with a y his name was walt though and his mom was there oh yeah we were like who's there now and they were like it spelled ma and then we were like how did you die and it spelled out lots of water oh i forgot about that that was fucking weird and then he was i think i think he was making a joke because we're in a drought no oh right well, right. Well, it's a funny man. And his family used to live on the land before Christine's house was here, which means he was here before the 1920s. And his family made yolks for cows.

Oh, yeah. Because we were like, wait, what are yolks? And then I remembered from Oregon Trail, that's what they put on the... And then he was born in 1917 and died in like 1946 god do you remember all this shit look i researched the shit out of that guy and i found nothing he's not real he doesn't exist i think it's all figment of our also he said that there was at least four to five ghosts here remember you're like how many people are in the room and he said four and then we asked later and it said five and we were like who's here now and it's spelled m a and we were like ma then we were like oh no ma's here anyway so that happened

everyone's gonna freak out but everyone someone has an ancestry account go look up walt mcheal because i couldn't find shit on him me neither and the thing is a lot of people said don't play with ouija board blah blah blah and then a lot of people who are very experienced in the spiritual world and have used a lot of different things like pendulums and that kind of thing said, it's perfectly harmless if you use it safely. And I said, okay, I'm going to trust those people because I want to use it. He also said he liked Gio. He did say that. I actually kind of freaked out that I even asked that because it would have been real bad if it said no. And then Christine would not let me ask if it liked us no i don't

like i don't want to know because if it doesn't like me then i'm gonna have a real problem anyway listeners episode let's maybe read other people's stories let's stop talking about walt well you're so selfish oh well so we had a sense of humor he did remember he said lots of water unless that's how he died i'm just insulting someone go on ancestry and find out for us first i said he's not real then i said he's lying then i said he's ah let's just move on are you gonna start or am i gonna no i want you to start because i don't remember this story. Oh. Oh, P.S. Happy holidays. We decided that this was going to be a holiday themed episode. Oh. Right?

Yes, we did. So here we go. This is a holiday themed episode, even though we're past Christmas and Hanukkah now. And as you're listening to this, it's already, you've already celebrated Happy New Year's. That's fair. You're probably hungover. So you're all either hungover or getting through the fact that we're done with the holidays which is either good or a bad thing i mean you got to go to work but you're also like

exhausted from yep so hopefully we're helping you i mean we can probably rest assured that we're not helping anyone but that doesn't matter here you go okay so i'm gonna turn this around for you this is from jamie hi jamie and all it's titled is my experience original so jamie says she doesn't even say hi or he i'm so sorry i think it's a girl jamie doesn't even say hi it's a woman jamie just says okay that sounds like me okay listen listen okay so besides having read it okay so besides having my first orgasm caused by someone else on the shining bed oh it's jamie don't you remember what's up girl hey girl oh what's up we remember you uh if you don't know what we're talking about go back to some episode go back to one of our listeners episodes and jamie once it wasn't a listener it was like because we received it as a

dm oh yeah we read it during episode after you did stanley hotel so it's all right so go through about 50 episodes just listen to them one by one and when you hear the word orgasm you found the right one i don't think we've ever said it anywhere else until now it's all jamie's fault and then i made you say it can you imagine can like, okay, you had an orgasm on the shining bed. Like, what else could possibly happen to you? Just, like, bad, bad, scary things. We'll read on. Okay.

So, besides having my first orgasm caused by someone else on the shining bed. Oh, so her first orgasm caused by someone else. That was not a ghost, hopefully. Oh, my God, no. And remember when I, a creepy little thing. Oh, yes. That's an incubus. That's an OG inside joke if you don't get that.

My one really creepy story is pretty amazing because I was able to get confirmation from my grandmother. Weird to have orgasm and your grandmother in the same sentence. Oh, man. Jamie's a wild ride. Jamie is. She's a force to be reckoned with. A tornado.

She says, I was born and raised in Sitka, Arkansas. A small... Are you sure that's not Alaska? Isn't it... A-R? It says A-R. Oh, A-K. Fuck.

I was born and raised in Sitka, Alaska, a small native village that encompassed not much space. I would say about two square acres of the actual town of Sitka. Okay. Here is where my grandparents' house was located in the old village. There were massacres and lots of unmarked graves here. Oh. Okay, my town too.

Whatever. You're not that big of a deal. We get it. Okay. I moved into the house across the street from my grandparents, the house that I grew up in. And from the very first day, I was uneasy. Weird tricks were played. Our laundry was located down the basement.

I would go down, start laundry, set an alarm. And when I got back, the washing machine door had been opened. Clothes were always super wet. That would piss me off. A few months after moving in, we were all upstairs sleeping. I was woken up by a huge noise like a gunshot. I woke my husband up and he said he heard nothing. Meanwhile, laundry was still being messed with. And the weirdest thing was how my baby's toys would move. No. huge noise like a gunshot i woke my husband up and he said he heard nothing meanwhile laundry

was still being messed with and the weirdest thing was how my baby's toys would move no i was sitting on the couch one day and one of my son's toys started playing while another just fell off the table i got up grabbed my son and went to my grandparents my brother came to stay with us with his kids during christmas that year while we were at my grandparents, he said he had to go grab something, so I asked him to make my son a bottle. He came back a few minutes later and didn't have a bottle. I asked him if he got one, and he said no. I thought you grabbed one. Oh, God.

I heard you in the kitchen walking around and shutting doors, so I figured Asher had a meltdown and I came and grabbed one. Oh, that she came and grabbed one which was not the case right then after six months of people telling me i was crazy my grandma turns to me and says i feel bad i didn't tell you this because i wanted you to live across the street from us that's always a great way to start something my friend bud owned that house he was such a jokester always playing tricks no one ever thought well a few years after we moved here they found his body in the upstairs bedroom and he had shot himself with a shotgun needless to say my brother and my husband both stopped saying i was crazy i wish that was the

end of my paranormal experience but it's not also that's it she says love you oh but it's not the end and then she goes okay bye oh is in, as in like, that's it for now. But also that's crazy because she said she first heard a gunshot. That's creepy. Yikes. So it's like, oh, all these fun tricks. And then like, whoa, I hear a gunshot. And it like matches.

Ugh. Gross. Well, tell Bud I say hi from afar. Tell that girl or guy who gave you the orgasm hi. Oh, yep. Send him a text. Say you've been mentioned twice and thank you for his service. Thank you for his or her service.

Oh, his or her service. What the fuck is wrong with me? You are just so heteronormative today. I don't know what's wrong. Typical. Typical. All right. Let me have this.

We have such an elaborate setup. Did anyone else hear that? No no that's the sound of our success okay so this next story is from katie hi katie hi katie it says hey friends so i've been meaning to write you this story since you first mentioned listener stories but i was nervous because no one ever seems that impressed by my awesome fucking ghost story i hope you dig it let's let's see here we go i used to live in an old family home we rented on this christmas tree farm i was always super nervous going to the bathroom in the middle of the night most kids are so that wouldn't be weird if the rest of the story hadn't happened

on my 11th birthday my mom threw me a surprise okay i think the only christmas part of the story is that she grew up on a christmas tree farm But I thought that counted. Well, I mean, that's not really what I meant by Christmas story, but whatever. What did you mean? Like that our stories... Our stories. That's why I said I don't... Lisa, I thought you meant Christmas stories. Oh my god. Okay. Well, no, I didn't do that at all. Okay. I mean, how many Christmas murders are there? Not many. Probably enough to do one episode. Whoops.

What? We literally talked about this three times. You should have told me. Yeah, I know. I didn't want to make you look like an idiot on the show. I'm sorry. It's not working. Okay.

Okay. So I guess when I was looking for Christmas stories, I just searched the word Christmas in our inbox, and they aren't necessarily christmas even christmas enough they just have the word christmas in them so this she lived on a christmas tree farm yay that counts christmasy enough okay so on my 11th birthday my mom threw me a surprise party with five of my besties we did the usual sleepover things watched a movie makeovers etc when cutting the cake someone was like you guys we have to wait for but then they realized everyone was there this happened a few times again not that weird there were six pre-teen girls running around now when it was time to go to bed i'm sitting with the rest

of the girls in a circle and i felt very strongly like one of my squad was missing like i was sure someone was in the bathroom so i go through all their names in my head i was like oh man who is in the bathroom i knew i must be forgetting a person so i count us one two three four five six all there i still feel like someone is in the bathroom literally i felt like a presence that had been with us all day was gone and specifically in the bathroom weird i look over at my best friend carolyn and she looks wigged out i'm like what's up knowing very well what's up and she goes i feel like one of us is missing one girl natalie is like oh she's in the bathroom and i go no we're all here count and marissa goes one two three four five six and we collectively scream and run into another room and watch rugrats in paris in the lizzie mcguire movie perfect we nicknamed the missing girl the girl who left us oh that's creepy for 11 year olds for sure i would have named her like bingo banga or something stupid

i've been like spooky bathroom girl yeah um a couple of years later i'm lying in my bed and i wake up because i feel pressure on my stomach when i open my eyes there's a little girl sitting cross-legged in a 1950s type nightgown on my stomach no she smiles at me and i notice another What the fuck? No! What? That stopped the fear? That's supposed to induce the fear for the rest of your fucking life. Was he politely carrying her or did he see like... Oh, I think it meant like he was like the dad or something like carrying her.

Oh, not like escorting her to hell. No, I think it sounds like the man was just like, okay, come on, you know. Ugh. I don't know, but I think that's when she actually left us. Huh. uh i don't know but i think that's when she actually left us oh also my mom told me like two months ago she was scared shitless of that bathroom too 14 years after the incident thanks for keeping that to yourself karen i'm bitter anyway i hope you enjoyed it i love the podcast i told my friend carolyn from the story about you guys last week after nearly 20 years of friendship we discovered that we're both weirdos who love ghosts and murder all my fangirl love katie oh that one just creeps me out because it's like a group of girls being like no somebody's

it's creepy because none of them addressed it to each other they just all felt it and then someone validated that they all felt that way and then she saw the girl that would be interesting that that would be when she left them because like the little girl was like i just want them to see me one time like i don't want them to wonder where i am i want them to see me and then she was seen and then the dad was like all right let's get the hell out of here yeah like okay finally you got your chance let's move on i feel like if you waited that long to finally be seen you wouldn't wait to be like crisscross applesauce on them sleeping i mean i feel like a lot of the things just watch tv with them or something i mean she tried to be part of the sleepover but i feel like

no one was into that so true maybe that's why maybe she's like i'll be more gentle in my approach yeah and so discreet and subtle and not creepy at all oh okay thanks katie thank you katie the next story is from hillary hi hillary and uh she says she says hello to us but especially baby g hi baby g she says i finally caught up on all the episodes yay and wanted to share with you a few tidbits of my experience growing up in Utah and as a now ex Mormon with an interest in all things death supernatural and serial killers oh that's a great combo the anti Mormon yeah literally when I was eight years old being the golden year of 1999 oh my 2k I remember walking around Salt Lake City in the winter looking at different Christmas window decorations

with my family it was very cold but festive and full of the holiday spirit. Outside of the displays was a homeless man, very long hair and beard, dressed in clothing that not only seemed inappropriate for the weather but quite outdated. Think biblical robes and sandals except in the 30 or less degree Utah weather and snow. So Jesus showed up. The man did not have a sign or a money box. He simply stood with his hand outstretched, palm flat. My dad passed this man every day going to work and went as far as attempting to give the man food, but receiving a gestured declination. Fast forward about three years. My dad, older sister, and I were walking back to our car from a baseball game.

My father, the usual cheapskate. he parked several blocks away to avoid paying the $7 parking lot fee at the game. You gotta be smart about that, though. They charge you like hell. And back in 2002, there wasn't Uber. Hell no. You had to make your own choices now uber makes choices for you no autonomy who as we want to meet uber

i'm done as we were both walking back we passed a man and a woman in odd very plain but old style clothing after doing a double take my dad made a passing comment of oh remember him a few christmases ago girls looks like he's found himself a wife sure enough it was the same silent beggar only this time more animated and with a female counterpart less than two weeks later elizabeth smart was taken from her home so not jesus no far the anti-jesus if you will upon her rescue and return and publicizing of her kidnappers identities my father returned home from work and sat my siblings and i down he explained what had happened then turned my sister and i and told us that we had seen and knew of the culprits that night of the baseball game my sister and i had begged to run ahead to

the car knowing the way and not needing someone to watch us and after several attempts of begging received a firm no and walked past the couple with an adult in tow to this day this makes my heart nervous having passed this man on the street within weeks of their heinous crimes and being able to identify them has been the most has been upsetting over the years to say the least least. Sorry this has gotten so drawn out, but I think about this from time to time, and it always gives me goosebumps knowing how close I was to Brian David Mitchell in the weeks and years before Elizabeth's kidnap. Love the show, even Em's wonderful laugh.

Thank you. Keep on keeping on, and can't wait to hear what else you come up with. From Hillary. Oh my god. Wow, that took a sharp dark turn whoa merry christmas everyone happy holidays this is what happens when and that's why you drink tries to make a holiday special yep it just makes everyone feel really bad hard to make a morbid topic so cheery that's true so let's just throw elizabeth smart into the mix and see what happens that's true that's like

when we tried to make like a geo birthday episode about dogs when we were like everything's about death nah nobody wants to hear about dogs dying okay here we go oh okay this is from lauren lauren it says the subject is oh boy whatever you do don't look in the mirror okay duly noted all right whatever you say lauren you're the boss i trust you hi i recently this is in parentheses hi i recently discovered your podcast and it gets me through the workday thanks for being amazing wow end parentheses you're welcome i will start out by saying that i've broken into numerous buildings wait what okay same let me settle in here i will start out by saying that i've broken into numerous buildings of the abandoned belcher town school for the feeble-minded i'm sorry for the feeble-minded that's sad yep and

felt more safe there than i did in my childhood home oh oh no walking through old surgical rooms and feeling a demonic presence in the administration buildings attic as a 21 year old was a walk in the park after growing up in an old boston area home fuck the first 14 years of my life were spent in a new england home built in 1925 for as long as i can remember my brother and i always had a difficult time going to the second floor of the house alone even when we were 14 and 15 years old creepy we often would bring the other with us even if we were only grabbing something from one of our rooms to return to the first floor our fears were manageable until my father decided to completely renovate the upstairs oh shit that always gets them going the first event i can remember was

on a cold winter's night when my family was decorating the house for christmas there was a musical angel doll that my mother had placed in my room when you pressed a button she would fold her hands in prayer and sing silent night oh my that's the stuff of nightmares that's like a furby and a teddy ruxpin and a and a demon all in one and a demon and an angel all combined yay i hated this angel amen and would often turn her to face the wall as we were decorating downstairs we lost power from a storm while trying to find candles and flashlights i heard a faint singing coming from upstairs i recognized it as a woman's voice singing silent night and assumed my mother was singing to calm herself i quickly realized that

my mom was still with me downstairs and that the singing was coming from my room. Oh, shit. I told my mom that the doll didn't have batteries in it, and she went upstairs with me to check. The angel was singing Silent Night, but it sounded more mature. The singing stopped once we reached the second floor, and we discovered the doll facing the doorway with no batteries in it. Oh! My mom claimed that it was just a malfunction, but the next day when I put batteries in it to check, the voice was that of a little girl, not an older woman.

No! Isn't that horrifying? I hid the angel in my closet soon after. You didn't burn it? I like how I'm like, I would have... I just moved it over. I would have chucked that thing. I would have shattered that thing with a hammer.

Can you imagine if it started singing in the night, like in your closet? In different voices? Goodbye! I would have soaked the carpets in holy water. Listen, my Furby did that and I threw it in the fucking out a window. I think we all did that. I hit a cyclist in Germany with my Furby once. I don't think there's one Furby that wasn't a demon.

I think we were all like oh let's all like universally understand they're haunted that satan created these instead of santa yes like the letter have you seen a furby without the fur that's a fucking trip i would rather kill myself it looks like a weird robotic i've seen furbies in the microwave a what furbies in the microwave no they like melt does it does it melt down and it keeps talking going i love you and then it's like melting it doesn't say i love you goes me and like that's beautiful that's the sound of a fucking furby it goes me love you believe me i had oh it did say that several i had two and they would talk to each other no that was the worst mistake i ever wanted

one so badly and then i got it and it scared me so bad, which is so weird because like my dad, who doesn't believe in that stuff, put it in the, we had a fridge out in the garage. He put it in the fridge in the garage and then duct taped it shut. I hope these are fucking creepy. I hope in the like apocalypse when aliens come, they're like, oh wow. And they open like a duct tape freezer and there's just a Furby. I'm pretty sure the Nickelodeon, you should ask since you work

there now, but they had a time capsule that they, like they're not supposed to open for another like 10 years or something, but a Furby was definitely put in there. Christ. And slime. Slime was put in there. You know it's under the ground talking. Me love you. Every now and then at night you can just hear an echo of me

love you from the se then at night you can just hear an echo of me love you or from the sewers or me hungry for blood for human flesh okay anyway furbies are fucking terrifying i threw mine out a window in germany like i had the crank window and it scared me so bad in my head i watched too much tv and i was like it's gonna explode like i just oh right yeah assumed like the car was gonna explode because it started like its eyes were twitching and it was like shaking so i threw it out the window but then it was a it like hit the cyclist who was because there's so many bikers in germany and he stopped and picked it up and my mom's in the bank by the way so we're parked on the sidewalk and he walks up and he goes is this yours and i just started screaming and i like rolled the window back up

and my mom came out and was like what the hell he just happily like wasn't even mad that you threw a furby at him he thought that i just like accidentally dropped my toy i would have i would have been like you fucking kid throwing your robot machine at me you'd think a german man on his bicycle would not be happy you know somewhere in the world there's some german cyclist who has a demon story of how a flying kirby hit him on the highway he's like you see the scar we don't talk about it wasn't a highway it was on a street we were parked it wasn't like i just hurled it and it knocked him out it was just like a chuck it oh i don't know never mind it scared the shit out of me and then he like put it back and my mom goes thank you so much for

finding this and brought it back in the car and goes. It's like that episode of Goosebumps and the Night of the Living Dummy. When they're, like, they try to throw away the dummy. And then the neighbors are like, oh, you left this outside. And then that's when hell begins. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah, and my mom goes, I paid good money for this. Don't you dare throw it out the fucking window.

And I was like, fine. Anyway, point being, let's go back to this yeah sleeping at night was nearly impossible at the time i had a lofted bunk bed each time i slept on the top of the bunk bed i would feel what felt like my cat i could feel what felt like my cat curled up next to me since it was impossible for my cat to get under the top bunk i woke up in fear to discover there was nothing there each time time this happened, it felt like something was staring at me from inside my closet. Yeah, it's probably for the fucking angel. Yep.

Just a few feet from the bed. From then on, my closet was unexplainably cold. And despite my family's attempts to keep my room warm, a chill would always come in from the closet. At the time of all this, I was close with a friend whose mother was very religious. Every time I'd go to her house with friends, her mother would proceed to spend the next few days doing a spiritual cleanse of their entire home because she just brought that shit into their house claiming that someone had brought along demons with them after she wasn't wrong she wasn't wrong after a few months of this she pulled me aside and gave me a bottle of holy water with instructions to place this in my closet

she had no prior knowledge that i was the one bringing bad energy because we always hung out in groups and no knowledge that the closet was where most of my fears seemed to manifest despite not being religious i was freaked out that she knew and placed the holy water in my closet every morning when i woke up the holy water would be knocked on the ground in the main room and was no longer in the closet no i like how you think from like movies that obviously that thing would like you would hear a scream and then something would be vanquished but i like how it's some like diva ghost you like petty ass ghost places it in the car was like nah i don't want it in my space it out of the closet just flicks it over like i don't think so it's that stupid angel

being like it's like i'll try again around the same time this was happening my brother was incapable of sleeping and was suddenly paranoid of everything my brother and i were so disturbed by what had been going on that our middle school hired counselors to try and figure out what was bothering us fuck our parents figured it was silly childhood fears it wasn't until years later that i found out my brother had been having experiences of his own the worst of it was the mirrors oh shit after the renovations were completed we had an entirely new bathroom on the second floor to get to the bathroom just a few feet just a few feet away from either of our bedrooms we would sprint to avoid spending too much time in the hallway but if we could we avoided leaving our rooms at night at all at night my brother and

i would refuse to turn the lights on in the bathroom it was only years later after we had moved that we both admitted why we could not face ourselves in the mirrors at night my brother admitted to me that the one time he had it wasn't himself looking back but something much darker to this day he refuses to describe what he saw the figure had stared directly back at him and he says that he has felt something dark deep within him that has never left him oh shit it's been almost 10 years since we left that house and what he saw still haunts him to this day the one time that i looked into the mirror by the dim light of a nightlight i found myself staring directly into my eyes as if i was

staring at someone else i felt confused and angry but, but calm. As I finally broke my gaze, I looked over at the clock to see how long I would have left to sleep, only to realize that over two hours had passed. Oh my god! The gaze I met in the mirror seemed to be a terrifyingly dark version of myself, and I wonder if this is what my brother also saw. I wonder if that's like the beginning of possession but i've heard that a lot that people not a lot but like i've definitely heard that story where people say they

can't explain it but they look in the mirror and it's a darker version of yeah it's mirroring them but it's like not them and it's a much more like demonic version fuck i hope that never happens no that's terrifying oh my god when i was old enough to go to high school, we sold the house and moved to New Hampshire. My brother and I thought that would be the end of it, but we soon discovered shortly after moving in that some very questionable things had occurred in the house we had just moved to. The day we moved in, we discovered scratchings on the door frames inside closets from people clearly trying to escape being locked inside. What the fuck? But those are stories for another time. And whatever it was in the mirrors it followed oh shit that's the end of the email what the fuck oh my god oh my god that started creeping me out so much that when i first read it i googled like

some snippets of it to be like this isn't like because like it sounds fake because we've gotten stories from no people like copy and paste from like no sleep or creepypasta and i'm like these are clearly fake and i didn't think this was fake but i was like how i read like this is just like bananas too crazy but like it's definitely her story shit thank you lauren i'm so sorry yeah thank you that's horrifying sorry sorry i don't know how to close out of that. No, that's rough. Give me another story. All right, here.

This is from Kelly. Hi, Kelly. Kelly says, when my mother was very young, she was very close to her grandfather. His name was John, and he would always say to her, who's John's baby? And in mom's little kid brain, she started calling him John baby. That's precious. That's so fucking cute the name stuck and we all have known him as john baby oh he passed away when my mom was about

10 or so fast forward a few years when my mom was 18 i was born on his birthday wow from the time he died mom would have these dreams where she'd relive simple things or she'd simple things she'd done during the day but he would be there um he'd be there helping her hang lights on the christmas tree catch her from tripping etc like a guardian angel wait helping her hang lights on the christmas tree we just do simple things my guardian angel doesn't do that your guardian angel pours you wine i wish my mom had me and my sister by the time she was 21 and she always felt like he was a support system when she felt super alone and stressed out as a young mom every member of my family saw the shadows moving what oh we're just jumping into this shit

support system shadows moving every member of my family saw the shadows moving heard the footsteps and felt the presence that existed in my great-grandmother's house when John Baby died. Where John Baby died. None of us ever felt afraid. We all knew it was him just watching out for us and waiting on my great-grandmother to pass to be with him. Oh, my God. When I was...

Imagine being alive being like, oh, he's just waiting for me. Be like, eh. Hang on. Hang on a couple more years. Listen, I'm eating a lot of veggies these days, so it might be a couple more years listen i'm eating a lot of veggies these days so it might be a few more years get comfy we might be here for a while when i was a sophomore in high school she got very sick she was getting older had smoke since she was eight years old damn she sounds like she's lived a life and generally had a long life

that led it to some health issues it was christmas eve the last time i saw her she held on long enough to see all the grandkids for the holidays. After that Christmas, she didn't pass for a few days, but she didn't speak or move much again. However, the day she died, she opened her eyes, smiled the biggest we'd seen in weeks, and she said, John, John, when did you get here? And then talked to him for a while.

They talked about old memories and what all she had done since he passed. It sounded like two old friends who hadn't seen each other in too long after that she just closed her eyes and passed peacefully there were no more shadows or footsteps in her house and we could all feel how empty it was john baby had finally passed over when she did it made my grief so much easier to know that she didn't pass alone and knowing that they were finally resting together i drink probably too much wine writing this email so i'm team wine by default love you both in this amazing podcast that

combines all my joys in life you crying that was a really good one oh that makes me so happy and sad at the same time thank you kelly that was very nice thank you kelly i'm so happy you're that's so sweet that he waited for her i feel like all of us wish that we that when our like loved ones passed away we had like true proof that they were going to be fine that has to like i mean that has to make things so much easier knowing that it was time and yeah but i think that's why we are like drawn to these stories because it's like oh so maybe there is like a chance of that you know what i mean like even if we don't sense it ourselves like the fact that other people experience it yeah is comforting all right oh gosh darn last one listener stories always get me man

one last one make it a doozy well you know it's to be a doozy when our friend Eric Skull is involved. Oh, we love Eric Skull. Hi, Eric Skull. He has a podcast, much like us. Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh. Twinny. What are the odds?

And it's called Mugglecast. So all the Harry Potter fans out there, go ahead and check him out. Although I'm sure you already do. There's a very large chance you're already listening to it. But if not, go check it out. You probably are. But if not, go check it out. It's sure you already do there's a very large chance you're already listening to it but if not go check it out you probably are but if not go check it out it's legit it's like all the the true diehard fans are like don't tell me to listen to the show i've been listening to since the beginning they're like way to get on board finally anyway go listen to him and he's such a good guy he's super sweet he's been super supportive of us since like way literally

since i think day one since we at least week one since we were like eric don't support us we don't know what we're doing and he's like no no i support you and we're like you're crazy but okay good guy such a good guy so eric sent in a story okay well i'm just saying no that's why we're talking about him he sent in a story and the subject is my listener story de December slash New Year's themed. He was very eager for us to tell this one, I think. It's like he knew we were doing a holiday. It's like he could sense that a January 1st was coming up in our future.

But how could he know that almost, you know? There's no thing that lists out all of the days of a year. No, it's like he had ESPN or something. It was a fucking magic trick from Harry Potter. Eric'sic's pretty fucking maybe he's not a muggle oh that's that's it hey em and christine happy holidays i hope that both of you are well we're fine thank you eric we're very well i hope you're well as well i've been listening since the early days of your podcast listen we know we know but i'm finally getting around to submitting my own listener story in which i also I hope you are well as well. I've been listening since the early days of your podcast. Listen. We know. We know. But I'm finally getting around to submitting my own listener story in which I also ask questions of you too.

Yay. Such a good boy. I hope that's cool. If not, feel free not to include this. Last year, 2016, while visiting my hometown of Redding, Pennsylvania for Christmas and New Year's, my mother got us tickets to visit historic Brinton Lodge, a haunted house nearby Douglasville, Pennsylvania. Love it.

The website lists it as one of the top 10 haunted houses in pennsylvania which i love because when my mom visited she was like don't tell tim but can we do something haunted and i'm like that's so cute and so we went to the queen mary but like my parents would never think to like do something paranormal for like a mother-daughter activity i feel like that's not the first thing they think of growing up my mom always loved the paranormal stories we used to watch unsolved mysteries as a family on television dope loving the ghost and paranormal episodes in particular my mom herself is a devout catholic who stalked many books on sightings of guardian angels and the like she has a few dreams she's

had a few dreams from time to time in which deceased family members have contacted her and it was from her that i borrowed psychic echo bodine's book relax it's only a ghost my adventures with spirits hauntings and things we both know when i write a book it's going to be that fucking long my adventures with my adventures with at least 50 different items which i will name out alphabetically not chronologically but then chronologically not alphabetically and then the last word will be things. Because I can't remember the rest. Spirits, hauntings, and things.

Oh my god. That's amazing. Which kept me up at night for weeks. First question. All right. Does Em know about Echo Bodine? No. Okay.

She is a psychic who appears to have dot, dot, dot, highly commercialized herself. A quick Amazon search turned up four pages of results. Oh, Lord. Nevertheless, knowing nothing about psychics and the actual investigation of paranormal activity before reading it, her book gave me chills. All right. Noted. Noted.

And that's why you drink Book Club, which, by the way, exists. Goodreads.com. Go check it out. I'm particularly interested in the chapter about things let's discuss oh boy um they just did devil in the white city the book club which is the hh holmes book which i'm planning on reading over christmas break and now i want you guys i like how i'm just running it i'm like well i like a lot of people have been emailing us asking and saying that you would probably love that book this the devil in the white city yeah i just bought it at um last bookstore well a lot of people are excited

now because a lot of people wrote in asking if you've read it yeah it's crazy like it's um because there's a movie coming out about it too which has gotten a lot of attention um but yeah so the the new book club someone made a book club which is so fucking cool because i never know what books to read about like paranormal crime and shit like that yeah so some the first one is the hh holmes book and then the next one i don't know what it is but i'm already deciding it's something about things with boat with just things things what's her name again echo bodine all right sure things with echo bodine okay um just kidding guys

you can do whatever you want i'm not gonna boss you around okay um beep boop bop where are we we haven't even gotten to the story yet last new year's eve my mom and i to spend some quality time decided to visit historic britain lodge the lodge is currently host to a very small brewery in all capital letters which i think makes it perfect to talk about on this podcast that's true the hidden river brewing company operates out of a small room in the back of a large structure and there are two bars on the premises the event that my mom and i got tickets to was a combination ghost tour and midnight champagne tasting okay so how do we get to redding pennsylvania is the real question eric eric set it up can i come now Reading, Pennsylvania is the real question.

Eric. Eric, set it up. Can I come now? Like now, right now. Posse-o plane ticket. O-M Dad jokes. Okay. It was a combination of Guster and Midnight Champagne Tasting. Build, quite funnily, toast with a ghost. Shut the fuck up.

How did we not name this show that? Oh, fuck. You're right. That was our bad. Well, that's our bad. But apparently they thought of it first. Hashtag spin-off!

I mean, maybe we can, like, if we partnered with a brewery... Maybe we should make that a special. Sure. If they sponsor us and give us beer, I'll be happy. Love it. Or champagne. Toast with a ghost some brief history built in the early 1700s a small farmhouse erected by the millard family was expanded in the

late 1790s to become kirkland homestead it said that the site was one on which ammunition was produced for the war of 1812 oh jesus and due to its proximity to the oh no how do you say this word sky kill is it german and you're asking me it's just a long fucking word skilkel skill hill sku kill god damn it shoe kill shoe kill shuckle shuckle i don't know shuckle maybe the river oh sku kill skukul skukul it's dutch cool all right whatever okay skukul and due to its proximity to the skukul river canal the sky is the sky god damn it the site is said to have been a stop on the underground railroad oh my that's cool a hundred years later the whitman family turned it into a 28 room mansion sounds like one of your stories sounds like a my future a local definitely i see it a local famous hotel hotelier fuck eric are you how did you get dutch and fucking french and all these things

how does he why is he so well he knows he knows well enough that if he's gonna do a word we don't pronounce we do german that's the only thing we know here wait i'll play it hold on why is it not tell years montel years hotel years hotel years he said montel years i sound like m the word is i know but it sounded like an m i was gonna listen to him hoteliers i sound like m the word is i know but it sounded like an m i was gonna listen to him hoteliers hoteliers okay fine does it mean hotel can we just fucking say hotel no it means the person who like runs a hotel oh so why don't you say the person who runs the hotel well because that's a word i feel like i read a lot and then in my head just like haphazardly i just say it in my head a certain way and that's hotelier and i would just say

hoteller. Hoteller. Well, it's like foyer and foyer. I never know which one's right. And then I get really stressed. Vase or vase. Exactly. Target or tarjay.

Entourage. It's always tarjay. Okay. When you're buying a vase, at least. Oh, only when you're buying a vase. When you're buying a vase, it's target. Yeah, that's true. A loco-famous hotelier. Is that right? Whatever that right whatever a loco famous guy who ran a hotel

caleb brinton turned the mansion into a his name was caleb there's no hotelier named caleb why couldn't we just say caleb turn the mansion into a gentleman's club during prohibition there are five main spirits that are said to haunt brinton lodge kayla brinton who ran the brothel wait there's a brothel oh gentleman's club yes sure who ran the brothel resides mainly in his quarters which i have to say during the ghost tour this is probably where i experienced the most prickly feeling of a spiritual presence i had the opportunity to stay in the room for a few minutes after the tour had moved on and dot dot can't quite explain how i felt what like it was a super creepy oh i thought because it's like a brothel or something no and eric was very aroused

i was like oh my eric there is an unknown dark apparition which also runs around and it's pretty and it is probably this and not mr brinton that i may have experienced oh okay so no arousal okay yeah a lady in white casually descends the rear grand staircase where mr brinton when the hotel was a brothel would showcase the women who were sex workers off to his carefully chosen clients yikes speaking of clients one nickname dapper dan is still stalking the brinton house do you own a past life no my baby boy dapper baby dan he was notorious for being over affectionate okay maybe okay he would and probably really skeezy okay to the women at the time and nowadays this ghost tends to go for unsuspecting female visitors to who happened to cross his path who back from the time when the millard family first owned it the through to present day a great number? Back from the time when the Millard family first owned it,

through to present day, a great number of family members passed away within the walls of Brenton Lodge. During the tour, from what I recall, this was mostly billed as a common occurrence due to various health issues, which were... Diphtheria? Yeah. Oregon Trail. I googled that last time, and it's definitely not a virus.

It's a bacteria. And then I felt really stupid. Well, I didn't even know so oregon trail uh as a common which were more common in the 1700s and 1800s i cannot recall any sinister hangings or murders that took place on the property oh good good good good good just a few more things here worth noting there's a bedroom in this mansion which is loaded with creepy old porcelain dolls. Floor to ceiling, basically, on every shelf, by the bedside table, on a hope chest, everywhere. This was the first official ghost tour I've ever gone on.

And while this room was creepy, I was absolutely devastated to find out that the room was not decorated in an original way. Rather, a local television network was doing a story on Britain Lodge. And for that story, there was some kind of reenactment of one of the children's lives, and these dolls were procured from local secondhand stores to be in the background of shots and make the television show more scary. There goes the film industry, ruin things for you. Always ruining shit. It's true. You know how many PAs had to go to Goodwill and buy those creepy-ass dolls? For no money, by the way.

And probably got haunted. will and buy those creepy ass dolls for no money by the way and probably got haunted thus these dolls while hell they may be haunted are not in fact original indigenous to any of the residents of britain lodge past or present yet this room is still exactly as it was when the television people left years ago and it's made a part of the tour i found this to be a bit disingenuous for the haunted house to include on the tour because it plays upon the very modern fear of dolls and haunted children's items and i'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that slash other experiences where haunted houses especially for the ghost tours kind of drum up the hauntedness of any one particular area in a cheesy way i think

that for sure happens oh yeah a thousand percent i'm trying to think of an example i mean even when i went to the queen mary in july they still had all of their or it was it might have been earlier like april and may but they still had all of their halloween stuff up and we were like what and they're like oh it's just from the halloween tour and we're like that was in october it's april so like at this point you might as well just keep it up yeah they like had all the spider webs and like creepy dolls and it made it creepier because it looked like a fucking haunted house. But they were like, oh, we just haven't taken it down.

And I'm like, you get tours every day. So I don't know if that's the same thing, but that was weird. I would say Alcatraz is like that, too. Oh, really? I mean, in the creepier areas, they intentionally keep it really, really dark. Sure. They probably keep it chilly, too. Yeah.

Do they? Oh, yeah. i just made that up i don't know no i'm guarantee you they do it's an abandoned jail surrounded by water in san francisco so hey if you guys haven't listened to the case file episode on alcatraz i listened to it last week amazing about the escapes from alcatraz you should listen to it just saying okay another part of the story is that there was a very devastating hurricane which swept through the area in pennsylvania a couple of decades ago and not only the first floor of the lodge but the second were submerged in rain and storm water

this means that unfortunately a lot of antique furniture which may have been more original was damaged or destroyed and eventually replaced there's still furniture there of course which is as best of a recreation as they can do but i found that to be a little unfortunate though i did not see a ghost on my tour i certainly felt that i was among the presence of at least one particularly in the quarters of kayla britain which i mentioned a little bit ago additionally ghostly women are casually spotted lining up on the staircase and looking at that staircase gives me the heebie jeebies yeesh overall it was a really cool experience and i could sort of appreciate the hokiness with attending a toast with a ghost event

and ending the night in the brewery side of the building with a small glass of champagne in hand oh but there's two more things i'll capital letters i recorded the ghost tour portion using a voice memo on my phone this may break etiquette with what you're supposed to do on ghost tours, but I knew I would want to remember specific details about each of the rooms we went in and each of their ghostly inhabitants. That said, I realized almost immediately upon recording that I may have inadvertently created an opportunity for spirits to communicate. Like, did I just accidentally make a spirit box thingy or a series of EVPs? Like, did I just accidentally make a spirit box thingy or a series of EVPs? I have never not once listened either on my phone or my computer's audio equipment or tried enhancing the quieter parts of my audio for fear of actually hearing something. What should I do?

Listen to it. Should I listen or should I just delete the thing? Listen to it. I don't feel good about having it on my phone, even after almost a year. I made sure we tipped our tour guide, but it still doesn't feel quite right. I'm really asking for your advice, but I think it's kind of cool that I might have gotten an EVP? Listen to it. Listen to it, please.

Okay, I've saved sort of my favorite part of this place for last. During the tour, our guide made a particular mention of something I've never once heard about in actual accounts of ghost stories, both on this podcast or anywhere else he said that during the original time when the lodge was first a farmhouse and was built the area surrounding it was inhabited by spiritualists people who i guess were normal type city folk who happen to have a side passion for trying to invoke evil right those sorts of people i don't think they were wiccans which is something totally different but they might have been and i might be totally misremembering. The weirdest thing that the tour guide said was that these original neighbors from Britain Lodge are still some of the neighbors that Britain Lodge has today. Like, of course, those people died in the 1800s and things, but basically the way he described it was that the current neighbors really highly resemble in personality and tone the original inhabitants.

Yes. As if they are not possessed per se but reincarnate perhaps still the same locals so this geographic area deep in the woods in pennsylvania may be stuck in some sort of crazy spiritual time loop so 300 years ago there was a crazy cat lady in this one house you and you go there now and there's a completely different crazy cat lady you know i had never heard of anything like that sort of phenomenon wondering if you two have nope definitely not but ew but wow someone should write a book about that oh okay we will let's do it that's fascinating i've never heard about i've never heard that either but that sounds like something straight out of a movie sounds like

a stephen king novel yeah all in all it was a lovely way to spend last new year's eve and bond with my mom. Sorry for the length of my story. I hope it makes it. Love the podcast. Thank you for all that you two do.

Love to Gio. Sincerely, Eric. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Eric. Listen to that EVP. Yeah. Do as we tell you. All right, guys.

That's it for our listener story number 11. Normally here we would put all 600 of your names in, but we have two more episodes to record tonight. And so instead we thought we would spend our time doing something more valuable for you guys. So we are going to continue to do the names in future episodes,

but I think this month instead of names, we're going to release a, a special blooper reel or two or three i haven't decided yet uh on patreon for you guys and that should hopefully make up for the lack of saying all of your names this month yes i think that's fine okay i think they probably want to hear a blooper reel more than their own name like really fast yeah because we did have like 8 000 sarah's last time we had at least 8 000 and i don't know if anyone actually listens to that. Maybe you do.

Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. I don't know. But we thought like tonight we can focus on making you guys something more creative and interesting. Um, but we love all of you guys who have supported us on Patreon and, um,

you should have gotten something special in the mail by now. If not check your mailbox. Uh, and that's all we have for you today. you should have gotten something special in the mail by now if not check your mailbox and that's all we have for you today and that's why we drink