And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 34

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

Happy Turkey Month! We hope you all had the spookiest of Halloweens and are all settled in in your Fall finest to hear some creepy doppelgänger stories, per Christine's request! We've also decided we would like to have twins one day but only if they are telepathic... and that's why we drink!Please consider supporting the companies that support us!Get 30% off your first month of Scentbird when you go to Scentbird.com/DRINK (https://www.scentbird.com/drink)Get 15% off your next Modcloth purchase of $100 or more when you go to https://www.modcloth.com and enter code STORIES at checkout!

but it's also not just likes to sound like it's not old that's the problem like my back where it's only like 27 years old but it acts like it's 93 000 years old it's like already malfunctioning and making noises that is the truth mine is too um so i decided to drink on this episode oh i haven't drank this is kind of cards against humanity yes with the black box i know but more fun but more fun um yeah i have this box wine i'm going back to like the basics here super i'm drinking sweet tea repping my va well we're really like on brand today kind of yeah also uh i'm in as an homage to my halloween costume i have my tina i mean my louise mug with uh pink ears on i smell fear on you

says i smell fear and i do by the way you smell fear on me yep that's probably true i'm a scary person anyway welcome to our listener episode it is nove November 1st, so Halloween has just ended. Yes, it has literally ended only moments ago if you're watching this instantly. Is today All Saints Day? I think so. I don't know what it is. It's Scorpio season, so I'm just blacking out. It's four days till Gia's birthday.

That is what we're really focusing on. The Prince of Darkness has his fourth year year on this earth and we're going to celebrate it in some form or fashion i just don't know how yet um i imagine there'll be a lot of peanut butter i imagine at some point i will just shove my whole arm in a jar of peanut butter and let him just have a free-for-all that's the part where i'll be outside vomiting well i hope you'll be outside actually is my answer to that question but um i also i have some i went on chewy.com and bought a whole bunch of stuff for they have a birthday section let's just put it that way of course of course they do why aren't they our sponsor well actually it was really

cute but they're not our sponsor but i wish they were because um the other day this card came in the mail with like my name on it and it said happy birthday and i was like what is this it was like a birthday card like a full-on hallmark birthday card and i was like who got my birthday wrong and i open it and it's like it's almost geo's birthday we wanted to wish and it was from chewy i was like what the hell wait that's precious i know handwritten can you imagine being the person in that department where you're like i work in the birthday department where i write cards to dogs rush it i mean come mean, come on. Speaking of the Prince of Darkness, here is his shirt. Yes, you're wearing it. Dressed as Captain America, Captain Geo.

Look, you're a dog and I'm a cat. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How did we plan that without planning that at all? Well, it's fitting because today's theme is apparently doppelgangers as I screamed in everyone's faces for a while. How did we double plan that? And we're Gemini's. We're really kicking we are like

ultra twinning right now we're fighting the resistance the scorpio resistance okay don't let me in with that okay i'm fighting it single-handedly and my doppelganger happens to be next to me today drinking yeah drinking we're both doing what we know best i signed a waiver i'm not liable for anything um anyway eva sent us some stories and said eek these are extra creepy so let's hope let's hope i'm also reading off my phone today oh good that always ends well so if i squint it's because my eyes are also 93 000 years old in a 27 year old body all right face is creaky it will be one day for sure um Although I will say my grandma, she's one of the first people to ever own a beauty franchise in America. Oh, I love that story.

And one of her like hard hitting swear bys is if you want to make sure that you have tight skin. Why are you only telling me this now, first of all? But OK, go ahead. Because you're going to think it's gross. But if you think about it. I eat pickled herring. I don't think anything's gross. If you think about it her pickled herring i don't think anything's gross if you think about it it does make sense but she before she goes to sleep every night she puts preparation

h on her face what is that the stuff that you put on your butt hemorrhoids yeah but it keeps your butt tight keeps your face tight i don't think that's gross that's like that diaper like desertin i always thought that smelled nice even though it goes on baby butts. Listen, I'm just saying, if you, if you, and my, my grandma looks, uh, she's 83, but she looks like she's like my mom's age. Oh, yeah. So. No, she's killing the game. So, I mean. Don't knock it till you try it.

What's her name? Jacqueline Miriam Glickman. Yes. Jacqueline Miriam Glickman. In case you were not aware of my ancestry, maybe her name sounds fitting. In case you somehow blocked out every other time, Em has said that their family's name is Glickman. Right. And that Linda is Linda.

Yep. But that's preparation age. I'll have to tell Blaze to pick some up. I'm just saying. I say as though there is none in this house. Because of her, there will just be like a generation of like people rubbing preparation age on their face. there'll just be like a generation of like people rubbing preparation h on their face it's gonna be one of those like come up stories where preparation h is now cool with the millennials for like you know i mean you know things come back just like the joking on the john ghost

motion sensor toilet thing someone who works at preparation h is gonna be like why are my preparation h sales going crazy right now random person on amazon who accidentally bought a bulk order and is trying to sell them it's like wait i got rid of all of my basement preparation i did not plan for that to happen oh my all right you're welcome by the way so in a pinch use that okay okay i'm ready uh so moving on to doppelgangers as you do quickly from preparation h uh this one is from uh kimberly and uh sorry i learned how to not read and then really reread all of a sudden um kimberly's subject line is my doppelganger is avoiding me so far it sounds good i was gonna say i would hope so sounds like it's for the best clearing my throat for everyone me me me okay kimberly says hello uh and that's why we drink crew including lemon

thank you hello when christine requested doppelganger stories i figured i'd write in mine as i'm sure all the others you receive will be fucking terrifying they will be hopefully this gives you a little break from all the scary stories since it is a little more lighthearted okay um so eva's weaning us in i see i see she's tricking us my doppelganger story starts when i was about 13 i'm almost 31 now my dad came home from work and told me that someone who looked exactly like me had come into my family's restaurant that night he said that we dressed the same we walked the same and even had the same laugh oh oh he was weird me the only person that shares the same laugh as me is Elmo. And a dolphin sometimes.

And a dolphin. I have a lot of interesting traits to my laughter. It's very well-rounded, your laughter. Thank you. It's sometimes hearty, sometimes high-pitched. You never know what you're going to get. A buffet of laughter is what I provide. That's for sure.

And not like you laughing, just a buffet of sound effects of my laughter. He legitimately thought it was me until her parents came in. i thought that he had to be making some weird dad joke i didn't think anyone else uh could look that much like me i had a noticeable scar on my forehead uh one above my lip which has now faded as i've gotten older multiple ear piercings and at 13 i was constantly mistaken for 21 oh but then sudden uh but then several people confirmed my twin stranger no one caught her name though over the next several years i had more people tell me about her it wouldn't happen often but at least once a year someone would say they saw me somewhere or say they saw the girl that looks like me somewhere and even spoke to her and still no one ever got her name uh that

frustrated me because i was deeply curious i keep hearing that we dress the same no matter what age as an adult i've drifted from a goth look more into like a pin-up 50s style aesthetic very cool by the way i really thought she was gonna say like a suburban mom and i'm so excited but pin-up is way cooler that you conform to the masses um and only shop from a few places that are not totally common but what are the chances what the fuck our hair color is always the same even in my 20s when i dyed it every color under the sun what this includes when i on a whim cut off almost two feet of hair and randomly dyed it pink so someone was like oh i saw your doppelganger with pink hair maybe this person's like following and i was gonna say this sounds like a crime show

or crime story like someone's following you for an alibi yes or like following your facebook and it's like secretly obsessed with you or something. That one. I don't like that. It sounds like a Lifetime movie. Someone came to me and said that they even saw, oh, someone came up to me and said they even thought they complimented my hair the other day. They just loved it so much they had to tell me again.

I had no idea who this person was. Oh my God. Oh, okay. So the person complimenting, she didn't even know who that person was. They were like, oh, I saw you again. Yeah. I ran into you again. Oh, my God. that's what i want to know in my mid-20s i actually started getting mistaken for my doppelganger i was shopping and someone that worked at the store said they remembered me from middle school and i was really mean i like it she's like no that was my doppelganger now i was gonna say maybe this is something you're concocting at this point i had crippling anxiety in middle school and couldn't talk to anyone okay that's a good alibi i guess that could have been taken as mean uh but something

about the look on my face or whatever i said made the girl say, oh, you're not her. I asked who, and then when she said the name, I immediately forgot it as soon as I left the store. No, you gotta write that shit down. Maybe, yeah. I don't know how you forgot that. Go back to that Chico's or wherever you were and ask for that employee. What kind of bullshit is that? Similar situations happen.

Someone thought I was her. I made sure to ask her name, and then I either didn't catch it and the person made a quick exit or i immediately forgot i mean i do that all the time when i'm like really because i'm like unlike you socially anxious and so when people say their name i just immediately forget it like i feel like it was something that intensely that's true prominent in your life though you make a note to remember it yeah that's if you can't remember it then like a little weird i'd imagine there's some memory failure it's creepy come to find out other people has had asked her name before and also immediately forgot eventually someone said i looked exactly like this girl that they knew that works at eyeglass world so i naturally went by there because i'm curious but

never found her anyway once i had a my daughter the sightings seemed to stop for a while if no one asks me about my doppelganger for long periods of time i get worried something happened to her oh my god you've like created a bond you've grown up with this like for so long uh one day when i was back at work from maternity leave i went with a co-worker to grab breakfast from a place close by someone came up to me and said uh it's like a it's a blank line like the name the this writer forgot the name blank like hello fresh i don't know hello like hello and then like the name hello m and then yes and then the rest if it were my name would say m it's so good to see you and grabbed my arm

again i didn't catch the name but i felt pretty relieved to know that my doppelganger was alive and seemingly well i love it that's the first thought not like oh that's not my name but like this is oh thank god yeah i was it wasn't until i turned to face this person and i'm sure looked completely confused and she realized i wasn't her friend she apologized and just couldn't believe how similar we looked bear in mind i just got back from maternity leave my body wasn't in its normal state my hair was long as fuck and i'm sure i looked like a train wreck because babies make you the captain of team never sleeping again oh wow that seems like a ringing endorsement thanks yes so it seems like me and the doppelganger are always in the same condition i'm wondering if we're also if we were also pregnant at the same time my daughter that is so spooky my daughter is almost five now and I've been mistaken for my

doppelganger a couple more times since then. It's always surprising to me because I'm constantly hearing that I have a unique face, whatever that means, and my body type isn't the most common, whatever that means. My town isn't tiny, but it's certainly not the biggest place in the world. I find it pretty crazy that we haven't run into each other. I've heard and noted in research that if you meet your doppelganger, it's bad luck, some kind of omen, or means you're going to die. Sorry for everyone else who sent in stories, by the way,

because you're SOL at this point. I guess it's good that we've never met in that case. It makes me wonder if me and everyone else forgetting slash not catching her name is sort of protection from a higher power. I do have a couple of spirit guides that hang around. But that's all I have for you on my doppelganger. Nothing truly frightening, just a little unsettling.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. Thank you for all the laughs and scares. All the best. Oh, Kimby. P.S. I know Em and Christine have mentioned anxiety regarding the show. My friend and I actually went to the show in New Orleans back in September and got to meet Em and Christine. It was awesome. If there ever is another live show close to us, Florida Panhandle, I will definitely be there.

My God, Kimby, I remember meeting you. You look just like this other girl I know. I thought that I saw you there, actually. I thought I saw you at the Atlanta show. Maybe it wasn't you. Weird. I thought that we had said that we liked your hair, but I guess you don't remember. But that's okay.

we had said that we liked your hair but it's i guess you don't remember but that's okay um what you should remember from that show which we were just talking about is if anyone that if you went to the new orleans show what you did see was me get on stage and try to grab the microphone out of its stand and sucker punch myself in the face directly into the face directly into my teeth and i had to act for the next 20 minutes like my mouth wasn't on fire well now you need now you understand why people make up doppelgangers. Exactly. I mean, clearly. So, Kimby slash someone witnessed that. And wow, that is so wild, dude. What I wonder is if the other person gets that all the time, too.

They must, right? I imagine. The other person must get that. If that person actually exists, that might just be some creepy thing in the town. That's true. And if they haven't, I mean, they have another name, though, which is weird. Like, even though she doesn't remember it. Right. Oh, that is spooky.

I wonder if your daughter's going to start getting recognized. Yeah, I wonder if your daughter has the same doppelganger. I'd imagine that you both gave birth to the same looking child. With blue hair, pink hair, and everything. Like a pinup doll. Aww. Anyway, thank you for sending in your story. It's wild.

Okay. Ready? Oh, great. The one I get is called A Demon Doppelganger and Nightmare Fuel. I like that you got that story. Yep. This is from Bethany. Let me do a little sweet tea sipping.

I need to wait for you to swallow that. Let me pee real quick. Mm-hmm. Don't you guys miss that sound from like episode 50 where I would... Don't you miss episodes one through 50 where you just always heard kind of Christine P? Trader Joe's box wine. Okay. Here we go.

This is from Bethany. Hello, Christine, Em, Eva, and company. I love your podcast and was waiting until I got caught up to send in my stories. Conveniently, it aligned with you asking for doppelganger stories. Coincidence? Probably. I love it. Probably not. I live near Seattle, Washington, and was born and raised here. Growing up, I remember hearing stories of the Maltby Cemetery.

Maltby Cemetery. Decades ago, there were these steps located there called the 13 Steps to Hell. Aw, cute. I love them. Aw, so cute. These 13 steps to hell oh cute i love them so cute these 13 steps i'm sorry my mother just sent me a picture of what looks like gravy and it like is blocking my view i hope it's gravy i can't think of anything that looks like gravy that i oh it's not gravy but is it it's uh look at this it's like pumpkin soup or something gross and a mouse okay don't worry about it and a mouse don't

worry yeah what is your i don't understand i live in an old house every time i show up and i'm near you and you say oh my mother i'm like where is the sentence going oh it's never normal my sister rescued a mouse in a jar is it the is it a pet now i don't feel like your mother would teach it to like sew clothes or something she would put it to work and then she says fall instant pot soup days. And I don't even know. I wonder if the mouse is going to get a little strawful. The mouse is in the background stirring the pot.

It's Ratatouille. It is Ratatouille, literally. Your mom just invited Ratatouille in. Oh my god. Okay, I'm sorry, guys. I'm back to this. These 13 steps led down to a cement wall. Some say it was the crypt of a rich family that

lived on the property a long time ago but who knows the story goes that if you were to walk down the 13 steps when you turned around to go back up the steps you would see hell oh dear i would see m at the top i'd be summoning you in be ushering you in with a little jig a jig oh dear welcome to your new home christ Christine. That is hell. I heard steps... Going up the stairs is my hell. That's true. You wouldn't even make... I would look up, and instead of 13 stairs, it would be like 13,000 stairs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Like, never-ending staircase.

These steps have since been filled in. Good for you, Em. Thank you. Presumably to prevent anyone else from going down them. The most common things seen at the Maltby Cemetery are apparitions of women and children in tattered clothing. Oh, dear. Uh-oh. The story I have for you of the Maltby Cemetery is actually my boyfriend, Keir. K-E-I-R, I think.

Okay. And his friend's story. And his friend's story. Keir and his friend, Adam, have given me permission to tell their story. That's good. The cemetery is on private property and the owners are not afraid to press charges if you're caught trespassing. Okay. Keir, Adam, and five other friends. i'm sorry if i'm saying that wrong uh and five other friends

snuck into the cemetery in the middle of the night adam was walking around looking at the headstones when he felt a tap on his shoulder he turned to see cure motioning with his head to follow him he started to follow him towards a tree line just after cure disappeared into the darkness someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him around it was cure if i'm saying that name wrong she's pissed right now like you're literally ruining my story i'm sorry only for you just for you it's still creepy to us it is creepy he was terrified yes cure asked what was wrong and after he explained what had happened they all left quickly to this day adam swears that he clearly saw here trying how many times you have to say that name in the story god damn it to this day adam swears that he

clearly saw here trying to lead him into the dark trees away from everyone else but if it wasn't him what was it i like how it's what not who oh right side note on a separate occasion one of their friends was slightly possessed okay at the at the Maltby Cemetery. His nose started bleeding and he was saying weird things and banging his head against the car window after they left. I never went to the Maltby Cemetery by myself. Oh, no. I never went to the Maltby Cemetery myself. And after I heard this story, I was happy I hadn't.

Right. I have a second quick story I'd like to throw in. It doesn't have a doppelganger. Boo. But it's the creepiest thing that's ever happened to throw in. It doesn't have a doppelganger. Boo. But it's the creepiest thing that's ever happened to me. That was last week. That's all we need. That's all we want.

Growing up, I shared a room with my younger sister. Our bedroom was right next to our brother's bedroom. Our brothers were afraid of the dark, so they would leave the hallway light on at night as a type of nightlight. There was a period of time where my sister was having really bad nightmares every night. We were pretty young. I was around nine, which would make my sister around seven. seven one night i woke up and noticed a dark mass in our doorway i could make out a head shoulders arms and a torso head shoulders knees and toes a torso i could make out a head this bethany's gonna kill me

i could make out a head shoulders arms and arms, and a torso, but no legs. Oh, dear. No. The hallway light was bright behind it, and I could not see through it. I sat up in bed and was too afraid to make any noise. I watched it move through our room over to my sister's bed and lean over her. I gasped. Its head shot over to look at me. No, it did not.

No, it did not. And just like that, it disappeared. That's so horrifying to me. When anything shoots over at you when it shouldn't even exist. To like look at you. For your eyes to meet. I wish we had like a close-up on the camera for just our arms. The hair.

To see the goosebumps. Completely. Yeah. Everyone's like, we don't want to see that. Everyone's like, please don't show me a close-up of your skin. Of your skin. We don't want it. I want to see that everyone's like please don't show me a close-up of your skin of your skin we don't want it i want to see it though i just want to force everyone else into it as well i don't think i slept the rest of the night i never told anyone in my family what i saw even to this day well here you go hello not too long after it happened my parents

drew a cross in holy water that's right the wall above my sister's bed yep is that you m i certainly want to be those parents glickman the nightmare stopped and i never saw anything like that again oh so the sister is having all these nightmares and then one night this mass leans over her bed oh horrifying anything leaning no because i think the the additional movement is what freaks me out even more because if you see something in the corner you're like you know what maybe i'm it's a coat wrap maybe i'm thinking i'm making something out of it but when it starts moving on its own and then faces you completely when it realizes you're watching it oh yeah once it knows that you know that it

exists and it doesn't have to hide anymore. It's horrifying. That's when you just embrace death. It's when you're just like, goodbye. I clean my hands from this. I wash my hands. I am cruel world. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go to the big place.

Thank you. Up all those stairs. The 60,000. Actually, wait a minute. I'm never gonna be ready for that. Just throw me all the way down the flight. Thank you for taking the time to read my stories.

I hope you found them as spooky as I do. Much love from the Pacific Northwest, Bethany. Yikes, Bethany. Thank you, Bethany. That was terrible. Yeah, thank you for... What was that phrase? Thanks, I hated it.

Thanks, I hate it. That's one of my favorite phrases. It makes me laugh every time. Did we create that? No, it's like a very famous meme, but... I kind of want to steal it. Can we do that? I'm going to tell myself that I did.

I literally say it, like, I don't know. It's very funny. Thanks, I hate it. We say that when we get gift videos, too. Like, when we do gift videos and people send us, like, creepy-ass shit. It is very fitting. If we had to steal someone else's intellectual property, I would like it to be that one specific sentence. Just that line.

So, this is from Ashley. And Ashley titled the story, Some Doppelganger Stories, which means we're getting multiple. Hell yeah. So Ashley says, Hi, Christine. I'm Eva Fur Babies and also Lemon. God damn it, Lemon. See, I requested Doppelgangers way after Lemon was invited into the circle. I see.

And so all of these. Invited, not exclusively. So these aren't like two-year-old stories. These are all new ones. So they all know about lemon. I see. So I'm sorry. I'm you're going to be.

I'm surprised for Halloween. We didn't get a petrified pumpkin. That's the real. Do not request that someone mail me more petrified fruit. Why? Because I'm going to be mad about it. At least I'm trying to get on board. No, because I because, you know, I get attached and then they rot out my bookcases.

OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. Ashley says, what's up, friends? My name is Ashley. And then they rot out my bookcases. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Ashley says, what's up, friends? My name is Ashley. And also, brava, Ashley, because you also put in your pronouns.

And I very, she, her, thank you, Ashley, for putting in your pronouns. Because no matter how you identify, maybe you're just cisgender, maybe you're trans, maybe you're non-binary. Whatever form you have found yourself to be in this life i appreciate it because everyone should normalize pronouns um yeah i think a lot of people do now so i know i i this is the first i'm reading it in an email so it makes me happy yeah uh i started listening to your show earlier this year and quickly caught up uh to present day episodes which my boyfriend now usually listens to with me we're from cincinnati hey who day west side uh well okay i don't know i'll take it and we now live in greater la oh shit are you are doppelgangers

i think you follow us we're also not stalkers i swear uh-huh that's what they all that's what a stalker might say we heard christine uh wanted to punish herself with some doppelganger stories. So I thought I'd submit my experiences. Here's the craziest one. I like these people. They make me laugh. Everyone wants to torture you because you have also asked for it. Because I've literally requested it and then yelled, what, me?

I didn't do that. When I was in grade school in the early 2000s, I took instrument lessons every Tuesday after school. Me too. Are we literally, I took piano after school every Tuesdayuesday i think we're the same oh who was this my mom would pick me up take me to the teacher's house and then bring me home after 5 p.m if my dad wasn't home when we got back we'd call his desk phone to see what we should plan on doing for dinner one day we came home to an empty house and we were about to give my dad a call when i saw a

new message blinking on the answering machine. I pressed play and an automated voice said something along the lines of, an inmate is trying to reach you from the Hamilton County Jail. God, I still get those. Press one if you'd like to accept a call from blank, blank, blank. My dad's voice cut into the message and stated his first and last name. After another sentence of automated reading, the call ended. That was it. As you can imagine, my mom and I immediately started flipping the fuck out.

Was my dad actually in jail? Had we missed his one phone call? I know, that's terrifying. And what the hell did he do? My mom began calling my dad's desk phone repeatedly, redial after redial. Since this was before my family had cell phones, there was no answer. Before we even got to the point of calling the jail, we heard the garage door open and my dad walked in. We flipped the fuck out again my mom was so angry for at him for being arrested even though he was standing right in front of us and he had no idea what we were talking about we played the message for him and his face went pale all three of us knew that his voice it was his voice

on the recording but it wasn't really him oh cue close-up of my goosebumps. My dad ended up calling the non-emergency police line about it. The officer laughed it off and said that collect call schemes from the jail in Cincinnati were becoming very common. They are. He didn't have an explanation for how the inmates sounded exactly like my dad, though. We never got a call like this again. This was definitely the wildest experience, but there are others, like the time my dad's co-workers brought in a clipping from the newspaper that contained a photo of a Catholic priest that looked exactly like my dad. Your dad is something's going on. He brought it home and showed me, and my reaction was, why are you dressed like that? It took a solid 10 minutes

before I was finally convinced that it wasn't him. It was that guy in jail. He had like a conversion to Catholicism. Exactly, exactly. or it went the other way around oh you're right it could have been the other way i guess i inherited whatever nonsense this is because in college i would constantly get stopped by people who thought they knew me one of my professors told me he waved to me earlier that day and i gave him a strange look when i got closer he realized the or when he got closer he realized the person he thought was me didn't have a septum ring which is my trademark besides that we apparently looked exactly the same i moved to another state for an internship

and would get stopped there too once i was eating by myself at chipotle and a woman came up to me and asked if i would take a selfie with her when i asked why she said i looked exactly like one of her best friends she hadn't seen in years and she wanted to send a photo to her friend so that she could see for herself what she only knew it really wasn't her best friend, again, because of the septum ring. Only I've... She could have, in the last couple of years, gotten a septum ring.

That's true. That's still creepy, dude. Oddly, I've never seen one of my doppelgangers or my dad's face-to-face, so consider this official documentation in case someone who looks exactly like me is ever on America's Most Wanted or whatever, the doppelganger did it.

Lots of love to you guys and hope to catch you live in LA next year, Ashley. Ashley, what the fuck? Dude, I just got chills because what if we find two doppelgangers and we connect them? You know, they do. Well, that would be cool if we somehow were involved in that connection. But there is a doppelganger website where you can upload your face. I have seen that. It didn't really work for me.

I saw it on a bus bench ad. I've used it. It didn't work for me. Or at least my Doppelganger hasn't uploaded their face. It took my photo and then sent me a bunch of pop-ups and I was like, I probably just did something bad. I tried it and the only people that it matched me with, I guess people who look like me haven't used the service because it put me with a bunch of people that don't look like me at all.

Yeah, Renee did it and got, like, literally last week sent me, like, a match yourself thing and it was her and Vladimir Putin and it's now my, um. I love it. My contact photo. It would be hysterical if it were Shrek. No, it wouldn't be. Renee is obsessed with Shrek. Don't talk about it.

And so it would have been very funny. Like. I wish she made a fake one just a Sunday. Like romantically and sexually obsessed. Like, to be clear. A very large attraction to Shrek. Like, not in a cute way. Like, Smash Mouth is fun. And not human Shrek. Like, ogre Shrek. Like, the gross Shrek.

I want to die. Everyone's got a thing. Everyone's got a thing. Yeah, we don't all need to blast it out in the world, though. Anyway. Everyone's got a thing. Everyone's got a thing. Yeah, we don't all need to blast it out in the world, though. Anyway. I'm supportive of it. I'm not. I was going to say something. She literally has like a trap remix of Get Out of My Swamp.

And at my bachelorette party, all she would do is play a stupid trap. No, I would play it. You played it. Out of support for her. You're an asshole. I was trying to get her hyped up. Get out of my swamp, swamp, swamp, swamp, swamp, swamp, swamp. One of the fight only fights renee and i ever got into in my lifetime was at that bachelorette weekend so i wonder if

that had anything to do with maybe i orchestrated that as well literally got both of us hyped up in the worst possible way um i also want to say something about this uh what was it oh oh the hamilton county jail okay let's hear it here's the thing now i don't want to like i'm not like being skeptic burst anyone's bubble but i do get calls from there and now i have like a scam blocker app but like i used to get calls that would say i'm renata shaffer like we're not like they would literally have a phone book and find or phone book nowadays it's like okay grandma on the internet but like in the 90s they would literally have phone books and they would go like look up family names and then they would convince so they do this a lot in cincinnati they convince people's grandmas that like their

nephew that they're their nephew or grandchild and they're in jail and they need like 200 bucks to bail them out or whatever and give them the it's really fucked up it happens a lot and i don't know i'm not saying that's what it was i'm just saying people well in last few years, there's also been a lot of like they think they call it like the grandma scam now because they specifically seek out grandparents who don't know as they're not as well in tune to what's going on on the Internet. And my grandma almost got. That's right. She Jacqueline Miriam Glickman.

And she is all over this episode. She is as sharp as a number two pencil, by the way, because she... All that Preparation H on her face. She was smart as all get out. Like, she knew it was not me. She tricked them into thinking they were talking to the police. Someone literally pretended to be M and called M's grandmother. It's so psycho.

And said that I... Well, also, like, had done some, like, intense digging through my Facebook and all that. They literally stalk your social media. It's fucked up. I have a best friend who's a pilot and they like they called my grandma and said like oh i'm with cole and you know cole had an off weekend asked if i wanted to go fly out of the country with him and like made up a whole thing that was relatively on the surface could have passed as legitimate like if you weren't as close maybe with your grandma i might have been had like i think that's another reason that they go with grandparents is a lot of people our age are not close to their grandparents you can kind of tell them in a story and they'll

fall for it they're not watching your instagram or whatever necessarily and my grandma actually does know everything that's going on in my life unless you're jacklyn unless you're jackie glickman and uh she was very quick to it and she and she also tested it immediately because my grandparents are the two most in love people I've ever met and I dare you to find someone who's more in love than my grandparents. They've been together. I won't even try. For decades

and if I call and I'm like oh how's grandpa she's like my boyfriend is the most handsome sweetest. They call each other boyfriend it's the sweetest thing I've ever heard. There is not a five minute period that I've ever known them where they could not get away without compliment call each other boyfriend it's the sweetest thing i've ever heard there is not a five minute period that i've ever known them where they could not get away without complimenting each other in the nicest ways it's like what happened to our parents nicholas sparks romance so uh that did not generationally pass on to either of us i think well so then uh so when she got the call saying

that i was in jail and they needed money, but it was, I went out of the country. Um, and we got, we were in a cab and the cab got pulled over and the cab had drugs in it. And the cab driver was trying to frame us saying it was our drug. So he wouldn't get arrested. And so we ended up in jail having like smuggled in drugs to the country or

something. To be clear, this is the story. This is not what actually, this is what I do on a typical Tuesday. Um, and so my grandma they told my grandma the story and they were like oh we need we need this much money to be able to

bail ourselves out um and then they said that they had separated me from my friend and that we were in like this shady jail and it like it looked like they were gonna hurt me like preying on a grandma's instincts and my grandma like like first of all knew that like, I wouldn't have gone out of the country and not told my mom because my mom is a wildly helicopter parent. I would have never left the country without anyone knowing and telling my grandma in some way. And like tracking your every move on Facebook or something. Yeah. And so my grandma was like, oh, I would love to. But you know that your grandfather's in charge of the finances.

And you know that, you know, you know how how tough and cruel of a man he is. He won't even give me any money. He won't give me any money for even to go to the movies. And you know that he's such a tough man. It's going to take everything to get him to help you out. And the person pretending to be me was like, Oh, I know, Grandma, I know he hasn't been very nice to you in the past. And she's like, No, he's just such a brutal man you know i can't leave the marriage and like totally like caught this person and then my grandpa came home later and later during the phone call and pretended he was the police and freaked them out they never called back it's so lucky your grandfather is a cop here he is yeah yes my 95 year old grandfather is a cop the cruel bastard the cruel boyfriend of jackal and glickman oh they're so sweet but that's i mean it really does happen and like i get calls i don't much anymore but like i did

get calls saying like i'm ben schaefer like they would make up like a first name and be like i'm your cousin and i'm like you're not my cousin and they'd be like i need help getting out of jail can you send me 200 it happens a lot and cincinnati is one of the like i've read online at least cincinnati local news i don't know if they're right or wrong but i've read that this is like a very prevalent scheme to this day in cincinnati uh yeah it's a tough one yeah but anyway it's very creepy that it was your dad's voice because every time i get one it's like hey this is renata schaefer and i'm like okay you're not even trying right you gotta get that german accent come on you gotta you gotta commit gotta you gotta really go this route of like Hey, this is Renata Schaefer. And I'm like, okay, you're not even trying. Right. You got to get that German accent. Right.

You got to commit. You got to really go this route of, like, stalking Facebook and coal and finding friends. I mean, that's... Don't mess with my grandma. She's going to fuck you up. That is creepy, Em. I wish... I just wish there was a way to, like, catch that person.

That pisses me right the fuck off. Don't fucking mess with Jacqueline. What is wrong with people? Don't mess with my grandma. Don't go near my grandma. Why would you do that? I would be so pissed. Ugh.

I love that your grandpa just comes home and is like, another day in the Glickman household. Like, I guess I'm a cop now. My girlfriend's just yelling at people. I'm a cop now. We're role playing on the phone with a stranger in another country. Anyway. Listen, that's how you keep the romance alive. You heard it here first.

Preparation H and role-playing. All right. I'm sorry. Maybe role-play with the preparation H. Get weird with it. I'm telling you, you can combine it any way you want. I'm sorry. This is really not about me anymore.

This is now about... Oh, Ashley already sent. I want to look at these people's names to be like, do I know they're doppelgangers? That doesn't make sense. They wouldn't have the same name. You mean creep on them on Facebook later. I probably might do that. Let's see.

I'll call their grandma and see if they can send me some cash. Okay. So this next email is from Marissa. It says, doppelganger story, listeners episode. Hi, gang. Smiley face. Hi. I'll start out by saying that I love oh sorry that was lemon saying hi uh i'll start i'll start i crack myself up uh i'll start out by saying that i love the podcast and look forward to hearing your voices and now seeing

your faces oh they're beautiful aren't they every sunday i've had a lot of wild experiences with the paranormal in my life but this doppelganger story still gives me the chills when I think about it 15 years later. Growing up, I lived in an old farmhouse in rural Alberta, Canada. My bedroom was in the basement. Thanks, Mom. That sounds like my life. From day one in this house, I was literally tormented by the resident ghost. Oh, boy.

That was me in my house growing up in Fredericksburg. This is like a combo of our lives like day one i'm stuck in the basement you're haunted by ghosts it's all the first night that i ever spent there like we didn't have any furniture yet or anything the movers hadn't come in and so i slept on the floor in my bedroom my parents wanted to get me like used to the bedroom immediately i was sleeping there and i remember hearing footsteps like heavy bootsteps walking around on my floor and like stop at me and i could feel something crouch down i was on the floor in a sleeping bag i could feel something

crouch down and put its face in my face like trying to figure out why i was a child right like how old were you it was three three yeah forget it like at that age you haven't even invented you haven't even been able to like see enough horror movies to invent this shit no so since i was three i've been staying in that room. And even when I go home today as a 27-year-old and I sleep in that room for the holidays, I still feel something in there. Where did I sleep at your house? Because I was...

Oh, I slept on the couch. Did you? I think you, Deirdre, and I were up really late. I don't remember. I think the goal was for everyone to crash in my room, but it just seemed to be like sleep where you drop i don't remember where you ended up in my house i remember linda giving me a tour of the construction site and that's about all i remember um but i do remember you being like oh you can sleep over at my house and i was like you do realize you've told me all of these stories right like i don't want to sleep on your in your bedroom i don't remember what

happened i you i'm pretty sure i slept on a couch downstairs oh yeah we all ended up for about 25 minutes maybe we all ended up in the living room that's right and then you got annoyed because no one would wake up to get food or something anyway right that sounds i felt like i was back in back in high school days it did feel like high school but i was crashing on each other's couches drunk which i did not do in high school i should it sounds like high school for me i know it's not like in high school. I should have. It sounds like high school for me. I know. It sounds like your high school. Not mine. Sorry, Marissa. We're sorry. We're sorry.

I missed that. We're really going back to our roots in this episode. I know. Everyone hates it, I'm sure. Yes. From day one in this house, I was literally tormented by the resident ghost. Phantom ankle grabs. I'm going gonna call that a firm pass terrible nightmares you're like a referee uh terrible nightmares to seeing full-blown orbs fly down the stairs at me no ma'am it was just plain awful because of the ongoing torment i would wake up startled around 3 a.m. and walk across the hall to my sister's room and force one of them to wake up and come into the bedroom with me every night.

I'll paint you a picture of the layout of the basement. You come down these steps, and to the right there was a large open living space slash den, and to the left there was a long, narrow-ass, dark-ass hallway with two bedrooms directly across from each other at the very end yeah i hate this already when you walk across the hall from one bedroom to the other you can see down the hallway into the den area with a direct view of my mom's favorite rocking chair no your mom and bernada would get along swimmingly i know i would move that rocking chair every night like my bedtime routine and it's going outside and we're setting it on fire one more time uh yeah and my mom has all these like creepy bears from like the

1920s she's like it's my great grandma's bear i love it i take it with me everywhere and i'm like you're literally a crazy haunted old lady okay oh my god remember this rocking chair it's important oh we won't forget how could we so one night waking up from a terrible nightmare to the feeling of being watched i ventured across the hallway to wake up one of my sisters only on this night neither one of them so much as moved i tried for a good five minutes shaking them talking to them just desperately trying to wake them up because i was so terrified no luck they didn't wake i remember very vividly walking back towards their bedroom door and pausing,

just knowing that something was not right. I inhaled and basically ran out into the hallway and foolishly glanced down toward the den. Nope, that was mistake one. I froze. Big mistake. Down the hall, clear as day, I saw my mom. What? But I had this overwhelming feeling of dread and actually said out loud, that's not my mom what but i had this overwhelming feeling of dread and actually said out loud that's not my

mom q goosebump close-up goosebump cam goose cam goose cam goose cam eva where the hell are you where's the goose zoom oh my god her porch with her iphone just like should i put it on portrait mode okay i'm sorry but we'll leave you alone we won't but anyway no that's not my mom quote unquote mom was sitting in the rocking chair in the den when i spoke she slowly turned her head to look at me and smiled she did not forget it a really unnatural smile almost impossibly big for a person to smile. She then looked away and continued rocking slowly. Ugh, like, I know you know I'm not your mom and that's all I care about. And you can do nothing about it, basically.

Yeah, that's exactly what the look away is. It's like, I could charge you, but, like, I've already done my part in being here. You're already terrified and I'm just going to keep rocking. And I'm not leaving either you might have thought once you recognize that i'm not your mom that's when i would disappear that's the worst but i'm still here and i'll take my sweet time scaring the shit out of you and you can't pretend this is just a hallucination oh i have like full body full body arm hair situation goose cam goose cam cam. It feels like one of those like at the zoo where they have like or like a puppy cam. Yeah. They just have a goose cam. Yeah. Ours is worse. Okay. If I wasn't so terrified that it felt like my heart was going to fall out of my ass,

I would have 100% believed this was my mom. Quote unquote, she was wearing the same nightgown that my real mom wore to bed that night. I ran into my room, locked the door and leaped onto my bed. I sobbed all night and didn't sleep a wink. I asked my mom about it the next morning, all casual. Hey, were you just randomly sitting in your rocking chair in the dark last night at 3am? She responded with, why the fuck would I be doing that? I told her what I had seen and i got a classic ghosts aren't real speech from my non-believer mother she later learned that they were very real in this same

house more on that later perhaps my grandparents still live in this house today so i go back regularly for holidays and such but you bet your butts i don't go anywhere near that basement i hope that it was she said ass like three times now she says you bet your butt anyways sorry for the long story hopefully i'm lucky enough to make it onto the next listeners episode haha well the creepiest part of it all is like not the creepiest part but the saddest part of it all is that she saw marissa saw like their mom smile and then go back and then all all you could do is just run back to your room and just cry and like just hope hope nothing would approach you come toward i mean how easy would it have

been for you to slam the door sit there and cry and then all of a sudden just you're like knock knock the rocking chair appears well yeah or footsteps going to your door terrible you are somehow lucky it didn't get worse the terrible thing too is like trying to wake your siblings like without even knowing that that was there yet trying to wake your siblings and they won't wake up for five full minutes. Which means they weren't supposed to wake up. It was supposed to happen. I want to die. That's the worst part.

It's so bad. If you could wake up that quickly and they're somehow all of a sudden in this, like, hypnotic slumber, it's because it wanted you to be alone. And then mom, quote unquote, is smiling outside. She says, you guys are the bomb. Thank you for being you. Marissa from Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Of course you're from Canada. I pity you even more now.

We talked about that Alberta basement already. Okay, your turn. All right, next is from Katie. Katie writes an email titled, two doppelgangers and a hotel mirror. Wow, so we're getting a lot here. Oh, the mirrors. Katie says, hey, everybody. Hey. My name is Katie, and this is my first Wow. So we're getting a lot here. Oh, the mirrors. Katie says, Hey everybody. Hey,

my name is Katie and this is my first time writing to you with a potential listener story. I've been listening to your podcast since around the time it started and I absolutely love it. Was the ill for the time it started? No, I fucked up my mic. I was like,

um, no, nobody listened to it the time it started. Okay. Before I crack it. Yeah. Thank you for being an OG listener. Yeah.

Before I crack into it, I just wanted to mention that I've had experiences with the paranormal my entire life in fact the majority of the women on my mom's side of the family are sensitive to these things that's like you with the women on your dad's side oh yeah i became used to seeing and hearing ghosts fairly regularly as a kid i'm now in college and don't experience these things as often as i used to most of what i encounter has been um of a light or neutral nature well that's good yeah it's better than what it could be yeah like seeing a spirit caught in a loop walk down a hallway at a specific time every day or being comforted by someone signing and holding my singing and holding my hand as i try to fall asleep i'm glad that you're comforted by that because if something that's not supposed to be there was holding my hand and singing while I'm trying to sleep.

First of all, it sounds annoying. Except me. And it would freak me out. Yeah. The singing, anything singing that's not supposed to be there doesn't comfort me, but I'm glad it comforts you. Yeah. Even if someone alive was singing while I'm trying to sleep, I'd be like, get out. Em has been singing all day and it's driving me absolutely bonkers.

It's the truth. Yep. That being said, the story I have for you today is one of the few instances i can distinctly identify as malicious oh my story takes place on the way back home for a family vacation road tripping uh from missouri to maine we stopped to spend the night in littleton uh new hampshire in a hotel that uh had recently been renovated it is one of these generic hotels that you can find in most American cities. No one expects a haunted Hampton Inn. Big mistake.

That's true. I feel like we always stay in those kind of chain ones. Yeah, and we're like, oh, we'll be fine. And it's like, yeah. I mean, now that we've toured and we're specifically going to these cities to talk about true crime and death, it is very, very easy for the thought to slip into my mind that someone at some point at least once has died in this hotel. Or on this property or something.

And I might be in the hot spot. Especially if we're constantly researching paranormal true crime. One time I got so convinced that I was in there. Even though I didn't feel anything haunted, I just had convinced myself that someone in that room had died and there was no proof of it or anything i ended up on reddit trying to figure out like how you know if your hotel room has once had a death or if someone's been murdered in your room oh no it was quite a spiral did you figure it out uh i did there were certain uh there were certain things i don... I remember there being something about, like, usually... Oh, they replace...

You told me this. You said it on a live show. They, like, replace certain things in the room. But they don't replace all things. They don't replace the TV or the remote, but they replace, like, the couch or something. And also something about, like, the bathroom fixtures. Like, those are usually the first to be taken away

or replaced or something. I think... Oh, the carpet always gets changed when someone dies, Like, those are usually the first to be taken away or replaced or something. Or the carpet always gets changed once someone dies, but the sink never does. They keep the bathroom stuff and you were like, well, now I have this haunted ass shower. Mm-hmm. Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll have to go research again in the middle of the night. Anyway, we had two adjacent rooms that were just around the corner from the elevator.

One was for my parents and two little sisters while I shared the other one with my grandparents. With seven people, we needed multiple carts to bring in all of our stuff. My sister Grace said she had to go to the bathroom, so I volunteered to take her and the first cart up to the rooms. She was nine and afraid of getting lost going alone. As we went up the elevator, I asked if she saw any place she wanted to go for dinner as we drove into town. Grace didn't answer or even look at me, but I didn't really think anything of it because the elevator doors open and I became preoccupied trying to get the cart out. We walked the short distance to our rooms and let ourselves in. After seeing setting

my things down, I realized Grace had walked into her room even though she didn't have a key. I went back to the hallway and over to the door which was closed over to her door which was closed again. I knocked softly three times and three soft knocks were repeated back. I then knocked louder three times from the other side three bangs at the door so aggressively that it shook. I backed away and turned the corner heading towards the elevator just in time to see my parents and both of my sisters step out. No!

No. So that whole excursion. No! Up the elevator and then this sister waiting at the elevator while she was pulling the cart out, walking down the hall to their room, not speaking to her, and then the knocking back and forth.

Goose cam. Get the crap out of me. Go all of that was a not was not her sister just the feeling of your i just feel like my heart would just sink into my stomach well and that just even the thought that like they were on the elevator and she was like talking to her sister wasn't like she just thought she was there out of the corner right like she was literally trying to talk to her yeah and also like the waiting there like knowing that you know katie literally trying to talk to her. Yeah. And also like the waiting there, like knowing that, you know, Katie was trying to get this cart off the elevator and still continue to stand there and like wanted to keep being next to her. This is terrible. My stomach sank as soon as I saw the real version of my sister.

A chill wrapped around me and I couldn't keep my hands from shaking. My mom asked why I was so pale, but I ignored her. I asked Grace why she went back to the car. She gave me a weird look and said that she had been in the car the whole time i cannot when i started to explain what had happened my mom told me to save it for later because we have to decide on where to eat and to put a jacket on so i would stop shivering save it for later you know what's creepy too is that whatever was around to decide to shapeshift into your sister if your sister had been in the car this whole time that means it was near your car or at least in the parking lot well enough to see your sister and then know exactly what she was wearing and like totally channel her or it was with your

family like when you first checked in oh yeah i mean and like saved that for later it's still creepy as all no either way oh god nothing else happened while i tried to go to sleep there was a large mirror on the wall across from the bed that i could see into while laying down here we go uh i was unsettling it was unsettling because whenever i looked into it there were more shadows than i could see if i looked around the actual room it was extremely creepy and i didn't want to but i found myself repeatedly opening my eyes only to gaze at it. Almost as if you're being drawn to it, some might say. Next to my bed was a window that could also be seen in the mirror. Once I rolled over that way, I watched hands reach out from behind the curtains.

What? So, like, you're looking in the mirror and you can see the reflection of the window and you see hands by the curtain. Something really is trying to get you here. When I tilted my head to look in the mirror i could see in the reflection a dark figure looming over the side of my bed i shut my eyes and wished it would go away it wasn't long before i heard what sounded like another person breathing i also ended up sharing a room with my grandparents on vacation so i know what their snoring sounds like i held my breath and i could still hear three other people breathing. So they like there's three people in that room.

She's holding her breath. There should only be two breaths left. Good. And yet there's a third. Goodbye. I could distinguish the other from my grandparents labored snoring because it was even paced and sounded closer with each intake. So it was like trying approaching you.

It was paced like it was trying to. Then I felt something wet against my neck. Blech! And that's when I couldn't take it anymore. I flung my arms out from under the covers and flailed. I figured if there was someone actually there, they might get punched in the face. If there wasn't,

then maybe I changed the energy around to get whatever it was to go away. All I accomplished was punching the hotel corded phone off the nightstand i have absolutely no idea how i eventually fell asleep i dreamed that i woke up my grandma and asked her to scratch my back like she did when i was little she smiled and turned me around but when she started scratching i could feel it there was something else there literally clinging to my back dreamy then began to crawl around on the bed

arching my back and contorting in an effort to get it off what in the world i looked into the mirror thinking i could get it off if only i could see it better as soon as i did i saw the thing on my back was another me whoa what oh my god so like a second doppelganger in this so like you had a doppelganger of your sister and then either there is now a second demon that has also decided to look like you or it's the same thing that has now shifted into you and that's just what it does is it takes the shape of people oh since horrible oh my god it was like two identical stickers somehow had stuck together since i was on the bed on my hands and knees this other version of me was doing what it could what i can only describe as a broken leg back bend okay and then it listen i hate the

crab walk position on as a as a general rule but then once you're a a dead person or a demon that's doing a back bend and we literally just talked about how much you hate this and then it peeled off me goodbye it looked exactly like me but it was nothing close to human i shut my eyes because i couldn't bear its disturbing larger than it should be smile oh when i opened my eyes i was awake and it was 5 35 a.m i was laying sideways on the bed all the covers were on the floor and my grandparents were still snoring which implies that this wasn't a dream you were astral projecting and seeing what was actually happening to you oh my god oh my god oh my god so uh this is all took place one awful night in july of last year oh god i've been wanting to write it since it happened and i knew i absolutely had to after christine requested

doppelganger and mirror stories i hope you like my story and that it wasn't too long or confusing stay spooky hugs and best wishes katie katie i never want this to happen to me i would like to manifest that into the world right now it's more it's really really well you know what's creepy too is that like the fact that oh i wonder if the phone was on the floor when you woke up oh because what i was thinking is a lot of times when you know you see demons see scary shit, it's sleep paralysis, which is just as scary. Don't get me wrong. But it's an explanation. Sure.

But if you were able to punch the air and punch the phone. Like see a visual confirmation. Like actually move, then you're not in sleep paralysis. That's true, yeah. Right. So yeah. If you can move, you're not still. Is that logic?

That's very wise. Thank you. Airtight, I would say. Oh, my God. That is really, really, really, really horrid. Really horrid. Katie. What the hell?

Firm pass. Okay. Okay. So I have one. I think this is. Oh, there's. We have a bonus one. There's a bonus one.

So there's a last one, but then there's a bonus. Yes. Okay. Let's see if i can open it this is called oh god okay this is uh from emily and the subject is my little brother's face stealer haunting well i don't like that i don't even know what to okay hi i'm christine eva baby g lemon avocado and all the other fur babies. This is Avocado's first hello, I think.

It is. Welcome, Avocado. There have been a couple like hello to all petrified fruits. That's true. But this is the first time it's been really. Getting called out. High key dyslexic and I'm afraid I'll butcher the spellings. You literally spelled everyone's name correctly, including Avocado, which is kind of a tough one.

So good for you. named correctly, including avocado, which is kind of a tough one. So good for you. In your October listeners episode, you requested doppelgangers, and my story is a mix of both doppelgangers and ghosts and spirits. So let's jump right in. I believe the phrase is, let's crack into it. Let's crack into it. You all right?

Yeah. It really took me. It really took me there. So let's jump right in. At the time, my family was living overseas in Nairobi, Kenya as missionaries. Oh, wow. Shout out to all the TCK, third culture kids out there. We'd only been living there for a year or so, and we had moved there the day after my little brother's first birthday.

He was about two or so and had his own room in our house because out of all of us, he was the lightest sleeper. One night, my parents woke up to his screaming and cry, which wasn't unusual since nights are rather warm and sometimes it's hard to get comfortable enough to sleep especially for a toddler my mom decided to go check on him just to be safe but she was sure it was a mix of the heat and him teething but when she walked into the room his little nightlight was off and the room was cool now at night in kenya it can get cooler like 60s or 50s but it was uncharacteristically cold for it not being the rainy season and the side of the house he was on wasn't shaded and got plenty of sunlight during the day. She let it go and went back to bed. After all, it was like 3 a.m., and she was pregnant, but only her and my dad knew.

Sleep was a commodity. This happened for a few nights, and it was always the same. The light was off, and it was cold. After a few days, my parents started to leave the door open, and when they'd go back in the middle of the night, they would find it closed. Oh, no. After a while, my parents were getting nervous. We scanned and cleaned the room to make sure it wasn't an animal or a bug that scared him in the night, and nothing was found.

We were stumped. One night, my dad decided to set up an air mattress and stay in there with him. He wanted to give my mom a break, but also I knew he was just as scared as she was. on my break but also i knew he was just as scared as she was well the night my dad stayed in there he woke up when my brother started crying and looked over at my brother's little crib toddler bed and saw a small figure perched on the railing just watching my brother oh god my dad told my mom that when he saw the creature and turned on the light he could for a split second see the face and it was the same as my baby brother's face it had the god it had the body of a larger child and was perched like a cat but it had my baby brother's face he says even to this day he was filled with fear his heart stopped he tried to call for my mom and he couldn't he was paralyzed three split seconds where my dad caught the

glimpse of whatever it was over my brother stuck with him. My parents being highly religious brought in our pastor the next day to bless the room, the house, my brother, and our family as a whole. My parents asked him what they could do to prevent it from happening again, if my brother would be okay, and a series of questions only parents would think to ask in crisis. He answered them and then looked at my parents and said, I don't believe it was here for this baby he was here for that baby and pointed at my mother no nobody knew she was pregnant nobody nobody knew she was pregnant goose cam i just wiped all my whiskers off in case anyone's wondering.

I have eyeliner on my face as whiskers. That is atrocious. For God's sakes. It's really not going away. It's not going away. He was here for that baby and pointed at my mother. Scared, yes, but relieved that our family was safe okay it doesn't sound like it yeah how does that equal safe my parents moved on with their life and my mother's pregnancy wait that is when you should really become the most

concerned you ever have the ultimate danger but okay a few i'm like nervous laughing so hard my face actually hurts from smiling like it's it's outrageous oh my god okay a few months down the line my dad woke up in the middle of the night because something had knocked over he woke up sat up and saw that same figure again in their room this time watching him the noise he had heard was a bible hitting the floor good night goodbye he yelled some scripture at it and woke my mom up i'm sorry yelled scripture at the bible no at the creature oh okay the creature is sitting there watching him he yelled some scripture at it i love that and woke my mom up they both were freaking out and yelling and it just sat there

and looked at my mom oh so it's not like the like the mom wakes up and then this thing runs off it's like officially both now being happily viewed by everyone like it knows everyone knows it exists oh happily indeed because it looked at my mom and smiled no no no she saw this creature smile at her with the face of my baby brother, and it pointed at her. Good night. And then it was gone. It sure did. It sure did do all that.

Shortly after, my mother miscarried my sister in our home. It was very traumatic for our family, as my brothers and I were the only one home and had to help her through. Oh, my God. Oh, wow. To this day, my parents say a prayer over my sister to protect her from whatever that monster was this is that's a literal demon wow it's really horrific we oh my literally like a harbinger of death yeah yeah yeah i was afraid i was gonna no that's right that's the right word oh god that's terrible it's really bad

we quickly moved out of that house as it obviously was a lot of stress on my family No, that's right. That's the right word. Oh, God. That's terrible. That's really bad. We quickly moved out of that house as it obviously was a lot of stress on my family. And shortly after the organization we were with tore it down and turned it into a free farm for people who need fresh produce. So some good came out of it. My brother is 13 now, the captain of his soccer team, and a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan. We were just talking about Calvin and Hobbes. Love a good C&H. In the live show. You love a good C&H and R.

Love a good Cal Hobby. C&H and R and I-S-T-I-N-E. Oh my god. My mother recovered from her miscarriage and my parents had another daughter who is nine now. She's also healthy and happy and doing her own sassy thing. She'd love your podcast if she was old enough to listen sorry it's such a long story feel free to paraphrase no no i just like to write me too i hope this makes it onto the listeners episode i'm a long-time listener and i'm constantly making my friends and my partner listen to your podcast thanks for reading and thank you eva for all your hard work behind stage happy halloween season and happy thanksgiving as well emily emily god damn it you went through a lot also i it i mean i'm sorry for everything that

happened to that family sorry for your loss i do like knowing that the entire family is like no we believe in this shit like usually there's like one skeptic in the family right but the fact that both parents went through this is really very i I mean, it's terrifying and unique. You know, a lot of the, well, you know, a lot of non-denominational Christians are like very intense about demonology. Oh, that's true. So like, they like don't fuck around with that stuff. From what I've heard. Especially after a story like that.

As Catholics, definitely believe in demons, but not really to the extent that a lot of like other christian subsects do but yeah it's it's no joke man that's really scary and also i'm very sorry for what you went through that sounds traumatic taking a left turn to our bonus story great this is from zach and zach uh calls this uh haunted identical twin story. There we go. Another word for doppelganger, I guess. Hi, I'm Christine Eva at Al.

Oh, nice. Uh, I believe Christine requested the other week that she was interested in doppelganger or identical twin stories. And lucky for you, I'm an identical twin. I love twins. My twin brother and we're twins.

We're Gemini's though. Uh, we're different kinds of twins. We're astrological twins. We're better kind of, I'm just though. We're different kinds of twins. We're astrological twins. We're better kind of twins. I'm just kidding. My twin brother and I are super, super close. And while we have never experienced anything like twin telepathy or feeling each other's

pain, we have shared memories of events from our childhood that we cannot, that we know cannot be true, but we swear to this day have happened. Both of these memories are tied to events that took place in my parents' car. Tell me more. I would love to have identical twins but i only want the creepiest version did i tell i've like said since i was a little kid that i want twins and my mom has always said wait till you're pregnant and then you will say i absolutely don't want twins but i have always said that since i was little i would like i just love i would love

right i don't know why i don't like it's just a it'd just be i mean it's probably a nightmare to carry them but like still yeah i don't know i but i really would like i'd want them to be able to like have all the twin telepathy stuff i think that'd be super dope that would be dope just in like a like a fantastic i like how that's us as parents like we just want them to be telepathic is that too much to ask it's really not that difficult we haven't thought about the double cost of diapers and formula and schooling there's nothing more inconvenient literally not you have two newborns but like also i need you to be able to read each other's minds precious and it'll all be worth it in the end the first memory we share is uh we must have been around three years old and my mom was

dropping my older sister off to soccer practice at the local high school my twin brother and i were strapped in our car seats in the back seat of the car and my mom told us we should only be gone What? My brother and I looked at each other, but there was nothing we could do as the car started to drive itself around town while nobody was in the driver's seat. At the end of what must have been at least 15 to 20 minutes, the car parked right backward and initially started. And after a minute, my mom walked back into the car as if nothing happened. My brother and I, now 25, stand to this, that this story actually happened. And we believe we were hijacked by a ghost. To quote you two fun fact the name of this town was westfield new jersey the town of the watcher house yes i was like that sounds very familiar interesting interesting interesting um our second shared memory also

took place in this car we first of all whoa never be in this car again what kind of car is this we remember yeah what's the most uh spooky car like just based off of experience with three children already in a suburb i'm thinking maybe we've got like a like a like a chrysler or a not like a suv for sure like a honda accord i don't know trying to think of a chevy i don't know i'm not good at at suv cars maybe a subaru why am i why am i not in Team Subaru on this? That's a good one. We remember sitting in the back seat of the car, and both of our parents were in the front

seats. We were driving to visit our grandparents in Westfield. There's this famous roundabout in the middle of the town with a giant World War I memorial statue in the middle. As we were going around the statue, our dad, who was driving nonchalantly, just drove on top and over another car without saying a word or acting like anything had happened. What? I remember not being able to see anything outside the front dashboard other than the sky.

What? For some reason, my brother and I both have these memories, and we cannot explain why these false memories that took place in this car stand out in our heads to this day. In that car. false memories that took place in this car stand out in our heads to this day in that car anyway my parents sold the car and that was the last of the weird happenings we experienced trapped in our car seats but again my parents claimed that neither of these events happened and we're making them up i don't know if there are any other identical twins out there who experience shared false memories or if it's a common thing guys guys twins if we can set twins up with twins up if we can set up creepy twins with creepy twins like doppelganger twins of twins come on everyone get get right into each other on

twitter internet do your thing did you watch that documentary about the triplets oh yes it was so good what's it called identical strangers yes oh it was so good and so sad um anyway thanks for listening to my haunted hijacking identical twin story, though I know it's not the most interesting or spooky identical twin story out there. It was awesome. Wishing you all the best. My loves, Zach. Thank you, Zach. You and your twin are my loves.

Wowza. You know what? I think that's interesting because, A a i love that identical strangers movie and i think it's it actually goes back to a lot of this doppelganger shit i think because what happened like the way they found each other even was like people would be like oh my god you look just like this other guy on campus and like that's literally how they found out they were their own parents to a point literally like one of like they ended up going to the same alert by the way they ended up going to the same college but at different times yeah and one of the guys who used to be twin one's roommate ended up accidentally rooming with twin

two or like they ran into each other on the hall the first day on campus he like got there and this guy was like oh he said everyone was like oh hey so and so like treating him like he was like the coolest guy but he was like i just walked in here like everyone thinks i'm this like really popular guy who must like have lived in the building last year or something and then wow either his roommate or the roommate of the previous twin that went there yeah saw him and literally grabbed him like by the shirt and dragged him to a pay phone it was like i'm calling my friend and like yeah like what ended up being like to get to the bottom of this you need to meet us for dinner and that's how the two of the twins met and spoiler alert there's the third one anyway um i really just spoiled that movie i'm so sorry but it's a great

movie i mean i feel like you know that just from looking at the poster but it's a great movie um it's very sad but it's really good but the way that they a lot of them found out about each other too is like they just got separated at birth like maybe there are doppelgangers out there like no it's true like they're at least in one case maybe well and that whole point of that movie was about that uh psychological study that was super fucked up and they like didn't tell the parents that the that their children had twins and then they would go like study the children to like compare their there's literally like studies on multiples with orphans or it wasn't orphans and then they got adopted and didn't tell well they weren't orphans but they were like adopted children like like the parents would like adopt a baby but they weren't told that the baby

had other children or other siblings got it right sure i think so i don't remember we're trying to piece this together in front of you but point being it was really fascinating and really fucked up but really good um but the second thing i was going to say is, oh, I'm also watching a documentary about memory and how like terrible our memory is and like how we can easily like create stories in our head. And every time we think of a memory, we like recreate the story. So over time, the more we tell a story, like the more wrong it gets, even if you think it's real. Anyway, it's just fascinating. And so this is like double fascinating to me. So if there are any twins who'd like to tell me creepy stories, I would love that.

Are we going to pick a topic for next month? I just told you it. Literally. Didn't we already do twins? No. We didn't? Okay. We did doppelgangers.

I didn't know if we had already done twins or not. Fine. You pick one. I like twins. I want to do twins. Oh, no. I'm down with twins. I just thought we'd already done it.

But yeah, let's do twins. Okay. Let's do twins. All right. Twins, write in your stories. Let's not have twins because I don't think my. Oh, no. I'm down with twins. I just thought we'd already done it. But yeah, let's do twins. Okay. Let's do twins. All right. Twins, write in your stories. Let's not have twins because I don't think my body could handle it. Anyway. Okay.

Sounds good. All right. Thanks for listening to our listener episode for November. Our next one is a holiday episode. So I don't know. Maybe we could do a holiday episode. We'll see. Whatever Eva picks.

I mean, it's not up to us in the end. Only twins that Santa knows. That's the list goes. Only? What? Yep. Only holiday twins. I'm just going to commit to that.

Okay. Do what you will with that, Internet. Good luck. Good luck, Eva. And again, we say it all the time, or at least I feel like I say it all the time. But if you are going to submit a listener story, first of all, please send it to and that's why we drink at gmail.com. But also please write listener story in the subject line.

It makes searching for it a lot easier when Eva goes and is looking through. Goes a hunting. Tries to find all the stories. Just keeps it all filed nicely in our email. But don't feel like you have to resend an email if you've already sent it because. Right. If you're writing a new one, please put listener story. Yes, because we've already documented all those past ones. So have to resend an email if you've already sent it because... Right. If you're writing a new one, please put listener's story. Yes, because we've already documented all those past ones.

So don't resend an email. But if you send a new email, yeah, put listener's story. That's really helpful. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yay. I guess that's it. That's it. Happy October.

Happy November. Happy November. It's almost Thanksgiving. Almost Turkey Day. It's a good time of the year. Should we end it the right way then? Already? Yeah.

We got it, huh? Because the next one's going to be afterwards. Sure. Oh, dear God. god i'm rusty i haven't done this in a long time who goes first me you usually start it yeah pass the cranberry sauce we we're we're having mashed potatoes oh the turkey looks great thank you for loving me thank you for being there. Everyone's thanking the whole world. Thanking you for thanking us. For thanking you. Kill the turkey. I wish I were still in my Tina outfit.

That would have been so good. Oh, damn. All right. Well, happy turkey month. You're welcome for that bullshit, guys. And we'll practice. That's why we drink. We got that one down at the very least.