And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 62

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

Christmastime is here! Join Em wrapped in Christmas lights and Allison for some spiked hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and wilted whipped cream! We cover all things holiday from haunted snow globes to potentially sitting on the lap of a murderous mall Santa. We also have one of five of Em's menches on benches and some funky fresh ice cubes... and that's why we drink! 

Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho! Are we supposed to sing the song? Christmas time is here You have to do it like Christine as high pitched as possible Christmas time is here Good job, Allison I almost called you christine oh that was weird

uh happy happy holidays to everybody as you can see we're trying to be festive if you're watching our youtube channel i'm covered in lights allison has a santa hat uh we in case you didn't recognize from that back and forth uh Christine's still not here. We got, I think, maybe a little bit left without her around. She's having a merry time with her little babe, and she's going to be right back. She still has a baby, if you can imagine that. It's still here.

So Allison is taking over the listeners episode another time because everyone was so sweet in the comments last month, and it's not at all because I specifically asked for that. Multiple times. If you'd like to do it again this time, by all means, go for it. But yeah, Merry Christmas. We are recording this early. It hasn't even hit holiday time yet. And happy holidays. Happy holidays, obviously. Obviously. I'm so sorry. And holidays haven't happened yet. Where are you going for Christmas slash holidays in general, Allison? I'm going to visit my family. And I'm going to go stay with my sister and see my parents.

And that is in South Carolina. So it may not be any colder than Los Angeles. I was going to ask you for the people where you're from. And I was like, I will look the people where you're from. And I was like, I will look so obviously like I'm interviewing you. So I'm glad you filled in for me. Is it that you forgot and you just needed an excuse to ask me? No, I was trying to get the people on your side that are, I guess, in South Carolina. And for Thanksgiving, because that hasn't even happened yet. For Thanksgiving, I'm spending four lovely days alone at home i know

oh no no okay i'm very much looking forward to it yeah and i'm gonna be gone so allison's very excited maybe the place will stay clean for four days by the way the mess that we talked about last month is still here i'm just it moved a little bit but it's to the left not like became less um okay well then i guess actually when this comes out it'll be closer to thanksgiving than christmas so what are you gonna eat for thanksgiving since you'll be by yourself i don't know i was thinking about ordering maybe some indian food nice yeah what are you gonna eat sorry sorry this goes two ways uh hmm well i since last year because of covid i couldn't go so it's now been uh i can't say it's fully an annual tradition anymore but ever since i have lived on

the west coast i go to seattle to see my aunt so very excited and my cousin just had a baby so now there's just babies everywhere i go it seems I'm going to eat a lot of mac and cheese. You know, I didn't ask you because all year round you talk about what you eat at Thanksgiving. It's my favorite time. Someone did it. I did a Q&A on Instagram two nights ago and someone said, what's your favorite meal that you ever eat? And it's always my aunt's Thanksgiving. And Allison's never come, but it's just never played out that way.

Even though Allison is literally going to be alone and in theory could come. We're still, that's still not, it is not cheap to fly for Thanksgiving. Yeah. Uh, and then for Christmas I will probably be home. Oh,

at some point, December 17th, Allison and I are going to find each other somewhere in the United States. And pop quiz for those who know what's happening on December 17th, Allison and I are going to find each other somewhere in the United States. Pop quiz for those who know what's happening on December 17th. If you know, you know. Let's just put it that way. Spider-Man. So I don't know where either of us will be, but it will be somewhere together.

It'll be in a movie theater. And then the next morning I will even go wherever my family is or wherever Allison's. Geez, why do I keep calling you Christine? It's really, I'm not happy about it. I'm not happy either. I feel icky. Look, I hold the microphone. I go into Christine world.

I take the microphone down. I'm at Allison world. Tell people what we're drinking. Allison. I made some festive cocktails. So I have, it's been sitting for a few minutes, but I have a lovely spiked hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. With a wilted whipped cream, but that means it's already incorporated itself into the yumminess. And then I don't know what I have because I told

Allison to surprise me with a Christmas mocktail and already visually nailed it because it is red with a green straw i don't know what's in this about as good as i could do on a pinch too because i said it five minutes before i recorded what is this that i'm gonna do you want to try it first it's gonna be poison it's because i keep calling you christine i'll try it how many days left do i have to live? It's a matter of hours. It tastes, is it the blood orange stuff that's in the fridge? What is it? It's,

it's a cherry lemon soda thing. Okay. I put a maraschino cherry in there for you somewhere. Really, really avoiding the word arsenic. That's nice. It tastes good, Allison.

Thank you. What? really somewhere really avoiding the word arsenic that's nice it tastes good allison thank you what if either of this is closer to poison it's probably mine so it's alcohol in it i guess so yeah the taste it doesn't taste like cherry handed it so you know this is probably a heavy pour i don't know uh this tastes good but does not taste like cherries or lemon i don't know what to tell you. I'm thinking, hey, it tastes like Christmas. So that was kind of the whole point. Because it's Christmas, we also have some decor that you can't see.

If you're not watching YouTube, we dressed ourselves in garland and tinsel and whatever we could find in five minutes. And the lights are red and green. And we have a little Yule log, a little light up fire, night light thing. And also to be representative. And also to be representative. Most importantly to be representative. We have one of my five benches on benches. Because everyone, thank you so much. But if you're wondering if I have a bench on a bench, five of you have individually sent me these.

I would love to have all menches on benches uh held up all at once so we've just got like a line of good men i don't have that many hands that would have been awkward so i just pulled one out and uh that we were representative of you know your own culture my own culture as i'm covered in garland and christmas lights okay um and then finally because it's christmas I wanted to make sure we had a present involved. Are you giving me a present? I'm giving, yes. So this is a stocking for those who can't see.

I have a, actually this is courtesy of Eva because last Christmas during COVID, Eva and I were home alone for Christmas and we spent Christmas together. And she gave me a stocking with Xenon on it, a little alien. So in here I have, it's like those little dolls. I've got even smaller stockings in there. So we both have a present. Oh. All right. One says A.

What could the other say? E. All right. Wow. All right. Allison, open up your present. This feels like it might have just been something you pulled out of the pantry at the last minute. Okay. Well. Very fucking Christmas. Okay. Hope you enjoy it. It is something I pulled out of the pantry.

It's a packet of sugar. What's it say? It says you dropped your name tag. Yeah. i've never said that before have i allison it's my go-to pickup line with allison and others anyone who's around if there's a sugar packet yeah it doesn't make me feel special at all that's kind of become the joke now though of like it's just a universal thing i'm going to say if there's a sugar packet and in case you had that to say, I have another one for you. Because I had a hunch I was going to complain about it publicly. No, I just wanted there to be another holder.

Oh. Wow. It's another one that says you are the sweetest. Can you tell that we're past the honeymoon phase? Where everything I do is just. That could be for anybody. Who knows what you write on your sugar packets in restaurants? I don't write on them.

I don't have the pen. I don't have the pen. I just hand them to people. Anyway, I wanted you to have a gift. Did you feel good about yourself at all? Great. Thank you. You're so sweet. Let's get into murder. Maybe that'll feel.

Yeah. Okay, Allison. Your turn. You can read. I'm going to make you read it with the small print too with your old lady eyes. This hot chocolate is really good. It's really good. Get in the holiday chocolate is really good it's really good get in the holiday spirit and read about people's crimes make it bigger no you don't deserve it after the lack

of appreciation for the thing i do all the time with the sugar okay oh sorry i'm moving things i'm not supposed to move that's okay all right it's been a while since i've done this okay the subject line is spooky thanksgiving doesn't have the same ring to it oh okay the o is all capital and not capital and side note eva did tell us that the theme this this uh holiday season is snow because I guess Eva looked for Christmas and any holiday stories and couldn't find a lot so in the search bar typed in snow

implying it would be holiday stories and that's what our theme is. It's all about keywords. So if you're looking for a scavenger hunt in this episode, please try to find the word snow in each story. And maybe it'll be there maybe it'll be a fun game for us too. Yeah. This is from Samantha who goes by she her pronouns. Thank you for normalizing pronouns. Hello all I have a holiday ghost story for you to hear. When I was younger, my family

liked to travel for Thanksgiving with my aunt and her children. This one year in particular was truly something. A friend of a friend purchased a very large old home in the middle of nowhere in New Hampshire. We were told that the house used to be an old bed and breakfast. They were early in the process of updating and fixing things, but offered to let us stay there free of charge, and we took them up on their offer. Sounds like a good deal. The house is old and wonderful and terrifying. Ooh, sounds like a great deal. Yeah, my favorite kind of house. Being the curious children we all were, we wanted to explore everything. We opened all the closets and any drawers we could find.

My brother found a cup filled with uncooked rice all stuck together in the drawer of an end table. a cup filled with uncooked rice all stuck together in the drawer of an end table weird the adults explained it as being there for wicking away any moisture from the furniture oh okay see i was thinking we're not adults we were like what does that mean i was thinking more like someone was sleepwalking and just threw rice in a cupboard or something oh to me it was like someone had like a lunch that they were making and was like, eh. And it spilled. I don't know. Oh. Well, between the two of us, Allison is the crumb lady of the family.

So I understand why your mind went there. Yeah. I think I probably spilled like three and a half cups worth of hot chocolate ingredients today. Did you really? Two times yesterday. I spilled a lot of stuff. Two different times yesterday, Allison had snacks and I found just buckets of crumbs later and wherever she had been sitting. Because I'm enthusiastic about them.

That's the truth. All right. So the rice was in the drawer. We put the cup back in and thought nothing more of it as we continued exploring for more treasures. Later that night, we experienced true and total darkness for the first time. The kind of darkness where you can't even see the front of your face. The front.

The front of your face. Oh, in front of your face. Yeah. You got it. It's okay. That's how Jocko's kicking in. All right. I missed a piece of that.

I got it. Yeah, I got there. I got one sip. The kind of darkness where you can't even see the hand in front of your face. I was like, you can never see the front of your face. Whoa. Unless you're looking in a mirror. That's kind of mind blowing though.

You'll never really know what you look like. That is a true horror. So you are on the nose in two ways. We all went to sleep sharing beds as the level of darkness was a bit terrifying. My brother and I shared with our mom and my aunt with all her children. The next morning, my brother and I were playing around in bed over my mother's sleeping body in the middle. She switched sides with my brother to try and get a little more sleep. As she put her hand under my brother's pillow, she hit something and knocked it off the bed.

Confused, she looked down on the ground, and there was a small handful of spilled rice. Oh, no. My mother searches any unfamiliar bed before sleeping in it for bugs, so it definitely wasn't there the night before. We went downstairs, and the rice in the cup was no longer rock hard. The grains moved freely, and there was even some missing. Maybe the ghost thought my brother was hungry?

Maybe. It's a weird thing to haunt. If you're a ghost, you're like, my cup of rice. That's what's going to be active. If you don't have a lot of stuff in the drawers, you don't have a lot to work with. Yeah, it's weird that the children being around, maybe's like representative of its heart where now it's softened because it used to be really hard

no? maybe I'm trying to make this pleasant so they can sleep at night wow you really turned this into like a heartwarming holiday story and just like that the ghost's rice fell apart right into your hands like putty and he passed on to the other side so to wrap up we went back once or twice more and i wish i had the

space to tell you every other creepy wonderful little thing about this place well samantha all you told me about was rice that's the side dish tell us more i'd be creeped out i'd be creeped out too i think i'd be like i don't know i'm one of those people like i don't believe it until i see it so i'm like if i had checked the bed and i was like there's no rice and under the pillow i would have noticed that that would really freak me out allison is although with kids you never know i mean i know she's saying that she didn't do it but i don't know i feel like kids kids are like hey you don't be funny if we put some rice under the pillow yeah that'd be hilarious maybe as a kid that would be funny i don't know i uh hmm i don't know i'd be i'd be freaked out

i don't know why i'd be freaked out though more i think at first i'd be freaked out that there was like old food in the bed that i misplaced or I didn't notice at first, you know. Also, Allison. Yeah, like my crumbs. Yeah. And also, I wanted to ask about this drink now that my face has gotten closer to it. You put the ice cubes in it that I don't like. Yes, I did.

I can tell because they have a smell to them. They freak me out. Ooh. Now it just smells like ice cubes, but not good ice cubes. They're just ice. No. They're not. Those smells like ice cubes but not good ice cubes they're just ice no they're not those are your ice cubes what i can you not smell that smells gross i mean i'm gonna drink it anyway because i appreciate all your hard effort but just know i'm gonna taste the ice cube with my mind every time I drink it. Here is the title. I may have sat on a serial killer's lap.

May is, uh, hmm. I think most of us could say I may have sat on a serial killer's lap. It kind of leads to the question of like how, how many of us have actually walked by a serial killer's lap it kind of leads to the question of like how how many of us have actually walked by a serial killer and not known it it probably doesn't lead to the question of how many of us have sat on someone else's lap oh that probably makes more sense no but like who is like what's what are the chances really how many murderers out there in the world people who

like like serial killer intentional murderers what are the chances that you've walked by one probably high i don't know we'd have to find out like what percentage of the population are serial killers i saw a i mean it's not i don't know if it's a very credible source but like one of those uncle john's bathroom books they always have fun facts on at the bottom of every page one of them uh said that you walk past six murderers in your life a murderer i would believe but yeah but murderers so there's it's not that's not a serial killer you know it's just your average joe well like someone could have it could even be like people who've done manslaughter or something like but apparently

six so i wonder how many people have if everyone walks past six of them how many people have walked past every time it was a serial killer oh whoa the probability is just sky high um i think we'd have to do a little bit more math and find out how like what percentage of murderers are serial killers uh-huh yeah it's also an easier answer to get i'm sure one simple google could get us there but we're not going to do it it's oh it's also it feels kind of vague and or unbelievable like the everyone eats 13 spiders in their lifetime when they're sleeping i heard that that was debunked which i'm going to choose to believe which we're both going to pray to believe like it has to beed which i'm gonna choose to believe which we're both gonna pray to

believe like it has to be true because i don't want to know what's going on all i'm gonna say is i've never found a spider in my mouth because you ate it that's why okay i may have sat on a serial killer's lap this is from kaylin who's a she they pronouns love a good double pronoun thank you for normalizing pronouns kaylin says says, hello, M. Christine Fur Babies and Real Baby and everyone else helping out with the show. Hello. You're involved. Yeah.

I have some paranormal stories, nothing crazy, and never had a true crime story until yesterday. I love it when they're fresh. It's so topical. I feel like last time we also got one where they were like, I literally just wrote this down. We did. I listened to podcasts at work, typically yours or crime junkie slash morbid,

and had gotten to an episode covering the serial killer, John Edward Robinson. I never heard of him and knew nothing when I started playing it. I thought it was cool when they mentioned he was in Kansas in his later years and then froze when they mentioned one of his victims had attended my high school Olathe Olathe North okay this was in the 80s and I was born in 1996 so nowhere near my time there but I still thought it was nuts that I never heard of this then they mentioned another later victim who had enrolled in my current college Johnson County Community College I like to think they call it J triple C you know Johnson County Community later victim who had enrolled in my current college johnson county community college i i

like to think they call it j triple c you know johnson county community college that's a mouthful they probably call it like like john con community oh john john count com john count com call John Cowan-com? John Cowan-com-call. I probably don't. That's still too many syllables. I probably don't call it that. Who enrolled in my current college and grocery store streets and other locations that I live within five minutes of. All of this was nuts, and then they mentioned something that made me go cold. John Edward Robinson used to like to play Santa Claus and was a Sunday school teacher. Insert thanks priests comment here. I didn't belong to his church. I pagan oh my gosh double pronouns and a little witchy i love it um but when i asked around i

realized we had been there in other events when i was very small typically around the holidays my grandma loved getting pictures of us with santa so i have a ton of me with different Santas. And there's one in particular that I never cared for. And the way the Santa was looking at me made me uncomfortable. It also freaks me out that maybe it wasn't the serial killer. And now there's just two Santas you have to be worried of. I'm suspicious of all Santas. You gotta be.

I'm not certain where this photo was taken, but when you look at pictures of his eyes and the pictures of john's eyes they look a lot alike i can never be certain that i sat on this awful terrible man's lap but i have a strange feeling that three-year-old me may have looked pure evil in the face and told it what i wanted for christmas i had to know what you wanted for Christmas. Life. Wanted to survive. Also, that's such a, like, oh, it's 530. The lights just changed. Hang on.

Everyone, cover your robot's ears. Now we're festive again, folks. Okay. That was a close call. Everyone's are going like, I don't know Allison's lamp, you know? But would you like to know the weather outside? I can also do these 10 unnecessary tasks. Just go to the skills, all the bullshit. The worst thing, I'm sure everyone else deals with this too, but there's nothing I hate

more than just being curious about the weather. And all of a sudden I've got like three paragraphs of this woman I have to listen to it's really infuriating for no reason at all girls shut the fuck up okay um no what i was trying to say is that uh sorry i've never seen fear in alison's eyes quite like when the lights were set to turn white at 530. That really got you. I want to play this back later and look at your eyes because you did feel, you looked a little startled. I don't think I'm ever in here at 530. Oh, it's supposed to be so when you're, when you were done with work,

they would like turn on for you. That's nice. Yeah. Well, I'm nice. So bada bing, bada boom. What I was going to say, Caitlin, is that the last sentence of this is just like artiste. Let's read it again just for others.

I have a strange feeling that three-year-old me may have looked pure evil in the face and told it what I wanted for Christmas. That's like if you have that as the first sentence of a book, that's what an English teacher calls the hook. That's exactly what I was thinking. It sounds like one of those scary movies that that's also about christmas yeah truly anyway thank you so much yeah thank you okay i am gonna zoom in on this because sweet little eyes just withering away right before us god it's like it's huge now that's like all you can see is one letter on the screen right now.

I'm okay. This will work. Okay. Sorry. It's not the taste of the drink. It's the ice cubes. They're funky, girl. They're... Hold your nose.

They're normal ice cubes. They're not. The fact that I could smell the difference. Okay. They come out of a silicone ice thing. They're funky fresh. I'm sure they're fine. This one says how a ghost saved my aunt's life.

I'm very intrigued. Okay, that is indeed the subject line. Okay, and this is from Jackie, whose pronouns we do not know. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. All right. Hey, guys. This story isn't mine, but it's one I've heard a million times growing up, and a couple of years ago, I found out it had a much creepier ending.

Ooh. It's kind of a long one. Sorry. Okay. So, my Aunt Deirdre. Ah! Shout out to Deirdre. My Aunt Deirdre was in college in South Carolina.

Shout out to me. Wow. It was Thanksgiving break, so all of her roommates were home for the break. This meant that my aunt was all alone in her dorm. She stayed there because our family lives on Long Island, and the trip was too far for her to make it for just a few days. She woke up in the middle of the night and was completely frozen in her bed. She was unable to move or talk.

Ooh. That's when she saw her oldest sister, my Aunt Sharon, at the end of her bed. That's honestly, though, the best case scenario. Is that just your sister at the foot of your bed? Not like a shadow man or like a scary thing? Yeah. I would imagine it's less creepy for you if you woke up to your sister at your bed. Yeah. If your sister's in your home when you went to bed i mean even if she wasn't it would still be less yeah you'd be like oh what are you doing here what's happening what

i mean or just be like oh it's my sister like assuming you have a good relationship with your sister right even if it wasn't her like in person okay just i'm sorry dude different wavelength did you hear the pause because that was a weird pause okay so she saw her oldest sister my aunt sharon at the end of her bed my aunt sharon passed away in her early 20s from leukemia the year before. Oh, okay. Naturally, she was freaked the fuck out. Yeah, now it tracks. Once she was able to move, she called my grandfather hysterically crying, and my grandfather told her to go spend the night at one of her friends, so she grabbed some of her stuff and left. This is where this story always ended when I was a kid.

While it's still a pretty spooky story, it gets even weirder. A couple of years ago, my grandfather was telling the story, but this time he got choked up at the end of it. I was so confused because he had told me the story a million times. Why would he get all upset about it now? Well, as it turns out, the next morning, a girl was found murdered and dumped in the pond by my aunt's dorm room. She had apparently died from a blow to the head and strangulation. Oh, my God. I Googled the story, and the timeline matches up with my aunt's slash grandpa's story perfectly. Wow.

So that's the story of how my dead aunt saved my other aunt's life. That's such a good perspective. Yeah, that's a very lovely how my dead aunt saved my other aunt's life oh that's such a good perspective yeah that's a very lovely way to look at that thanks for reading it you guys are the best wow i like to think if i became a ghost i would become some sort of hero and like i would try to help whoever i could then again i mean obviously not everyone was safe at the end of that story but i'd like to think that like i'd like to think if I ran into a ghost, it would be someone who was, like, warning me or something like that. You think, you really think that's what you would do as a ghost? Well, among other things.

I think you would just play pranks on people. Among other, when it got serious, I would know when to, like, stop the funny business, I think. I guess, like, it depends on what you know as a ghost. Like, what information are you privy to? And also, why are some ghosts, why do some of them seem to be privy and not others? Or maybe some of them just choose to play pranks. Yeah. Huh.

I don't know. I'd like to think I'd be helpful, but you're right. I would also probably prioritize more unnecessary things things what would you do as a ghost that's a good question i guess it depends on like how i died like if i were a ghost you use ghosts supposedly have like unfinished business right sure yeah so i mean revenge oh okay got it well i'll do my best to not be on the receiving end of the revenge i don't know depends on how i died i like to think i would just be like sort of you know kicking back and max and relax enjoying being a ghost i don't know drinking gin every day just hanging out if i could have one of these hot chocolates every day being a ghost. I don't know. Just drinking gin every day. Just hanging out. If I could have one of these hot chocolates every day as a ghost and that's the only thing I did, I'd be okay with that.

For eternity. I think by the end you'd be pretty sick of your hot chocolate. You know what I'd do if I died before you? No. What would you do? You'd be dead. What would I do? Cry for eternity. What would you do? Okay. So here's exactly what would you do you'd be dead what would i do cry for eternity what would you do

okay so here's exactly what i would do i don't like it already to you specifically all right so i would do like ghosty things right but like things that like could very easily be explained as non-ghosty things like what rice in the bed or something what yeah or like i'd like make the power go up and then oh it's just a fuse that blew and i'd be like making you guess like that's so on that's the most i'm sorry that's the most fucking skeptical ravenclaw bullshit i've ever heard i just want to keep you guessing you're like oh i have the ability to prove that ghosts exist, but I'm just going to make you more and more unsure every day.

That's so mean. I know 100% that is how you'll handle things. I mean, I would be drinking my hot chocolate going, guys, watch this. Honestly, now I know if you go first, every time I'm inconvenienced, I'll be like, like well that was a classic allison movement right think of me there'll just be a trail of crumbs everywhere that's how i'll really know you're around that's not on purpose though um okay this one is called my mom's haunted disney snow globes there's the snow going that's the word snow in there

oh yeah wait where was snow in the last one i don't know oh it was thanksgiving it was a thanksgiving story i don't know well we found the snow in this one and this is from ash who uses she her pronouns thank you for normalizing pronouns love a good um disney snow globe story um especially when it's haunted greetings and that's why we drink crew i have been binge listening to your show from episode one, and as a lover of all things spooky, I absolutely adore your podcast. Thank you for keeping me company when I've been lonely. I've wanted to send you a story from my childhood for some time, but haven't gotten around to do it. That is until I hung out with my mom recently, and she told me something that is still creeping me out. My mom has always been obsessed with Disney.

We were allowed to watch Disney films and spent many family vacations at Disney World in Orlando. that is still creeping me out. My mom has always been obsessed with Disney. We were allowed to watch Disney films and spent many family vacations at Disney World in Orlando. Ooh, fun. Very fun. Where was your go-to amusement park? What's in South Carolina? Like a Six Flags? What's there?

Oh, I think there's a Six Flags in Georgia. There is one in Georgia. Did you not go to amusement parks? I mean, we did did but there wasn't anything close enough to make it like a convenient day trip what was your what's the one you've gone to the most as a child do you remember amusement parks like gardens that's a good one like bush gardens it's a good one solid that. That was my amusement park in college. Aw.

What if your butt sat in the same seat that my butt sat in? Oh, my God. Wow. That is so romantic. Ah! Okay. My mom has been obsessed with Disney. We were allowed to watch.

We went to Disney World in Orlando. My favorite movie was Fantasia when I was little, and my mom used to play it to help me go to sleep, which is why I'm probably so fucked up. Fantasia scared me. I never finished it. To this day, I've never finished Fantasia. I couldn't get through it. There's something about, like, the mop.

You know the mops? I know the mop. That's the one. That's where I turn it. It's frightening. I go, and we're done. We're done. I'm probably so fucked up.

Yeah. I remember my mom being really into collecting Disney snow globes for some reason. And every trip to Disney, she just had to buy one. And she used to get the Disney catalog in the pre-internet days and would order them for herself as gifts. I love your mom's. There's so many things about that that are just so fun. I love your mom's, what's so many things about that that are just so fun. I love your mom's, what is it? I don't know, tenacity in her self-care program that she's set up for herself of like,

there's going to be a snow globe. Every time there's a catalog, there will be a snow globe by the end of this experience. I appreciate that. I like that she takes care of herself and treats herself with gifts. She knows what she likes and she's not afraid to go for it. I'm telling you, getting yourself gifts is one of the nicest things you can possibly do for yourself.

Allison has seen many in edible arrangement come to the door from past me, which is what the card says. It says from past M, I'm proud of you, future M. And every time, I'm so excited.

It's true. So I like that the snow globes were your mom's edible arrangement and also if you are in a place where you've been wondering if you need to get yourself something and you have something in your amazon cart and you're like oh i really should i just need eventually for a special occasion i'm gonna get that for myself we are giving you holiday permission that you should just treat yourself and buy that thing this is your sign if you were looking for one okay i every trip to disney she had to buy one she'd get from the catalog and to give her some credit they are pretty

sick most of them light up and they have little figures that go around on a track and they all play little tunes when wound up she has a nightmare before christmas one that used to be my favorite that is until she told me about this story i can't wait but before i tell you that tale i must share with you another after my parents split up uh what up divorce kids club hello uh we had allison you're not welcome we don't know we had to move out of my childhood home and my mom found us a house to rent right by my brand new high school in our county this house however was a very old farmhouse on a pecan farm that was built in 1893 and had recently been used as a local art studio we moved in when i was about 14 and the place

seemed super cool at first there was an old barn and a huge field that my brother and i would play in and pick wild blackberries fun very stereotypical beginning of a horror movie vibe yes i have always been kind of an empath and get good or bad vibes from people in places and this place at first never felt negative but i always felt like something was there in the center of the house is the dining room that had doorways on every wall that's a lot of doors for one room yeah it's like at least four yeah how many walls does this place have jeez louise one led to the kitchen one led to the living room one led to the foyer and one and the last one was the door to my mom's bedroom i'm imagining it as like a game, like a clue game board, you know,

where it's like, there's like one room that like, you have a whole bunch of different access points to. Yeah. So the, you know, the murderers have a whole number of ways to get in. At least four.

That's, uh, one day. Oh, I'm in the wrong spot. You wouldn't be if you just zoom in on the text. Okay. Uh, in the dining room was a huge shelf that housed all my mom's prize snow globes. You wouldn't be if you just zoom in on the text. Okay.

In the dining room was a huge shelf that housed all my mom's prized snow globes. I was actually thinking, like, I wonder if she has, like, a... A mantel display. Yeah, a display of sorts. Well-deserved, especially if they're Disney-style globes. You know those aren't cheap snow globes. You know? Yeah, they sound quality. Not your mama's knick-knacks.

Those are, like... They literally are. Okay. Not your mama's knickknacks those are like they literally are okay but they're the mom's bricker bracker there's a difference uh one day my brother and i while home alone were playing pretend in the dining room and i think we were playing harry potter or something wearing our family afghans as wizard robes when the door to our mom's room slammed shut it slammed so hard that the pictures and snow globes shrine shook on the wall mom is mad not harry potter not that magic at my house my brother and i quickly just stared at the door in horror and without saying anything to each other just went into the living room and started watching cartoons. Fair enough.

That is also how I handle my problems. Paranormal or not. We never spoke of this incident until we were both adults because it freaked us out so much, and I felt really weird any time I had to go through the dining room. One night, I had to get a drink of water, and you had to pass through the dining room to get to the kitchen from my bedroom.

As I walked through, I saw a tall shadow figure standing in one of the corners and could feel him staring at me see ya absolutely not i'd never go back in that room this figure was disturbing in that he was unnaturally tall and almost reached the ceiling i don't remember if i screamed or not but i ran back into my room and didn't sleep that night a few years later i had a friend staying the night with me and while we were up late being silly as teenagers, we both heard a distinct whistling sound coming from the right outside of my bedroom window. Ooh, like a person?

Or like, I assume not like the wind. I don't know. A distinct whistling sound. Whatever it is, I hate it. We both knew this was not the wind because it whistled a vaguely recognizable tune. That still creeps me out. I wonder if it's one of the tunes from the snow globes.

Ash, if you're listening, go wind those puppies up and see which one sounded the most like that. Awful sound. Eventually, I moved out to go to college and my mom got a new job that required her to move out of that haunted farmhouse she of course took her snow globes with her and last night i went over to visit her and my grandmother when we started talking about the old farmhouse first of all she confirmed that she too had seen the shadow man multiple times um multiple times and and didn't say a damn thing and just continued living there right? Right. Yeah. Not me. Couldn't be me. She's like, where else could I find a dining room that has four doors in it?

The second that I see a shadow figure in any home we live in, we don't live there anymore. Just so we're clear. Just be ready to, at all times, we're out of there. I'd be like, that was RJ. He's too tall. That was RJ walking by in the dark. But she didn't want to freak us out, so she didn't say anything when we lived there she also said she had seen her bedroom door shut on its own many times and again just didn't say anything to us about it so we wouldn't get scared

so then she starts telling me about what was happening in her new house that she currently lives in her snow globes have recently started turning on by themselves she will be working in her office and will hear the little tune of one of the snow globes playing on its own that's so creepy especially because if it's playing by it's not like it was a long crank and now it's like playing really solid music it's like that weird faint like it's just going noise by noise yeah and even like when you do crank them and then they still have a little juice in them you have to like shake them or something like it happened yeah like even if it wasn't cranked it would still have something

had a nudge it yeah wow she'll be working in her office and we'll hear the little tune of one of the snow clubs playing on its own there should be no reason for this to happen since you have to wind them up to get them to play uh then she tells me that just the other day she was cleaning the kitchen and saw a flash out of the corner of her eye so she looks over to the shelf and sees the nightmare before christmas snow globes blinking and flashing on their own the snow globes lights have not worked in years oh she said the lights were also not flashing in a way that they're supposed to so even if like it had juice all of a sudden like it shouldn't have been blanking it was like erratic or something she then way too casually said she wonders that the shadow man became attached to

them since they used to be in his room at our old house anyway this has currently been fueling my nightmares and i had to share with you both so you can get goose camp just like I did. I literally have goosebumps right now. Give my love to all fur babies and petrified fruits. Warm regards, Ash. Gross. Wow. You know what I started thinking about?

What? She said her mom saw something out of the corner of her eye. What? Was it RJ? That's so dumb. Her mom saw something out of the corner of her eye. Why? Was it RJ? It was so dumb. No, but I like, so I like never wear my hair down. Not really. And every so often I'll wear my hair down and I'll be like doing something like getting

something out of the fridge or like cleaning or whatever. And a piece of hair will like fall from behind my ear. And just freak you out it gets so scared it makes me feel really dumb ash maybe tell your mom it might just be her hair that's making us know it's definitely not my point was there are things to actually be scared of and i'm sitting over here like getting spooked by a piece of my hair do you remember there was a while ago where i was staying up i was like pulling several all nighters in a row and i was like losing sleep i was prepping for the tour i think i started like seeing things yeah i mean this you kind of go kooky a little bit well like once a year i do that

there was i we were prepping for the tour yeah so it must have been a while ago now but i remember i was doing a lot of all-nighters all at once and i started seeing things from the corner of my eye and i started seeing them so often i was getting comfortable with it where i was like oh i'm not gonna even look that was just some that was just my brain pretending a person walked by yeah now's just Joe. Yeah, now I'm wondering, I was like, was it, were the ghosts just getting, because I was so vulnerable, was I seeing things or was I hallucinating? Anyway, I started ignoring every time

I thought I saw something walk by. And then all of a sudden, Allison actually walked by and like leaned over to like give me a kiss on the head. And I went, ah! Anyway, we're jumpy people. anyway we're we're jumpy people this is from i'm sorry this is amazing this is from someone named rat who uses they them pronouns coolest most badass thing in the world tap tap that's that's what great name okay uh and the subject is a murderer rudely asked to ask me to borrow my

phone oh rudely this is mine right oh it's yours i'm so sorry sorry i saw a rat and got so stoked i was like this is gonna be a good one i think that's it's a double it's a double whammy in terms of i respect the absolute hell out of rat immediately a baby with the name of an animal absolutely every time all right hello atwwd team i hope you're all good and i want to say congrats to christine blaze and all of the fungals and the newest addition to the family. Sorry, I stumbled over that a little bit because I wasn't congratulated. But here we are again a month later. To make this about me again. Soon you know they're going to be talking about the mensch on the bench.

And they're just not going to say hi to you. They'll just say hi to every other inanimate object. All right. This is a story that caused me a lot of anxiety and still can fuck me up from time to time. But I want to start by saying that I'm doing better than ever right now and that I have been thinking about sharing this story as part of my recovery for a long time. And now I have figured it was time to get it all off my chest. Okay. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I moved back in with my parents while continuing uni online. In a desperate attempt to take care of my mental health and not lose my goddamn mind,

I got into the habit of going for a walk around the neighborhood every evening. Me too. That's true. Turns out I would have been better off just rotting in my room. Oh. Rat. Oh no. turns out i would have been better off just rotting in my room oh rat oh no one evening in early spring still snowy and cold where i live there's the snow i see him i was out on my usual walk that goes out of my parents neighborhood through some woods along a small path and back

around into the neighborhood just as i came out of the wooded area a man came toward me on the path nothing unusual about this a lot of people go for walks in these woods however he was wearing a face mask which could have been just just because of covid but why would he wear it out for a walk well okay i remember it depends on how early into covid this was because i remember seeing people like in their own cars wearing masks everyone just didn't know i don't know i'm assuming rat knows more than i do about what's going on so okay well the next piece of this is definitely more unusual because it's plastic gloves okay you're right not normal um and shorts in the piss cold and snow okay yeah this seems off seems not. The wardrobe is eccentric. Questionable.

As they would say. I decided to power walk past him and look away as my anxious ass would do in any other situation. Okay. Also, same. Mm-hmm. But when he came up to me, he looked straight at me and said, I need to borrow your phone. Ugh. Now, this was strange for a couple of different reasons

first why would anyone stop to talk to anyone on such a snowy cold night secondly why would he say it like that without even the pretense of being polite um also side note too to go back to like oh maybe he was wearing a mask because of covid it's like okay but like now he's asking to like hold your phone and press it against his face. With his plastic gloves. With his plastic. Yeah. So that's immediately out the window.

Yeah. Yes. Next. Sorry. I was startled and responded with a smooth, huh? That's exactly what I would have done. Yeah. So far this sounds very much like me.

I need to use your phone. He repeated. Surprised and incredulous, I responded with a chuckle and, why? Right. That would be something you said, too. It makes sense. Why on earth do you need to touch my phone? What he said next made me realize that this was going to get way worse than just an awkward conversation with a stranger.

You have to call the police. I've done something illegal. Okay. I wouldn't even know what to do. I would be stunned. I also don't know what I would do. Because, like, what do you do? You just run?

Or do you say, okay, but can you, like, stay over there? Because, like, the pandemic. I try to make it about the pandemic instead of, like, you did something illegal. You know? I'd be like, germs. Anyway, okay okay i'm scared of your germs i promise not you yeah i would not know what to do i would be so jaw-dropped i obviously didn't want to hand my phone over to a strange man on a dark cold path who just admitted he did something illegal and needs to call the police on the other hand i didn't want to make him angry when faced with the fight or flight decision i chose neither and responded with the frozen

i'm sorry what did you say did you know that there's it's supposedly fight flight and freeze there's a fourth one too i don't know what it i don't remember what it there is a fourth one though it's also an f i used to think it was really funny i still do sometimes to scare my sister because she is a freezer just drop to the ground like fainting goat situation yeah exactly i also i'm also a freeze person and i luckily we've discussed this that i we're different like i i'm freeze and you actually do something about it so good to know um i get very angry yeah alison's like straight up like been willing to fight people i never could couldn't even imagine that just wouldn't even be in my realm of possibilities yeah but i would have

frozen i totally am with you on that but i think you would have frozen too in that situation i don't think i would have fought i think it's worse because if the options are usually fight or flight this doesn't it's so far like fighting it's like there there hasn't been like a an overt like move to like hurt you yeah something directly to you hasn't happened yet that would cause you to fight and therefore that's like taken away from you as an option it's that thing that's like you're just in a socially uncomfortable situation and you're like where is the line yeah yeah i don't know okay so i'm sorry what did you say he didn't respond instead he threw something heavy into the woods to my left

which clattered against the trees then turned around and abruptly ran back the way he came oh like he was doing it as like like like look that way while i run i think oh i was thinking like getting rid of some evidence oh it could be either you wouldn't want it you wouldn't think you'd do that in front of somebody else here it is go get it you know i think it was probably like this person's like not stable sure but it does and also i'm wondering what the woods look like because if you're like trying to like direct attention somewhere so you can get away but you're in like the vast open wood like you're not running far enough that you can't they can't just turn around and. I feel like if you're trying to distract somebody and it's just the two of you and you're facing each other, throwing something into the woods is just going to be like, why did you do that?

I don't know. It's all really weird. I would be so jarred. I would be so jarred. The whole thing's very jarring. So, okay. When I tell this story, this is usually the part where people ask me if I'm stupid because I decided to follow him. Okay.

This is where it veers wildly off path from what I would have done because I would not have done that. In my own self-defense, I want to say that the alternative would have been turning around and walking 20 minutes through the dark woods, which seems super scary. Okay. At least in the area he was headed to there would be street lights and more people okay i mean there's really no right thing to do when you're in the middle of the woods with someone who is admittedly a criminal my first reaction was i would have stayed exactly where i was and called the police because if he did throw some piece of evidence into the woods then i could at least tell them where it was but then if you're standing there in the woods alone you're standing in the woods alone yeah i don't know i don't know what

the right thing to do would be i will say there's a fun little app called noon which everyone should get which is like a you hold the button down and i got distracted because you put your arm around me. There's an app called Noon where you hold the button. It's like a panic button. And then when you release it, you have like five seconds to type in a password. And the police won't come. But if you don't type in the password, the police will be like, oh, the phone has been ripped away from you and you're in a dangerous situation. And you have been geolocated. And we coming. So I would, I have that on my phone. So if you're ever in a dangerous area or you feel like you're in danger in some way, you just hold the button

until you feel safe. I would, having that app, I would have done that in the woods, I think. That's what I would have done. I guess, but it does take a lot of like presence of mind to be like, oh, I'm going to go pull out my phone that this guy's asking for open the app and then like hold the button down i know we talk i know i i know i i'm thinking with my rational brain but my fear brain would have probably just collapsed onto the ground i'm not sure maybe your brain would have like thrown the phone into the woods and then run away maybe i don't know anyway okay so as came out of the woods, I saw him getting in a car that was parked in a parking lot belonging to the closest group of houses. He drove off very quickly right past me.

The car was chock full of plastic garbage bags. So much that I remember thinking that there was no way he could see through the back windshield. What a weird dude. Okay. Yeah. That's what the subject line should have been that's when i heard a woman scream it was a loud crying shocked scream i turned around toward the houses and saw that one of the front doors was open a group of people were standing around and i heard

the women crying in there i had to walk past this group of houses as well to get home so asking myself if i should just go back into the woods and sleep there. No, I walked up to the group standing by the open door. I asked what had happened. The man who stood there was in complete shock and just told me he shot his father. He shot his father. I couldn't believe it. For reference, it is illegal to own a gun where I live. And up to that point, there hadn't been a single shooting in almost a year. It seemed unfathomable that it would happen in the neighborhood I grew up in, just 10 minutes away from my parents' house. Oh my god. The man at the front door asked me to run up the road and open the gate for the ambulance. I did as he asked.

Soon, two ambulances and many police cars were crowding up the road. They brought the screaming woman out of the house, and soon they brought the body out as well. I didn't know yet, but he was dead. At that point, I believed they would be able to save him. The police started questioning the people standing around. At this point, most of the neighbors were also out discussing the event many of them had heard gunshots one of the guys standing there told everyone who would listen that he had seen a man with a mask and a gun walk off toward the woods and he pointed toward the path i'd come from that's when it hit me that's well i guess it's shock i would have been like i don't know that

whole thing was weird so it's just a weird night in this town wow i mean i guess like you never know until you're in this situation the heavy thing the guy had thrown away while i was talking to him it was the gun while i was refusing to hand over my phone on a dark abandoned path in the woods he was holding the gun he had just used to kill a man jesus honestly like i'm so surprised he didn't use the gun again he threw it instead of used it on a witness in the woods or something like how quickly it could have been a different story yeah wow not to like give this person more trauma well they have to think about this for the rest of time but like i mean like i'm sure this is not the first time that they thought about it sure yeah but can you imagine a gun being thrown next to you that was evidence of a murder?

And, like, you're by yourself in the woods with that person? Oh, my gosh. Very scary. Needless to say, I was very scared that night. After being questioned by the police about him, his car, and what they looked like, I went home. Knowing full well that he had driven off and that i was the last person he talked to face to face luckily they stopped him in a traffic control the day after oh he admitted everything and was arrested without resisting he had shot and killed a

prominent lawyer in front of his partner oh he tried to shoot her too, but failed. Apparently this was during a psychotic episode. He's currently receiving forced mental health care and has admitted guilt. All of this, I found out the following week reading the news. Wow. What a story. Thank you for reading all of this. It has been hard for me to work through this and I'm happy to have an opportunity to write it all out like this. I still think a lot about the poor woman who watched her partner being shot by his own son right in front of her. Wow. I really hope she's doing all right. Me too. Jeez.

That's a deep, dark story. Yeah. It's terrible. They did add some sources to verify the story, which most people don't do. That's nice. Oh, and translated it. Wow. Mother of killer says his biggest problem isn't that he shot someone.

It's that he is sick and needs help. That's the title of the article. Wow. Thank you all so much for this podcast. I cannot describe how much it has helped me through 2020 2021 much love rat yes it's a fake name all the way to the end man rat i mean i understand obviously now why you would want a fake name here but wow i really was playing with our hearts if you're a baby and thinking of a name change. I think rat's the way to go.

Such a cool name. It really depends on what kind of vibe you're going for. A rat is a very, like, specific type of they be. Mm-hmm. Okay. We've got one last story. This is from Melanie. We don't know Melanie's pronouns.

Melanie, Melanie, Melanie, Melanie, Melanie. Okay. It's okay. We'll still, Melanie, Melanie, Melanie. Okay. It's okay. We'll still give you the chance, I suppose. Okay. Like we have a choice. Eva was like, this is it. You have what you have.

I'm sure. I'm sure it was probably done through. We usually encourage people to send in stories through our website because there's a prompt for your pronouns versus email so there's probably an email one okay melanie says oh it just says listener story i like melanie's style melanie's just like to the point melanie's like we know this is this is my name this is my story melanie says hi guys my sisters and i love your podcast they introduced me to it shout out to daniella and and andrea uh i have two paranormal stories to tell i hope you like them

as the wise m usually says let's crack into it wait a minute i'm liking melanie more and more as time goes on wise that's how i describe you okay mean oh no okay so story number one my sister's cousin and i were in the pocono mountains in pennsylvania for a bachelorette weekend we were walking downtown and found ourselves in an antique shop and there was a section on the third floor of the shop with haunted dolls for sale we spoke to the woman who cares for them and she was giving us information about them she was explaining how each child died and which doll they became. What? Sorry. I'm going to need you to slowly bring me into that.

I don't know if you know this about Melanie yet, but there's no slow roll. Melanie is to the point. Melanie's like, I can't keep it in much longer. Also, please give me the name of this antique store so I know exactly where to go next time in the Poconos. Oh, the stories were so heartbreaking. Okay okay well now now we've shifted the tune okay one child was killed and thrown into a ditch where did these children come from did i miss a sentence there was a section on the third floor that is just that jarring okay we spoke to

the woman who cares for these dolls and she was giving us information about them she was explaining how each child died and which doll they became so she just came up with backstories for the dolls or does this woman think they really were children and their spirits went into dolls i don't know but melanie is explaining this as if it's fact okay i'm gonna look melanie has that's where dolls come from children die they Okay. Well, and that's what we're rolling with here. One child was thrown into a ditch. One child was beaten and killed by his parents. Jeez. I hope it's not fact.

This storekeeper, if they are the ones that conjured up these backstories really has a lot of dark stuff going on it sounds like those like old german fairy tales like the dark versions of the ones we know yes where all of the parents are like we didn't have enough money so we let our children die right yeah or like things like that the list goes on while we were hearing these stories i got this wave of sadness that overcame me and i got really heavy i burst into tears and couldn't stop i felt like i couldn't breathe i feel this way while typing this story out even the woman talking about the dolls told me they could have been an angel's touch however i don't know if it felt happy i think it was the energy from the dolls making me feel their sadness i asked her to sage me and get rid of any negative energy just in case because i'm not trying to be possessed if you know what i mean and that's the

end of the story this woman does not have very good business sense when it comes to selling dolls certainly not i mean i also i respect the heart of like if you're going to take home this doll you need to know how tragically it died yeah you need to know how to love it properly and care for it so i'm gonna tell you the harsh truth now but also like as a as a doll seller it feels like you're the pitch needs to change a little bit you know like don't lead with that hmm i don't know where to go from there. Cause I, I fuck for all I know. That's like a person, someone really real believes that.

And then on top of that, Melanie really felt it. So I don't want to like judge the story, but I would like to have a personal experience with this doll storekeeper, just so I know better what's going on because that story was way too concise. Melanie, I feel like there was a lot, I have a lot of questions that I,

I'm never going to get the answer. It seems, uh, okay. The second story of Melanie's, we grew up on a Christmas tree farm in Somerset, New Jersey. Before my parents bought the house,

it was disclosed that the owner passed away in the first bedroom on the second floor and then became a doll. I don't know. Okay. Maybe, I don't know. His name was Mr. Carlson. Throughout our time there my sisters and i would always see a white cloudy figure from the corner

of our eyes especially on the second floor sometimes you would hear the floorboards upstairs creak even though no one was upstairs items would be moved the chandelier and our kitchen would sway sometimes and one time we were all downstairs when we heard a huge crash coming from upstairs. We checked the bathroom, and all the shampoo, conditioner, soaps had all fallen. We had never had bad feelings towards Mr. Carlson, and his presence was never harmful. We kept in contact with his wife after he sold the house to us, and a few years ago we found out that she passed away. All the paranormal things in the house completely stopped, and we think mr carlson was waiting for his wife to move on oh and that's melanie from new jersey i like that he was a white cloudy figure i don't know how true this is but i've all i've been told

that if a figure is white it's safe and if it's dark it's not safe but i i feel like that's probably not true and has some weird history behind why we would think that yeah you know yeah yeah um although i imagine it's sort of like well i mean i think maybe i'm prompted because uh of the christmas tree farm but i just had like santa claus and a big old beard in mind oh you just think it's just the ghost of santa's beard maybe it's just the beard mr carlson's beard i will say anytime i mean i've seen probably a handful of white cloudy figures and i've felt safe next to every one of them i just again don't know if i'm prompted because of what I've heard.

But I'd like to think now they're all just Santa's beard, just checking in to make sure I've been good or bad, you know? Anyway, thank you so much, Melanie. And thank you to everyone who sent in stories this month. I hope this was the last one of 21, 2021. Whoa. Whoa. of 21 2021 whoa whoa so next time we see you it'll be the first day of a new year uh i am not even going to attempt to guess how that year is going to go because the last time we did should no i think the last time we said like oh 2020 is going to be our year and then covet hits i like i think whatever you want say the opposite no because that's what i believe i it's a good idea but i also fear that this will be the time i'm actually manifesting say something really neutral it'll be fine 2022

will be a year things will happen other things will not happen there will be it will be a year people will have emotions people will do things and that's what i who could expect more or less of that not me um sounds about right thank you let's make it happen thank you for um being here thank and also thank you i just want to shout uh the mention on the bench again because we haven't had an appearance since the beginning of this episode thank you to everyone who's ever sent me a mention on the bench i mentioned mentioned them once and then a slew of people sent me mentions on benches so i am very grateful for that i don't want to seem like i'm not but you're going to have a whole bench full of benches on benches I've got at this point like

just benches on benches with benches on benches and yeah it's just a lot so whoa that sounds rowdy anyway thank you everybody who sent in stories if you would like to send in your own stories you can do that on our website and I guess have a great December.

A great Christmas. Yeah. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Happy month of December. And all that that means to you. As neutral as we can be, Miss Allison. And we'll see you next month in 2022. Woohoo!

And. That's. Why. We. Drink. in 2022. Woohoo! And that's why we drink.