And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 63

Episode Date: January 1, 2022

Happy Neutral New Year, everyone! We're trying to keep it low key in terms of expectations for this year considering some of our last predictions... but we are here to read your incredible, spooky stories, as always! Buckle up for some theme-less tales of a haunted Pokémon cartridge, theater ghost lights and a budget ATWWD Immortal Portal poem/song. Stay classy garbage with us in 2022... and that's why we drink!

welcome to 2022 folks uh if we made it that far we we haven't yet but maybe you have tell us how it is when you get there uh welcome also to the finale of the trilogy saga that is allison as our listeners episode correspondent the beginning of a new year and the ending of a saga yeah with me uh officially on february 1st uh christine will be back for the listeners episodes so thank you allison for subbing in it's been very convenient since we live together. So probably the easiest three months it's been of recording this, except maybe not really because we're doing this in a pinch. Allison literally has to leave for the airport as soon as we're done recording this to go home for Christmas. So it's been easy, but also we still found a way to wait till the very end.

We sure did. So it's New Year's. Hopefully everyone had a good New Year's Eve and partied up unless that's like not your vibe. And I hope everyone went to bed before midnight then. I don't really know what your scene is, but hopefully everyone had fun. Whatever it is, we hope you started your year the way that you want it to. Do you know how you're starting your year, Allison? No, I'm going to be with you.

So I'll be doing whatever you're doing. I don't know what we're doing. We need to talk about that because I had original, I had plans and I think they've been changed since, but we are going to be on the East Coast and fumbling around. So if you see us on the street somewhere in the Virginia area, it's probably because we still don't know what we're up to. So will this be the first time we've been together on New Year's? Aside from that one time we drove back from the airport together.

Allison, go for it. At midnight. Are you talking about the one time I said, this is the first time we've ever had New Year's together? You better be awake at midnight to kiss me or I'm going to lose my mind. And then you fell asleep at 1130. That's the time? That's the time you're talking about? I wasn't going to mention that. Well, you really opened the door wide open for me to talk about it. The first time we'll be both awake, I assume. This is the first time. Let's put it this way, if I'm lucky, who knows, this will be the first time in like a good seven years I've had a New Year's kiss. The last time I got kissed on New Year's, Allison, was not you,

it was celery kisses. That was the last time you didn't get any kisses from your friends or anything? I don't think so. I think Brandy kissed me once because you were not there. That sounds right but hey i'd like to kiss my girlfriend that's been up it's been a hot minute it's been like a good decade since i've kissed someone on new year's i was dating i don't know i don't know when the last time i kissed someone on new year's was i'm not really a new year's person could have could have shot your shot about two years ago but someone got sleepy so well i kiss you every other day of the year okay so um allison you do have a new year's drink available for yourself i thought you were making me a drink no i asked if

you wanted one and you shrugged and walked away so you didn't get one okay well i took a nice swig of new year's water before we started recording so yeah what did you what did you make yourself mine is a grapefruit vodka tonic allison oh i was gonna say allison loves gin and then i realized you didn't say i do also love gin right now so vodka tonic yeah it's grapefruit good for you it's good it looks new year's eve it looks very champagney. That's sort of what I was going for. I didn't have any champagne because it's not New Year's yet. And we don't really ever have champagne here, do we? We do sometimes.

Remember that one time that I decided I was going to learn how to make champagne cocktails and then I bought two bottles of champagne? No. For just myself. That sounds right. Okay, well, I hope everyone's having a good holiday uh hopefully we had fun last night honestly hopefully i stayed awake until at least 1201 check my insta stories if you're listening to this on the day that this comes out because we'll all know then if i did or

did not get kissed on at midnight i will probably complain about it if you fall asleep again. So just to give you some motivation to stay up. Okay, so thank you, Eva in advance. Eva is I don't know where she is either. But she picked some really good stories for us to start 2022. Just like last time, we are not going to manifest a damn thing for 2022. We're just going to white knuckle it and hope for the best. I feel like by talking about it, we're risking it. So here we go. You're absolutely right. So our first story, do you want to go first again? No, you can go first this time. Oh, okay. Oh, I get to be the first story of 2022. Yeah, it is your show. So wow. Thank you. Finally, I feel seen on my own show. So this is from Amy, who is a double pronoun kind of person.

You know I love a double pronoun. They, she. I love when they comes first. So Amy's subject line is, I may have accidentally made a haunted Pokemon cartridge. I really was meant to read this one first. Wait, wait, wait. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Okay.

You were. Yeah. Explain to me what a cartridge is. Is that the i'm assuming this is like a like a game boy a game like a like a cartridge you put in a game boy oh okay i thought it was like pokemon lingo that i wasn't familiar with if it is i'm about to feel real silly because i also don't know about it but i i would when i think of a pokemon cartridge i think of like from like when i played game boy you'd put the game in yeah i don't know i'm about to look well we'll see okay so amy says hi and that's why we drink crew i'm a new listener and when i found out that you guys

asked for listener submissions i thought it was the perfect time to bring up a ghost encounter i've kept under wraps for years now i'm typing this out on my phone while on a train. So apologies if autocorrect makes things weird. Also, Pokemon doesn't appear in the story immediately. But we do get there. So please bear with me. Thank you, because I would have found a way to complain about it beforehand. In 2002, when I was 10, I went on my Girl Scout troops yearly fall camping trip. And this particular year, the older girls and the cadets told my age group, the juniors, a ghost story based on the campgrounds we were at. It was a really in-depth story that had a lot of focal points around places my troops

were familiar with. And it was a story told from the perspective of multiple characters. Fun. This sounds so elaborate. Especially for like girl scout cadets i just i'm like i feel like this should be like what people do in a writer's room i like to think that it's been passed down from like girl scout group to girl scout group and then they just like add on to it and make it more and more elaborate every year i liked i would like to be the dramatic

group of cadets who added a new character one year just because they were like that perspective's bored now like a no like it's time for a new revamp the main connective story for all these characters was a girl named jessica who had disappeared on her own girl scout trip and had supposedly died or been killed in the electrical room of the swimming pool oh god i love when the cadets are kind of fucked up they're like this ain't your mama's cadets uh this story was told us throughout our three-day stay and on the following sunday we even found a plaque that had jessica's troop number on it and a find that mystified all of us looking back on it now i'm sure those older girls were making the story up as they went but they couldn't have made up what i saw before leaving the grounds while we waited for the groundskeeper to inspect our cabin before we left,

I happened to look down on one of the pathways nearby. There were a bunch of these around that lead to different areas of the grounds, like the archery site, the trading post, and the aforementioned swimming pool, though I couldn't tell you which path this one was. At the end of the path however there was what looked like a small clearing with a stump and someone all in white with their head hung oh at first i thought it was another power generator on the grounds but the closest generator for our cabin was right outside the front doors additionally this was not long after i started wearing glasses so i could have been mistaken things, thinking it was a person. I couldn't go off and investigate myself, but I had

this weird feeling whoever this person was had seen me too, and I thought about them for the rest of the car ride home. I started calling the ghost Jessica by association. I love that. Sup, Jess? Even though in the ghost story, there was never a confirmation on if she had actually died she stayed in my mind for months to come and weirdly as we were coming into cicada season i thought she had followed me home and was trying to talk to me through the cicada cries wow that's just goes dramatic who's that ghost um as a pretty lonely kid with bad middle child syndrome i never told anybody what i saw and instead thought of the jessica i saw as kind of my pen pal oh i wish i had a pen pal who also spoke to me through the insects maybe that's what that's what the roaches are

you'd have to speak back through the cicadas i don't know about that i maybe i could just i don't know hmm i don't know how that. Maybe I could just, I don't know. Hmm. I don't know how that would end. We'll leave it to the cadets. They'll figure it out. Now for the Pokemon part. Okay, here we go.

I specified that this happened in 2002 because that's the year Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire were released. Cartridges. I was correct. Oh, those are games. Yes. Okay. I got Ruby the following Christmas and played it extensively. Just so you know, the Ruby and Sapphire, every color is its own game.

Like the three originals were red, blue, and yellow. And then they got real crazy with the colors, obviously. I was going to say, Ruby and Sapphire don't sound like your average colors. There was also like platinum and silver and emerald. Wow. How many of these were there? That was just like when i was playing them as a kid so i'm sure there's like they found every color in the box to use now maybe they like

paired up with crayola got real creative pokemon purple mountains majesty um okay i got ruby that following christmas and played it extensively and this was also the first time that i gave my pokemon nicknames you can probably tell where this is going one of the locations in this game is a place called mount i never knew how to say this and now i at almost 30 i'm finally being challenged publicly mount pyre mount pier mount pyre what mount pyre oh p-y-r-e sure i, I was like, I'll never have to learn this. Wow. You put it off way too long. One of the locations in the game is called Mount Pyre, a burial ground for deceased Pokemon that's, of course, littered with ghost types.

I don't know. In particular, one of the new ghost Pokemon introduced here was Shuppet. Shuppet? I don't know, folks. I only stuck with the original 150. I don't know who this one is. The one I caught was a girl, and the Pokedex entry for it stated that Shuppets are attracted to feelings of vengeance, which I thought fit Jessica's ghost story very well. I named my new Pokemon Jessica, and then within a few days or so, I stopped feeling like she was around me physically. I like to imagine that maybe she saw how much fun I was

having playing the game and saw a chance to see what the fuss was about. The cartridge I did this on has been missing for years now in my family home. Don't worry, I haven't given up the search for it, but it's been a tradition for me ever since to name a shepet jessica whenever i catch one in the next pokemon game if for no other reason than to let my old friend know i haven't forgotten her oh that's nice i wish there was like a cicada type of pokemon and then you could and then that would like she's hissing at you you know hopefully she's been able to follow me through the region so she isn't stuck in one world forever, though, to be fair, even that would probably be better than sitting on a stump in the woods

forever. Even if her story was all made up, she's real to me. And that has to count for something. I feel like that went on for a while, but I hope my bearing the lead a little bit helped reel you in and made you smile. Thank you so much for all the hard work you guys do.

And congrats once again, Christine on little Leona. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys in. And congrats once again, Christine on little Leona. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys in Chicago one day from Amy. A lot to dig into there. Yeah. First of all, I like that she took what was supposed to be a scary ghost story and just made a pal out of it. Yeah. I also like that she led with the hook of I know M's into Pokemon. This will probably do the trick. This does seem like an open door to brag about your Pokemon collection. It does.

I've never, oh, I've done it a little bit on the show, but poor Allison, who really has a necessary, like not, I don't know, an appropriate disinterest for Pokemon. Like just like a normal 30-year-old meh to Pokemon. And I make her look at my collection all the time. You're very proud of it. I'm very proud of it. It's cool.

It's a good back and forth. I am pretty much completely done with the fossil deck, which is shocking. I'm just saying no one cares, but I do. There's only like 10 more cards I need. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. Bada bing bada boom. One, two. Three. Three. Okay. Okay. there's only like 10 more cards i need it's pretty crazy yeah bada bing bada boom one two

three three okay your turn is alison you know my little eyes can't read that oh oh ew i hate no one knows what's going on but i hate what's happening toes in the crook of m's leg you know where you're not in there you know oh my god allison it's so uncomfortable what if i wiggle him a little bit don't i'm gonna throw up i'm gonna grab your slipper with my leg and pull it right off anyone else have are they dating someone who just likes to stick their creepy toes into whatever nook of yours they can find that's always the most vulnerable nook right between right behind the knee is something you wouldn't let me do i have creepy toes let's talk about creepy toes you've got the creepiest toes okay my toes are

just fine i love them thank you your turn at least i don't have the audacity alison mid performance to just shove my feet. Okay. Continue, please. God. I thought I could get away with it. Well, like I'm on and therefore I can't scream at you publicly. Wrong.

Try again. All right. All right. Okay. So this one's from Brianna, who uses she, her pronouns. Thank you for normalizing pronouns. And the subject is New Year's Eve, the Long Island medium, and the saddest glitch in the matrix. Aw.

Now I feel like we're going to be bummed out by the end of this. Let's see. The first two I was really excited about. Yeah. The last one makes me nervous. All right. Ooh, it starts with y'all. Okay, Brianna.

In all capitals. Just nothing. No hello to any. Just y'all. and then the story. All right. I'm so bummed that I'm going, oh, sorry. I'm not like close. It's not big enough. Are you kidding? Sorry, I can barely read it. All right. I'm so bummed that I'm just going to crack right into it. There will be two small time skips in the story. Oh, she's setting us up here. I appreciate the warning because otherwise it'd be like, where is the passage of time? Like what's going on here?

The year was 1999. I can't not read it in that tone. Okay. The year was 1999. There we go. And my parents were at a New Year's Eve party at my dad's boss's house on Long Island. The story goes that my parents were walking around the party when they see a sign pointing toward the basement stating that a psychic had a table below. I like the mystique of like, she's in the basement. Like they couldn't just keep her like on the main floor with everybody. She had to get hidden. They have to make it creepy. Yeah. My dad has experienced his own spooky shit. So naturally he drags my mom to the psychic to see their future. The psychic tells them several things.

When my brother and I will get married, how many children each of us will have, and that we will move south. Now, even open-minded, my dad thought this was ridiculous, mostly because he and my mother had been in New York for most of their lives, and it's where our family was, and there was no way he wanted to move to the south. Spoiler alert, we moved to texas in 2004 she was right he told me that they went to get up and keep partying but the psychic held his hand and said kathy wants you to know that she feels much better and she'll keep an eye on the family this is where both of my parents became believers. My Aunt Kathy had just passed from breast cancer and the only one at work who knew was the boss. Now, any skeptic would say the boss told the medium, which is a valid thought.

However, my dad says that he had known his boss for many years and trusts that she would not have weaponized his grief for entertainment at some New Year's Eve party. Sure. So I trust his judgment. He said that he sat back down with the medium and asked a few more questions about Kathy then finally allowed the medium to move on to other party guests. Here's the time jump. Thank you.

Now the year is 2011. What's the noise? What? Does it work forward or does it only work backward? Oh, like the rewind sound instead of it going you know this is i don't know i don't know what the forward sound is i'm gonna go okay now the year is 2011 i've bugged my parents about the details from the medium about 10 000 times because i'm desperate to know if the boy I'm dating in high school is the one. Another spoiler alert, he wasn't. They usually aren't, but... Like nine out of 10, they're not. That's okay.

They refused to tell me or my brother any information because they wanted to see how everything played out on its own, but that they had written down the predictions and had them stored. Oh, I like that foresight. At some point this year, a commercial comes on TV for the show Long Island Medium. I mostly remember my dad pausing the TV and yelling, that's her. Oh, so they met Teresa Caputo before she was big and was just chilling in people's basements. In the basement. Yeah. Good for her. Side hustles turn into big hustles. So good for Teresa. And now it's running joke in the family that my parents knew the Long Island medium before she was famous. Wow.

Oh. Zoop, zoop, zoop, zoop, zoop. Fast forward one last time to this past weekend, 2021. Okay. So we're still in the past here. Oh. Wow. We're going forwards and backwards at the same time since it's 2022.

2021 for anyone who's still out of whack from the past two years of chaos. I'm engaged. Congratulations. Yeah. My brother has two kids. Life is playing out in its own way. I was on a group chat with my parents and my brother while my parents were between retirement cruises. Hell of a life, huh?

Yeah. Yeah. And I jokingly bring up the medium and the predictions. and my brother while my parents were between retirement cruises. Hell of a life, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I jokingly bring up the medium and the predictions. Neither of my parents knew what I was talking about. What? I don't like that. Thankfully, my brother backed me up and brought up the TV show and that they had written down predictions, and they still had no reaction.

Now I'm panicking because this could be a few things. One, my parents are in their 60s and not to get too sad, but this could be a beginning sign of Alzheimer's. Oh, yeah. That's dark. Okay. I mean, if it's like a well-known joke in the family and now they're like, what? It would be weird that they both don't know at the same time, though.

That'd be very eerily timed Alzheimer's. That's the next sentence. So it says, however, it would be a hell of a coincidence for both parents to show the same sign at the exact time though. That'd be very eerily timed Alzheimer's. That's the next sentence. So it says, however, it would be a hell of a coincidence for both parents to show the same sign at the exact same time. Yes, especially about the exact same piece of information. Yeah. Two, something spooky ooky happened on that

cruise ship and these are no longer my parents but some alien replacements. I like that like Brianna's thinking out of the box. Like truly, like I thought there was going to be a real plot twist, and you found a bigger one. Like, oh, they're aliens. Still unlikely, but a hell of a lot more interesting. Or three, there was some shift in the Matrix where my parents no longer remembered a family famous story, but my brother and I still do.

I would think it would be four. I mean, maybe it's just my parents, but I would think it would be for i mean maybe it's just my parents but i would think it would be for they thought it would be funny yeah pretend not to remember it i think your parents would find that hilarious it would be not to me i'd be like uh excuse me wake up what are you talking about um yeah i think maybe maybe they were i mean i wasn't there maybe they were dead serious about it i don't know or maybe they're just like parents like my dad couldn't name my best friends that i've had for 20 years like i think it's just like just plain old dad forgetfulness i don't know i don't know unfortunately that is where the story ends for now i may never learn what the

psychic predicted for my future which is a real bummer, especially since I've been waiting 20-something years to find out. Even bigger, but less likely bummer, is that my parents may have been abducted by aliens. Let's go with that. It's a lot more fun than your parents just, like, forgetting a crucial, like, plot point in your family jokes. I thought you were going to say it's a lot more fun than alzheimer's which it is also more fun than alzheimer's yeah um i guess i'll just have to let life play out on its own oh that was a nice little circle back to end the story yeah yeah well done

live laugh lemon brianna wow okay i immediately i liked you until that last sentence there uh lemon yes yeah i get it remember when okay whoa remember when we went to a psychic i was gonna say the same thing it said that allison and i are gonna have six children and then allison's gonna leave me yep with all the children but i'll come back yeah apparently she comes back after like i don't know feeling bad or something i've we didn't find out the whole storyline to that but yeah if we have six kids everyone start getting nervous for me i'm getting nervous yeah i walked away from that going like oh that's pretty unlikely and walked away from that mad about it already it's like you're overstimulated by six kids and you leave me with it? What are you talking about? Okay, so. The end.

No, well, yes, but I think it's come to a point where maybe I need to go get my glasses. Your eyes are that bad? I struggled through that. You have three pairs of glasses and just choose to never wear any of them, which is the shocking part. Okay. Oh, that's so much better. Yeah, well. No's, okay. Oh, that's so much better. Yeah. Well,

no comment, Alison, except no, no, no, no comment. You made your comment. That's why.

Hopefully you could read the room and I don't have to say a damn thing. Okay. The third one here, the subject line is the last legally executed witch of the UK. Ooh, big subject line there um this is from allison hey uh whose pronouns i do not know it's okay we're just gonna go with allison that's a great name thank you the last legally executed witch of the uk hello from scotland hello obviously obviously i love your podcast one of my high school best friends shout out to rosie reached

out randomly to say she thought i'd like the podcast and all these years later she still knew what i liked that's nice yeah tell rosie hi um this is the story of janet horn the last person to be executed legally for witchcraft in the British Isles. Let's go back to 1727. Janet lived in a small northeast village in Scotland called Dornock. Also, like if this story is juicy and I find even more information on it, I might just be covering this eventually. So thank you for the inspiration in advance, Allison. Also for spelling out the

pronunciations of everything i super duper appreciate that this is the village where i lived for most of my young life and where me and rosie went to school janet had a daughter who had a deformant on her hand like like something on her hand janet was getting older and starting to show signs of senile dementia or mental health issues which were obviously undiagnosed at the time the neighbors accused janet of having used magic to turn her daughter into a pony which she rode to the devil what hang on now big hang on wow as i read it i went my brain isn't totally prepared for what's happening um okay hang on let's try that again the neighbors accused janet of having used magic to turn her daughter into a pony which she rode I went, my brain isn't totally prepared for what's happening. Okay, hang on. Let's try that again.

The neighbors accused Janet of having used magic to turn her daughter into a pony, which she rode to the devil. Okay. Okay. It's wild to start. The belief was that Janet had messed up the spell to turn her daughter back into a human, hence the thing on her hand the trial was very quick and both janet and her daughter were found guilty of witchcraft and they were sentenced to be burned at the stake the next day whoa even the daughter i know there's a lot kick her while she's down oh my god the daughter managed to escape but janet was not so lucky she was stripped smeared with tar paraded through the town on a barrel and burned alive jeez whoa the saddest

part is that due to her mental state janet is said to have no idea what was happening oh fuck it is reported that before being put on the stake she warmed herself by the fire remarking how warm it was wow way to really bum us out yeah what is that sound that's the sound of the air conditioning you do live here that makes that sound all the time it is worth noting her real name may have not been janet as this was a name given to many women accused of witchcraft in the area at the time nine years after her death the witchcraft acts were repealed in scotland and now the place where she was burned there is a small headstone with the date and this was put

up much later and the date on it is incorrectly listed as 1722 this spot is now in the garden of a lovely wee woman i love it there is a tourist information sign for visitors to learn about and in 2018 the court of our twin was transformed into a cafe in which there is a tourist information sign for visitors to learn about and in 2018 the court of our twin was transformed into a cafe in which there is a large mural of famous faces from our town the artist included their idea of what janet would have looked like all those years ago thank you for reading and sharing this story is very important to me and was a big aspect of my childhood growing up i hope you all live laugh lemon and stay the classy garbage that you are thank you allison that can be our plan for 2022 just stay classy garbage um janet horn i'm gonna have to look that

up because it sounds like there's more details to that yeah that sounds like there could be a whole episode on that so could be um thank you so much allison uh next next story we'll see if i can read this one a little bit better follow along have fun um all right this one is from emily who uses she her pronouns and the subject is i didn't know i had just walked past a quadruple homicide. Holy crap. Happy New Year to us. There seems to be no theme here, I think. Usually I'm wondering if there's going to be one. And so far we've gotten Pokemon. Uh-huh.

Quadruple homicide. Uh-huh. A witch. Uh-huh. I don't see that. There's something else too. Uh-huh. Okay.

So far, not finding a common denominator but two of them said live laugh lemon okay that's all we've got so far yeah okay uh hello all two years ago i was sub leasing room in a beautiful newly renovated townhouse in crown heights brooklyn new york although the place was new and beautiful it was located in a very residential part of the neighborhood. There were no coffee shops or cafes within walking distance, and the primary source of transportation in this area seemed to be personal vehicles. I'm hearing that it's bougie. What are you hearing? It sounds so wanky, for sure. This was a somewhat unusual experience for me because I've lived in more bustling parts of the city my whole life.

Nonetheless, I still enjoyed living in that quiet little ghost town. One morning, I left my apartment around 7 a.m. to make it to my early shift at work. At the time, I worked at my school's theater in Manhattan as a box office cashier. I remember speedwalking to the subway station to make it in time to my shift. After I turned the corner from the street I lived on, my place was slowed down by, oh, sorry, my pace. Glasses are helping.

I just can't read. Honestly. You want to try different glasses? It's not my eyes. It's my mouth. I remember speed walking to the subway station to make it in time to my shift. After I turned the corner from the street I lived on, my pace was slowed down by two

police officers. Okay. I tried to walk around them, but they were walking cautiously with flashlights in their hand. Nothing on the sidewalk seemed to be unusual. In fact, there was no one else on the sidewalk besides three of us. Annoyed, I just rolled my eyes and continued to rush past the two toward the subway station. When I finally got to work, my mom, who is always

updated with my work and school schedule, sent me a text asking if I made it to work all right. After replying, yeah, she proceeded to send me a link to a news article about a shooting that had just happened the same morning in my neighborhood turns out around 7 a.m that morning a shootout had occurred inside the first floor of a townhouse that killed four people and injured a few others geez this venue was apparently an illegal gambling bar that operated 24 7 when i finished reading the short article i quickly remembered walking past the two cautious police officers with their flashlight in front of the same small inconspicuous venue space. I gasp and come to the realization that I probably walked past the first two police officers first called to the scene

before they secured the scene and determining that there were four killed. Jeez. Later, my mom joked to me that i probably walked past at the very moment when four souls were finding their way to the afterlife that's a weird joke i was like that sounds like a joke that like any classic baby boomer parent would do like maybe it was like you had to be there joke right like yikes that would be a joke where i could see either of my parents trying it and either way i'm going at the end i'm like uh-huh thank you for the good spirits of this anyway no but i'm i'm hysterical okay keep going to this day I still find it so coincidental that I mushed through what later ended up to be a determined crime scene. Wow.

That's awful. Thankfully, no other related crimes happened to my knowledge during the rest of my stay there. I guess you can never be too sure of what's happening behind closed doors no matter how quiet the neighborhood. P.S. Thank you for listening to my story. You're welcome. I just graduated college this summer and have been totally lost in space in all ways.

I began listening about three months ago and your show has brought me so much joy and entertainment in this very confusing and transitional phase into true adulthood. Thank you, thank you. Sending love to you all. Wow. Thank you for the story.

Have you ever lived in a neighborhood that was like i don't know odd or like had some shady stuff going on yeah but i it was when i first moved out here but i think i i don't know i think i i saw what i i got i read the room i could tell that like something was going on and I just kind of never. You didn't ask questions. I'd ask questions. Yeah. We're like eyes open mouth shut. Yeah.

I was like, I'm just going to be over here. No, I, and then when I also in college, I senior year, I lived off campus and it was not the best neighborhood, but that was,

I, there were three different times i heard gunshots in my complex geez in the complex yeah also mom if you're listening i don't know if i ever told you that i don't know but i remember just being like i don't know what to do now it was anyway that that's probably the first i've never stumbled across a crime scene though have you um i don't think i've stumbled across a crime scene the place that i lived uh in new york a few years back was a little have you seen a dead body no oh you said you have you yeah i thought i mean it was it was it was really like i remember looking at the body like at a funeral no it was this is like i don't want to trigger anyone but it was someone had clearly

been trying to cross a road jeez yeah and i remember it i got there right when i guess the police were also arriving because I heard sirens. I was like, oh, what's going on? And I looked and I went and I remember thinking, that's a dead body. And then I didn't know what to do. I just stood there. God. But I haven't, I haven't, a crime scene, I guess, technically, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But. Different kind of crime. Different. Yeah. Wow. We're just, I'm just bumming everyone out left and right.

OK, let's move on. Have you ever been in a in a in a scary kind of neighborhood? Yeah. I mean, like nothing like wild, but like I mean, I was in a neighborhood where I tried not to like walk outside at night. Yeah, I gotcha. I'm I'm lucky that I was only in think, in two different places where I had that. Every other living experience I've had is what? Oh, sorry.

That wasn't to stop you. Oh, every other, I think, place I've lived was a pretty nice experience. Yeah. In terms of like crime, like roaches. That's its own situation. I did live across from a motorcycle bar fun um or not which is well i mean i don't mind motorcycles except that they would like rev their engines in the middle of the night and i was that person who'd like open the window and be like shut up

and they'd all just like rev them louder um so yeah that was i didn't get a whole lot of sleep but i wonder if they had a nickname for you at the bar they're like we're gonna go piss her off you know probably that also happened to be above a pagan bookstore i don't know if i ever told you that that was weird though because what a location it was like never open it was there that makes it even more interesting yeah very mysterious okay well uh here is our next story this is from brie who's a she her pronouns thank you for normally some pronouns and brie's subject line is leave a light on for the ghost oh so that's fun i wonder if this is gonna if this is gonna be a theater thing because a lot of theaters have ghost lights where like at night

after the theater closes they leave one lamp literally in the center of the stage lit and so it's like so the ghosts can see while they perform on stage and it's almost like a like it's kind of the same thing of like if you leave like those places that like leave houses for their the elves or the trolls or leave snacks out it's like a we're giving you a good thing please don't like mess up the theater while we're away. I feel like that's for all of the theater kids after they die. They just are like, I need to find a stay. The show must go on.

I'm no longer alive to bring the drama. So I still have to do it dead. Well, apparently that's like, and when we would, when we were on tour they would a lot of places would show us their ghost light because they knew we were a ghost show at the theater that's fun yeah okay leave a light on for the ghost apparently okay apparently every theater has a ghost should have just read the first sentence and you're supposed to leave a light on for said ghost when you leave at night i've been performing in one specific theater since i was 12 so about 20 years and everyone agrees there's no ghost at this theater it's relative well the second you say that that's the beginning of a horror story there's no ghost i think that's what i mean

everyone knows there's the ghost it's relatively newly built and completely neutral with no hauntings whatsoever a few years ago our theater company was producing a show that was very intense, portrayed and discussed unimaginable levels of trauma and called upon all of our deepest emotional connections to perform the works. Highly recommend the script sans mercy by Jonna Adams. Shout out. During rehearsals for the show, our stage manager started

seeing a black figure up in the booth. It would stand close to her and then disappear, and this was happening on a nightly basis, which we all shrugged off because this theater doesn't have a ghost. See? I'd be like, it does now. I guess

before this, you're right, but now things are changing. Until we each began having our own experiences with this apparition, we each saw this shadow figure and felt a particularly heavy energy one night at our first tech rehearsal. I felt like we were being supervised by this ghost that night. And there was an evil energy surrounding the rehearsal and something pushed me down a dark staircase backstage. Whoa.

But there ain't no ghost, I say. They had the lead there also, like very casually. Oh, it pushed me down the stairs. Yeah, I feel like that should have been its own sentence at the very least. As cast and crew, we started to take this entity very seriously. I brought my sage and crystals the next day to cleanse the theater. I insisted we keep lights, even very dim ones on backstage at all times and personally took it upon myself to make sure we left a light on for the ghost when we left every night. I went up into a secret prop closet where all the good props are hidden and found some

battery operated candles to place around backstage to leave on for the run of the show. We never switched these lights off and I left a lamp on backstage every night as well. I began talking to the ghost when I entered the theater and asking it for love and support as we told this traumatizing story every night okay i think that's fine i just it feels scary our i'm just don't do it i know i'm like ask it for love and support. Look at it. Okay. Our stage manager kept seeing the shadow, but the energy lightened up immensely. One night in the middle of the show, I heard something above me in the grid and later asked our house manager who was up there during the show. He said, I saw something up there, but it wasn't one of us. And we knew it was our new friend.

I don't like that. We're saying friends. We're climbing things. We're climbing. Yeah. Yikes. After a very exhausting few weeks of performing the show we packed up a few things and headed out to celebrate i hung back for a few minutes to make sure the candle lights were left on and

spent a few minutes thanking the ghost for cooperating during our run as i was walking out the stage door my arms full of my belongings from the dressing room sage and crystals on the top of the stack something reached from behind me grabbed the sage and pulled it back out of my belongings from the dressing room sage and crystals on the top of the stack something reached from behind me grabbed the sage and pulled it back out of my arms i laughed out loud as i picked it up saying don't worry we will be back the lights are on you are way too blasé about this you are you are way too just like ha ha ha i knew we'd be friends by the end. I just got pushed down the stairs, but we're good. We came back a few days later to take the set down and clean up the theater. And everything went smoothly.

Again, I was the last one putting things away and walking out. I had a box full of the battery operated candles I had put out for the ghost a few weeks earlier. I had turned them all off and was walking them back up to the prop closet. As I walked out of the theater, the candles started turning themselves on one by one. In your arms? No. See, this is like a recipe for this thing to attach itself to you. I feel like like if you're trying to bond with it before anyone else, then when everyone

leaves the theater one day, like it's coming right on home with you. Right? I mean, I guess so. You're the expert. Okay. Expert? No. like it's coming right on home with you right i mean i guess so you're the expert okay expert no but like if i were to write a horror movie that's the easiest plot to go through like that feels like it's what's gonna happen we're pretty sure that the amount of psychic waste produced by the show attracted or conjured the first ghost anyone had experienced in this theater we have only seen

him one more time a few months later during a TED talk about trauma. Thank you guys for your awesome show. Cheers. So I guess it really is attracted to like traumatic energy. Well, I was going to ask you if you think that it was like a ghost that showed up because of the trauma or if you think that it was like manifested by like the emotional distress. I mean, nice to hear the word expert but i am not one i'm just taking a guess here i i would guess that if everyone if all of the cast and crew or at least the cast if they were going to perform this traumatic show really properly and they wanted

to really give it all of their energy they were probably putting out a bunch of they're probably working with their own trauma to like give the best performance possible and it was all that trauma stirred up that conjured something i don't know that's my guess let's ask him the ghost oh he's like who all right this is our last one from elise elise uses she her pronouns and the subject is the budget immortal portal poem slash song this is going to be really difficult for me wait so it's actually someone actually wrote a poem song shut up okay for those of you who don't know should we we should tell them about immortal portal i if you've listened to the episode you'll probably know but if you're new here you might not know do you want to do it or me no i want you to do it uh so the immortal portal i'm i'm hoping

this is the right reference i think elise was trying to help us out here uh it says episode 194 is the one that we probably talked about this. But we were driving, you and I were driving somewhere and found out or relearned maybe that Zach Bagans actually has music on Spotify. And I don't know if it's necessarily his music, but someone as a spot. It's his in a way. someone as a spot it's his in a way someone on spotify their version of music is playing really like head-banging hardcore metal two clips of zach bagans from ghost adventures talking um and one of the songs is called immortal portal and it's me and allison's favorite of the zach bagan songs it's so good it's so like so it's like you hate love it the

more you listen to it though the better it gets after like the 10th time of us like ironically laughing to it we were both like that's kind of a good song it's kind of like and then uh it transformed into me referring to christine's labor and delivery as her immortal portal, which became a really horrible, horrible, but it's too late. Cause it's already part of the, and that's why we drink cannon. So,

uh, anyway, someone has written us a poem song about that. If this doesn't say, Holy shit, I am going to be so unhappy. Please go listen to that song, by the way.

It's a real doozy. Okay. So we already know that I can't read, so I'm probably going to mess this up. Are you going to try to do it in a Zach Bagans voice? Okay. I don't watch as much Zach. Just sound like a frat dude who's like always holding in a burp, you know? Like, you know?

Yeah. Okay. I'll be know? Yeah. Okay. You'll be fine. Okay. So I don't know why this is making me so nervous. I feel like I'm about to do karaoke or something. To the masses. Eternal Transferral.

The Budget Immortal Portal. I think that's the title. Oh, Eternal Transferral. I love that. Yeah. Okay. immortal portal i think that's the title oh eternal transferal i love that yeah okay and that's why we drink exploring the paranormal brink drinking wine or fraps or shakes all the spooky stories you can take oh okay murderers and black-eyed kids true crime encrypted that's what's up though okay ufos and men in black into it we will crack that's what's up that's what's up okay tangents happen We devolve. Crazy cases left unsolved.

Who is this person? Oh, hang on. Zach attacks on bagel bites. The never-ending Twitter fright. Christine attaches to petrified fruit and pretends it's not a hoot. That's the truth. Scary stories every week.

Saturday sneak peeks. Oh! Bonus listener stories with CK. Someone's a Patreon. Scottish accent takes my breath away. Props to Eva. Write that down. Don't forget.

Sassy the Clown. Hong Kong. Sightings. Voice. Haunted dolls. Who knows what lurks in the halls. Mama Madness. And emails.

Linda's fashion. And Renata's tales. Stop it. Here we go into the reddit void to see how people got annoyed yeah well ain't that the truth yeah way to insert that into this excellent sonnet geo scorpios and gemini's motive opportunity and alibis shut the fuck up the podcast that forged best friends i kind of hope it never ends holy shit holy shit that's amazing wow brava i'm so sad that that was not part of our cryptid poetry slam. But well done. I wish there was like some like I should have been doing some of that jazz music because

I'm snapping with it. That was so good. We really should have put on some like hard, hard metal in the background, though. It's yeah. I mean, wow. Well done. Well done. Who is that?

Elise? Yeah. Elise nailed it. What a great way to end the first month. Yeah. Wow. Good job. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Eva, also for putting together all of the stories and finding these perfect little gems. Thank you, Allison. This is, unfortunately, our last recording together. Yeah. Until further notice. But I appreciate you being here. Technically, I can say I've been on two years in a row two years oh yeah yeah you're right yeah yeah uh and i guess we'll see everyone for our february

first listeners episode um and christine will be back officially. And when this comes out, if you happen to be coming to our first show, because we're going on tour, when this comes out, we're going back on tour finally five days from now, and I will be absolutely a fucking wreck. So please, if you are coming to our live show, I'm just going to need you to heighten me up, even if it's not good. It's going to be good, but even if you are coming to our live show, I'm just going to need you to heighten me up, even if it's not good.

It's going to be good. But even if you notice I'm nervous, I'm going to need you to just really be there for us. Everyone, take your laugh, double it, and then double that. And then that'll be okay. Yeah, please just be proud of me. But anyway, we are very excited to be going back on tour, although I will now officially not be home all the time with Allison. But we got to end it on a sweet spot recording. So yeah.

Thank you, everyone. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Or? Neutral New Year. Maybe it's a sad year. I don't know. I don't know.

Happy old year. I don't know. Happy 2022. And fingers crossed this one goes well uh and why would you say that right at the end we were doing so well jk i was just kidding i hope i hope it goes terribly you don't hope anything at all i hope nothing okay and that's why we drink