And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 77

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Happy March Madness (just our own madness, no basketball)! We're recording on Em's favorite day 2.22 and felt it was only fitting to bring you some synchronicities to match. You all sent us some wild synchronicities involving lions, forever kisses, sober signs, spooky skits and synchronicities gone too far. Are we 4,000 days old? And that's why we drink!We're so proud of our brand new live show, On the Rocks! Join us on the road at andthatswhywedrink.com/live

hi hello it's march welcome to march everybody madness well that just escaped my soul that was madness that was indeed madness yes precisely hi how's hi how's your march going oh my god good i don't know all right we probably just went to canada and my passport was not expired so it can't be that bad let's see what's happening on mar let me check my calendar march 1st what's going on because currently it is not that leon will be 17 months that day oh we are big i'll be like i'll be like 3 000 days i think that day so excellent 3 000 doesn't really add up but okay uh and then hmm i have a doctor's appointment in the afternoon we all right it sounds like it's gonna be a solid day having a blast okay march is going real real great swimmingly yeah uh other than that how was your

february you know um we're trying to get leona into preschool daycare and oh boy am i just constantly in a heightened state of anxiety but it's fine what does that even look like i mean okay here as as someone without a baby this is what it looks like to me you have a baby i i've heard the the stories but i just thought there was no way it was possible i've you're giving me the the uh you're letting me feel like this is real but i've seen on television like you have to start looking at schools like years in advance like baby like like if the baby once the baby's born you have to like start looking for schools like years in advance like baby like like if the baby once the baby's born you have to like start looking for schools you're onto it because and then like you have to apply to it like it's basically college yeah yeah i mean yes nailed it so i legitimately

don't ever doubt yourself again because that is exactly although it's even worse because like the place i was applying to said on the website you can apply when you find out the sex of the fetus like that's the earliest you can't apply any earlier and i was like any earlier like so you genuinely and i think they only said by the time you find the sex because it's like a specific week you know that you're able to find that out so i don't think it's like we need to know I think it's just like that's the cutoff um and so when Leona was born I was like oh shit I haven't applied yet so I applied like a week after she was born and I emailed them so this was 2021 I emailed them a couple days ago and they were like oh we'll just tell you when we know and I'm like okay you're giving me like I need should I be looking elsewhere i don't know i don't know enough about like the administrative

section of this of this world but i feel like if you've known that if you've seen this applicant on your roster since 2021 like you probably know already right like i don't know how it works on their end but in my mind it's like saying we need to wait to set the classes. And I'm like, okay, but can you just tell me when that's going to be? Like. Yeah. In August next week. Is there any chance we'll make it or are we just not even on the list?

Like, I don't know. If it's truly an arbitrary wait list and it's just like when it's your time, it's your time. Yeah. I feel like you would be able to predict a few semesters from now hoping yeah or are they like kids are moving on to the next class or you know how many spaces are they waiting to see if your baby's stupid like what's the like what's happening what's what's the hold up what are we waiting on well then guess what so i was like you know what i better and of course now i'm so late okay not only is my baby not in utero she's like walking and I'm like uh-oh I'm way behind so I started applying to other

schools in the area and guess what the cutoff is September 30th for them to turn two years old and she was born October 1st and I wrote in and I said you know I don't want to be that parent so I'm not going to be I'm going to ask one time if there's any way to test in or like any exception. And they wrote back like, I so wish we could, but you know, if we make one exception, we have to do it for everyone. And I fully, I fully understand. And I said, thank you. Got it. You know, but I'm like really one day. So they're like, we look forward to seeing her in 2024. And I'm like, I can't do this. It's like so far away away I need her to go to a pro a daycare a preschool something I'm pretty sure you're about to homeschool this baby no well she doesn't need

to be in school at two you know it was just to do to socialize and she definitely doesn't need more socializing with me and her dad I think she's gotten plenty of that but yeah we were really hoping to get her into like a part-time daycare situation so she could socialize and we'd have some hours free during the day. But, you know, it's not looking splendid. So anyway, I know you just asked how my month was going, but that really is all that's been on my mind. Well, when we're recording this, it is the happiest day of the month because it's 2-2-2. It's what? 2? It's February 22nd. Oh, I'm'm sorry i thought you meant when it comes out i was like the day we're recording this 2-2-2 the day we're recording

i know so happy 2-2-2 uh 2-2-2 last last year was 2-2-2-2-2 oh my god hang on i already forgot how many tuesdays i just said but um anyway i think i'm just going to start celebrating this now that the the year of 2022 has happened i think i just need to celebrate every 222 i get it so happy 222 i hope uh i hope today you get a magical miracle where your child gets invited to Harvard or something. Where her birth certificate accidentally gets changed to a day girl. I was like, I was in labor that day. Doesn't that count? She's eight hours over the cutoff. Oh, my God.

Eight hours. But, you know, it's fine. I understand. And it's like, you know. Well, you should have just shoved her out. You know, you're being lazy. I didn't know. I should have.

Clearly, I wasn't prepared. If I had known. You were being so lazy. I'd have been like i know so lazy anyway hi well happy march it's a it's a new day and um i hope all of the teachers that you're talking to over email happen to listen to our show and then desperately want that your nepo baby to go to their school well especially the one that said well you'll know when you know. And I was like, you don't understand how much worse that makes me feel. I thought maybe I'd get like some intel and like that is less than I knew before.

Because now I'm just like wallowing. I don't know. I'm just like wavering, waiting for any sort of information. And so maybe if they listen to it just be like you know give it a couple weeks or give it a couple months so i at least have a i don't know it's fine and i'll get over it gentle listeners if any of you happen to be in kentucky and happen to be best friends with a teacher at any baby childhood school let's all pull our strings together and see what happens oh yeah yeah. Just for little

Leona. No, she'll be okay. We'll figure it out. You know, I know this is the struggle for every parent, so I don't want to be a special exception, you know? Well, I'm, I'm the funkle. I don't care about all that. You're the exception, not me. All right. So let's get into our stories i suppose uh let's do it eva shout out to snaps for eva all across the globe for finding these stories also eva did tell us there's a theme i'm very excited about looking for this theme and apparently the last one's good made eva cry which now puts me on edge no pressure no pressure i don't know if i'm feeling sensitive today or not i guess we're going to find out in the last story that's a great question pressure i don't know if i'm feeling sensitive today or not i guess we're gonna find out in the last story that's a great question sometimes i don't know and then it springs

up on me and i'm like whoa sometimes i wake up and i'm like oh today is just nothing but tears like i'm just i'm just gonna we allison and i call them our boohoo days and so it's like it's like oh today's a boohoo day and sometimes you don't have so i'm all you don't know where we're going we'll see it'll be fun to find out together all right i'm gonna go first and i think i've already figured out the theme because in the subject line it's in all caps yeah yeah yeah yeah it's very every basically every single subject has this word on it so okay well we cracked the case okay so here is the first story this is from natalie. She uses she, her pronouns. Thank you for normalizing pronouns. And the subject line is synchronicity March.

Boy, do I have one. Oh, so I guess we requested synchronicities. I must have. I feel like that's the thing I would have shouted about. Absolutely. Okay. So Natalie says, hi, all. I've been listening since the very beginning, literally since episode five.

No. What was episode five? The Smurl Poltergeist, I think. Something probably dumb. I'm not sure. And I knew I had a story for you. Was I right? Is it Smurl?

Sorry. The Smurl Poltergeist and John Wayne Gacy. What a double hitter. That was the day you learned about Sassy. What a day to join the team and stay. Yeah, you heard that and you went, this sounds right. This sounds like the home for me for the next five years. Okay, good for you.

Well, since literally since episode five, and I knew I had a story for you. Well, literally since episode five, and I knew I had a story for you. As a quick note, oh, I was a zookeeper for a very long time and spent a lot of time working with big cats. Oh, my. Are you? Carol Baskin. Joe Exotic. Okay. So let's get back to around 2015. I am living in an apartment with my two cats.

Now I have to ask how big they are. Oh, yeah. That's a great question. let's get back to around 2015. I am living in an apartment with my two cats. Now I have to ask how big they are. Cause that's a great question. You really should have specified Natalie. Like obviously the assumption. I'm living here with my two. My cheetahs tiger. Uh,

and a dog, which at this point I think could be like a full blown wolf. Sabertooth wolf. Uh, anyway, and a dog which at this point i think could be like a full-blown wolf saber-toothed wolf uh anyway it's a normal night and i'm jolted awake around 3 14 a.m by a roar a literal lion's roar is it is it your cat in the hall i don't know is it your saber-toothed tiger it lasted about seven seconds after i woke up and I was just sitting in bed looking around the room with this deafening noise going around. What? And I felt it in my bones. If you've ever been beside a lion roaring, it makes your bones rattle.

I guess I haven't. To make matters worse, my cats bolted out of the room. My dog freaked out and I was just sitting in bed thinking I was going to die. I like how they were all like, peace like this it's been real man thanks for the treats we're out well they say cats like eat your dead body within like two hours of dying they're like cats have no loyalty they're like oh this seems tasty for me to know that like one day if something happens to you in your house and i hear from you in a while i'll just be like you know what moonshine really handled it and we

both know and juniper are having it would be juniper for sure for sure juniper uh after gathering my wits i slowly crawled to the edge of my bed to look around expecting there was a lion there which like you have to be fucking scared if you're if your thought process is obviously a lion is in my room well and especially if you were a zookeeper and you know what a lion sounds like oh yeah i could say that's a lion but it's probably just like a truck outside but you would know what an actual lion sounds like oh yeah yeah uh uh well there wasn't a lion uh next to my bed but i was so freaked out the next day i went to a cookout at my parents house with them and my siblings i'm telling them this insane dream i had when my sister turns ghost white and says last night i dreamed we were on safari the lights went

out and then flickered on and a lion grabbed you and i woke up at 3 14 this morning no is that not the craziest thing in the whole i have full-blown me too chills full-blown choked on my own spit oh my god uh and then hang on natalie says it's happened once since just a few months ago actually it's still one of the most unexplained experiences i've ever had and i've seen and i've seen the mothman what a random story for another time okay love you guys so much i can't wait to see you in raleigh all my love natalie um p.s the zoo i worked at is hella haunted it's built on an actual battleground and we all saw full body apparitions as well as i had a bucket fly across the indoor wallaby holding at me when no one was in there all my love natalie i'm googling indoor wallaby holding okay what happens should you keep wallabies as a pet okay well i guess we could learn about that some other time

but does that mean there were little wallabies in there and then all of a sudden i don't want to get hit by a bucket no offense i'm glad it flew at you natalie not the wallaby um but okay let's get back to this real quick she woke up at 3 14 so did her sister right and both who had a dream that she's being attacked by a lion and at the exact same minute she wakes up to a lion roaring next to her and the pets heard it too and the pets heard it too so like really fully manifested and they live in different homes i presume so it's not like the sister roared in her sleep and accidentally scared everyone like they're in different homes this feels very like nightmare on elm street where like you can bring

your dreams out into reality by accident i've never seen that you basically you like oh it's is that freddy that's freddy okay yeah i do sort of know about that and one of the ways that they had to like get rid of freddy is because in all the dreams that were being controlled by him they can actually like if it because the dream is so intense they can almost manifest what's happening in it. But the problem is all the dreams are them being murdered. So they're. Oh, no. What a catch-22.

And so when they're, like, the way that they try to get Freddy is they try to, like, grab him in the dream and then have an alarm wake them up at the same moment where they can, like, pull him out of the dream and then kill him. Oh, that's pretty cool. But this feels kind of like that, where, like, you almost brought a whole ass lion out, know like yeah or your sister did you were minding your own business she's the one on safari yeah someone's conjuring something i don't like it gosh that is spooky ooky uh what a what a start okay so the next one i have is called, get this, Synchronicity March listeners episode. How my dead grandma probably told my husband to marry me. Oh, my. Okay.

Go grandma, I guess. This is from Lucy. She, her. And it starts, hi, all. I've written in this story before, but I feel like I can do it much more justice now. First of all, I love you both so much. And whenever I listen to you, I feel like I'm hanging out with old friends um thank you so much for being so transparent about all of your health fussies my fussies yeah trust me i'm i i don't even know if i could i don't know if i could shut

up if i tried about them but you're welcome you're so welcome for that uh as i deal with many of the same ts sensory silly gang i don't know what that means ts i don't know what ts is but i also have sensory problems christine thanks hi no hi hi to you too christine you are such a beautiful mom oh and i love how passionate you are about raising a baby who's going to kick ass one day. Yeah, if she ever gets into preschool. Okay, I'm over it. I'm a middle school history teacher and proudly the weird one. I love that. I love a weird teacher. I've worn a full on frog costume to school multiple times. And I love listening to you guys banter while grading, which is what I was doing when I realized you asked for more synchronicity. So let's crack into it. First of all, I've always been a little overly obsessed with Peter Pan.

I mean, 2003 Peter Pan. Come on. Jeremy Sumter. Oh, I have no idea. I figured you might know more about that. He like rocked every little girl's brain at the time. Look up Jeremy Sumter. Peter Pan. Yeah. Okay. I see. I see what what's happening here he was a little hottie patati everyone was goo goo gaga over him i see

what's happening yeah okay like so obsessed i would open my windows at night in my very old childhood bedroom built in 1765 oh my god that took truly took my breath away. I know. I thought I might be harming you there physically, giving you another fussy. I can't wait to use that word for the rest of my life. It's really good. Waiting for Peter to come because I wanted to visit Neverland. Well, when I was about six or seven, I remember very clearly walking to the car with my mom and randomly blurting out when i meet the boy i'm going to marry he's going to give me an acorn necklace but i'm not going to tell him to wow okay damn my mom obviously confused asked well how will he know to give you one if you don't tell

him and then i said oh he'll just know for context in, in Peter Pan, Peter and Wendy exchange a thimble and an acorn as Peter didn't know what a kiss was. And Wendy wears the acorn around her neck like a necklace. When they're flying, the arrow gets stuck in the necklace, saving her life with a kiss. See, I don't know any of this. Did you not watch Peter Pan growing up? I did, but I also watched it again recently and I was like, this is so troubling. Oh, well, there are are racist it's very problematic i was like we're not watching this in my house so we stopped watching it uh but it's been years since i've watched the actual movie and i remember it scared me back then

so i don't know um okay here we go well flash forward to my sophomore year of college and my boyfriend who i met the first day of college, and I are celebrating my 20th birthday. What does he give me? An acorn necklace. I quickly told him, not sure if I was too shocked or excited, but he just smiled and said, okay. He's probably like, all righty. Fast forward to about a month after graduation, and I've worn this darn necklace every single day since he gave it to me. He proposed, and on the inside of the ring, he had a tiny acorn engraved.

So I'd have my kiss forever. I'm going to cry. We've now been married for three years, have a lovely doggo. He's my best friend and definitely my soulmate from another life. We've definitely been married before in a past life. It's weird how your soul can kind of just know someone so well before you've ever met them. I'm gonna cry. Eva, I thought the last one was a cry. Did we read these in the wrong way? Then when you meet, it feels like the world finally makes sense again. To add a spooky side to this story, it turns out when my mom said goodbye

to her mom for the last time after she passed, my didn't know what to do but she knew she wanted to give her a gift to take with her before they brought her to the funeral home they had placed her casket under an oak tree and my mom grabbed a handful of acorns and placed them in her mom's casket her mom always loved how acorns symbolized new life we often think i am at least partially a reincarnation of my gammy, who unfortunately I never got to meet. I'm even named after the lovey name that she always called my mom as a little girl. Oh my god. What? Hold on, hang on, that's...

Sorry. Keep going first. Okay. Do you want to say anything? My favorite grandparent who's passed was my gammy and she used to call everyone lovey oh really i don't know if it's a gammy thing or if this is my own synchronicity moment but that's very sweet i anyway i'm very happy someone else had a gammy who did the same thing wait that's really cute so lucy i guess was name. Oh, oh, my gammy is just to call everyone lovey.

I think because it says I'm named after the lovey name she called my mom. Gotcha. Gotcha. And her name is Lucy. So that's the story of how my gammy definitely told my husband to give me a forever kiss so we could live happily ever after. I love you both so much and the whole crew, and I can't wait to see you live again. I've seen you three times so far, in new york and twice in atlanta i was dressed as norman rockwell's rosie the riveter at your atlanta halloween show oh p.s new hyper fixations for you both oh boy m you need to check out the savannah ghost pirates they're savannah's minor league hockey team you know i love a minor

league team i know you do obviously lucy does too i mean knows that about you christine you need to look up william the hippo he's the unofficial mascot of the met and he's a blue hippo with flowers painted on him that was found in an egyptian tomb with three of his four legs broken off so he wouldn't try to hurt the person he was buried with oh that's definitely something to research in the middle of the night what the f okay love you all Lucy holy crap that was a lot a lot of information came at us but I liked all of it fair like she's been listening since 2017 so she clearly needed like a moment a moment to just unleash all of this information and i'm thankful about it hippos and and gammy and ghost pirates

yeah and yeah you know hockey i think too it's a good time it perfectly kept my dopamine levels at a high the whole way through um all right well thank you lucy our next story is from leslie who's she her pronouns thank you for normalizing pronouns and the subject line is synchronicities warning how social media saved me okay all right hello eva m christine fur babies and literal babies actually more like a toddler now. I know. Whatever the school. An uneducated toddler. Let's see, whatever the school version of unemployed is, baby. She's between classes.

Yeah. So for my own personal safety, I'm going to use the pseudonym Leslie. She, her pronouns. I like how even the pronouns could be a pseudonym. We don't know. You never know. How sneaky. I just listened to the February listeners episode and I wanted to share my story. I was listening to the story of the college student who was dumped by her boyfriend and the ghostly girlfriend. And I was brought back to 2018, the year of the Me Too movement, Meghan Markle joining the royal family, and floral everything. Thank you for bringing us all the way back.

While I believe in synchronicities and looking for messages in the universe, I wanted to heed a warning that there is a fine line between spirituality and a mental health crisis, and I had the displeasure of straddling that line. Again, some of the details have been altered to protect myself. I was working full-time at a non-profit where I could been altered to protect myself. I was working full time at a nonprofit where I could not make ends meet. So I started working part time at a gas station. I would always make casual conversation with the customers, but there was one couple who I got along with and started looking forward to seeing on the weekends that I worked.

One day, the girlfriend asked if we wanted to get drinks together. At this point, I'd been interacting with them for like six months. So I thought, hey, why not? We exchanged numbers and agreed to go out, and I'm getting goosebumps just writing this because it seemed so innocent at the time. Oh no. All I knew about this woman was that she was older than me and we both shared an adoration for fashion, specifically makeup. We met for drinks and talked for like an hour and a half about our motivations, interests, and our favorite go-to makeup brands. Everything was going super well until we transitioned to another bar. At that point, I asked for her social media.

It was like the chipper mask she had been wearing was dropped, and she looked very concerned. Most people would be excited. Yeah. Give me your TikTok handle. I know. I'd be like, we're gonna be friends now she told me that i would change my mind about her if i saw her facebook okay that's red flag that alone i would have checked you need a christine in your life who in three seconds

flat can figure out anything online because i've already been on her social media like i would have even you know i would have checked it out a long time ago like a like a crazed person speaking of which christine you have some competition because there's this person on facebook who like the comments will actively be as vague as possible and then she will find people online oh wait on facebook or on tiktok on tiktok sorry yeah yeah i follow her and um of course you do do you know everything about each other no i i i find it so fun to watch her because she, but I do feel like she's giving away all my secrets. I'm like, why are you sharing this intel with the masses? Don't tell them our secrets. Maybe she's also giving you some inspo, you know, for the next time.

She might. And I don't want to like step on her toes, but I've thought like that would be kind of a fun game to try. I think she's already dominating that world yeah she's fun to watch she's a good time anyway you could use either that tiktok person or christine on your side at this point uh she looked very concerned she said that i would change my mind better if i saw her facebook at that point i was very freaked out but i kept my cool while my blood was pumping in my throat what a really good description because i've felt that exact thing before she told me about how important our relationship was because we were both spiritually important okay well she explained that she was mary magdalene

oh dear god okay and she had lived in different periods of time and i was actually happy and by that i was the physical embodiment of happiness oh boy and i would always be in her inner circle and in different lifetimes we had been mother and child and lovers oh my okay you're just at the bar like um please what is going on in your drink right now yeah seriously i listened and nodded as she explained that we were destined to be together and that we were actually living in a town that was spiritually important but would not say why were you happening to be in bethlehem i don't. It was Jerusalem. I didn't realize at the time. Were you in Bethlehem? Are you Jesus Christ? I mean, there is a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, so. Okay. That would actually be, that would be really ironic if this actually didn't happen. It would be pretty weird. It would. She explained that she had a few friends on Facebook, but none

that she actually knew in real life and that she used her Facebook as a journal. The people she interacted with on Facebook thought she was writing fiction and she knew she would be alienated if she told anyone that she was actually writing her truth, the truth of the universe. Oh, boy. It's just dangerous anytime someone says they know the truth. Because nobody does. You know what I mean? Like anytime somebody says like, I know all the answers, like that's a huge red flag. I mean, you and I have talked about universal truth quite a lot. Uh, and how, not that we're on, on that team, but we know a few people who truly believe in knowing the universal truth and it's a little wild. It's alarming. knowing the universal truth.

And it's a little wild. It's alarming. It's alarming. I was respectful to her as she spoke. I nodded. I smiled. I was empathetic. After all, I was a caseworker, so I was used to putting on a mask, too,

when speaking with people who I had to report due to my status as a mandated reporter. No judgment. Just listened. This was different, though, because I didn't have the protection of my employer. I texted my partner to pick me up, pick me up, pick me up, come ASAP. I hid in the bathroom and told her I was having stomach issues. She knew that something was wrong and apologized, saying I was not ready for this awakening. God. My partner texted me that

he was outside, so I said goodbye and headed out. On the way home, I found her Facebook and shook the entire time I scrolled further and further down her page. Christine. What? Christine. What? She had been writing about me for months. Absolutely not.

Since the first time I interacted with her and her boyfriend, she wrote graphic details about our past lives together and how she was so excited to meet with me. I was understandably freaked the fuck out. I mostly blocked out what she wrote about me. Although she was really nice to me and seemed harmless. I was so scared. You don't write graphic details online about somebody you don't know for the internet to read. A week went by and I was at my best friend Ellie's house. I had not grasped the

trauma of it all and I was about to leave when I mentioned it to Ellie. Ellie looked at me concerned and had me sit down and explain exactly what happened yeah i like that you were like okay bye and your friend's like wait wait no sit down what are you saying to me as you waltz out the door like hang on a second i had not checked my facebook for some time so i opened it and saw that she had been messaging me apologizing for coming off too strong but she knew we were destined to be together no ellie calmly explained to me that she feared for my safety i like that ellie calmly explained that she feared for your safety because i'd be like homie we gotta get out of here yeah

um she told me that this woman would keep chasing me and she felt that the woman was rational enough to be respectful of a rejection because of how apologetic she was. Okay. She carefully crafted the text and had me press send. The message said I was not interested and did not want to be further contacted. The woman said she understood, but that did not stop her from posting about me for weeks afterward. Oh my God.

but that did not stop her from posting about me for weeks afterward. Oh my God. I blocked her, but the page was public, so I was able to read it, and I would see the word HAPPY with a capital H and knew it was about me. Oh my God. That is so disturbing and scary and invasive. Oh God. I called out the next few weeks from work and did not see her again. They eventually let me go because, hello, I refused to come in.

I love that you did the passive thing I do where I'm just like, oh, well, if you want to fire me, you can. I'm not going to quit. I'll just stop showing up. I have seen her in public a few times, but I am very talented and at Excel. Oh, no, no, no. Sorry. My girlfriend is talented at Excel. she'll tell you all about it she used to take saturday morning classes and i'd be like no i'm sleeping let me okay that was not

sorry i was primed i was primed as someone who lives with allison to say i'm talented at excel i have seen her in public a few times but I am very talented and excel at giving a blank, far away, distracted look. I hope someone, specifically her boyfriend, looked at her social media and realized that she needed help. I forget about it every once in a while, about how I was kind of stalked, kind of not stalked, kind of had someone obsess over me when I was only 25. Either way, I am thankful for Ellie for making sure I didn't just ignore the problem and write up a response for me. While I'm a very spiritual human, this interaction definitely altered how I make friends,

use social media, and view my relationship with the universe. I have since recovered and went back to school for my master's so I don't have to work multiple jobs. Thank you for all that you do. I've listened to y'all since the beginning and I have celebrated your wins

and mourned your losses with you all while that you do. I've listened to y'all since the beginning, and I have celebrated your wins and mourned your losses with you, all while connected to Bluetooth. Oh, that's beautiful. You two are my cleaning buddies, and I loved seeing you live. Much love, Leslie. Wow-za. Ooh. What a tale. To just meet someone and be like, oh, they seem perfectly friendly.

I have a good friend now that i can go get drinks with and then it just 180 so quickly i mean i i feel like that's how all stalker stories start though right or at least most of them like if you knew the person you have no idea that and you know it seems like such a innocent relationship and you don't realize how one-sided that is like the other person doesn't see it as a casual thing they see it as like such an intense well especially if they did relationship i mean i'm sure a lot of stalker stories also have like um you know the person has been watching you a lot longer than you've been watching them and to find out that they've already created something before you even spoke they've created this wild relationship or this fantasy in their mind and i mean obviously she was unwell so i

mean i hope i do hope somebody kind of stepped in at some point but but you know it's so fascinating to think like she clearly knew that if you saw the facebook you would be freaked out so she was almost like aware enough that this was quote-unquote weird like she was aware enough to know that it would come off too strong yeah i wonder what the what the the gray space of that is because she knew it was wrong in some way but i do also i don't know this person but i feel like they really thought it was only wrong because it was too early to like give them this awakening much yeah yeah yeah yeah not because it was wrong that it wouldn't right because if they really believed it then they would have said to themselves you know this is fate like it's destiny whatever and it sounds

like they truly believe this story it sounds like they were even on the fence of like is this a or it sounds like you know maybe they knew it was wrong but they didn't understand it on a human level they understood it on their own like created level it's so yeah wow that's just a lot that's a lot i'm glad you're i'm glad you're safe i am too and i'm sorry that happened that i mean would scare me forever i think i'd be really really really freaked out by that i don't think i'd recover as well as it sounds like you have so yeah seriously i probably wouldn't go back to grad school to get my master's i'd be like no way man i would i would literally i would just any form of me on the internet would be so erased it'd be bananas i'd be like no one's ever knowing anything

about me don't come don't come close anymore you know yeah um wow so so scary to think people can just invade your privacy online without you even knowing and just invade your privacy in such a specific way of like writing fictional stories about you oh psa in general if you happen to be listening to this right now and you are, you know, creating a storyline in your head with someone you've never even spoken to, maybe just like be ready that they're not interested. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's just like clarify where everybody else's boundary is before taking it so far. And then respect their boundaries also. If you think like something really you know is

destined and if someone tells you no no means no so let's just get that out that's their destiny okay yeah although it sounds like there was definitely some mental illness here so you know i hope that that i don't think it's cleared up also yeah i hope that that's been addressed but oh boy okay so this is from molly she her and the story is that one time all the synchronicities led me to a grave oh my god okay oh my god oh my god oh my god hey christina i'm even all the other and that's why we drink family my name is molly and i've been a listener for about five years wow i actually oh get this m i actually stumbled upon a podcast while looking for a self-help podcast. That's the funniest thing I've ever heard.

You took a sharp left turn in the wrong direction, my friend. You, Spotify or whoever, like completely misled you, okay? The algorithm was not algorithming, you know? It was not. So I was looking for a self-help podcast to get me through my days. I believe I searched for something along the lines of why, oh my God, Ev, it gets worse. Why quitting drinking is good for you. Oh God.

Sorry. Five years ago, especially was not that vibe for me. So I don't know how you ended up where you did, but clearly the universe had other plans. Anyway, you two have gotten me through some of my darkest days, boring shifts, cleaning road trips, and many anxiety attacks. Yes, your banter can resolve my heart racing. I wish it could resolve M's. That would be nice. Yeah, me too. My heart racing, mind bending anxiety. So thank you for that. That's so nice. So anyway, onto my story about the biggest synchronicity that ever happened in my life. The year was 1993, midsummer in rural Wisconsin. My next door neighbor and I, 10 at the time, were extremely bored.

We did not feel like doing our usual staring at Teen Beat or watching another episode of Saved by the Bell. Why not? No. Listen, I've been there when you're like, there's only so much Saved by the Bell you can watch in a row. listen i've been there when you're like there's only so much saved by the bell you can watch in a row yeah we have in the past dabbled with the ouija board but decided the sunny day just did not pair well with it so we decided to do something else spooky at first we talked about the haunted silo down the road where a man supposedly fell to his death and then suffocated in the grain below oh that's like a nightmare thing have you seen like how

scary being suffocated in a silo would be yeah i don't even know why that came up but it was somewhere on my talk about algorithming i'm like why are you sending telling me this internet there was something i learned about it in school it's horrible but it's like drowning it's like drowning drown in and it's also dark and it's so big and like no one's hearing you i mean you're it's truly you're trapped it's just so i mean an honest to god nightmare um okay so we debated for quite some time to go visit the silo but being 10 i think it was just a bit too much we decided on making a scary skit instead and we would perform it for our parents that weekend i think this is me in a path like i miss being 10 i know this i mean we kind of

do that already we go on tour and perform a skit for people we actually you know what i guess that's true like i feel like i'm living out my childhood when you when you take away all the when you take away all the fun words of like live show on tour it's like it's a skit it's a skit and our mom is there so it's literally we're performing that might actually help my anxiety so we're gonna try that this weekend that's actually a good way to do it i can bring a little camcorder and pretend like i'm directing you and screaming at you you're messing up the moves what was your go-to performance uh with jeez i assume xandy was there as a kid of course um definitely something i picked we did some s clip 7 music videos quote unquote we did uh we we used to pretend to be to try to get on america's

funniest home videos by faking injuries that usually ended in real injuries um so they probably could have been sent to America's Funniest Home Videos uh and then um I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys was a big oh no sorry you are what's that song You Are My Fire how does that go uh what's the title of that song I Want It That Way oh it is that is the same song yes that's the one that we would do music videos too what about you it was only one song and it was um it was oh man oh I'm All Right by Jodi Messina I don't even know that song it's a 90s country song I'm obsessed with Jodi Messina I still love her but uh it was we had moves for every word I still do the moves when that song comes on oh my god I know isn't that funny every time I hear that

Backstreet Boys song I'm like I know the choreography I mean it's my own dumb choreography but wow Em that's fun I have to listen to that later and watch you dance for me well have a good time you're like I, I'm busy later. Thank you. I remember there always being this one part that I thought was so bitchin' in that song with my choreography, where it was,

sing it for my rent. Oh, sing it for my rent. Sing it for my supper. You sway both ways with the microphone for that. Sing it for my rent. Sure, sure, sure. Sing it for my supper. Then I'm going to narrate it out loud for the people who aren't watching us and just listening. microphone for that sing it for my right sure sure sing for my supper then i'm gonna i'm gonna

narrate it out loud for the people who aren't watching us okay uh and just listening the the line is i'm above the below and below the upper whoa and as a little kid i would put my hand up i'm above and i'll put your hand down for below below sure and then shake your hand down for below the below sure and then shake your hand for below and then go back up for the upper so i'm above the below and below the upper i thought i was i literally i'm above the below and below that was um my that was well my stepsisters are the ones that wrote the choreography and since i was younger i wanted to be like them so it was actually three of us all just harmonizing our moves with us so that's really beautiful um be like them so it was actually three of us all just harmonizing our moves with us so that's really beautiful um thank you I bet it was just gorgeous I especially can't

wait to see the what you do for the line um for the line uh you'd better grab a chair and a couple of beers oh that's easy you pretend like you're pulling a chair out pretend you're pulling a chair out so it's just like uh and then a couple of years it's literally just acting out the lyrics looking good in your three-piece suit man i'm looking this thumbs up good hold your shirt and your three-piece suit so you're literally just like pointing around you i was like five okay no listen i'm loving it i you know i should have i should have figured um wow we had a whole story we were in the middle of. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. But you said we filmed a skit and I just couldn't stop myself. I love that it's a haunted skit because that I feel like would be way more down my, like Selene and I definitely made haunted skits when we were little. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah. Because I lived next to a cemetery so we could film in there all day. It was like so easy.

There are some of those somewhere somewhere I have to find them we we did this often whether it was dances or comedy skits we were always performing we had built a stage in her backyard actually it was just a bunch of logs and old pieces of wood stuck together but hey we were done my neighbors suggest we write about the old cemetery about a mile and a half down the street okay this is starting to sound familiar to me. Celine? Have you written in? Okay, it's Celine. No, it's not. And how the spirits come to life in the middle of the night. The cemetery was in fact very old with some graves dating back to the early 1800s.

As most preteens do, we got off course and had this elaborate story with witches and goblins and ghosts. We were so caught up in everything I was writing down that the day just flew by. Before we knew it, it was dinner time and I headed home. The next morning I ran to her house to continue our masterpiece. We settled in and I pulled out the script. Asking her where we left off, I started skimming the paper. It was so good until I got to the bottom of the page. I stared at the paper for quite some time trying to figure out who wrote the name at the bottom of the story. There it was, plain as day, in the same pen I was using. You know, the cool ones with multiple ink colors that no matter how hard you tried, you could not use all the colors at one time.

Yep, yep, yep. Anna Hansen. Anna Hansen. The name that was scribbled on the bottom of the page was written over numerous times, legible enough, but it looked like I had used my left hand and pushed the pen so hard against the paper that it almost went through the page. Anna Hansen. Oh my God, that is so creepy my neighbor asked who is anna hansen i told her i had no clue still bewildered we continued on with our story it was still morning so we decided to hop on our bikes and take a field trip to all the cemeteries in the area we lived in the middle of three of them we decided to go to the one in our story first we rode our bikes the mile and a half in blistering heat by the time we got there i was parched, we decided to go sit in the shade by the trees that lined the perimeter of the cemetery.

We grabbed our tang, just kidding, water, and made our way to the old oak trees that twisted around the cemetery boundaries. We plopped down inside in relief as the oaks shaded us from the mid-July heat wave. In the middle of me sloshing down my water, my neighbor nudged me. I pushed her back, and she nudged me again. Irrit what i'm thirsty let me drink i looked over at her and her face was as pale as a ghost there in front of us sat a headstone with the name anna hansen oh my god shut up born january 1833 died july 1843 she was 10 yeah oh my god neither of us could talk i ripped the script from my backpack and couldn't even connect the dots i tried to rationalize but pre-teen brands cannot do that how can this happen how did anna's name end up in our story she was 10 when she died

in the middle of july well needless to say ran to our bikes, leaving the script behind and raced home. We didn't really mention this happening for a long time. My neighbor never really dabbled in the spooky stuff anymore, but for me, it made me a lifelong believer. Back then we didn't have the internet, obviously, and I really didn't go to the library to rent books about communicating with the dead. So automatic writing didn't even exist in my life once i learned about automatic writing everything clicked to be honest i never tried it again the main reason being is i did not even notice writing anna's name which made me feel like something else took control of me so screw that no many years later after having children i started recognizing that there was always a presence around my daughter since the day she was born. Nothing negative.

More friendly and childlike. Still scary AF. But I like to believe it's Anna keeping an eye on her. Woo. I've got goose cam. Sorry for the long story. Wish you all well. Maybe one day I'll write in about the time I think my family was visited by aliens.

But that's a story for another time. But that's a story. I'm telling you. These stories better come in someday. That is just bonkers i just love that preteen brain of like whose name is that i don't know oh well let's keep playing you know like totally ignore it until suddenly it comes back meanwhile the second we see anna hansen i'd be like christine and you'd be like i'm on it i already know i have 43 anna hansen's in the

immediate vicinity which one should i call first and by call i mean email all right uh well thank you um to everyone involved in that anna included i don't know if you wrote the letter for all i know so thank you everyone for that email the next one is uh written by connie who's a she her pronouns thank you for minimizing pronouns and the subject line is a synchronicity filled ghost story at a tiny college hi to eva m christine geo leona allison blaze and of course lemon hello fiddle up that last part off hope you're all doing well i'm connie and can and you can use my name oh thank god well that's good thank you first of all i love you guys you got me through my diagnosis with a mental illness and hospitalization and your new york show in 2018 was my first time out after it all happened and

it made me so happy oh that's nice thanks for always being the supportive voice in my ear christine mentioned she wanted synchronicities. Oh, it was your fault. I sure did, apparently. And I have a pretty strange one. This is a little long, but I promise it's worth it. When I was about 15, I was watching the Travel Channel and I caught the end of a documentary about haunted colleges. They mentioned a small college in Vermont where a young woman had gone missing on a trail and subsequently haunted the campus. The story shook me and stayed with me. Out loud, I said, well,

I'm never going to go to school in Vermont. Fast forward three years later, I've fallen in love with a little school called Bennington. And by little, I mean there are 500 of us. Oh my gosh. And I was doing an overnight. Bennington happened to be, you guessed it, in the state of Vermont. My overnight host, a very cool older girl with red hair who we'll call April, sat with me in her dorm and started telling me ghost stories about the college, including, dun, dun, dun, a story of a young woman who went missing on a trail and haunted the college. I started feeling chills and realized, yes, it was the same story I'd heard all those years ago. and realized, yes, it was the same story I'd heard all those years ago. And when I came back to my orientation, the school put on a ghost tour for us, and they included the story of the girl who we call the White Lady.

And then in parentheses wrote, there's always one. There's always one. At least. And she was played by April, the girl who told me about the story. No way. That's so cute. I love this school. I want to go there.

Bennington sounds so fun. I love it. Halfway into my freshman year, April came running into our dorm while I was sitting in the common room. She told me she had just seen the white lady as she had been walking down from the music building, which was another haunted spot. And she had been so scared that her and her friend started singing at the top of their lungs as they passed her. They described her as a white glowing form that glided past them. Fast forward a senior year and I had been through some growing pains. Having social anxiety and going to a college where everyone knows your name was definitely a struggle. To challenge myself, I signed up for a solo performance class where we had to write a creative monologue about ourselves and then perform it in front of the entire school that truly just i can't i'm sweating i can't imagine but i also can't because

it's called a live show and i it's just called a skit oh sorry a skit sorry and at this point in my life i felt a bit like a ghost something that existed but that people could look right through that is beautiful but sad i had the thought of looking up the white lady and learning more about her her name was paula jean weldon and her and i had a lot in common we were both awkward shy around boys unable to figure out what subject to focus on and from the same area of new york more than that we both seemed to yearn to be vibrant and popular and unable to figure out how to just be ourselves. To complete my monologue, I braided my life at Bennington with hers and I

told both of our stories. Oh, that's so creative, though. I braided my life with her story. That's this is wow. That's very beautiful. I feel like you're a bit of a writer here, Connie. Seriously. As cheesy as it sounds, I don't think anyone had ever really told Paula's story before. We knew her as just a ghost we looked through and were scared of, but we discounted that she was once just like us, a student trying to figure things out. And back to April, the girl who introduced me to her, she became my best friend slash sister from another mister,

and she sat in the audience that night hearing me tell the tale. That night, I took april had given me to a spot we called the end of the world on campus which is a hill that drops off so it looks like you're at the end of the earth and i saw her no she was a glowing white form that floated in front of me and then went out into the night when i got back to my dorm room april was waiting for me we were gossiping about our classmates and her life in the city but then seemingly out of nowhere she looked at me and very confident voice said paula loved it oh my i have other stories about my school it's pretty darn haunted but i'll write about those another time best connie p.s i don't know if you guys are game of thrones fans but peter dinklage was my commencement speaker and i'm including this speech here and yes a student did hand uh make that

weapon for him i went to a wild school i'm so jealous i didn't hear about the school sooner um you know what was so weird my one of my i think it was the commencement speaker before my year at college was my high school principal what is that not the craziest thing peter dinklage was your high school principal no no no am i kidding i if only no but i remember hearing like who the commencement speaker was going to be and i was was like, that guy? I was like, so weird. Why? Yeah, it was very weird. Or no, I have there's I'm messing something up.

But somehow my high school and college lives braided together. Maybe at high school, my college president was the one who talked. But either way, both of them, I was like, what? Why? It's like, that's so weird. I know. It felt like a Degrassi reunion or something. Sorry.

Not as cool as Tyrion Lannister performing at your school. I agree. I agree. Just saying. Wow. What a powerful story. And to like the synchronicity of like seeing that as a kid, then being like, oh, I'm never going to Vermont.

And then not only going to vermont for school but that school you didn't even realize yeah oh that's spooky and then being roommates with the with the girl who plays the character in the reenactment i mean that's pretty it's all very spooky ooky in it oh that's that's a lot of that's like a that's like a synchronicity lasagna you know that's right that's what we call it over here um so this is from cal she her and yes this is the one that i am assuming is going to make us cry if it's a boohoo day um uh-huh it's called two times synchronicities dolphins and and that's why we drink oh okay well that listen that i was not expecting okay no is there a dolphin that listens to us?

I don't know. That'd be cool. Both of these synchronicities could certainly be explained as coincidence, but they are both moments that are very special to me. Every year, my family goes on holiday to the same beach in Queensland. It was my granddad's favorite place in the world. He had been going every year since he was a little kid. He literally went there every summer of his life. He loved to swim, catch waves, and especially to see dolphins, which happened very, very rarely at this particular beach. I distinctly remember one time when I was young, having dolphins swim up close to us in the waves,

and my granddad turning to me and saying jokingly, are we sure they were dolphins? I only saw a fin. Oh God, that's a mean joke. Yeah, that's so mean. That would, like, traumatize me forever. A few years ago, my granddad passed away, and while he had not left behind instructions on what to do with his remains, we all agreed he would like his ashes scattered on that beach. We scattered them in the water at sunset and then all went for a swim to catch some waves right afterwards, as I'm sure he would have wanted us to. as I'm sure he would have wanted us to. During that swim, we were a bit quieter than normal, reflecting on his passing and the moment we had just experienced when suddenly one of my uncles said, there are dolphins over there.

Everyone was in awe and enjoying watching them jump, except for my sister who seemed a little anxious and turned to ask me, was it actually dolphins or could it have been a shark? It immediately took me right back to that moment with my granddad and i really felt he was there with us in that moment so now he's like tricking the sister too that's so cute my second story happened only a week or two ago and centers around atwwd i'm currently oh geez in the grueling process of trying to get sober um well don't google how to get sober apparently it leads you

straight to this fucking podcast um i'm currently good for you by the way that's it's very admirable yes i'm currently in the grueling process of trying to get sober and i'm also in the process of binging and that's why we drink for the first time one afternoon last week i was suffering from some particularly strong cravings so i decided to clean out my pantry and listen to an episode of your show to distract myself. I knew this was coming. I could tell. Why? The episode I was up to is one from July 2019 in which Christine is attempting to reexamine her relationship with alcohol.

And you guys give a sweet little shout out of encouragement to anyone struggling with alcoholism and addiction if you go to oh my god what if you go to 21 57 in episode 128 m actually says if you are out there and need a sign to keep going this is it oh that's beautiful good job i do i do what i can that's nice that's beautiful as soon as i heard this i immediately burst into tears cravings can be very scary as in the moment you don't know if you're going to give in and lose everything you've worked for or push through and be okay in that moment i felt like i felt like the universe was letting me know it had my back and wanted this for me and that i was going to be able to stay strong happy to report thanks to you guys I went to bed sober that night in part because that message found me at the exact moment I needed it most thank you so much for a fantastic show which has helped lighten the mood around me

something I've really needed the past few months sending all my love and appreciation your way wow I have goosebump for real that's very sweet also i don't know if who who wrote this again um this was from oh i forgot to oh no i said it cal she her yep um yeah i don't know if she's caught up on the episodes yet but hopefully by the time she hears this episode she's she's still doing good and staying strong so yeah cal this is another shout out from the universe yeah good for good measure if you if you're having another rough day or if anyone's having a rough day this is your sign that here's another sign i mean i might take it take it myself yeah take the sign and run with it yeah you're loved and safe and the universe wants you to thrive so keep it up

and geo just barked which means he loves you too uh all right wow well thank you so much everyone for your stories march power powerhouse of stories today it was it but you know that's pisces season for you so god classic eva i know happy birthday month eva happy birthday month eva. And happy birthday to all of our little Pisces babies out there. And yeah, hopefully, you know, March goes great. And next time you hear from us,

it'll be April fool's day. I'll be with my favorite fool on the other end of the microphone. And Leon will be 18 months old, the biggest fool of all. And I'll be 4,000 days old or something. Yeah. And that's why we drink.