And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 78

Episode Date: April 1, 2023

Happy April from your favorite fools. Join us for some poltergeist shenanigans! 

Hello and welcome to Beach to Sandy Water 2 at the podcast where we read the worst reviews in the most dramatic fashion. I'm Xteen. And I'm Zandy. Today we have a very special episode. We're reading negative reviews of podcasts. It's about time. It's about time. People have been asking for it. What did you bring to the table? What are we reviewing first? Well, first, before I read a review, I would love to play a little bit from uh one of the main podcasts i have tons of reviews from oh great yeah all right let's do that let's roll it Oh, Christine, it's a fool. Oh, you are also foolish.

I was trying to think of another thing, but I can't. Fool, fool, fool. Foolish mortals. Isn't that a thing? Oh, maybe. It's from the Disney movie. Haunted Mansion. I never saw it. Oh, Christine.

I've been on the ride. That makes you the biggest fool i do declare it's four seconds in and i'm already the biggest fool of them all how how are you on this foolish day my favorite little prankster do you do a prank no i've never i feel like april fool's day is the day like she's like the little engine who could you know like she really wants to be up there with the big dogs and in the world of holidays but no one really takes her seriously maybe it's because it's literally april fool's day and my dad this year learned that what april fool's day was and i'm so afraid like i'm so i'm not i'm so my brother was like do you know what this means like we have to be on high alert because he's gonna like i'm worried that like 60 70 years of not knowing what april fool's day is and then discovering it in the year 2023 is gonna he's just gonna text you every day i'm moving back in and i'm gonna need a place to stay it's like i'm living in your garage now i yeah i don't know what's gonna happen

but i don't feel good about it so i'm avoiding the pranks i'm just for karma's sake like i'm not participating if somebody wants to prank me fine but i will be ready that's a good idea i um i i feel like i never actually like i tried to prank someone when I was like 10. It didn't work. And then I think I just got humbled really quick and never tried again. I think that's kind of what you did. I used to prank people all the time when I was little and I don't like being that person anymore. It was a stupid prank. Like it was like like it was just like girlies being silly. Like it was like eight year olds trying to prank their parents and the parents were in on it obviously the whole time and like they like were letting us have our

fun but they knew what was going on so it was um it really was it's not even really worth the story i once did that thing where i um tied a rubber band around the uh thing on the sink the spray like when you turn the sink on and then you pull out the like extended thing sink, the spray, like when you turn the sink on and then you pull out the extended thing to wash the dishes. I tied a rubber band around it so when my mom turned the sink on,

it just like blasted her. That's hysterical. I'm sure she thought so too. Yeah, I'm sure she thought so. She was on her way to her dissertation defense, her PhD defense. Her dissertation was on Aprilil fool's day can you

imagine if the professors were that's not my fucking fault okay professors should have been like we're failing you oh she was so mad at me i she was fucking furious she was like i now have to change i'm already late anyway it was funny for two seconds you know what i think was the only april fool prank i remember ever happening to me was someone brought in oreos in like third grade and like switched out the cream with toothpaste and she just like they were back when remember mini oreos yes it was like it was like that and like she would also like warn you before you ate it but like she i think her guilt was too heavy but she would at least be like oh oreo came out with like mint oreos you should try one and then i ended up thinking it was kind of

delicious so i i ate it and then everyone was like and i was like um you're like what yeah i was like jokes on you girl um but i gotta say i'll end on this i think the most universal universally loved April Fool's prank, which I don't know if you're a part of this, but I feel like this happened a lot at my school, was the teachers would tell you, there's so much homework today. So much homework. Oh, I love that. Love that. Stress you the fuck out. And then they'd say, April Fool's, you have no homework. There'd be like pop quiz and we'd be like, what?

Yeah. Just all a big joke. Hilarious. homework there'd be like pop quiz and we'd be like what yeah just sigh of relief joke whenever the prank was never mind you don't have to be stressed out i would love that prank today what a fun fun prank that is oh anyway i hope everyone's april is going well today's also linda's pre-birthday she was the late fool late to the party Oh, today Leona's 18 months old, so she's a year and a half. Oh, she's a silly little fool. They're all fools, and I'm a fool. We're all fools, is what I've determined.

Well, we have some fool-themed stories for you today. That's right. In case you are brand new to Listener's Episode, this is our Listener's Episode. We put out an episode on the first of every month where we tell your stories that you submitted to us, either true crime or paranormal. And we just read a few of them and shout out to Eva for picking them for us. But since this is April Fool's Day, we wanted to do poltergeisty prankster kind of stories. Yeah. And sounds like Eva delivered. so yeah so um take it

away let me open this one up this is called did i prank zach bagans okay you better answer that question by the end of the email because we need to know if that's the prank that it's just someone not giving us that information, I'm done here. Not a nice prank. Hello, Christine, Em, Eva, and the rest of the, and that's where I drink, fam bam. Love the podcast. I was debating on sending in this story for a few weeks. So when I heard Em request, oh God, Zach Bagans stories.

When was that? In your worst nightmares. May of 2022, this was sent in. So it must have been a long time ago that you requested this and we forgot. Oopsies. I figured it was a sign to send this one in. Through some background, I was homeschooled as a kid and for part of my education, my best friend and I became docents at our local mission, La Purisima Mission. This meant that we had keys to some of the staff rooms and the gates blocking visitors from entering the

decorated rooms of the mission. You can see through the bars to these rooms, but they were only ever opened when there was a docent there on living history days or tours. I grew up on this mission. Me and my best friend knew every inch of the land and buildings and would explore it when we were bored. We were doing this close to sunset one day when we ran into a camera crew they told us we had to leave which was pretty offensive because the mission is my home it's not literally but it's mine i mean yeah if you work there you've like spent your whole life there and you're they're like get away go away like yeah that's not any of your fucking business jump forward to facebook memories 2022 where i found this gem from 2011 quote watching the ghost adventures

La Purisima mission I met those guys they were a bunch of morons they said that bare footprints in a room that you need a key to get into is proof of ghosts I definitely I definitely got keys to those rooms and I don't wear shoes they're so dumb did they film my god on the day that me and my friend tested out an old set of keys to see if they still worked and get into a bunch of places we had no business being in probably and that's the end of the email well honestly i was gonna be like wow zach bacon's stupid but also like i guess if you thought nobody ever walks around there and you saw like this is locked off and they were barefoot yeah yeah i'd be freaked out well congratulations on pranking zach i i wonder you know making it into the tv show that's pretty cool i hope on a daily

basis that he never finds out about us but it's i'm sure he's we're getting close oh sorry i should say that's from ari she her i didn't even give the uh the name sorry sorry sorry sorry i i appreciate that you pranked him But he's going to feel so stupid If he ever hears this and then goes back and watches the episode Or he's going to be like Whatever I give a shit Sorry

Whatever last time I paid someone to walk around barefoot Exactly I don't think he cares to be honest But you know what you made I don't know about you but your Feet prints your footprints certainly made it onto television. You're a star. You prank the world, really. That's pretty impressive.

On to our second one. We've got a story from someone named Josie. And the caption is, our poltergeist likes... Oh, Christine. Our poltergeist likes chip coffee, too poltergeist likes chip coffee too shut the fuck up now that's funny shut up um shout out to chip coffee of kindred spirits which by the way where was i recently i had to have been in a hotel because i was watching cable that had to be it but chip coffee showed up on my stupid television screen he does that he just kind of appears

you're like huh chip coffee what are you doing here and he's like i'm here in my scarf yeah uh okay well the story says star hi eva which i love love it's me again oh my god josie what are you doing it's me chip coffee again in scarf. It's me again with yet another update about our resident poltergeist. Oh, apparently Josie has written him before about this. We've been living here for about two and a half years now, and for most of the time, we've been getting the fairly typical poltergeist fare of door slamming, objects moving around, the YouTube app on our TV playing the same post-bop jazz tune at 3 a.m every night ew i hate it oh i but at least you know if this poltergeist ever gets like in your way soothe them with some post-bop jazz

soothe them yep distract them at the very least uh we have a fairly amicable relationship with our poltergeist thank god because it could be so much worse i think that's the best you could hope for like you can't really be bffs i guess but amicable it's pretty good yeah but we have two ground rules uh which i love that the poltergeist has also like agreed to this contract first they don't come in the bedroom when we're trying to sleep totally fair fair and second that they don't break anything also very fair yep since establishing those rules we've got on great and we even enjoy seeing them play with our cat kafka oh no well we see kafka playing with an invisible entity and i've only seen them physically manifesting once but that's another story don't do that to me that's why we refer to our ghosts as kofka's

friend oh last night my husband and i were watching kindred spirits uh season five episode seven called fright train ever heard of it christine have i ever heard of it yes towards the end chip coffee is talking to the owners of the inn that's featured in the episode and he tells them that their spirits clearly care for them he says something along the lines of i can see a lot of ghosts around you and they all care for you you're surrounded by some very loving spirits in this house they have a lot of love for you right as he said that i felt a very clear tap on the top of my head as if someone dropped a ping pong ball on me from the ceiling it felt very clearly like kafka's friend was trying to say you're loved

here too and this is the day i fall in love with a poltergeist okay yeah what the fuck is happening anyway that's my story about our friendly poltergeist and their appreciation for chip coffee sending you lots of love josie that is so that's such a great story oh my gosh well i just love that like boop yeah you know what i mean i'm not gonna say it out loud but you get the idea yeah yeah if you're it's like a fist bump it's like i don't want to show that much affection but i want you to know like it's like too like like it's like a bromance it's like yeah we're good we're good bro we're good bro love you man love you man yeah um how beautiful i'm so happy that you have a happy poltergeist because the thought of a poltergeist does not seem thrilling to me it also lets me know it reminds me of the range that poltergeists have

because it could be just fine like when i hear poltergeist i don't want to say oh poltergeist have a bad rep because sometimes there are poltergeists that have earned that rep but it's nice to know that not all of them are super terrifying so that's why i always say not all poltergeists i got in a lot of hot water for that but it's just my belief system really a scandalo i that one was all you though okay so this is the one eva said i should. So let's see. It's called A Killer Stepdad. Oh, right. This is like the true crimey one, I think. A Killer Stepdad and Super Aggressive Poltergeist. Okay, we're on a theme here. Hi, fur babies, Christine, Emothy, Eva, all friends, fruits, and partners. Wow, beautiful. Oh my gosh. Christine, Emmethee, Eva, all friends, fruits, and partners.

Wow. Beautiful. Oh my gosh. My name is Jonathan. He, him. I've always been attuned to things most people are not. For example, when I was a kid, my mother could whisper my name from a hundred feet away and I would come running to ask what she wanted. Oh God.

That seems like a curse more than a blessing. Supersonic hearing. Oh my gosh. Did you ever buy those? Sorry. Like those things from the catalog where you can like hear. Obviously. We both like hear. Obviously. We both had that.

Obviously. I like saved up my money for it because my mom was like, I won't buy you that because you're going to spy on me. You know what makes me sad is that if we met at 10, we would have been, we would have had so much fun. I wish we could set up like a, like a hypothetical where we could watch it play out because it would have been such a delight to see i we would have been obsessed with each other for sure it would have been so chaotic like our

parents would have been like what have we done it probably i think the world was like that's too destructive let's truly yeah truly i think it needed to wait it needed to wait okay also for as long as i can remember i've seen and heard things i can't explain logically when i was about 22 my mother started talking to a man who could be best described as a cross oh boy between joe exotic and hannibal lecter your mom has hot excellent taste sounds like the least sexy combination ever. Oh, no. Oh, no. She took one look at him and went, that's the one.

That's my man. That's my man. That's my man. That's my man. That's my man. That's my man. That's my man. That's my man.

That's my man. That's my man. That's my man. He had a genius level intellect and a massive crack addiction. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. My sister and I had told my mother this guy was bad news, but she thought different. To her credit, he had been sober for about four and a half years.

Oh, that's good. And he had talked a good game, but we never trusted him. That's not good. They got married after two years, bought a house, cars, horses, and planned to spend, quote, the rest of their lives together. Turns out he wanted that to be a much shorter time period than she did. With his past record, everything was in my mother's name and he hadn't been able to keep the lid on his addiction or his crazy for very long. Within three weeks of getting married, things went off the rails and he was back to his old ways. Long story short, divorce papers were

signed and about a week later I got a phone call that my mom is in the hospital and she can't remember the last two to three years of her life. What? What? What happened? All of a sudden the divorce is off and the sale of their house is being stopped. My sister and I rushed to the hospital and put a stop to all the things he was trying to reverse. My poor mother didn't understand why we were so concerned she was told she had just had an accident while riding her horse later when her memory came back it turned out that her foot had come out of the stirrup on her saddle and her ex tried to spook her horse so it would throw her off a cliff oh my god what a lunatic that is the closest thing to true crime we're gonna get on a on a on a prank episode eva you nailed it because this i'm glad like you know we were even saying we were

like before we read these like how do like would there be a true crime story this month and she was like don't worry i've fucking nailed it and she did god what a what a silly joke to throw your mom off a cliff. Wow. Oh, my God. That sounds like the kind of thing I'm worried my father's going to try on the first. Yeah, maybe. It's a prank. And I'm like, that's not how this works.

I would like the ultimate prank now. Sorry, I felt like I was still laughing through your story, which was like, it became very unfunny. But the description of Joe Exotic and Hannibal lecter really just took me out it was like quite it felt like this uh it felt like jonathan had a long time to really like uh-huh nail down the the perfect combo and that's yeah i'd like to think that your your father's prank will be just stepfather i'm sorry stepfather no your father well absolutely oh my father i thought you made this person stepfather i could, your father. Well, absolutely. Oh, my father. I thought you meant this person's stepfather. I could see your dad pranking you and dressing up as a combination of those two or just kind of having an attitude like that. But that already seems like maybe in his nature a little bit.

I'd be like, wow, you took a little extra coffee. You drank a little extra coffee today. Like that would be what I understood from the situation. Yeah. Okay. So anyway anyway what happens to this poor mom oh my god this is horrific okay sorry we're not trying to make light of this by the way it's just like very shocking um okay so later when her memory came back which by the way

thank god because two to three years of your life missing is an alarming head injury it sounds like yeah um so her memory came back turns out that her foot had come out of the steer up on her saddle and her ex had tried to spook the horse so it would throw her off a cliff. Thankfully, she rolled off the other way and hit her head and shoulder on a rock wall, but didn't go over the edge. Other riders saw and thankfully called 911 because I'm sure he would have finished the job while she laid there unconscious. Jesus Christ. Who the fuck is this guy? This is a fucking unhinged maniac.

Oh my God. So Jonathan says, crazy, I know. Thank God he failed and we didn't let her out of our sight for the next six months while the house sold and the divorce went through. Good. My girlfriend and I moved in with her to keep her safe and to help her recover now that she was disabled

from her injuries. A dislocated shoulder and three severed ligaments. Not to mention, oh, a destroyed hip socket and knee. Oh, my God. This poor woman. This is horrific. Oh, my God. With a couple more surgeries, she'll be fine,

but she is still recovering four years later and struggling to walk. This is so sad. Oh, fuck. This became really sad. Now for the spooky part. oh we got there here we go jonathan's like i know how awkwardly they're gonna make this so we gotta turn it into some spookiness now for the spooky part of this banana story when we moved into this new apartment everything seemed fine aside from the fact that my cat ran around in circles and growled at night

but he's batshit crazy anyway so we didn't think much of it. Things started off small. Doors would open and close at 3 a.m., but when we'd wake up, they'd be closed, so we assumed we dreamt it. Then the doors would just open and stay open in my bedroom, so we started locking them. Then the bastard ripped the guts out of my Death Star nightlight.

Oh, shit. It also says Death Star parentheses star wars thank you jonathan for it's a fair assumption i do know what the death star is i assume m does but it's a fair assumption that maybe i'm too ignorant to know much about star wars which is it's a fair assumption um but yes my death star nightlight which is really rude because that means like I don't want you to be able to see at night. Didn't even think about that. You know. Dick move, ghosty.

Dick move. It then started opening the sliding doors of my closet, which was a big nope. Ew. That's awful because it could happen all the time and it could happen slowly or quickly. And a lot of times they're mirrored and so you have to watch your own reflection happening and you're like is it somebody inside it it's no no we've done it folks we sent them over the edge that really took me out because now i'm imagining like it's dark because your nightlight is nightlight is ruined and then all of a sudden the door's moving.

Do you see a face behind the door come out? Eyes? And also, like the, ooh. Also, I'm just thinking about this nightlight thing again because like opening and closing doors is one thing. But to like take the insides out of your nightlight to break it just seems so intentional. It's so intentional. There's no like unplugging it and like oh it's not just like unplugging it oh it's just like you can't use this anymore

okay so let's see uh it started opening the sliding doors my closet which was a big nope my friend suggested i burned some sage which did work for a little bit but always ended with something weirder happening which i've heard that if you try to cleanse it sometimes if you aren't it's not even that you're doing it properly, but maybe you're not, maybe it's too strong or who knows, but it like activates it more. Oh, shit. Which is why I'm too scared to do any sort of cleansing. Understood.

After the first two times I burned sage, I would see an angry face floating outside of the second story window of my bathroom oh so it's sort of like what you had talked about at your house where you cleanse the space so now it's outside the window oh no it's like better but not but not but it's also like now it's angry which is just like oh that's my biggest fear because the things that i have in my house my mom has always said do you want me to call someone and like get the house cleansed probably the answer should be yes but I just don't trust anyone that we know in Fredericksburg Virginia enough if you are someone from Fredericksburg Virginia who knows what you're doing maybe I'll that's the thing and like sometimes you hear these

stories at least when I watch my millions of chip coffee ghost shows where it's like oh we tried to have the house cleansed and then everything got worse. And then people are like, hmm, interesting. And it's like, oh, we had a ghost crew come in and they shouted at the spirits. It's like such an awkward interaction with you and the ghost now because you go to bed knowing that they're like, you tried to get rid of me, you asshole. We're roommates. I have said out loud in that house so many times, I'm not going to mess with you if you do not mess with us. You are welcome to exist and we are not having a relationship. You do your thing, I do my thing.

But that's like the ground rules we're talking about with that poltergeist. Like you do your thing, I do my thing. Like in my room, there's always that one ghost with the boots. I always hear him and I'm always like, you can walk around right over there and I'm going to sleep right here and we do not have to cross you get your steps in but leave me out of it and i don't even live here anymore give me like three days and then you can walk all around this room like oh no but if i ever tried to get rid of him oh you know i'd hear his little footsteps run up on me at night yeah it would be bad i feel like then he'd be like well now you've ruined our agreement so it's moot like exactly we We're going to rip up that contract.

So it says, after the first two times I burned sage, I would see an angry face floating outside of the second story window of my bathroom. But we kept on trying because we didn't know what else to do besides pray. One night, my girlfriend woke me up screaming that there was a man in our room that looked like me, but his eyes glowed. Oh, God. Oh, for fuck's sake. Oh, that's. It's like, oh, oh for fuck's sake oh that's it's like oh honey what are you that's beyond a if i thought allison was getting water in the middle of the night and then she looked at me and had glowing eyes it'd be like girl stay over there we're

breaking up like a goosebumps story i know we're just talking about goosebumps before we record it but it sounds like something out of one of those like scary like the glowing eyes but it's still like a doppelganger like that's a doppelganger in your house forget it and then you roll over and the person's next to you oh god oh no oh no uh okay we all saw shadow figures after that my cat seemed to never be able to sleep at night after that we were all really freaked out and we're looking for anywhere that we could move we were also looking for a priest to help us out i slept better than my girlfriend did she seemed to be more sensitive to it or maybe more freaked out. At least that's what I thought until that one night. So my girlfriend, well, fiance now,

congratulations, Jonathan. Subtle flex. Well, now fiance leaves for work at about 4 a.m. and I used to walk her to her car because we didn't have indoor parking we do now thank god after i walked her to her car that night i went back to bed not 10 minutes after being back in bed i feel something touching my leg i almost said babe don't tickle me but the words died in my mouth because babe is fucking gone oh my god doppelganger thing i hate it i would have been like babe uh what now that i've just walked you out let me and my cat get in your car and you drive us somewhere else come back and circle back we're staying with you i'm coming to work today yeah yeah i looked down oh my god oh my god oh my god i looked down and saw a body under my comforter with me it started to crawl up my legs oh my god i'm by the way frozen in fear for those who are wondering

why i'm not reacting keep reading and all i know is whether this is a dream a demon or a real crafty serial killer i don't want to see it i put my hand over the blanket to stop it and screamed, get the fuck out of my room. And the blanket flattened out. I sat up and everything was quiet. That is the first time I've ever felt crazy, but it felt so real. I don't know how to explain it. Ooh, I have goose cam. Eva, if we have a folder for like the scariest shit we've ever heard, throw this one in there. Yeah, the ones where I'm like this this i would pay big bucks to never experience

anything like this i would literally spend everything i have to never have that happen yeah i mean and to think like it's so frustrating because to think like i know that feeling of like am i crazy like am i having is there a gas leak like am i losing it um it's so confusing okay we moved bought all the crystals we are mostly ghost free now except for my bathroom light exploding the other day bye but i'm sure it was just the wiring yeah you're right jonathan just go with that right wink anyway for i forgot i forgot about the fucking joe exotic cannibal lector guy because it i totally forgot this was the same story. Please don't make me remember. Anyway, my mother's ex is still out there and he found out where we lived once but hasn't

found us at this most recent place. Hoping he never does and we're looking to move away soon anyway. Hope this creepy story was entertaining and maybe gets read on a listener's episode. They are always some of my favorites. Been listening for three years now. Y'all are great. Keep up the good work. Thanks, Jonathan. of my favorites. Been listening for three years now. Y'all are great. Keep up the good work. Thanks, Jonathan.

Oh my God. What a life you've lived. Jonathan, write a memoir. Or maybe this is your memoir. I don't know. If this is it, we'll keep the first draft, you know, tightly round for you. Yeah, this is the edible. Oh, the edible.

I feel like I'm on edible. Are you on an edible? I wish. Honestly, I wish. No, this is the audible version. You and I are like narrating the audible version Are you on an edible? I wish. Honestly, I wish. No, this is the audible version. You and I are like narrating the audible version. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Okay. Well, thank you for that, Jonathan. And very quickly moving on to something else. Talk about a doozy. This is from Mara, who uses she, her pronouns. Thank you for normalizing pronouns. And the subject is flower shop phantoms which feels like a goosebumps title yeah it does it really or like babysitter's club but like a crossover like the halloween special

yeah yeah yeah yeah all right so the story goes hey i'm christine eva and geo and company i discovered and that's why we drink by way of your other podcast rituals. I love when that happens. R.I.P. by the way. Rest in peace. Yeah. Which by the way was not our call. Let's just put it that way. We miss it dearly. We wanted to keep it up,

but we were only signed on for 50 episodes. So yeah, we had a great time though. And Jonathan was our producer. So I love, I don't know. I was just thinking about him when I was reading Jonathan's story. I'm like, this couldn't be the same Jonathan. I'm sure it's not.

We worked 50 episodes with him and he never mentioned any of that. That would be a wild thing to forget to tell us. I've been binging and that's what we drink ever since. I started listening while going through a particularly painful breakup and you all kept me company and made me feel so much less alone. painful breakup and you all kept me company and made me feel so much less alone. Anyway, to the story, which is a bit lengthy, I grew up the daughter of a florist and the shop where she worked played an important part of my childhood. I came to know the other employees there and the shop felt like a second home. Fast forward 20-ish years and I work alongside my mom as a manager at the flower shop and the

shop remained an important part of my life one day after returning zach bagans showed up and said get away from here yeah you're not welcome you're barefoot and that's a ghost and then i slapped my piggies on the floor and i said fine zach bagans here i go eat your heart out one day after returning from an early morning funeral delivery ironic considering what followed i saw a vague figure in my rear view mirror walking toward the front door no hey i popped out of my car to tell the person that the shop wasn't open yet but realized that i was alone in the parking lot. I disregarded this experience as I was a firm non-believer in the spirit and the supernatural. Well, welcome to the other side, Mara. And later in the day, I was chatting with coworkers when the topic of ghosts came up.

They swapped a few stories when I brought up the shadowy figure, although I made it known that I didn't think I truly was paranormal until a coworker turned turned to me and said i've seen him too as a chill ran down my spine another co-worker shared an experience of her own while closing up the shop one day she saw a man standing at the door mostly his trousers and shoes and she poked her head out to the front door to let him know we were closed but she too was met with a dark empty empty parking lot. Which, by the way, that feels like a true crime's about to happen. Like, closing up a store and it's dark outside. Like he's lulled you into the parking lot almost.

And just standing out by the door, just staring there at the closed parking. Yeah, forget it. While we were sharing these stories, a strong wind shook the front door and they blew open from the inside they slammed open and closed for several minutes my co-workers and i were a little freaked out and we made a call to the owner's spiritual sister and she came to check out slash cleanse the shop but reported no sense of negative energy once in a while we would

come into work and be met with pranks pulled overnight finding such as finding extension cords plugged into themselves items that disappear with no explanation seeing wait finding extension cords like plugged into them oh that's kind of funny like because what the fuck that's who would do that and also it's almost like it feels like um uncanny valley or like like something trying to be human like it doesn't know how an extension cord works it's like this does technically fit but it doesn't work like that oh that's true yikes so finding extension cords plugged into themselves items that disappear with no explanation seeing movement out of the corners of our eyes eventually

we came to the conclusion that the parking lot shadow was separate from the experiences inside the shop. We decided that the ghost inside the shop was the spirit of a motherly salesperson from my childhood who had passed a few years prior. She was known to pull a prank or two over the years. Okay, so maybe she didn't know what an extension cord was. In the interest of her family's privacy i will refer to her as jamie occasionally i'd see vague shadows poking out from behind door frames over my shoulder and reflection etc if i were in a bad mood during her shenanigans or overwhelmed on a crazy valentine's day i'd shout out to the empty room i don't have time for your shit today Jamie Oh whoa

Damn She's like holding the extension cord like Okay Put it down My mistake Too far too far One morning a co-worker called me out to the front Because she had heard an intermittent tapping sound

I thought for a moment And then she shouted jamie i'm sick of your shit and the tapping immediately stopped this recurred a handful of times while i worked there and telling her to knock it off was a sure way to end the tapping needless to say i became a believer though i'm no longer a florist i remember my times at the shop fondly i find comfort in knowing jamie was looking out for us and i'm sure she's still there benignly causing a bit of mischief but the man in the parking lot's shadow figure remained unexplained i had the feeling that he's still there too lingering outside but never crossing the shop's threshold which thank god because it's probably good seems a little ominous

thank you so much mara wow i that's a doozy um i'm glad that at least you've determined that the one inside is like a friendly yeah spirit because and at least i don't know and she's cool with the name jamie if it's not jamie you know yeah true right like she responds to the name yeah yeah yeah um yeah wow i don't know i don't know um i'm i'm i wonder it just it's one of those things where i wonder like if she was a kindly shop here like is she still here is she stuck i mean it sounds like she's having a good time pulling pranks why is she still here yeah because as much as i have ever liked a job or a group of people i don't know if i really because like it doesn't sound like jamie actually worked at the floor shop or maybe i maybe i forget like a motherly

figure who a motherly figure oh a motherly salesperson okay so so they did work there yeah i don't know if um for any job i've ever had i don't know if i would want to stick around and haunt that spot like can you trap yeah it really makes you immediately go into the headspace of like can ghosts travel to different locations or are you stuck at work for eternity even when the shop's closed see i don't like that yeah i don't love the sound of that um like or is she just like still like relegated to shifts is she still like coming in for certain hours maybe she takes the night shift and that's why all the electrical cords are plugged in in the morning yeah i like to think that she at least is protective in case something bad did happen out

of flora shop maybe she'll like give you the gut feeling of like maybe she's protecting them from the one outside she's like i'm blocking him i think that's very sweet and also so scary because it implies that the bad that the one out there is actually bad he's trying to get in yeah this is uh preferred name and pronouns are friends of ray and sarah they them and the subject is a ghosty prank and a fond farewell. Note, it says, this story is shared with permission from the persons involved. Good to know. Dear Eva, Em, and Christine, this is a lengthy one, but the story comes from a very special place and is in remembrance of a very special person.

We chose to write in this story, oh dear, as a tribute to our dear friend Ray and his fiancee Sarah. I don't, I don't. I'm so sad already. Sarah's a long time, and that's where you drink, listener, as are many in our dear friend Ray and his fiancee Sarah. I don't. I don't. I'm sad already. Sarah is a long time and that's why you drink listener, as are many in our friend group. Listening to your podcast has been an important shared bond for our friendship since Sarah moved to Virginia in 2019. Leaving all her friends and family in Georgia was undoubtedly difficult for her, but she did so to be with the love of her life, Ray.

Ray was truly the sunshine in her life. He was such a genuine kind silly hilarious man he proposed i know the past tense he proposed to sarah just last december and they were looking forward to a long wonderful future together so this was written in september of 22 so this would have been uh december of 21. It is with deep grief that we now have to share that Ray passed away suddenly but peacefully this August of 2022. It has been a horrendous loss, most of all for his family and especially Sarah. The amount of outpouring of love and the sheer volume of people that came out to support them during this time just shows how many hundreds of lives Ray touched. We know this is not how he would have wanted to leave everyone, but we also know he is still with us in his own way. As Ray was such a bubbly, colorful person, it was noted

several times during his services that Ray would be having a ball cracking jokes about some of the things going on. For example, Ray hated cut flowers because he thought they were wasteful. So we would all laugh imagining just how frustrated he would be about all the flower arrangements that had been sent to him. We also felt at the post services reception that it really did feel like Ray was there. We just couldn't see him through the busy crowds of people. It was then that Ray made his presence known. While some of our friends were chatting and reminiscing at the bar, we discussed how Ray would be the one trying to liven up the mood if he were there. He was a notable prankster, and we were throwing out things ghost Ray would probably do just to get a laugh.

Options ranged from photobombing pictures to interrupting the readings at his funeral to spilling someone's drink. Just as someone said, well, he shouldn't spill Sarah's drink. She's been through enough already, but he could definitely spill someone else's drink. My completely full, freshly poured glass immediately tipped over. He said, fine. He said, okay, I hear you. My drink made a huge sticky mess at the bar with plenty of witnesses taking notice to laugh or yell party foul. And wow, too much already, huh?

It definitely lifted the mood for a moment so someone could be the butt of the joke. Sure, maybe it was a slip of my hand, but it really felt at that moment that Ray took his opportunity to give us one more good laugh. Not everyone would have noticed the conversation leading up to it, but for the few of us that experienced it, we knew Ray was really there with us. Thank you for reading in honor of Ray and for Sarah as well. Sorry. You okay? Yeah, I know. Woo! That just hit me. Remember to live every day to the fullest

and always make good choices. Signed, Friends of Sarah's. Oh, that's very sweet. And I do hope that Ray was there. I'd like to think at any of our funerals we would like to cause a little mischief. I was just thinking I'd probably unplug the sound machine just to see what would happen.

You know, I don't know. Just be like, I don't like this song. Yeah, well... Or like, you're talking too much, Em, unplug the mic. Yeah, well, trust me, I'd want to be up there anyway, unless there was a lot of propranolol. True. I like to think Ghost Christine would... I don't know if I like it but I know ghost Christine would cause some bullshit so who me I wouldn't spill your drink though I feel like that would just be like no wasteful messy um but also um you know I don't want to ruin a good drink I might

drink it yeah I think all of a sudden I would have a drink in my hand for somebody else and I go to hand it to them it was empty it was empty yeah or all of a sudden you'd be holding alcohol and be like i didn't order this yeah you'd be like really trying to force it all of a sudden the house oh well thank you so much i'm so sorry for your loss especially to sarah sips to ray everyone take a little sippy today cheers um um let's see so this is our last story before i this is our last story um i guess eva wants me to read it and this is from uh janna all right so and the story i hate this immediately what eva's a real asshole i'll tell you that um Oh, no. Because the caption is, re-elect Lemon. Is it that sign? I feel like I've been seeing a sign.

No, really? It's that sign. People have been tagging me in that. I don't really know what it is, though. Well, it's a picture of, there's a sheriff, I guess, out there whose last name is Lemon. And so it keeps saying, re-elect Sheriff Lemon. And that picture is involved. It's in the middle of this email.

Oh, good. So here we go. Hi, friends, all people, fur children, fruit, insects, and ghosts included. My name is Jana Lake Banana. She, her pronouns. Thank you for normalizing pronouns.

And I have been a big old fan since my sister introduced me to her podcast about a year and a half ago. So I have some quick. Oh, by the way, this was sent during COVID. So like early COVID. Like peak COVID.

Like July 2020. So, Jana, I hope you're still listening three years later. I always feel bad for people who like write in a story and then we read it. But now it's like so far away. Yeah, but imagine if they do. Well, then maybe they made a big mistake stopping listening. Make good choices, people. It's their fault.

My bad. My name is Jana and I have been a big old fan since a year and a half ago. So I have some quick little listener stories if they pique your interest, but I'm mainly emailing you for this photo. Oh, for fuck's sake. I was on the way to my best friend's house and in one of the tiny towns I have to drive through to get there. I saw this sign while listening to your podcast and I skirted the car over and stopped to take this picture. Oh, that's amazing. Anyway, here are my stories.

Okay, so and thank you, the way janna if you're listening anymore um there you actually titled them so i can see breaks in the stories it's lovely so the first one is called voice over the monitor uh i was a few weeks old when my mom laid me down in my nursery for a nap one day about lunchtime and my mom went to her bedroom across the house my dad was out so she was alone in the house my mother heard clear as day over the baby monitor jack jack come here oh truly forget it she ran to the nursery where i was laying safe and sound no one was in the room and no one was in the house and as she thought about it she said she recognized the voice her grandmother had died long before i was born but she knew it was her voice talking to her

husband who had also died before i was born she knew it was her grandma because her grandfather's name was john but my grandmother called him jack that's so your baby monitor was a spirit box for a second that's that's oh yeah that's. And it was almost like your grandmother was like, quick, we've got a second alone with the baby. Come look at him or come look at her. You know? Oh, come look at your baby, Jack. Like Jack, come here quick. And you just like heard it over the waves.

That's crazy. The next story is just like a quick little blip. It says I was about three or five years old when i developed an imaginary friend well my imaginary friend could only be found in one place my bathroom mirror okay this feels like it should be a longer story oh no apparently i have no memory of this i would spend hours just talking to donna the mirror. Who knows their imaginary friend, Donna? I'm sorry. That's a real person.

No other mirror, no other location. When my parents came into my bathroom to see who I was talking to, I would point at them in the mirror and say, my mom and dad, but not Donna's mom and dad. Truly forget it. I would be like, okay, we're, I don't know i my first gut was we'll smash the mirror but maybe that's so bad maybe that's so wrong to do then she comes out of the mirror i

don't know she crawls out like the girl from the ring i don't know no um yeah i'd be like okay well you're not allowed to use this bathroom anymore yeah this is off limits and you know what can you could she still hear donna and other rooms because what if you're walking by the bathroom and you hadn't been there in a while and then you hear donna's voice being like come in here i'm bored come here or do you have to look at her janna come here like can you lock the bathroom and donna is no longer a problem or like do you have to look at it like schrodinger's cat do you have to like look in the mirror for her to exist or is she just always there?

Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Either way, I don't want a three-year-old to do that. If your three-year-old, by the way, ever looks in the mirror and goes, Harry, now we know we've got a big problem. Absolutely not.

I'm talking to Harry's mom and dad. Okay. Forget it. Bye. Bye. Okay. So then the last story is called personal poltergeist oh wow when i was 22 i lived in this old building close to downtown it was renovated into apartments but had most of the original features i love older buildings so when i can live in something like

that i jump at the chance so this was a little 500 square foot, one bedroom apartment that I had lived in for a few weeks, still relatively new, but I was settling in. One night, my boyfriend and I were laying in bed and we heard this weird sound, ting, ting, ting, ting. It sounded like metal hitting the floor. I whispered, can you hear that? And he said, yes. Then the ting started happening faster until we heard this loud rip. Terrified, we just laid there. Neither one of us got up. When we woke up the next morning, I walked out of the bedroom door into the living room and it was a tiny little hallway, so I didn't travel far before I saw what made all the noises. I had taped and nailed a rope

light around the doorway in the living room and the rope light was ripped off the wall tape and all just hanging in mid air over the doorway it sounds like one by one like piece by piece was like falling off wait i don't understand what's a rope light like like an like an led rope light like a oh oh i thought it meant like a light bulb hanging on a rope oh my what are you thomas edison yeah i was like what a strange decor choice but okay it sounds very steampunk it sounds like it was all like all held up like every foot maybe there was a nail or something and to hear the tings it sounds like the nails were going out one by one okay that's what it sounds like to me bad Oh, bad, bad.

And the tiny nails holding the rope light into the door frame were at the center of the floor laying in a perfect circle. No. Okay. Because I was about to say, were there just nails scattered everywhere? This is so much worse. In a circle? They were placed there. Goodbye.

Not laying. That's when you wish you had a fucking camera in that room. 100%. Did they fly and land in a perfect circle? Did they fall on the floor and then roll their way over there? Did they just appear? Like what the heck? What the heck?

Oh my God. A week or so passed and the apartment was always a little eerie. After that. Yes. I agree. I wasn't even there and I can tell you it was eerie. We could see shadows move in the hallway from the corner of our eyes and the door to the kitchen would open and close on its own, but never in front of us. It's always when it's not in front of you.

So rude. Then again, do I want it in front of me? Good point. Good point. I would be in the bedroom or bathroom and we would hear it slowly close or open. Slowly. Fuck this guy. Fuck this poltergeist. bedroom or bathroom and we would hear it slowly close or open slowly fuck this guy fuck this

poltergeist well unless you're playing this on your speakers in front of the poltergeist in which seriously i love you i said nothing that's all um one night i was home alone it was about 6 30 or 7 and i was laying in bed and i heard the floorboard squeak as if someone was walking in the living room i called out to my boyfriend knowing full well i was alone then the footsteps came down the tiny hallway i was just waiting for some person to appear in front of my door they and they stopped right at my door then walked back down the hallway to the living room i literally have full body chills i'm like my back is ice cold right now thinking of this experience like thinking an intruder's in the home it's just so scary it was silent for a few minutes and my heart rate slowed then again i heard the footsteps

walking to the bedroom i was too terrified to move so i did what any grown-up would do and i closed my eyes i don't blame you and then i heard footsteps stomp quickly up to my bed and boom my bed moved with me, with me in it. No! I screamed, obviously. Obviously. Jumped out of bed and just stood there staring at my bed. I would also stare and be like, what?

How do you? Oh, my God. And it also that means it was watching you and was waiting for you to close your eyes yes that was what i'm about to say that means it was waiting for you to close your eyes i literally i'm like so intensely like so bad i'm i'm so i'm so scared i know uh even throw this in that one folder that doesn't exist folder we made a folder of the scariest things i ever did read um so okay i mean to know that it was pacing and like to know linking back on it you were you were sitting there and you heard something

and you could have excuses like oh i'm you know it does absolutely sound like a person but maybe it's a residual haunting and like and it's's, it's not even aware of me. Yeah. But it clearly showed up and like stared at you when it was standing by your bed and then walked away because you weren't vulnerable enough yet. Then it came back. And only when you close your eyes, does it bull rush you? Yep.

Yep. Yep. And then like throw itself either onto your bed or into your bed and shift the whole thing with a human fucking body in there. Like that's a heavy weight for a ghost to throw itself and move the bed. That takes a lot. I feel like for a poltergeist that's just like pulling out little nails to shove a bed. Like that's really aggressive.

That's a lot of energy, which now officially like you are, you know, it was already intimidating. Now it's a full-blown threat to know that like it can move you yes a hundred percent truly forget it um the only thing i could think to do was look under my bed okay christine i had a lemon was under there oh no i had old tennis shoes on all the feet of my bed because it would slide across the room with any movement and the tennis shoes were to prevent that. All the tennis shoes under the bed were pushed over on their side like something slammed into the bed. So the bed got shoved and the shoes kind of tipped off of it. Oh, God.

So you know you weren't imagining it. Not that you would be. And also it was a heavy enough force so like it defied friction which was the whole point of the shoes yeah yeah yeah that's bad all the tennis shoes under the bed were pushed over on the side validating the very thing that just happened i lived in that apartment for a year and spooky things happened like lights turning on or off doors opening and closing seeing shadows out of the corner of my eye but nothing like the bed thing after i moved out nothing weird has happened to me again although i do sleep with a nightlight

of course you do be careful because apparently they can cut the guts out of those too yeah i would sleep with like office fluorescent ceiling lights before a can lighting uh now i understand why people apologize for lengthy emails hope you at the very least enjoyed the reelect lemon photo thanks for reading thanks for podcasting and then it said bye m christine and eva that's cute like bye wait like bye like this was written by no this is no this is bye like goodbye oh goodbye okay i thought about like bye you know oh that's christina janna oh wow i so it's a nightmare i don't know how you lived there for a year after that no and you just have to i mean i think california i don't know if they just became or or have been they're one of the states where like

they have to legally tell you if it's haunted no really yeah i really appreciate that um yeah when you buy a house you will i'm sure appreciate that oh of course i'm gonna ask definitely not something obviously that anybody told me here because i found out once i moved in they probably looked at you and went this house is from the 1700s or something what do you expect um but you know what i've never asked if this house is from the 1700s or something what the fuck do you expect um but you know what i've never asked if this apartment is haunted uh who would you ask you think the landlord the landlord they probably wouldn't know right i don't know i think they have to like have it on file if it is i don't know but like in california they have to know and they have to

be able to honestly answer but i guess you could also just not know and then answer i don't know like can you just say no i mean see that's what i don't really get it's like what do you mean you have to disclose if it's haunted like how do you prove that or disprove that i think you can say like oh like the tenants before you claimed that there was something here oh okay yeah so if yeah okay but, oh, I wonder though if that, it probably doesn't extend to rentals, right? Just purchasing a house. Maybe, yeah. But I do wonder what they would say because I do feel something sometimes in my apartment. It's always in the exact same spot.

And I wonder, oh, okay. Is it how often? Like frequently? Like I feel like kind of vaguely maybe once a week, but then i feel it really intensely maybe once a month um and like and when i say intensely it's moments like that where i have to say no thank you like i i can sense you thinking you're getting comfortable here and that's not what this is about okay apparently i don't know it says that they're not required to say anything except if there have been deaths on the property within the last three years so no it says they're not required to say about hauntings in any state I do know I know in California confidently that if you are buying they they have to tell you um okay just trust me on that one okay i do yeah uh but uh for

apartments i don't know it might just be when you're purchasing something but um but and also i've lived here for longer than three years so i guess they wouldn't have to say anything well yeah definitely not now yeah but no i do feel something i do feel something in the closets a lot and it really freaks it really freaks me out because if there was a death in the closet we can kind of assume what might have happened so is it like when you're just in the closet or like just when you're in the room i it's i can feel it like like from down the hall but it's always in one space yeah it's always in that one area. And of course, it's the closet I am sleeping next to.

So at night, I just feel something staring at me. So sometimes I close the door. I'm like, okay, well. And then it opens and nobody knows. The day it opens, I'll never come back. Goodbye. No. It's like, I could have a million roaches in this place, but the second the door opens by itself, I'm out of here.

They finally know how to kick you out of there. Yeah. Oh, God. Well, any ghost updates before we end? No. You and I have got to hop on a little call in a couple minutes, and I have to pee, so I should probably just go do that. Understood. Well, I'm keeping my eye out for any ghosty updates for the next episode. I'm keeping my eye out for any ghosty updates for the next episode.

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed a moment of peace because the next time you hear from us, it will be our May 1st listeners episode, which means it will be the 30-day countdown to our birthdays. Yep, get ready. I hear the communal groan. Oh my god. I wonder, I'm kind of scared if we look at our numbers, if they just drop during June. Just the summertime. It's so weird. It's just like a big dip in numbers. Yeah. They're like by July, they'll be back to normal. All right.

Well, thank you everyone who sent in stories. If you'd like to send in stories, you can do that on our website and that's why we drink.com. And thank you everyone. We'll tell you more stories in a month. So see you on May 1st. And that's why we drink.