And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 80

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

It's our birthday month and Eva told us this is a redemption episode from last year's birthday "surprise"... can you guess the theme? We've got some great, creepy stories to help celebrate us, and all you fellow Geminis out there, everything from a birthday ghost hunt to haunted kids' toys to a chance Vegas encounter with one Mr. Bagel Bites. Happy Gemini Season, everyone! And that's why we drink!Thank you to everyone who helped make this round of live shows so special! We can't believe it's already over. Stay tuned for more dates coming in the future...

happy birthday happy birth wait is that how it goes it's wait you mean happy birthday to you i don't know we sang one at school that was really weird and it was like happy birthday it's your birthday happy happy birthday to you oh but I might have made I also might have invented that so uh happy birthday i'm glad you sang it not me and what do you think your flavored cake is going to be this year because we haven't gotten to eat them yet oh blaze said he's already planning it and i don't know oh my god yes he already knows he already apparently so remember at our bogart show that that cake we received that beautiful from lulu's yeah uh bakery and apparently the woman who runs it remembered that i had gotten leona's first birthday cake there and so blades has already reached out to get my my birthday cake there so but i don't i don't know the flavor though so i'm kind of excited, but I'm guessing maybe, hmm. I mean, would it be the same as Leona's cake and our cake?

I can't remember. Okay. Oh my God. What about you? I don't know. I don't even know what. White raspberry maybe? Something like that?

Raspberry for a cake? White raspberry? Yeah. Of course you'd pick something. That's not that weird. It's not like chocolate, you know? Well, yeah. I mean, it's not because it's not chocolate weird it's not like chocolate you know well yeah i mean it's not because it's refined it's refined it's not like a birthday party cake i mean yeah i mean oh my gosh fine

then what's your cake gonna be i mean you're gonna get equally upset with me because wait maybe red velvet sorry i just looked at her menu i fucking love red velvet i can't stand red you and i our tastes are just crazy what is going on i thought maybe that one we'd agree on uh my mind was blown way too late in life when i was told it's just chocolate but it's like extra chocolate with red food coloring but i feel like i can taste the red food coloring or something and then maybe i can't sometimes it does have a if yeah sometimes it has a weird flavor if they put too much but i feel like you got it like to to make something brown look that bright red there has to be so much food dye in there there is have

you made it well obviously not you don't like it but i've made it you put a lot of red food coloring in those things i feel like i'm just caking my lol caking my stomach with like red dye it is you are and you're probably gonna have hives afterward but it's worth it um no i think at this point when it comes to my birthday there's one thing that allison has nailed down at this point which is cake like you said there's one thing else it is nailed down well there's one thing that like with confidence i know they're like i don't have to worry because like when it comes to like like presents like she's always worried about if I'm going to like the presents or I'm always worried about like, what's going to like, what, what are the plans? I don't know.

But if there's something that both of us know unspokenly, it's that the cake is fucking handled. And I'm assuming at least if she tries to like switch gears on me all of a sudden, I'll be really thrown. But she makes these cupcakes that are so fucking good and they're like oversized cupcakes so they're extra big oh hell yeah and she tie dyes them so they're like bright i mean it's just so crafty and she makes like the chocolate frosting i think at one point she made it from scratch which was very lovely and it's not that it was bad but i'm just trash and like out of a can so

it ends up working out better for her anyway because it's less work but it's not that it was bad but i'm just trash and like out of a can so it ends up working out better for her anyway because it's less work but it's like these bright like bright neon tie-dye cupcakes with chocolate frosting on them oh my god oh my god that sounds amazing they're so good but so that's like the one thing that like i don't have to worry i know i'm gonna fucking like the cake i don't have to pretend how do you feel about carrot cake? I was the weird kid who liked carrot cake. I love carrot cake, but we're not surprised by that. Well, I liked the cake part. And maybe this is also why I can't stand red velvet.

Oh, cream cheese frosting. That's why I like both of those, because I fucking love cream cheese frosting. Yeah, I just scrape it off. Oh, it's the, I'll eat it. In my mind, if you're having if red velvet truly is just chocolate cake why would you put cream cheese on chocolate cake why don't you put more chocolate frosting on it good together you're wrong my friend you need to sit down i mean i look i'll uh you can have all the cream cheese frosting you want i really do think like

in the world of like friends can only be friends if like they complement each other's food palates. Yeah. Then we've nailed it because you can have all of my stuff and I can have all your stuff and we never have to fight on food except when we're judging each other.

I love that for us. Why are you drinking this on this month, birthday girl? Wow. Why? I mean, I don't know. Happy Pride. There's so much stuff to celebrate in june are you gonna go do anything for pride um you know probably but i never really plan these

things in advance i just see them on instagram and then attend oh your little baby's gonna look so cute in pride outfit i know what are you doing this month oh i'm getting my veins ripped out of my legs gross you're disgusting um so i honestly and this is we're recording this early enough on that i haven't started panicking about what that actually means um so like it's fun to talk about right now but when this comes out i'll probably be like just petrified um but i i wonder they say it's outpatient and i'll apparently be fine the next day but in my mind i'm like not gonna be able to walk for a month so somewhere oh my god somewhere in the middle is where i actually get like a like a you know what like what happens if someday you get like a full like

brain surgery or something you're gonna going to be like beside yourself. I like to think, you know how like a bunch of people with anxiety were like we're stressing over technically nothing and then all of a sudden the pandemic hit and they were like, I've been waiting my whole life for this. I knew this would happen. Yeah, that was me for sure. If something ever that drastic happens, fingers crossed that never happens. But I'd like to think that i'm already dealing with so much

so much like health anxiety that like i can't imagine it getting higher so okay that's fair point fair point um but yeah so it never gets there let's just say that so my legs are not having a happy june but everything else i think i'm doing good i have some friends coming into town um yeah it'll be fun i'm a little nervous because one of one of my friends coming into town. Fun. Yeah, it'll be fun. I'm a little nervous because one of my friends coming to town is bringing her sister, who I was never particularly close with. So now I feel like it's not just two friends hanging out. I feel like I need to impress or something. I need to put on a show.

Just put your webbies out on the table. Oh, these old things? Oh, these? I'll leave one in the bathroom a la like J-Lo or something. Doesn't she like have a Grammy or something? I've heard that. Yeah. I've thought about doing that in the bathroom.

But then I also think about all the particles that come out of a potty. Oh, good point. I don't need to do that. And it's kind of bouncy. You'd just be springing the germs everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot so anyway happy pride to all of my uh little

queer folks and their supporting allies and uh happy june happy birthday happy birthday why did you say that last that should be first above pride and everything else you're right happy birthday um editor cut this all out no no don't all right here's the thing eva told us that she's only going to say one thing and then she paused for a long time to the point that i thought her camera was frozen and then emma and i were like yes and she said i've what did she call? She said this is redemption from last birthday episode, which like I don't recall at all. And she said, is this what she says to me? I go, oh, I don't really remember. And she goes, yeah, I didn't think you would remember.

She didn't say it in that tone of voice, but that's how I absorbed it. And I was like, hey, fuck you. But really not because I absolutely don't remember. And Eva is correct. I think. Yeah. Apparently she did something do you remember no why on earth would i oh my god was it scorpios oh eva was it if it was maybe so maybe these are gonna be all gemini stories maybe they fucking better be eva that was a slick little she said he he he okay so yeah I do remember Eva take that that was a sneaky little trick that she pulled on us for our birthdays we were forced in

publicly to read multiple Scorpio stories I remember but yeah okay so Gemini redemption this year must be but I mean I don't want to get my hopes up but maybe it's just everyone but scorpios maybe just yeah oh maybe um or maybe it's just bad stuff about scorpios every scorpio has turned off our show no they've you know scorpios they've turned up the volume and they're just getting mad or any matter they're like say it say it louder say it loud so i can hear it yeah they're like come at me but eva did say i should go first so i will go ahead and read the first story cool this is called birthday holy water slash my adopted ghost cousins oh okay just let that one percolate for a moment. I don't think my brain will ever get there. So I'm just going to let you steamroll through it. Great.

Happy birthdays. My name is Jack and I use they, he pronouns. Double pronouns. Double with the they first. How fun. How spicy. You're going to love it more. I'm also a Gemini and share a birthday with Christine.

You know what I love about double pronouns in Gemini? Twinsies. The twinsies. Yeah, you got two personalities and they have different pronouns. Crazy. I don't think anyone else besides Gemini should be able to use double pronouns. Okay, that's a statement. I'll back you until-

It's June, I can say that. I'll back you until we get in trouble and then I'll act like I never heard you say it before. And then you'll be like, she's so sick in the head, that Christine. I'll be like, what? Let's cancel her. Like, she's crazy. Don't listen to her. She's so crazy.

She's a Gemini. She doesn't get it. What do you expect? Okay, so Jack uses they, he pronouns. I'm also a Gemini and share a birthday with Christine. Happy birthday, Jack. I have listened to And That's Why We drink since 2018 while working in a haunted building. This is a story of the ghosts that haunted my grandmother's house and how I was given holy water as a birthday gift.

My whole life, one of my uncles and I have refused to walk through my grandmother's dining room because it gives us the heebie-jeebies as a little kid i would play with imaginary friends that i only saw at her house that's not a good sign and their names were paul and sarah i also often talked about how there were monsters in my grandmother's closet but it was okay quote because they were my friends oh no i okay so far hi okay keep okay yeah around my 16th or I, okay. So far. Hi. Okay. Keep going. Okay. Yeah. Around my 16th or 17th birthday on June 4th, by the way, if anyone's wondering, my grandmother and I invited some paranormal investigators to her house. That's what I want to do for my birthday. A few years before my grandmother made a family tree of people who had lived in the house

before her. The ones that are important to the story are an old man who died of a heart attack at the dining room table and a family with kids named paul and sarah bye who had died as adults but had lived there as children so that's really interesting it's like they die they lived their whole lives but then their spirits stayed as kids in the house you know i've um my one of my grandpa's past recently well both my grandpa's past recently but um one of them i've talked to via dowsing rods and i was saying like oh do you still look like my 97 year old grandpa and it like flung no it was like heard that and i was like oh like do you look i was trying to guess the situation because i i said like oh in your 30s and your 40s and your 50s yeah and i

guess he looks like he did in his mid 40s and i was like that's interesting because i feel like you would want to pick the time you felt like the healthiest or the happiest maybe that is it and that's when they swung open so i wonder oh i love that so i. And that's when they swung open. Oh, I love that. So I wonder if that's just they had really good memories there as kids. Maybe that was like their best time. Yeah. That's really beautiful. We started in the living room where we ended up getting the least amount of activity.

One of the investigators had his ponytail pulled and we heard an old man's voice say help on the ghost box. tail pulled and we heard an old man's voice say help on the ghost box we also noticed that my grandmother's lap was 10 degrees colder than the rest of the room but we couldn't figure out why there's someone sitting on her i was like is it a cat or something on her lap i don't know maybe like a ghost cat yeah it was always like that she had to use a blanket while i was hot sitting just over a foot away we moved from the living room to my grandmother's bedroom. As soon as we sat on her bed, the ghost box said the name Paul. I've included a picture of this, too.

We noticed her closet was colder than the bedroom. We started talking with the ghost using dowsing rods and found out that Paul and his little sister Sarah were still in the house. We also figured out that they loved my grandmother and often sat on her lap while she watched TV. That's so sweet. That's really sweet and also terrifying. I know. Imagine being grandma and you're just trying to watch your stories

and all of a sudden your lap gets cold and you're like, Ah! It's like an ice pack on your crotch for some reason. After talking to them for a bit, we discovered they were most active in her closet. They also said that they felt weak and scared and ended up somehow leeching energy from my grandmother and causing her a lot of fatigue. We helped them cross over. And since then, my grandmother has a lot more energy. I know.

That's really sweet. Before the investigators left, the leader ran out to his car and came back with a bottle and handed it to me as a birthday gift. It was holy water. Usually it's like a bottle of tequila or wine, but like, nope, it's holy water. Since I was so sensitive to the paranormal, I like to think that this is still true

as I often predict small events and get texts or calls from people I'm thinking about just a few seconds later especially my grandmother but maybe that's just my anxiety happy gemini season love you jack and then there's a follow-up that says crap i forgot the photo sorry i have adhd here it is uh and it is an image of uh the ghost box saying paul creepy wow well i at my dad's house we also have um two ghosts that can't leave the property and my i used to see it when up until i like hit high school yeah and then i was like oh maybe i you know maybe i was dreaming or i made it up or something and then my stepsisters kids they were little and they came over and they started talking about someone that i couldn't see anymore so you grew out of it yeah how weird is

that yeah anyway well yeah whenever there's a ghost in your house and you get confirmation that like oh the people you've been hanging out with in the area are like are real that's oh it's so creepy i don't like it well thank you jack was their name thank you jack so thank you jack and happy birthday we've got a uh another uh writer i don't know first time writer we'll see another writer i don't know someone who wrote in i my brain exploded is this your first time here welcome to the show i think so uh this is jill who uses she her pronouns thank you for normalizing pronouns and the subject line is communication through kids toys so no it's a firm pass for me um hello eva and that's why we drink family i have quite a few paranormal stories but never wrote in because

i didn't think they were interesting enough but as soon as christine shared her ghost playing with her toy cell phone story that was in new orleans right oh yeah yes no it was in uh knoxville tennessee of all places oh knoxville uh i had to write in to share with her and all the other parents that have to experience this oh so you're part of a an elite group now i didn't consent to this i don't think maybe i did by having a child actually probably absolutely the second you have a kid you are committing to creepy creepy creepy things i knew what i was getting into but i also love it secretly not so secretly actually probably absolutely the second you have a kid you are committing to creepy creepy creepy things i knew what i was getting into but i also love it secretly not so secretly my home was built in the 1840s and is in the smack middle of farm country there are more buggies and horses on my

road than cars it's also walking distance from the local church and graveyard i've had experiences since we moved in in 2018 then uh they always happen in the same area of the house the kitchen and the rooms adjacent to it okay for example the kitchen door to the mud room likes to slam on its own i actually told one of my co-workers in 2020 when we all worked remote to check in on me after every hour oh no sorry after one hour thank god i got i was like every hour this poor co-worker is like this is above my pay grade man uh asked him to check on me after an hour because i had been hit by something thrown at me oh no but what takes the cake is after my daughter was born in 2021 okay christine get ready oh fuck

that's when mine was born too my husband at the time was working with uh his third shift so we were both up incredibly late we were playing video games in the living room when i hear a sound from the kitchen it's my daughter's toy controller singing abcd come and play a game with me it's like chucky or something that's yeah one two freddy's coming for you yeah yeah one of those like fun nursery rhymes about murder i immediately freeze and look at him who is also wide-eyed uh but he plays it off like oh something probably fell over and it bumped or and bumped it ever the skeptic he encourages me to let it go and go back to my gaming which is exactly what i would have done i would have been like see nothing here nothing don't have time for that bullshit nope yep eyes wide open and mouth

wide shut i saw nothing i'm not talking about it that's a great saying um i you know i might have created it out of thin air i'm not not really sure, but it sounds great. The following night, my husband is at work and I'm home alone with the baby sleeping upstairs. I do my nightly round of walking the house to check all the doors that they're locked. And as I'm walking out of the kitchen, I see the toy controller sitting on our dining room table. I say to myself in my head, oh, good. Absolutely nothing is near it so i won't hear it go off again good uh-huh i do like that i do like i also do that confirmation every now

and then where i'm like if that were to fly off the counter i know right now it is in the middle of the counter there is no reason it would slide off it will be the opposite way when i set something down and i'm like well it's perched very precariously on the edge of the table. But instead of moving it somewhere safer, I'm just going to tell myself if it falls, it wasn't a ghost. It was my poor planning. So you're like preemptively trying to get yourself out of being scared. Correct. Interesting, because I definitely do.

I definitely do what Jill's doing, but I like I'll put something down. I'm like, if this were to fall, it will be will be very fucking weird okay i just did the opposite of that when i put up one of those shower caddies that like sucked into the wall and i was they never fucking stay at least in my my experience and so i was like okay that thing is gonna fall and i'm gonna think a ghost did it but then like you know days go by and all of a sudden there's this huge crash and i'm gonna think a ghost did it but then like you know days go by and all of a sudden there's this huge crash and i'm like yep there it is like i knew that was coming that's so um proactive of you oh oh i was like because i know it's gonna fall i don't know why i didn't just set it down i don't know i see my mind if something's gonna fall i just never interact

with it to begin with i'm like i'm not even not even going to hang you up. Not worth it. Yeah, exactly. That's a smart thing. But I used to, I had a shower caddy in my last place and I rubber glued it to the shower because I knew it would fall. And it never, I had to leave it there. It didn't come off. It's there to this very day. Okay.

So, so Jill's saying, oh, there's that toy that made a sound. If it's on the table, it's not near anything. If I hear it, it'll, it ought to freak me out. I don't even make it out of the dining room before I hear the sound of plastic scraping on wood. And then bang, the loudest crash of my life. And ABCD, come and play a game with me. Which now it makes me feel like that creepy thing where they can read your mind. Yes, exactly. Which is very unsettling so it felt did it it got pushed off the table she heard it

dragging off forget it forget it when i tell you i broke the sound barrier with how fast i ran believe me my poor dog had no idea what was happening so she bolts after me i love that dog is matching your energy. I love it, too. The dog's like, you're out, I'm out. The dog was like, I'll ask questions later. We're bolting. We're getting out of here.

It's a miracle between her zoomies and my sobbing that we didn't wake the baby. I call my husband, begging him to come home. He can't leave work, and I tell him I'm going to pack up the family and drive to him. He tells me I'm overreacting, and I eventually bunker down for the night in our room and barely slept. I did not go back downstairs. When he comes home the next morning, he tells me the toy controller was under the dining room table. So it had moved again by itself.

Ew, I don't like it. To this day, that story is tied for first place of scariest things that happen in this house i've always felt since the very beginning that my kitchen ghost was a previous owner from over a hundred years ago who is keeping a stern eye on the new folks i named him the most amish thing i could think of jebediah i was like abraham yeah i was gonna start guessing things have calmed down recently though which is good. He had locked us out of the house while my daughter was still inside. Oh, shit.

And once we broke back into our own home, I sat in my kitchen and gave him a lecture on how this was my house now. And if he was going to continue to test my patience, I was going to get every stick of incense, every crystal, of holy water you name it and banish him forever if he didn't knock it off but like that seems like a character development like that's an arc because like you went from oh absolutely hiding out in your room and almost never coming back into the building to like giving him a to laying down the law coming down coming to jesus meeting yeah yeah uh so anyway thank you for taking the time to read my story and everything you do for us listeners uh christine i hope you can find some comfort and commiseration with another gemini mom i married a capricorn rising

not son but close enough okay close enough um good good for. It's a good choice in my experience. So good job. Good job. Wowza. I mean, I'm not comforted, but I am. I do feel like I'm commiserating. So that part is nice. I feel like sometimes I feel seen, but then there are other times where I'm like, oh, so that's just on the list of things that haven't happened to me yet. And now I have another thing to fear. Exactly. It's like, well, thank you for reintroducing me to this concept of fear. Just as my panic was settling.

Yeah, just as I kind of wrote it off. But no, I am. There is. You're right. There is a comfort in being not alone in these experiences. So thank you, Jill. So this is called The time i drove through a ghost from jess she her and it says howdy hey all and that's why we drink associated people places and

things my name is jess and i use she her pronouns i'm here tonight to tell you of the time i drove through a ghost in the middle of nowhere missouri every, my family and I would go to my aunt's lake house on Table Rock Lake for a week. Sorry, that was a lot of nouns. Lake house on Table Rock Lake for a week. It sounds like Table House Lake. It sounds like we're learning our vocabulary for the first time. I was going to say, it sounds like hooked on phonics. Yes, exactly, exactly.

This story takes place right before my sophomore year of college. My best friend, cousin, her two dogs, and I had to leave early because our schools were starting back up. It's about a four and a half hour drive home, so we decided to leave Sunday night around sunset while the rest of my family stayed another few days. We got about an hour into the trip to stop for gas and realized one of my headlights was out. Later, we were driving through a town called Blair's Town. Hello, Blair Witch. When all of the sudden we drive through a low, dense, extremely bright cloud. Mind you, it was a very clear night.

All of us in the car audibly gasped and it felt like the temperature in the car dropped cold. car audibly gasped and it felt like the temperature in the car dropped cold the oh the dogs also started to let out that eerie low growl sound that's scary because you know they're just chilling in the back seat like there's no reason that they should be freaked out by something i feel like when it comes to uh like dogs or animals in general acting out it is very freaky but especially like you just said when you know they're just like latching easy breezy yeah like all of a sudden like even if there isn't a reason they're aware of something hit them in their soul of like exactly something upsetting happened to them it wasn't just you that noticed it like they felt some like something hit them them yeah the dogs started

to let out that eerie low growl sound almost immediately after i see police lights in the rearview mirror what the fuck i pull over and a state trooper comes up to the car my first thought is that he saw my headlight was out i roll down the window and he tells me that the reason he pulled me over was because my brake lights were flashing he let us get out and see and they were both flashing rapidly like someone was pressing on and off of the brakes as fast as they could ew what wait i don't even know what to make of that i'm so confused by the concept i don't even know what to think uh and then let's see she says it was truly unlike anything i'd ever seen in classic cop fashion he didn't do anything to help us just told us about it and said maybe i should get it checked out soon we continued home dropped off my cousin

and literally as my best friend and i were turning into our apartment complex i got pulled over again oh my god this is the worst luck ever yeah what do you even tell the cop you're just like it's i know it's already i drove through a ghost okay that's what you tell them yeah i drove through a ghost and now my brake light that's broken is glitching so yeah what do you want from me this time though it actually was just because my headlight was out the flashing had completely stopped definitely one of the strangest 20 minutes of my life and all of us are convinced we drove through a harmless but prankster of a ghost anyway that's my story i'll leave you with my favorite combination dad slash gemini joke my dad is named jim and is in fact a gemini

this is cracking me up already. One of his favorite things to say to people is Hi, I'm Jim and I'm a Gemini. It's Okay, I gotta demonstrate. Ready? It goes like this. It goes a little something like this. Hi, I'm Jim and I'm a Gemini. It's Jim and I.

Oh God. He points, and I. Oh, God. He points for those on audio. He uses one thumb to point at himself and say it's Jim and then uses the other thumb to point at himself and say, and I. I thought he and I'm shocked that he doesn't call himself a Gemini. That's what I was thinking, too. Yeah. Gemini. It's just like written right there for you.

That's all i got for you i unfortunately don't have a that's for another time story jess i love that people are owning that now too that's funny i feel like the the cries have been heard people know whether or not we're expecting at the end for a another time but thank you for the heads up calling yourself out but uh thank you so much i i don't know i guess my first thought is if something that creepy happens to you it's like the one time you want two cops to pull you over because you're like you want the eyes on you just in case something like creepy happens to you again like it's nice to have witnesses yeah so it would at least feel a

little comforting oh yeah a little comforting of like oh well these people see me right now like at least i'm not alone in this and like i can run to somebody if yeah that's true i think i would have not dropped your friends off and gone home i would have been like i'm coming inside with you oh yeah i've been here i would have been like oh homie we're having a sleepover now i don't know if you remember all right so this is from amber he uses uh she her and thank you for normalizing pronouns and amber's subject line is the oh my god wow what i don't know how this is gonna go the time i watched my son die twice and took him out for a porterhouse steak okay it sounds like there's a happy ending okay i'll listen um okay okay um i'm seeing okay let's we'll let's go uh hey yo okay good way to start feeling better the title of my story might be a bit dramatic but i'm a gemini okay amber okay god's sake amber

threw me for a loop there uh but i'm a gemini so it's to be expected i'm also a mom of four teenagers and your podcast helped me realize that one of them was having a legitimate health concern oh gosh oh no last last spring my son who is not a gemini but is still prone to the dramatics i feel like that happens when you're well or raised by gemini's i was gonna say if you're one of your parents or both your parents are a gemini you're gonna kind of revel in chaos for the rest of time it's too bad i'm sorry for you uh like gemini by association you know it's secondhand gemini it's like oh i did the ancestry results i'm actually 50 percent gemini oh that's too bad uh i'm a mom to four teenagers and one of them was have you helped me realize one of them was having a legitimate health concern last spring my son came home from school telling me about an

episode he had during his weightlifting class he was doing bench press when the bar came down and smacked his chest causing his heart to start racing. Oh, God, that's like a nightmare. Oh, my God. After laying down, walking around and trying anything he could think of to get it to slow down back to normal, he eventually went to the school nurse. She gave him a cold cloth and he laid down and it did end up going back down to normal. We chalked it up to him having too much caffeine that day and went on about life weeks later another episode hit this one was much shorter and i again found something small to attribute it to then m started sharing their problems with svt which is something i never heard of and i had an aha moment

in the middle of the sidewalk while delivering mail on my mail route my son's symptoms were very similar to what m was describing so fast forward through about 10 months of medical bullshit that I do not have time to explain. I'm sure Em understands all too well. Yeah, I do. When Jackson, my son, is at University of Iowa Children's Hospital for testing to see if he has Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome, a condition very similar to SVT. a condition very similar to SVT. We are in a room with seven medical staff who are about to administer medicine to Jackson through an IV while they watch his EKG.

The cardiologist tells us they will give him six, oh God, six milligrams of adenosine. Oh! Which is what knocked my ass out. That's what kicked your ass. Kicked my ass to heaven, then then back to hell then back to here i don't think heaven let you in maybe you bounced off the gates that's why i ended up in hell yeah the reverb was kind of crazy yeah uh we're in a hotel or not a hotel room oh my god a hospital

room with abort mission something's very wrong here we've jumped time we've jumped into a different world we're in a room with seven medical staff who are about to administer medicine to jackson through an iv um giving him six milligrams of adenosine which will have a 15 to 30 second effect on his heart uh as soon as uh she says the name of the drug i it, but assume I've just heard it in one of many other appointments we've had related to my son's illness. It was from Em. Oh, no. I already know what's coming.

And now I know why you saw your son die twice. And I I just I have always thought, too, I've thought while I was in the ambulance for myself, I was like, I'm so glad nobody I knew saw that happen because it would be very traumatic traumatic i already feel bad for what you had to witness i'm seated at the end of the bed a nurse holds jackson's hand and tells him to look into her eyes while they that's odd emt brad did not do that to me um while they administer the drug let me tell you i'm glad she looked into his eyes because just seeing them from the end of his bed will haunt me for the rest of my life. Oh, babe. I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. For those 15 to 30 seconds, which felt so much longer, he looked like he was dying. Oh, my God. Like something was just draining the life from him. And it hit me this was the drug m had to be given by emts and i remembered how terrible they said it made them feel afterwards jackson would describe it as someone sitting on his chest or being stabbed

in the chest but the mental aspect might be worse the doctor said it gives you a sense of impending doom. Yes, I thought for sure I was in hell and then dying. Your brain thinks your heart has stopped slash you're dying. And I could see that in his eyes. I don't think I took a breath for the entirety of that test. And when it was over, they told us they would need to do it again with double the dose. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Imagine if they did that to you and then we're like, now let to do it again with double the dose no no no no no no no imagine em if they did that to you and then we're like now let's do it again but worse i honestly i do wonder how many milligrams they gave me i don't know but um i actually what's so funny i was it's probably

near paperwork i mean i literally my heart thing is right here um there it is i hope that you keep it handy well i have a stack of papers here i haven't done anything with and it's just like in there um but i yeah i wonder if it's on here i'll have to look at it later um okay so they just did that the the six milligrams they thought he thought he was dying and now they're gonna double it cool my 17 year old son handled that news better than me which honestly you're so fucking like in a in a daze. Like EMT Brad could have told me we're doubling it and doing it again. I probably would have totally been aware.

Just go with it. Yeah. What are you going to do? You know. So again, they gave him the drug. And again, I had to see that life drain from his eyes. And I was in no way any more prepared for it. He handled it like a champ, but later admitted he never wants to have

to do that again oh buddy we immediately went to a steakhouse afterwards where i insisted he ordered the biggest steak on the menu and wow i fucking remember when emt brad wouldn't even give me my sandwich i was like wow m is getting real bitter over here i know he deserved whatever he wanted after that after what i just witnessed the test confirmed he had wolf parkinson white and he will have surgery to repair it in may i'm not sure when i would have realized how serious his symptoms were if it weren't for m talking about their medical journey so your banter saves lives okay that's a little extreme but and happy birthday to two gemini's we We are going to ride that high until we are not here.

Your banter saves lives. If anybody ever complains again, I'm going to be like, do you know what I've done? Ask Jackson at the University of... Also, he died twice, basically. So, like, I don't know if we're saving lives as much as just causing, like, wreaking havoc on people's hearts. We almost... It really is like uh insanity we bring you to the brink of death but we will save you at the end but we

and it's it's it's a fun story later so at least for the plot our banter is important poor buddy i'm seriously grateful that i decided to start listening to and that's why i drink in 2020 that i never miss an episode and that's something I learned from this podcast had a very meaningful effect on my life and my son's life. Thank you to everyone who has a hand in bringing the show to all of us. Never underestimate the impact you have on your listeners. You make this mail carrier look forward to Mondays. That's so nice. P.S. Although I'm quite worried about his upcoming surgery i know he will be in capable hands at university of iowa children's hospital it truly is a special place with special people uh the iowa football stadium sits right across the street from the hospital

and at some point in every game everyone in the stadium turns to wave to the kids in the hospital oh okay i just i won't i'm sorry go ahead i was gonna say the last thing is that apparently jackson surgery was yesterday so someone's maybe having another steak tonight hell yeah jackson oh my gosh wow wow well i just went to the email to look at the and it's called the it says google the iowa wave the iowa wave if you want to look at it or when they wave to the hospital that's yeah wow um so i hope the surgery went well i'm glad it is very validating because a lot of times i'm very aware that the last year of episodes I somehow always find a way to like insert a health comment. So I feel bad about lives. I feel bad about that sometimes.

But for Jackson, I'm glad that I didn't shut the fuck up. So I am, too. You know what? And I'm what a kick ass kid to be like, OK, let's let's do it. I can't complain anymore. He did that twice. Like, forget that. In front of his mother at 17 17 too so little i can't

imagine i really have thought what it would be like to have to witness someone seeing what that looks like and to know that someone has is you also deserve a steak by the way amber yeah amber what the hell you went through a lot too boy all right well thank you for for uh your story and if jackson hears this i hope your heart's thumping. Right. OK, so this is called a bunk bed, a rosary and Bob's burgers with an eerie twist. That's where like Jimothy or whatever his name is, needs to come in with the dad jokes. That feels like a set up. Gemini. Gemini that's feels like a set up jim and i jim and i it sounds like a setup for a jim and i kind of joke we all walk into a bar uh hello ghoul friends

and spooksters love you all the podcast and everything you do thanks for keeping my ears a tingling at work i've got a wild story for you so let's crack into it i went to saint mary's college in south bend indiana and yes it's different from St. Mary's of the Woods. I don't really know either of these things. So thank you for clarifying for the people who probably do. But if it's a question on trivia, now I know. That's right. For the first three years of my undergrad, it's an all-girls Catholic college and very,

very haunted. From poltergeist activity to full-body intelligent apparitions to bloodstains that reappear after they've been cleaned, this place has it all. Great. Sounds like the, oh my God, what is his name? I always forget his name.

On Stefan, where he's like, this place has everything. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. That sketch. Okay. This place has it all. you know what I mean? Yeah. That sketch. Okay. This place has it all. My dorm sophomore year and junior year was the oldest building on campus and was located right in front of the convent where the local nuns lived.

During my sophomore year, we took a class visit to the convent to learn about the history of the campus. The final stop on the tour was a room with all of the old artifacts in it. The overall vibe of the room was heavy and I wanted to yeet the fuck out of there once we got in the room but alas i had to stay once the tour finished the nun tour guide gave us all rosaries that contained an original bead from a rosary owned by the original nuns that founded the school jesus i wasn't i like how most places give you like a water bottle like a reusable water bottle when you start college and it's like here's your rosary yeah right and it's like with like significant history yeah by the way like that shouldn't just be like given to it's not the

plastic ones that I have from like throughout my childhood it's like a legit one I wasn't the biggest fan of accepting it because this gal does not like historic artifacts that have a weird vibe. OK, speak for yourself. But, you know, I wanted to be nice. I brought it back to my room and continued my activities for the rest of the day. When I came back that night, I knew there was something off about the feel of my room. The air was heavy and suffocating almost. I ignored it or tried to at least and went to bed.

That night I had one of the strangest dreams I think I've ever had. It was specifically 1918 and everything around me was in black and white. Oh my God. I was on the quad with a girl named Annie and we were just hanging out and chilling until I walked away for a second and came back to find her dead. Oh my God. Immediately after that, I woke up around 3 a.m. and could see the lights in the hallway flickering.

I had the top bunk, parentheses, let it be known, I'm truly a bottom bunker, but sacrificed it for my roommate at the time. Thank you for clarifying. And when I looked across the room, there was a dark mist in the doorframe of our closet. In a panic, I quickly shut my eyes and pulled the blanket over my head, hoping that whatever the hell was in the room would leave. That was short-lived until I felt the frame of the bunk bed shaking.

I grabbed the bed frame and the shaking immediately stopped. To calm my anxiety and help me fall asleep, I opened Hulu on my phone and put Bob's Burgers on because there's nothing more soothing than Linda Belcher singing about mashed potatoes. I woke up the next morning and things felt weirdly fine. Let's skip ahead to that night. The same thing happened. A weird dream in black and white, Annie, flickering lights, a dark mist, and Bob's Burgers. The next morning, I woke up wanting to figure out what the fuck was going on in my room since I'd never experienced anything like that before. My only thought was that it could be the

rosary given to me by the nun. So I did what I had to do, go back to the convent and somehow return the rosary without looking like a total ass. I brought the rosary to class with me and almost had a panic attack in there because I was so on edge afterwards i ran to the convent and saw a nun at the front desk while i'm talking to her about a pen pal program with the nuns no it was not an actual thing i took the rosary out of my bag and casually slipped it into the pot of a large plant next to me oh my god oh my god that's how i handle a situation as well i know i thought she was gonna like throw it at the nun and be like, take it away. I know. I mean, I would.

You had it handled. I also like, I would not be afraid to go up to a nun and be like, something you gave me is very connected to the house. Like something spiritual is happening as something you can understand. I don't know, Em. Nuns are very scary. I think. Maybe, but I'd be, if they're scary, then they can handle Annie. I can't. I guess so.s are very scary. I think. Maybe, but I'd feel...

If they're scary, then they can handle Annie. I can't. I guess so. Yeah, that's a fair point. I took the rosary and casually slipped it into the pot of a large plant next to me. Once the conversation was over, I went back to my dorm and bingo bango, the room felt like a breath of fresh air. That night, I slept like a fucking baby and everything returned to normal. I told my roommate about the whole incident and she didn't believe me. that night i slept like a fucking baby and everything returned to normal i told me i told

my roommate about the whole incident and she didn't believe me well a few months later my roommate was walking in the cemetery with some friends while looking at the gravestones they came across an annie that had died in 1918 oh are you kidding that's a i mean that's a no from me what happened to her oh my god what the actual fuck it turned her skeptical ass into a full-ass believer i have some more spooky stories from my time at saint mary's and indiana university where i transferred to but i'll save those for another time thanks again for the amazing podcast xoxo gossip goblin Kiara She Her Gemini Supreme Oh my gosh Gossip Goblin

P.S. Please come back to D.C. Okay so wow Kiara and we didn't even say your name up front because I didn't see it in the beginning so Kiara Wow Gemini Supreme indeed I feel like I wonder if that means like annie wanted to be back

at the convent i wonder if that was her rosary oh yeah i don't know how i feel about that and also but then like also to get a vision of her dying or something oh my god yeah well it was weird it could almost be symbolic like she turned away and then when she turned back she was dead like maybe it's like symbolic like i don't know weird you would think you would have an inviting presence if you wanted the person now in now owning your your rosary like i'd like to think you would like have like a nice connection with them if they're not going to be taking care of what you had well maybe it was the friend who like from

the perspective of finding her dead or whatever like maybe that was like a trauma maybe it was her rosary oh yeah and she was like traumatized and so after death it like imprinted i don't know wow what a story but like maybe that's a good guess i don't know either way i'm i think if a nun ever tried to give me a rosary i would just be like no thank you respectfully you can't do that if you're a catholic school you have to take it oh really i mean i don't think i could ever tell a nun in her face no i don't want this i think that i'd probably get smacked. Okay, fair enough. They're scary, I'm

telling you. Our final story of this month, of our birthday month, is from Tara, who uses she, her pronouns. Thank you for normalizing pronouns. And the subject line is Bagel Bites Blip, for listener stories. Blip? I don't

know. We'll have to see so tara says hey love you all sweet and short been listening since the early episodes and i won't waste time with introductions wow tara said i'm coming in hot and you can't stop me also i love that every time there's a short intro m goes wow what a short intro and makes it really long i'm gonna keep it long no matter what you do uh nice try tara i'm from vegas where the infamous bagel bites lives my mom worked at a very popular local casino where mr bites would frequent and gamble at oh my mother found out at the time which was around 2015 when ghost adventures was more relevant oh okay tara um that i was swooning over the super bro host of the show so the next time she spotted him at work she decided to shout

repeatedly zach baggins my daughter loves you and when he turned around his his response was, it's Bagans. No. What an asshole. What a dick. Can you imagine if someone went, Christine Schieffer, my daughter loves you. And you go, it's Schieffer. I'd be like, for the day, you're Christine Schieffer. Not in a million fucking years.

I will literally change my name to Schieffer before I say something like that. Oh my gosh. That's horrible. But she had no shame and was going to let him know the tea, whether he wanted it or not, which is very nice. It's like despite mispronouncing his name. My mother passed away unexpectedly and too early in last September. Oh, no.

I almost canceled my trip to your New Orleansleans show in october because of it but my sisters convinced me to go i cried at the pony intro when you guys came on stage because it was the first happiness i felt in that time come on anyway i've been putting off writing this for her uh but i have tickets for the show in vegas in. Oh, well. Yes! And I thought it was time that I write in to you guys. Hope you can read this for your listener story. And May is my birthday month, so love your fellow millennial Gemini. Oh, Tara.

Oh, my gosh. Well, I'm so glad you avoided a situation with Mr. Baggins. I mean, seriously. And I still call him Zach Baggins because in my head he's always been called that. But now I'm more committed to it than ever. You know, it's like if you're gonna if you're gonna be an asshole trying to correctly pronounce your name, then people are probably going to stick with the bad one because you have a bad attitude.

Yeah, because exactly like you're not making me want to say it right. I mean, I understand like he just wants his fucking last name properly said, but you could have said it any other way to a fan of all people. Yeah. To someone working there, too. Like, don't talk to staff like don't be an asshole. Like, don't ever be mean to people who are in charge of your food and your drinks and your money and your money.

Forget it. Just saying. Oh, my God. Wow. Well, what a good one to end on. Seriously. Zach Bagans, of course, found his way into our birthday listeners episode. I know.

Eva's so good. She's so good. She knows what she's doing. Sneaky snake. But that's it. Next time you and I do a listeners episode together, we'll be a year older. It'll be July. Boo, July.

we'll be a year older and it'll be july boo july and uh we'll know what flavor cakes we got for our birthday that's true we can confirm or deny uh yeah what has happened it's a good time yeah well uh i guess until then christine i hope you have a great birthday i'll next time i see you we'll be you know we'll have to celebrate together we'll be in vegas pretty soon yeah to celebrate with Tara or Tara or however it's pronounced yeah can you imagine of course your name is one that I could have mispronounced and you told the story oh my god wait I didn't even think of that imagine this is where she's going it's Tara yeah oh uh but yeah thank you everyone who wrote in um if for some reason this was your first listeners episode, you can share your own true crime and paranormal stories with us.

You can go to our website and that's whatwedrink.com. And yeah, thank you for checking in. We'll see you all in July for more spooky tales conjured up by Eva. That's right. It'll be the birthday hangover month. Can't wait. And that's why we drink.