Normal Gossip - Bonus Episode: A Beautiful Gossip Ouroboros

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Surprise! In today's bonus episode, Alex Sujong Laughlin and Patrick Redford join Rachelle for some delectable morsels of gossip and not one but TWO big announcements! Try Hard premieres July 28th! Subscribe here or wherever you get your podcasts. Look out for Only If You Get Caught this fall! Get your tickets for the Normal Gossip Live tour here!Subscribe to our newsletter for writing from Rachelle, Se'era, Jae, Alex, and Kelsey, plus blog recommendations and secrets!You can support Normal Gossip directly by buying merch or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend at supportnormalgossip.com.Our merch shop is run by Dan McQuade. You can also find all kinds of info about us and how to submit gossip on our Komi page: https://normalgossip.komi.io/Episode transcript here.Follow the show on Instagram @normalgossip, and if you have gossip, email us at [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail at 26-79-GOSSIP.Normal Gossip is hosted by Rachelle Hampton (@heyydnae) and produced by Se'era Spragley Ricks (@seera_sharae) and Jae Towle Vieira (@jaetowlevieira). Alex Sujong Laughlin (@alexlaughs) is our Supervising Producer. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Show art by Tara Jacoby.Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Before we start, we want to recommend a beautiful season of The Heart from fellow radiotopian Caitlin Prest, who's known for exploring big questions creating cinematic love stories from a feminist perspective. Caitlin Revisits No, a series produced on the eve of the Harvey Weinstein scandals, about a topic that was supposed to be treated differently forevermore. In the series, we follow the story of a young girl navigating love, sex, and the word no, and all of the men in her life she tried to say no to. Do you want to start?

Me? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, well what were you thinking? That you should start. Why don't you lay down? She kind of like, it's like no, no, like, just kind of like a whisper. I don't know.

Like kind of keeping it sexy, but like saying like no. The way that you're touching me makes me feel like- As soon as I knew that sex wasn't an option, I became a bit of a dick. Later I'm gonna have to tell you that I don't wanna have sex with you. I mean, I thought that what she wanted was the same thing as what I wanted.

Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And you know, when it wasn't that way, I felt like I was trying to make it that way. Kaitlin addresses this difficult topic in a way that ends up being heartwarming, soul-crushing, and funny at the same time. Check out the No series on the heart everywhere you get podcasts.

Hello and welcome back to Normal Gossip. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton. And in each episode of this show, we are going to bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. And this episode, we have got extra delectable little treats. In case you are new around here, let me very quickly explain. We are still on our break between season eight, which just wrapped in June, and season nine, which will premiere in the fall. But we are benevolent bitches over here at Normal Gossip. And to keep y'all tied over between seasons,

we have got a couple of bonus episodes planned over the next few months. Just to reiterate, this is a bonus episode, not a regular season episode, so the format is a little bit different. Still, it'll be familiar to y'all who are subscribed as friends or friends of friends. Every month, even between seasons, Still, it'll be familiar to y'all who are subscribed as friends or friends of friends. Every month, even between seasons, we release a subscriber exclusive episode. Sometimes it is a chat about the secret lives of Mormon wives or the spirit of Christmas.

And sometimes we just open our inbox and share a handful of gospel morsels that I haven't even heard. And that is what we will be doing today. However, I have heard through the grapevine that today's selection of Gossip Immortals includes some super exclusive news that we here on Normal Gossip are the first to break. You've got to stick around to find out what it is.

Now, like any good gossip knows, gossip is best when shared. So today, I have invited not one, but two of my comrades from defector.com to experience this gossip with me, Dower Joqueen of Normal G of my comrades from defector.com to experience this gossip with me. Dower, Joqueen of Normal Gossip and Defector supervising producer, Alex DuJong Loughlin is here with me today.

Welcome back to the show, Alex. Woo, it is. And it is. It is so good to be back and I totally know how to talk on mic. I know you do. And we're also blessed with the presence of Patrick Redford. You may remember him from our family mealworms episode in season four or from our subscriber episode we did back in February when he answered all of your questions about love. Welcome back, Patrick.

Hello. Thank you for having me. Excited to be back. I also know how to talk into a mic because I was taught by Alex and several people in this room. So we're all good to go. I'm clapping like Alandria from Love Island Season 7. Are y'all ready? Is there any kind of gossip you're hoping to hear today? I mean, I know who Alandria is,

so I'm feeling extremely ready. Oh my God. So exciting. Wow. Yeah, I'm locked in. I love that. I love that. Maybe we'll have a Love Island roundtable at some point. But before we do that, let's hear some gossip. Let's hear this first morsel. We have been informed by our producer, Jay Tolvera, that this selection today is going in some

interesting directions. So I'm a little bit scared and I'm very excited. Let's hop in. So I went to a small women's college and I was in the honors dorm and I did not choose my roommate so my roommate and I were kind of like randomly put together and relevantly we were both Catholics so we were both Catholic people and so like we get through like the first like week or so of college, we're getting to know each other, and there's one day that like I get home to like my room and my roommate is like having a little breakdown and she's crying in the room and I go up to her and I'm like what's wrong, what's happening

and she's like oh I just really miss my boyfriend and he goes to school two hours away. A few months later, it's like October, we have some kind of like big fall event, like a formal, and I finally get to meet her boyfriend. Now at this point I know that I don't have to worry about my roommate hooking up while he's there. So he's gonna stay the night after this formal and he's just gonna sleep in her bed with her. I'm gonna stay in the room with them and it's not a big deal. Cool. Awesome. Except that I learned that he snores worse than any human who has ever

breathed air. The next day I'm like, look, come over whenever you want, you're a good time, but if you come and stay the night, I'm gonna just have to sleep somewhere else, like this is not tenable. A few months later, he comes over again, it's like maybe January, and he stays for the weekend, and at this point I make plans to just spend the night with a mutual friend of ours. Well that's when things start to go wrong

because his dad comes to see her and they go out for lunch. Whatever, we're all cramming, we're in like the common area and then comes back in tears he took her to a Chipotle and told her that if this ever happened again where her boyfriend stayed over and there was no one there like in the room with them at night they would stop financially supporting her at college so we like calmed her down and like we're mad about it with her for a while and we were like okay we're never telling your parents anything again. I'm like I will be your alibi going forward. I'm still not

sleeping in the same room as him but I will be your alibi. So fast forward a long time. They start hooking up and it's fine and the world does not burn down and they stay together all through college. They stay together when he applies to grad school. They stay together when COVID starts and he proposes. We're at their wedding. We are all lined up to like get ready to walk down the aisle and my roommate is in the back room having a moment to prepare in her wedding dress, like beautiful. And then her mom walks in and then her mom goes, here are some things I wish that I had had on my wedding night so I'm going to give them to you.

And then hands her a bunch of breath mints and several individual packets of lube and then leaves to go get in position to walk down the aisle. And my roommate is standing in the big Catholic Church in a beautiful ball gown with handfuls of breath mints in the lube. Just imagining the crinkling sound as like the organ is playing in the background, it's just like the kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk I that was a wild ride beginning to end a my favorite thing about doing these segments is hearing the backgrounds of what our listeners are Doing while they send us voice memos. I'm like wow Turn your turn signal on let me hear it standing on the highway Exactly exactly respectfully. So respectfully. I actually do love it. Um Whoa, what a wild ride from beginning to end.

The being sure that they're not going to hook up while you're there is such not an experience that I had in college. So I'm glad that you knew that you, her roommate and her boyfriend were like keeping enough space for God in between them. I have a lot of questions about the individual packets of lube. Like, where did you obtain those? Have they been obtained over a long period of time? Just collected from like gas station bathrooms one at a time. Yeah, what decade did they expire during? Exactly. Are they actually still able to be used? Also, I love handing it over without any explanation. It's like, here's what I wish I knew on my wedding night.

Anyway, here's some breath mints and lube. And it's like, that doesn't explain anything more about what's gonna happen tonight. Are you supposed to use them together? Like, are you supposed to make sure the breath mints are like nice and slight slid up? That mints gonna end up somewhere it shouldn't if you don't explain it properly.

My favorite detail of this is obviously the Chipotle bit. And I like imagining that the dad is like, now I can accept hooking up, but I draw the line at snoring because that was followed directly by that detail. So I like just imagining that it's like, you know, we raised you as a good Catholic. Like you gotta have someone with like clear

and nasal passageways as like you're doing this over a burrito bowl or something. As someone of deviated septum experience, I have so much pity for this man, who is a loud snorer. And, you know, I do think that that wasn't necessarily a pertinent detail to the story. think that that wasn't necessarily a pertinent detail to the story? I just think we should interrogate what we're laughing at and why, you know? I mean, I feel like it connects beautifully to our Love Island discussion because the thing I think about the most is the fact that at any given time you are sharing one single room with between nine to 20 other people. I hope this man has discovered mouth tape or has, what's the little machine called

when you have sleep apnea where you might... I hope he has a CPAP. Yeah, like the... Sometimes when you snore like that, it means you're like on the verge of dying. So, I hope that he's okay. Uh, I mean, I do love how long this friendship lasted. I don't know if y'all are friends with your freshmen roommates.

I'm not. I don't think I even saw her again after we moved out. We didn't even hug. She was a random roommate and she had this long-term, long-distance boyfriend. And midway through the year, she started cheating on her boyfriend and we had bunk beds. Which one were you on? Top. Okay, that's better.

Is it? Cause I'm trapped. Yeah. And I could hear it. So I had to hear her cheating on her boyfriend and then I had to hear her crying on the phone to him saying that she wasn't cheating on him. It was a nightmare.

That's tough. Yeah. And you have to be like, can you move this clothes off the bottom step of the bunk? I don't want to slip. That's tough. Yeah. And you have to be like, can you move this clothes off the bottom step of the bunk? I don't want to slip. That's rough. Yeah. I lived in a triple my freshman year. One roommate, the one closest to the door. I never saw like his knees, I would say. He appeared to do and all of his activities, including sleeping in jeans. Yeah, just

like hard pants denim under the comforter. That was rough. The other one... Wait! Hold on! Stop! Pause! Hold up! Denim under the comforter? Yeah, like bottom sheet, denim, top sheet. Oh my god. That's a crime against the Lord. You know, we don't do stereotypes on this show, but I will just mention, this is maybe not correlated, he was like one of the best computer science electrical engineering students. And you know what?

We do do stereotyping on this show, and that is exactly what I expect from a computer science student, to be wearing jeans at any given given the least breathable fabric possible. But what is going with the smell under there must have been horrendous. Oh, you know, he was changing his shoes. Did you go to school in? I went I went to school in California.

It was definitely an environment that smelled crazy, which the other roommate, he was one of the tallest people I've ever been in contact with. He was really, he's a rower, big guy. He loved to, he appeared to not be aware that they had invented the technology called headphones where you can listen to sound personally. So he would watch anime, usually the Yu-Gi-Oh series on full volume, but that wasn't his greatest sin.

He wouldn't laugh, he would just say, that's so funny. Like hundreds and hundreds of times as I'm trying to do my homework. That's so funny. Y'all are making me feel like my freshman roommate was not actually that bad. Are you still friends with them? No, but she did apologize in our junior, senior year

for being a bad roommate. So I feel like I cannot really talk shit about her because she reformed, but I will say one time she did throw up in her bed and then like sleep. Yeah, go to sleep with it. And I have a fear of vomit. I vomited twice in my life once quite recently. It was not great. I was scarred. Wait, twice in your life? The normal person encounters a vomiting style scenario,

I would say conservatively every two years or so, and you're older than four, so what's going on there? Are you just built different? I am built different. Are you just constructed unprecedentedly? I am built different. Well, I would say that my stomach tends to, the other end is more well used.

Well used. Yeah, I don't vomit that often. I get food poisoning maybe once every five years so far. And then, yeah, I vomited for the first time as an adult at like 22. And I didn't know what was happening to me. I was like, why am I so sweaty? Why do I feel insane right now? And then I threw up and I was like, well, it had to happen at some point. Oh, yeah. This is going really far from where we started the story. I feel like it might be time to move on. Good hosting. Next! Okay, I heard that Alex is actually on the show right now to announce a new podcast that she is hosting and producing. The show is called Try Hard, and on it,

she works with people to try doing the things that they always wanted to do, whether that's like a cartwheel or learning how to play a song on the piano. So I think it's gonna be really fun. Wait, I don't know about that one. That voice sounded really familiar to me. Am I going crazy? Have you been keeping a secret from us, Alex? I have been keeping a wee little secret for the last several months. Yes.

I've been working on this show. When we handed off normal gossip to you and Sierra, people were asking all the time, like, what snacks? What are your plans? And we kept being like, I don't know. Smiley face. I did know. And it was this. It was Try Hard. I was working on Try Hard. I am really obsessed with the TV show MTV Made. MTV Made was a show where there was a kid, usually like a nerdy kid in high school, and they would be like, I want to be a rapper. I want to be a break dancer. I want to be a break dancer. I want to learn how to skateboard. And then they get paired with a coach

and they learn how to do it. And then it culminates in them like performing this new skill in front of their whole school and likely their crush and like killing it every time. And like, I always cried watching the show. I loved it so time. And like, I always cried watching the show. I loved it so much. And I also famously love taking on hobbies. I'm like always knitting or like learning a new craft. In the last year I took voice lessons and I also was in a play. People are always like, oh, I could

never do that. Or, or when I tell them about a thing I'm doing, they'll say, oh, you know, I've always wanted to do X. I've always wanted to try this thing. And I was thinking about it, and I thought most people have a thing that is like, if they had more time or if they just admitted it to themselves that they wanted to do this, that they would try a thing.

Alex, I'm curious to know because your show premieres on July 28th. You've already been in development for it for a few months. You've recorded a ton of episodes. What do you feel like you've learned about trying hard that you were surprised to learn? One of the guests I had a conversation with talked about a time in her life when she made a really big change and it kind of catalyzed a lot of other changes for her.

And the change was she cut her hair. She had really long hair and she cut it short and she put purple streaks in her hair. Before she did it, she was like, oh my God, this is going to rock the world. Everyone's gonna turn and look at me and be like, who's that? Like, what did she do? She's not allowed to do that.

And then she did it and she walked into work and everyone was like, cool. And I think like that is an encapsulation of what a lot of these experiences have been like, where they sound like they are going to be cataclysmic, rock your world, change everything to the person doing it. In some ways, it can be. Pushing yourself to do a scary thing is scary, whether it's a big scary thing or a small

scary thing. From the outside, it's like a big scary thing or a small scary thing. But from the outside, it's like, oh, that's cool. That person's trying a new thing. And that's all it is. And so I think like the fear that people have that they're going to be judged or, you know, that people will have something to say about, you know, them looking stupid is just it's it's very unfounded because people are truly not paying attention. That is one of the most freeing things to realize is no one gives a single fuck about what you're doing in your life.

It's absolutely incredible. It's like most people's reactions to you are entirely their own personal shit happening and you are free to vibe. And it's beautiful. Part of trying hard is failing. So are you looking for any stories of, you know, failure that has been instructive? Totally. Yeah.

I have told every guest as we embark on our journey together, I've been like, it can be so tempting for this to feel like a triumphant narrative where you are going to try to do this thing and you face obstacles and you jump over them and you come out on top and I told every single one of them like if you fail or if you if it turns out you hate doing this thing I want to hear about that too because like the success isn't the point of what we're doing. The success is a bonus. The point of the show is to get to that moment

of you're standing outside a door and your stomach is in your butt, and you're like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm about to do this. Oh my god, I should just go home. And then you push through it. Like, that's what the show's about. It's about the moment before you do the skateboard

recital in front of your crush. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's great. It's the knees weak, arms spaghetti moment. Truly. Yeah.

Mom's spaghetti. Vomit on your sweater already. There's that word again. Sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry for the people who have vomit phobia. Vomit on your sweater already. There's that word again. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry for other people who have vomit phobia. Well, that was a beautiful piece of gossip. Please look in your feeds wherever you get your podcasts on July 28th for the premiere of Try Hard.

And the trailer is live today. So you can go ahead and subscribe right now. Go do that right now. We're actually about to take an ad break. So go do that while you listen to the ads. Thank you. Thank you. Support for normal gossip comes from Airbnb. I don't know about you, but I've been spending a lot of time planning some of my upcoming summer trips over the next few months.

I love to take a long weekend and get outdoors and visit parks that I've never been to. So this summer, I would love to visit Nova Scotia and go to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. There's tons of coastline and all kinds of hiking and camping, swimming, and truly gorgeous scenery. And while I'm away on this weekend getaway, instead of my house just sitting empty, I could be earning a little extra spending money by hosting on Airbnb. It would be a great way to use my space to offset some of the cost of my next destination. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Okay, next morsel.

Okay, next morsel. Last year I got my knee replaced. And because I live alone, my mother came out to take care of me for the first couple weeks while I actually learned how to walk again. When she left, she left me with about a month's worth of frozen meals and all my laundry cleaned because my laundry is in the basement and I don't have a railing on my stairs to the basement and trying to go down those stairs with a fresh knee is unlikely to be a good idea period. A few days after my mother left, I started to feel uncomfortable down below. There was some itching, there was a little bit of burning. It just wasn't great.

So I thought, ah crap, I got a yeast infection. So I treated myself and I thought it got better. And two days afterwards, it started coming back again. I'm like crap what the heck is going on here right? So I try to use the infection again. Two days later it's back. I go to the freaking emerging care. They test for urinary tract infection, which I do not have, and she gives me yet a third treatment for a yeast infection. And you can tell damn well that the doctor's opinion of me is that I'm a complete idiot,

right? Doesn't work. Burning, itching, very, very uncomfortable. One night I'm desperate and I'm on Google and I'm trying to figure out reasons for this to happen. And I read, this could be caused by an allergy to laundry detergent. And I think, oh, my mother did my laundry. I always double rinse my laundry. My mother, who is very concerned about water conservation, did not. So I took all my underwear,

threw it in a bucket full of water, and I rinsed them four times over before I wore another pair and everything cleared right up. Oh my God. Poisoned by your mother. This is a very Freudian story we have here. They fuck you up, your mom and dad, you know? In extremely creative ways, apparently. Oh my God.

I mean, the thing is, I'm going to be slightly on the side of this call her in mother because she was trying to conserve water. And that is a noble, noble cause. I will say, I think everyone should stop using extremely scented deodorant. I go to a laundromat and sometimes I see the amount of laundry detergent people put in their clothes. And I'm like, you know the soap's not coming out, right? Like you know you just have like soap all over your body right now, right?

Like what are we doing right now? It does not need to smell like a bouquet of flowers when you take it out the dryer. It should smell like clothes, clean clothes. Yeah. But not freesia,, what's going on here? I've never heard of double rinsing your laundry. I didn't even know you could do that.

Is that like a function on the machine? I don't know. An apparently important one. The knee replacement element of it too. It's just like you have to just kind of sit there while all this is happening. That's not great. I don't know what it's like to have a knee replacement. I do have bad knees, but I'm just imagining washing your clothes

in a bucketful of water while you have a fresh knee replacement. And that feels. Not fun. That feels that feels arduous. Yeah, the phrase fresh knee that came up in this that like maybe kind of shiver. Well, you you don't want a fresh knee. I kind of want a fresh knee. I don't know. I don't want fresh knees. Yeah.

Might be unstoppable. This person would be a good try hard guest because I feel like you probably have to learn how to like, I mean, like she said, you have to learn how to walk again and stuff. Like my dad had his knee rebuilt and that sounds not great. So, and he wasn't even poisoned by his mother while this was happening, like, presumably, I don't know. Poisoned is such a nice euphemism for what's happening here. That's an appropriate word in this context, right? It feels, it feels.

The stakes are just so high for not doing a thing that I didn't even know you could do. Yeah, this is, I mean, a potent metaphor too for how I imagine parenting works, where just like this seemingly innocent tossed off thing can have like ramifications decades. I guess this isn't decades, but you know what I mean. Months later, do you think that leaving our caller in with a month of frozen meals outweighs

accidentally poisoning her cause I kind of do. Yeah. Yeah. I do. That's a, that's a worthwhile trade. Yeah. Especially if it's your mommy's food. Like exactly. If I had a month, like a freezer full of meals from my mother right now, my life would be different.

What's the worst disease you would voluntarily take on in a month of frozen meals? You know what? Food poisoning. I'd throw up for that. Yeah. 100%. A one for 30 trade. You're coming out ahead. Exactly. The thing I did learn about throwing up is that once it's over, it's over. Like you kind of feel immediately better. Yeah. That's the, that's the great thing about throwing up. It's crazy. This is the theme of the show. I know. I'm so sorry. Wow. I also love self-gossip.

I love the freeness of being like, I thought I had a yeast infection for three weeks and turns out my mother just gently poisoned me. That's such a long time to be in that kind of misery. Okay. Also that, like, let's talk about that for a second. The, the yeast infection, UTI symptoms, our cholera did a good job of just being like, it was uncomfortable.

It's one of those things that drives you slowly insane. You're just like, this is the worst thing that could happen to me. And that happens regularly and could happen regularly. I think of people in the past who probably were just constantly walking around with recurrent yeast infections and UTIs and I'm like, no wonder all of you died at 40. I would also want to be done with life. Yeah, she was brave. She was so brave. So brave.

Yeah. The concept of conserving water probably didn't exist in the old days because the concept of like fresh drinking water hadn't really been invented yet. Oh, they were drinking beer to stay safe. Yeah. Wow. Thank you so much for this gossip. I will be double rinsing my clothes from now on. Okay, next.

In the fall of 2014, I found this apartment, which now would be totally unaffordable to a grad student. Nice, clean, one-bedroom apartment, nothing fancy, two-story apartment building, maybe 14 units or so. And one of the downsides of it was that it was clear that the walls were quite thin. My neighbor's door was right next to mine. So if you go up the stairs, you turn right,

you're facing my door, but if you had faced straight, you would be right at their door. And because again, everything is thin, if they somebody is trying to open their door, like open their screen door, it sounds very much like they're opening my screen door. So I was kind of put on edge by that quite a few times when I first moved in But eventually got used to it. Not a big deal. I

Tossed my landlord into letting me have a cat around mid-october I get quite sick and I'm sick for multiple days and I'm throwing up. I'm not eating. I have a fever all the works and so then When I'm starting to finally feel better and I finally have an appetite. Oh my god I need a pizza, but I order a pizza the pizza delivery person calls me I open my door to kind of wave them up and

As I'm opening my door, my neighbor's door also opened. And I said, oh, sorry, you know, it's just me. And she looks right at me and she says, I know you have been stealing my trash. And I have photo graphic evidence and shuts the door. And you know, I get my pizza and I get back into my apartment and I just burst into tears. And I'm calling my friends. I don't know what's happening. I mean, obviously, I haven't done anything to the swamp of trash, but like, what could possibly be going on?

And here's the story that I kind of come up with for myself. Because I have this cat, I am going out to the trash every day with little baggies of poop from the litter. And so maybe what's happening is that she sees me around the trash bins, but without a big trash bag of my own. Also I'm thinking like, what would the photographic evidence be? Like pictures of me with a trash bag? What could, like, so, but I'm still creeped out. And so when the end of the month rolls around,

so it's October 31st, it's Halloween, I go down to my landlord's apartment to give him the November rent check and we chat a little bit and I say I have this really weird interaction with the and like oh that apartment doesn't have a female residence it's just like those two tall guys who live there and i moved out of that place two months later. Wait, that's it? What the fuck? Wait, what the fuck? Okay, we have from beginning to end. A, how do we continue the vomit trend without what the hell?

What the hell? That's A. B, why would you get a pizza after being sick? That is a wild move. That's a crazy decision. Oh my God. But you're in grad school, so you know what? You have the constitution of I'm assuming a wild move. That's a crazy decision. Oh my God. But you're in grad school, so you know what? You have the constitution of, I'm assuming, a 20-something.

So go with God on that one. Third, why would you steal someone's trash? Oh, so why would you care if someone stole your trash? Why would you steal a ghost's trash? Why would a ghost care if you stole their trash? Why does a ghost have trash? If someone stole my trash, I'd simply say, you know what? My trash is your treasure. There you go. Four. Ghost? Is it a ghost or is it someone there hooking up with who decided to terrorize the next door neighbor. What's going on here?

Oh my God. Well, okay. We also have to consider the Halloween of it all. Oh. I believe tends to be a sort of period of time when the spectral veil between worlds is a little thinner. That is so true. An alternate explanation that I was thinking of is like,

maybe the landlord was fucking with her. The third thing is the thin walls were mentioned and never came back up again. And I was thinking like, this is gonna be a part of the story. So presumably like you would know who your neighbors are, right? Yeah, especially your next door neighbors. Yeah, your doors are so close.

I thought the neighbor was gonna be like, I've heard you vomiting. Why did you get a pizza? That's a reasonable question. Just knocking on the door with some advice, yeah. Just be like, baby girl, get some bananas, some rice, some applesauce and toast. This is a rich text.

I mean, I feel like the concept of stealing trash is a really, that one is, I feel like mostly used in sort of like spy novels and stuff, where like you're sticking out someone's apartment and you wanna like get the financial records or whatever and you like grab their trash. Presumably this person is not like studying spy craft at this grad school style university.

I mean, who knows what was happening in 2014? Also, this is 2014 pre-ring camera. So the photographic evidence must be someone standing with camera. Exactly. Yeah. Taking photos of you. I also would like to know, as someone who has a cat,

I do scoop the litter box every day. I don't take it outside every day. Why don't you just throw the little baggies in your trash bag? Does it not smell crazy? Well, if you have a plastic bag, you shouldn't be able to smell anything. Yeah. Fair enough.

Twist it up, tie it up. Exactly. Get nice and tight. I have a lot of questions. And I don't actually know if our caller-in-can-answer them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

I choose to believe ghosts. We are always asking for gossip stories with ghosts in them and we have one. I do actually. I think I agree with you, Alex. I think that's the only logical conclusion here. I think it's a malevolent spirit. A trickster. Exactly.

They died in a trash stealing style incident and are sort of like perennially seeking revenge on those who go through their garbage. The photographic evidence is like the cameras that you have to throw the thing over and stay still for like an hour. Exactly. It's like a daguerreotype on a silver plate. Exactly. With like a Victorian way to address. That is crazy, crazy.

I do want to say that I really empathize with the listener crying immediately after this interaction because that is also exactly how I would respond to someone. Sensitive gangster. Being like, I see you stealing my trash. Huge news. Our Dowager Queen, Kelsey McKinney, wrote a New York Times bestselling book of beautiful essays about gossip. It's called You Didn't Hear This From Me,

Mostly True Notes on Gossip, and I am obsessed. It's about how we use gossip to learn about ourselves. It's about Britney Spears and Weston Caleb and Gilgamesh and Picasso. It's so fun and not to be biased, but I kind of think it's pretty excellent. It's out right now in a hardback and a super sexy audio book, which Kelsey narrates. You can buy wherever you buy your books.

You can also go to Kelsey McKinney book.com to see all retailers. Support for normal gossip comes from Airbnb. I don't know about you, but I've been spending a lot of time planning some of my upcoming summer trips over the next few months. I love to take a long weekend and get outdoors and visit parks that I've never been to. So this summer, I would love to visit Nova Scotia and go to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. love to visit Nova Scotia and go to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. There's tons of coastline and all kinds of hiking and camping, swimming, and truly gorgeous scenery. And while I'm away on this weekend getaway, instead of my house

just sitting empty, I could be earning a little extra spending money by hosting on Airbnb. It would be a great way to use my space to offset some of the cost of my next destination. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Checking off your to-do list? Here's an easy one from Pennzoil. Get up to a $30 MasterCard prepaid virtual card with the purchase of 10 liters of Pennzoil Ultra Platinum at Canadian Tire. Maximizing engine protection and getting a reward for it?

That's two checks on your list. Pennzoil. Long may we drive. Offerance 83125, valid at participating locations only, valid email address required. Terms apply, see pennzoil.ca slash offer for details. MasterCard is a trademark of MasterCard International, Incorporated. Wow. You know what? Jay was right. We are a real range of gossip. Strong central theme. Yeah. A strong central theme of vomit. Well curated.

And we didn't even know. I just brought that up casually. Let's see if the next one has anything to do with vomit. Okay, so there's a rumor going around, which I know is the purview of this show about another podcast which is definitely the purview of this show about another podcast, which is definitely the preview of this show, according to my sources. And I had this, I had this from some pretty reliable people. There's going to be a new show on radio Topia called only if you get caught, which is going to be about cheating scandals, breaking the rules, all of

which is like sort of normal gossip adjacent, which is going to be hosted by Patrick Redford. And according to my sources, Alex Hujong-Loughlin is gonna be producing the show. So I think that's gonna be pretty fun. I hope people are into that. Wait. Whoa. Am I hallucinating again?

That sounds so familiar. Patrick, are you Defector's new podcast eight girl? It's true, it's true. I got the Shure M7 mic, I'm writing scripts. We talked to someone who taught me how to speak good on the mic, as hopefully you can hear here. Yeah, it's true. Another podcast is coming at some point in the fall.

It's very exciting. We've been working on it for literal years until Alex helped get it into shape somewhat recently. Yeah, and we're very, very excited. As I said, it's about sort of cheating scandals and breaking the rules, which as I guess listeners to this show and readers of our site would know is like something that I've like chronicled fairly closely and taken like a pretty deep interest in forever. The thesis of the show is basically that you can learn the most about any sort of like competitive framework or system or setup through its cheating scandals. Like those provide the

cleanest, the vertical slice of like what actually matters, who has power, what the dynamics are. And so these episodes aren't just like annotated Wikipedia entries. We have like good guests, we have I think interesting insights, and I'm super excited for you guys all to hear it. I'm so excited. Can you give us an example of what kind of cheating scandals you are covering? Like am I going to hear about the gerbil and chess? You are going to hear about the chess thing. I mean, yeah, like that's the listeners of this show tying because I've obviously covered the Magnus and Hans alleged butt cheating, which we get into in the episode.

There's an episode on that. And if those words mean nothing to you, welcome. Get ready. Former season one guests of Normal Gossip, Emma and Claire come on to talk about The Bachelor and we sort of get into the legal fiction of the right reasons, which obviously, you know, love islands on the brain, very relevant right now. We have some sports stuff, some non-sports stuff. Yeah, I'm really excited to bring it to you guys.

I'm so excited to listen. I have to know after thinking about this for so long, are you pro cheating or anti cheating? See, that's an interesting question, because I one worry I had when writing all the scripts is like these are all kind of coming off as like pro cheating, which is not exactly pro cheating. But I think I think the kind of popular understanding of like people who break the rules and like cheat in sports or whatever doesn't really like take into account their side of the story.

There's not that much inquiry into why people would break the rules, which I find to be the most interesting question to answer. And so we do come down as broadly pro-cheating in some of the episodes, but then other ones are like, okay, this is actually bad. And I think you have to like, make sure you frame like what the consequences are, what the stakes are, who's like the arbiter of the rules. Like we have one about the WNBA

and like salary cap circumvention where the owners were actually cheating against each other to pay the players more. And like, that's a weird sort of cheating scandal. Like the people coming out ahead are like not the ones actually breaking the rules. And like we talked to my three and on the ramen about that. And there's some like really interesting dynamics to get into. So what I'm hearing and I will be saying to promote this podcast is that it is a podcast about how cheating is actually good. Yeah. If you want to get ahead,

if you want to actually succeed in this, this is like for the young money hustlers out there, for you know, the Dubai grindset types. Like we're trying to give you tips to maximize your stack, to like really make 2025 and 2026, and presumably all the other ones after that your year. If you want to learn how to do crypto scams, or how to do bank fraud against the elderly, just kidding, this is not, my editor is saying this is not financial advice.

This is a parody, but you know, if you do want to unlock your grindset, I would recommend listening to this, actually to all three of our shows, really. Yeah. Incredible. And when does the premiere? When can people listen? Should be out in mid-October.

We are in negotiations on a final date right now, but we are pretty deep in production so. Wow, a beautiful fall vibe. Thank you so much. I'm so excited for these new shows. This is the best gossip I could possibly be a conduit for. Hell yeah. Try hard out July 28th.

You know what it is. And only if you get caught in October and we will not shut up about either of them. So you will not be able to forget. And you won't be able to forget when you listen to normal gossip because you will certainly be hearing more about them over the course of the next few bonus episodes. But before those come up, we do have one last piece of gossip to hear. Are you all ready? Yes. piece of gossip to hear. Are y'all ready? Yes.

Oh yeah. So this story starts in my second year of university and I am an avid member of the musical theatre society and a new boy starts. I'm going to call him Pete. He is a very bad thing on the musical theatre society, which is a really handsome, really tall, straight boy. Competition among the thousands of girls somehow. It's me and Pete. We hit it off. And it's honestly delightful. Okay. He studies ancient history, which is interesting. He's from a ridiculously rich family. So in our third year, we are trying to go to our first meeting, which is in the university building and his past homework, he says it's something to do with his parents' pain and disease.

We continue to do like, look, there's only a couple of things. Like we go down to London to watch a musical and we spend one night with his sister and his sister says, what are you going to do while Pete is at the interview? And I say, oh, I don't know, what's going on? And turns out he's told his sister that he's down to have an interview for an internship at a huge banking firm over the summer and does a full practice interview, like, with seamlessly answering all the questions for an internship in finance. And I then have to lie and say, Oh, yeah, just sit in a cafe and read while he's doing it, knowing in my head fully well that I will be watching a

matinee of Matilda with this boy. And I said that was really weird. What happened there? And I said, why didn't you tell me that I was going to have to lie? Like, I'd lie to you. He's very polygithic. It's fine. We watched the show. We have a lovely time. All good. All good. We graduate next year and you know, the cracks sort of start to show in our relationship. We break up. It's around this time that I start to go a little bit Charlie from It's Always Sunny, but start to put together some of the pieces you know. So I Google, I never saw him graduate. He told me he'd got a first. And this was a boy who'd loved to post on Facebook about things. And he hadn't mentioned anywhere that he got a first or anything about his degree. I moved to London and he moved to London a couple

of years after me. And then he happens to walk into a bar when we're working. And we, you know, we have a nice chat, we catch up. It's all very, very cheery, very pleasant. And at the end of that, I think, well, this has gone quite well. I'll just say it. I'll just ask him. And I say, you know, did you go to uni? Were you ever there? And he looks so hurt and says, I can't believe you think that of me. And then I, you know, I do and then I do feel quite bad for, for thinking of him. And we have a little, little romantic fun for all time's sake. And, you know, then he then he goes on his way and that's the last time that I ever saw him, spoke to him. But a couple of weeks ago now, one of my other friends

calls me. She says she's got some news. And she tells me that she's now, he's written a little blog. In that blog, he says, university's not right for everyone, which is why I dropped out. And he'd proceeded to lie about it for the next 10 years, including one year where I was dating him. I saw him every single day, pretty much. I was with his friends. We were in shows together at uni,

we were in the union bar, he was pretending to go to exams, he was pretending to go to lectures, he was, he told me what he was writing his dissertation on. He told me about the Roman battle styles that he was writing a full dissertation on and he just wasn't going to uni. Is that the end? That's crazy. Whoa! Is that the end? That's crazy. Whoa!

Um, um... That's a rich text. And it is. That is a rich text. I mean, on one hand, I am always impressed with people who can keep up a lie like that. And not in a casual way, but in a way where you have figured

out your dissertation topic and are talking about Roman battle styles. Little key at that point. I'm like, why didn't you just finish? It sounds like you easily could have. Yeah, how rich is this guy? Like, is... I forgot that part.

He's rich. Are his parents just like... Were his parents in on the scheme or was he just like living this totally subsidized lifestyle? And maybe there's like a sad element to this. Like he's going to inherit some like Titan of industry style position, but he's like, what I really want is to live among the common people. And so he's like, daddy, I want to cosplay like a Roman history student.

And father is like, as long as you come work with me at HBO's industry after this, we're good. You know, honestly, as soon as I heard he's very rich, I was like, this man's a pathological liar. I don't think he's actually rich. I think that's the twist here. You think he's lying about his money as well? Yeah, I do. Damn. Which makes the story very sad

because then I think he's dropping out for other reasons. But also they seem to be in the UK or Australia maybe. I don't know. I don't understand. I'm not gonna say I'm graded accents. Is it university free there? Oh, I don't know. Yeah, it's usually, I mean, we have,

our college system is the only one that forces you to go into crazy ass debt to complete it. So I assume, I mean, this sounds like a London accent to me. That is, there's so many good details in here. Matilda, ancient Roman battle styles. Yes, matinee specifically. Matinee of Matilda. Yes, yes. We also heard Matt Nye and Matilda.

We also heard exactly what this person's walk up sounds like, getting into their house. I love, again, I love whenever I can hear people doing their little tasks because I'm like, hey, when did you decide to record this voice note? Because you had to have known you were going to be entering your home in the three minutes that you were going to be entering your home in the three minutes that you were going to be recording this voice note. You have a little door open and I'm like, yes, girl, walk into your house. Another detail is that this Pete character was pretending to do exams. Yeah. And I wonder if that involved actually going into the classroom as being given a sheet of paper

and actually taking the test and, I don't know, maybe not turning it in or know Maybe not turning in or whatever fully in the student play without being a student there This has to have been for the love of the game I Agree, because again, it sounds like he is smart She said he did this whole fake interview for a financial internship that sounded entirely real. So it's not like he's just Saying things that don't make sense internship that sounded entirely real. So it felt like he's just saying things that don't make sense. Yeah. And then he started a blog 10 years later.

Can we see the blog? I want to see the blog. Can we have a link to the blog? I want to see the blog. Can we have him on only if you get caught? Yeah, that's what I'm gonna talk to. Can we? But also he outed himself, he didn't even really get caught.

This is a good segue because one of the episodes we have is about the varsity blues college cheating scandal. My favorite cheating scandal. Which is like among the sort of interesting structural reads on like the general scam of higher education, the funniest shit of all time is when parents got like this like very, you know, janky version of Photoshop and would like Photoshop their like

unathletic kid on like a water polo player's body or like they would buy water polo gear online and then like conduct a photo shoot and to have the cheating college scandal guy be like, uh, you aren't supposed to stand on the bottom of the pool when you play water polo. I love the Photoshop photos of kids doing doing sports they very clearly didn't play, because so much of, I feel, justification for varsity blues was people being like, well, they didn't know what their parents were doing. And I'm like, I was dumb at the age of 17,

but I certainly was not dumb enough to not put together why my parents were forcing me to put on a uniform for a sport I didn't play and then later receiving a scholarship for that sport I didn't play. That's one of the other funniest elements too is like the kids like go to USC or whatever and then like tell all their friends they're like I'm not on the tennis team I don't know what you're talking about and then the school gets wind of that and they contact the parents they're like your kid doesn't seem to understand that they're here on like a scholarship.

Like what's going on with that? Just bless their little hearts. See, you wouldn't have to do this. You wouldn't have to do this in a country like the UK. That is so true. Exactly. Which is an endorsement of our education system because you can get the funniest outcomes possible.

So shout out to the student. I don't know. Being in a student play for shits and gigs is like a pretty funny outcome. Yeah. Just to get girls. I mean, it sounds like the hundreds were flocking to see this, this damn Pete. Like, I mean, have you seen theater girls around the one straight guy in theater. It's a bloodbath. It's the hunger games. There are cannons being shot every few hours. Alex, you said in this ep that you were recently in a play. I was. Presumably not with college age students, but was there any interesting goss around the play? There were three sets of parents and children in this play.

Oh. Like, one was like a 13-year-old and their mom, and then there was like a almost 30-year-old and her dad, and then the director's parents were also in the play. And so that was fascinating to see. Like, you know, a lot of them hadn't acted together before. And so like they were seeing their parents in these new lights and these new contexts. But it was also funny to see like, you know, them snap at each other in a like parent and child kind of way that they would never do to another member of the cast.

And that was great. That sounds, yeah, that sounds, that sounds fun, honestly, sort of like wholesome, interesting fun. And also you get to see which parents would be the ones to accidentally poison their children with laundry detergent style maneuvers. And there were two straight men in the cast. Respect. Wow.

Shout out to those guys. Yeah. They're trying hard. They sure are. And they are. They are. For some reason, this voice memo reminded me of Saltburn. Like it feels like a version of Saltburn.

Yes, like some talented Mr. Ripley shit. Exactly. Exactly. Except he didn't use it to get that far ahead, seemingly. No, he could have gone so much further. He's still writing a blog 10 years later. See, that's like, that is the sort of scammer that I'm down with, like someone who just does it

for the love of the game, like he's not out here putting up numbers to like, steal anyone's money or anything, he just wants to hang. And like, maybe he really was into ancient history, like, that's cool, man. He just wants to hang and like maybe he really was in ancient history. Like that's cool, man. And actually into theater. You can't fake being into musical theater. That is so true. Seemingly he was talented enough to be in this play. I'm like, you don't have to lie to hang out. You can just hang out. This is almost like a Ratatouille situation. He gets to live this life. He's like, he's like

sort of structurally incapable of living, except I guess instead of being a mouse, it's like he has presumably millions of pounds in his bank account. Yeah. So I'm less sympathetic, but still very funny. I did enjoy that our caller in was like, we met up a few years later and had a night of romantic fun.

Pop off queen. Love it. Pop off queen. I it. Pop off clean. I will say if you ever ask someone a question and they answer with, I can't believe you asked me that, whatever the worst possible answer to your question is, that is the right one. Like.

Yeah, if someone says that, you sit up in your chair. Yeah, and you say, why can't you believe I asked you that? What did you mean by that That sounds like you're lying. This is the key to scamming. You'll learn how to cheat from this show from Patrick's new show and maybe how to recover from your cheating scandal by learning to be a better person by listening to try hard. Yeah. And then you can tell Rachel all about it. What we've set up here is like a perfect, not quite like a pyramid scheme, but more like an ecosystem. An Ouroboros. Yeah, exactly.

A beautiful gossip Ouroboros. We're just trying to create more stories for all of you. I love that. Forever. Thank you all so much for joining me. Thank you for having us. Yeah. Thank you for having us. This is so fun. Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at normalgossip at defector.com. We are starting to work on season nine. So if you want

to hear your gossip for season nine, you only got a few weeks left, send it to us. You can also leave us a voicemail at 2679Gossip. If you love this podcast and want to support us, become a friend or friend of a friend at supportnormalgossip.com. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at normalgossip. You can follow me on all social media

at Hayden A, H-E-Y-Y-D-N-A-E. This podcast was produced by Sierra Sprague Le Ricks and J. Toll Vieira. The co-creators and Dowager Queens of Normal Gossip are Alex Sujong Laughlin and Kelsey McKinney. Justin Ellis is Defector's Projects editor. Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector's business guys. Alex Sujong Laughlin is Defector's supervising producer. Tom Lay is our editor-in-chief. Dan McClave runs our merch store, which you can find at NormalGossip.store. Alex Sujong-Lauflin is Defector's supervising producer. Tom Lay is our editor-in-chief. Dan McQuade runs our merch store, which you can find at normalgossip.store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art.

Thank you to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively-owned subscriber-based media company. Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. I am your host, Rachel Hampton. And remember, you did not hear this from me. Radiotopia. I am your host, Rachel Hampton, and remember, you did not hear this from me.