Normal Gossip - Paranormal Activity with Amber Singletary

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Amber Singletary joined us for a tale about a blended family that isn't blending, a spectral presence, and a 1-800 late night witch. We are now on YouTube. Be sure to follow us on there at @DefectorMedia where you can watch today’s episode.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. 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). Our audio engineer is Samantha Gattsek. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Show art by Tara Jacoby. Theme music composed by Hrishikesh Hirway.Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This is our glass of This American Life. Do you know our show? Okay, well, either way, I'm going to tell you about it. We make stories, old-fashioned stories that hopefully pull you in at the beginning with funny moments and feelings and people in surprising situations, and then you just want to find out what is going to happen and cannot stop listening. That's right. I'm talking about stories that make you disappointments and ignore your loved ones. This American Life, every week, wherever you get your podcast.

Oh, my God. Hello, and welcome to normal. Gossip, I'm your host, Rachel Hampton. And in each episode of this podcast, we are going to bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. Welcome back to season 10, y'all. If this is the first episode you're tuning into, this is our 10th season of normal gossip, which means that we are doing all stars. We're bringing back some of your favorite guests, and we have got some incredible new guests that some of you all have been requesting for eons. And this season, we're bringing back some of your favorite guests. And this season, season. We're doing some special. We're doing video. Yes, y'all, we are finally joining the modern world.

So if you want to watch this episode, head on over to our YouTube page to search Defector Media and it should pop up and of course we'll be linking the video in the show notes. All right, that is enough housekeeping for today. Without further ado, I want to introduce today's all-star guests, the illustrious, the hilarious, the very talented Amber single Terri. Amber Singletary is a comedian, writer, actor, and host of the Judgy Series by Now This Media. Most recently, she was a writer on the HBO Emmy Award winning series, a Black Lady's sketch show. She is an internet favorite of mine, and I have a feeling that by the end of this episode, she'll be your new fave, too. Hello, Amber. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited. You're here. I love this. I love gossip. Same. Well, that's actually a perfect segue into the question that we ask everyone, which is, what is your relationship to gossip? I hate to say this, but I love gossip. Don't hate to say it. I love gossip. I think it's the best. I think it builds relationships. It builds friendships. Like, I love gossip about people I don't know. Like when my friends have like third party friend gossip, I'm like, what? Okay, tell me, tell me about her wedding, tell me about everything, the trip, whatever, whatever.

I just love it because I think people are really themselves when they're gossip. You can see what people care about. You can see people's like ideologies. Like you see what people judge people for and you just learn so much in gossip. Gossip more, everybody, please. And you're right. I feel like the further away you are from the gossip, the better it is. Yes.

You have to know, I think, at least one person relatively well in the story, but other than that, it's like, I don't know. A stranger is perfect. A stranger is perfect. Because then I can just say just an unfiltered opinion and be like, I think this. Exactly. When you're too close to the gossip, it might, the gossip might be about you. No, exactly. It's like, is this play about me?

Is this play about us? No, that is. I hope I've been the topic of gossip. I really hope so. Same. That would be great. Same. I don't think I have.

No one ever tells you if you're the subject of gossip and it's really irritating. I left a job I had been at for six years. And I was like, there's no way. There's no gossip about me leaving. But every time I see someone from my old job, they're like, you're so beloved. We miss you. We're so proud of you. You lying ass, bitch.

Say something about me eating salmon in the office. Say something. Treat me like a regular person. Gossip about me. Pretend I'm not here and tell me what you would say about me. Dude, you know what I miss? I miss the trap phone calls. I miss putting somebody on three-way.

You got a secret caller. They're like, oh, so what do you think about this? And then the person is just getting all the gossip with them like, that we bring it back bring back a three-way sneak attack Regina George style exactly no one does it anymore

no we're losing recipes because you get you can merge the call back in the day you merged a call you're like did you just put somebody on the phone yeah now you can do it in secret I don't know why we're not doing it and you're right you're right I remember I recently merged a call for the first time in years and I was like whoa I forgot I could do this no exactly it's unlimited too you can just keep merging and keep merging it used to cost money

we could talk about that forever. I mean, y'all don't know. Y'all weren't there. I could go on a tangent about MySpace and the drama of the top eight and the gossip that that inspired. But you actually have some gossip for me. I have some gossip for you. So please clue me in. And I don't work there anymore. So this is the worst thing that could have ever happened to these people. So my previous job, I was running a girl's, not running, but doing the social media management of an only fans girl. Shout out to the girls. First of all, a lot of girls. We love the girls. We love the girls. At the beginning,

it was great. No, it was great the whole time. I will say this. It was great the whole time. Great job. It was such a freeing job. I could do it from my bed. It was seven days a week, though, posting on so many pages, answering messages. There's no weekends for sex workers. No. In fact, those are the busy times. Those are the busy times. And at night, you have to, like, you have to answer people at night and the weekends. Also, the men. The men I've come into contact with. There was a man that every day, my only job was to tell him when he could swallow his own secretion and he would put a belt around his neck. And every day, it was like, can I drink it now? Can I drink it now? Now, just be like, go ahead. Just go ahead. But the tea was, after a while,

I could not do the messaging anymore. I was like, this is destroying my mental health, having to, first of all, be fake to these people because you know you just want their money. And then also, just the things they say to these women, oh my God, like it's subhuman. It's disgusting. It's horrible. So I was like, I can't do this anymore. We need to hire somebody to do messaging. Why did Home Girl hire her own mother? Amber. Amber. You're lying. Her mother. Her mother. Her mother couldn't get the tone down too. And you know what? I'm imagining, let's say a Gen Xer, trying to text on only fans using the language of I'm assuming a zoomer.

I mean, she's saying stuff to men at night, like, I'm about to hit the hay. You, sex workers don't hit the hay. They don't. They don't. She's saying, well, by golly. It's 8 p.m. It's time for me to go to bed. My minutes have run out.

She said, well, ta-ta. I'm like, no, you have to act like you're just always online. She's like, I simply cannot. Oh, my. Wait, so were you trained? training the mother. I did not train the mother. Actually, this girl that did ops, she trained her because I was like, I simply cannot train her.

I can't. Okay, this is a whole operation. I mean, they have a team. Literally, by the way, we don't work there anymore because she had an agency take over her whole thing. Sorry, guys, yes, you are sometimes not talking to them. I hate to say. Oh, what a surprise. I mean, we're talking about a billion dollar industry.

Yeah, I know that makes sense. 50, 60, 80K a month. There's some girls making three mil a month. I mean, they're top, top dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lucrative industry for these agencies. This is incredible gossip, incredible tea. I love that you began the story by saying, this is how it starts.

My jaw's already on the floor. And then you said, and now this is really tea. And I said, this is the tea? This is the tea. This is the tea? I thought the tea started when you said, I was just brewing. I was on the team for the only. me fans are off. I'm just on the team, no.

Well, I'm going to be thinking about this for a while. But now I have something that I think you're going to be thinking about for a while, which is a little bit of gossip. Okay. Are you ready for the gossip? Are you ready for the hot gossip? Today's story is about the paranormal. My favorite thing.

My favorite thing. I personally do not fuck with ghosts. Really? No. Do you? Is it because you think that? they're not real? No, it's the opposite. I think they're real and I want nothing to do with it. No, same. Okay, okay, okay. I don't like not believe in ghosts, but I'm always like, I'm not

somebody that's like, I'm gonna go to this haunted place and spend the night. Don't take me anywhere that is haunted. No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, I think I've said this before, but my approach to spirits and demons is like, hear no evil, see no evil. Do whatever haunted shit you got to do, but don't leave me out of it. Leave me out of it. A Ouija board will literally never see me coming. Who are the girls getting the Ouija boards and where are they getting them from? Well, our friend of a friend is one of these girls, at least at the time that today's story takes place. Our friend of her friend today is named Haley. And I'm actually going to let you guess the age of our friend of a friend when today's story takes place.

But I'm going to give you a couple of hints. So at the time in Haley's life, when the story starts, her favorite activities include but are not limited to watching the newly released movie Practical Magic, playing Hanson's Mbop on repeat on her CD player, and overp. plucking her eyebrows to the point where they will never fully grow back. Okay. So this woman was at least 20 in the 90s. Okay. Okay. I hope your eyebrows grew back, honey. But if not, it's coming back. They are. They are. They are. The thin eyebrows are coming back. I won't be doing it. No, I'm not, I'm not getting involved. My eyebrows are thin enough as this. Yes. You're really close. It is the late 90s, early 2000s. And our friend of her friend, Haley, is a preteen. Specifically, she is 12 years old when this story starts and the year is

1998. What were you up to in 1998? I was four. I was just bopping around. Me and my mom and my sister just bopping around. Going to basketball practice with my dad he was my sister's coach. I was just bopping around. I was two years old so we were in a similar place. Exactly.

We were biving. We were biving. So our friend of my friend Haley was 12 and at the time she lives with her younger brother Dennis who was 10 and their dad George whose age is not important to the story what is important to know. George. is that George is divorced from the kid's mom. Not for like a controversial reason.

All you need to know about Haley's mom is that she is not present for this story and she is not dead and George is not an asshole. Everybody is signed. Everybody's alive. Exactly. So George and our friend of friend Haley and her little brother Dennis all lived together

in an old house about an hour away from the big city of Des Moines, Iowa. I personally never had the pleasure of going to Des Moines. I do love the Midwest. I do. I just came back from Kansas and I actually liked the Midwest. Exactly. It's calm.

It's got that big sky. It's got the cornfields. It's got the cheap property, which Haley's dad, George, takes full advantage of. Despite the fact that he is a divorced dad of two with a not particularly lucrative job working for a medical supply company, he has a huge Victorian farmhouse with four bedrooms, two bathrooms on a 10-acre lot. Think like massive fireplace and mantle. George. Think creaky, what's their case?

Think a parlor, which in this case has two giant plaid couches. You know the kind. Oh, God. The family TV. Yep. A VCR. Big Back TV. And Nintendo 64.

Yep. So other than electronics, everything in the house is pretty old, including the house itself. Like, George spends a lot of time on the weekends. Fixing it up. Exactly. But Haley loves this house. She calls it a spooky doll house from the very first time that she sees it. And Haley's love for the spooky doll house only grows after she sees practical magic

and realizes that the house that Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman live in looks exactly like the spooky doll house. Wait, now I can see this. Instead of being by the ocean, this house is in the middle of cornfields, which if you ask Haley, makes it even spookier. And the spookier, the better. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I'm scared. Well, before we get into our paranormal activity, there are some important things you need to know about George, Haley's dad.

The first is that he is a really good dad. Haley and her brother do eat a lot of hamburger helper. But in the little free time that he's not like working or doing repairs on the house, he's spending with Haley and Dennis, who don't really want for anything. George will happily wear the same converse for years to get his kids in a No-S 64 game they want. And he never once complains when Haley wants to go to Blockbuster to rent like the Prince of Egypt for the fourth time in a month. Neselja. All of this being said, George does have. a bit of a past. Who doesn't? Like whole past or he's a criminal? Well, back in his early

20s, George lived a whole life as a jam band, Rodey. His current job in medical supplies is not his first time supplying items with medicinal qualities. Oh, okay, George, that's how you got the 10 acres. Young George love to commune with nature, other people, machines. like he was all about finding the energy in all things. George was a freak. George and the kid's mom had actually met out on the road. They had both been following a lesser known

British Scha band on their first American tour. And now in 1998, George is a reluctant capitalist. He's working for the man. As a manager, no less. I know. George. His younger self would be disgusted, but his current self needs to put hamburger helper on the table.

You got to get that on the table for the kids. They hungry. So he's thankful for his job at the medical supply company, not least because it's where he meets Lisa. Lisa is an account manager at the medical supply company. She is a wizard in Excel. And where George cared more about like the vibrations in the universe, Lisa wanted it all like properly sorted and color coded and preferably in a spreadsheet. We need balance. Lisa was the kind of person who needed to know not only what time and event was starting, but what time they needed to.

leave to get there, unrelatable to me. Unrelatable to me. I'm late and I'm tired when I get there. Exactly. And I'm ready to go. I might ask when can I leave. Exactly. Like, just being honest, sorry.

The only unpredictable thing that Lisa allowed in her life is a tiny Pomeranian named Warren after Warren Buffett. And just like his namesake, little Warren lived like a fluffy king. Like for his birthday, Lisa would have Wagu shipped internationally from Japan. In paper, George and Lisa would not seem to make sense. Like the most money George has ever spent on anything was a new boiler for the house and even that was secondhand. But you know what they say about opposites, right? They attract.

And if there's anything George believes in more than energy and vibes, it's love. Which is the highest vibrational energy out there. Blessing and a curse, George. Blessing and a curse. Oh. So about 10 months after George and Lisa start dating, Lisa moves in with George and Haley and Dennis. stepmom how should expect this to go I'm gonna say this when white people start mixing

families it gets a little ghetto say more say more see more we've seen I mean come on now get more girls one tree yeah step by step geto well the first let's call it a beige flag comes a few weeks after Lisa moves in it's It's Haley's 13th birthday, which is a huge witchy birthday that George had gone all out for. They're like bat-shaped pancakes for breakfast and black balloons all over the house. And the absolute best gift of all is a tiny little black kitten that Haley immediately named Salem. Oh, so George is revving up for this activity. Yeah.

Uh-huh. He seems to be a conduit. At breakfast, Lisa hands Haley a sparkly pink birthday card. Cute. And inside is a crisp $10 bill. Okay. And that's all. Any immediate thoughts on this gift as compared to steak from Japan for the dog.

I'm going to say this and I mean this and I'm sorry. Lisa, you are a raggedy bitch. You are raggedy ho. You gave that dog Waggoo and you gave that girl $10. Back then, that was the shipping on the Waggoo. Well, it's $10. which is at least $20 now. No.

Let me tell you. My mom always told me you don't let nobody mistreat your kids. So Lisa, you had plenty of town of plan for this. You living in this house. Did she write anything nice in the card? It was unsigned. That is shade. She's throwing shade and they wonder why one out of 16 white girls, they will kill.

So you have to be nice to them. It's not a statistical. I think I went a little low, actually, to be honest. So you cannot just mistreat them at 13. Especially when they're obsessed with witches. That is an orange flag. It doesn't help that Warren, the dog, and Salem, the cat, immediately start beefing,

which is probably why tension start to escalate in the house. Like, within a month of moving in, Lisa kicks George out of his own home office because she and Warren need a quiet space to decompress, even though Warren has an incredibly plush and unreasonably expensive doggy bed that has prime center real estate in the living room. And whenever he decides to nap there, which is all the time, Haley and Dennis are required to observe quiet hours because playing too much Mario Kart deserves Warren's sleep schedule. And Lisa says that children, unlike dogs, are meant to play outside. Oh, hit the bricks. Get out. Get your stuff. and get out of my house.

At what point would you say it is George's responsibility as a father to intervene? At the card. Wow. At the $10 card. So especially with woman to woman, I do think there is an energy, just like with if you bring a man into your house and you have sons. When you bring a woman to your house and you have a daughter, you do have to protect the energy because, one, she's probably jealous because she knows off the top of her head you will never love anybody more than you love your daughter, especially a woman. woman. She knows that and you're not her mother. So it's like you can't even be like, we made this life and we love it. So she would have to get out of my house. Yeah.

Instantly. And first of all, a Pomeranian named Warren after Warren Buffett. And you're telling me that my children need to be quiet. I pay this house so they can be loud in this house. No. There's 10 acres of cornfield so no one hears some screenings. Send the dog outside. Well, one afternoon. Oh God. They hear Lisa screaming bloody murder from upstairs. George, who had been working out in the garden, comes sprinting in the house. And once he sees that the kids are all okay, even if they are very freaked out, he sprints upstairs where he finds Lisa, totally unharmed, by the way, if clearly pissed and also soaking wet. Before George can even say anything, Lisa is like, George, I cannot live like this anymore. Perfect. I told you it was inhumane.

Haley and Dennis, like, piqued their heads around the banister so they can see, is how confused their dad is. Lisa's like, it happened again. The shower went cold again. Why don't you try bathing in the Antarctic and tell me how you like it? This is not Haley's first rodeo. The boiler, which is in the basement, has been an issue since they moved in. But before George can even respond to Lisa, Haley yells, nodded before racing down the stairs, which means it is only Dennis who is left standing there when George says, all right, who's going to be my basement an adventure buddy today. Not the basement.

Okay, here's where I admit that even as an adult, a dark basement still freaks me. I don't go into my parents' basement without my mom. I was going to ask, do you have any basement related fears? But it seems like the answer is yes. You know what's funny? We had a dog and his cage was in the basement. And for some reason, when my mom would be like, oh, can you go let Austin out? I would go down there.

And it's just an eerie feeling. And you're just like, okay, I would just like open his cage and sprint up to this and be like, okay, he's up. Like, I can't, I cannot do. Yeah. According to Haley, the basement in this house is legitimately terrifying. She loved it, but from a distance. Mm-mm.

The basement, like, the house is old as fuck. And this is the Midwest, so this is tornado territory. And it's honestly possible that the basement was dug before the house as a standalone storm cellar. It's probably, like, soundproof and all types of stuff. It was definitely dug at a time when building standards were low. Looser. Just loose. Probably maybe didn't exist.

Sticks. Yeah, they didn't have any. So the walls were like old-ass rocks, boulders, basically. And at least one corner of the floor was just dirt. And it never got warm, even on the hottest day of the summer. And it smelled like a combination of old wet dirt, cobwebs, and potatoes. Though there were no potatoes in sight. Also, one of the previous owners had left behind a gift,

which is a life-sized cardboard cutout of a man and a man. a top hat, stuck to a wall with some sort of like industrial strength glue that nothing could dissolve. It clearly began its life as some sort of prop for like a school play or something, but after being left in the damp, dark basement for Lord knows how many years, it looked sort of, we have a photo, actually. I'm going to show it to you. This is what is in the corner of the basement. For our listeners, could you describe it? this photo? It is, first of all,

horrid. It is, it looks like a Lego man with all black. He is absolutely alive. And it's just like a cardboard. It doesn't look like anybody. And it's just a face with circles, no other features, by the way.

And he's in a black, obviously black suit. And he used to have hands maybe. And this is stuck to the wall. Can't get it off. Can't get it off. Also, everybody knows the lore about Top Hat Man. I don't know the lore about Top Hat Man. I'll tell you this after the story.

Okay. Well, George, trying to lighten the mood around this, always refers to it as Old Gus. We named it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So these are the vibes of the basement, which maybe explains why, as George is checking out the boiler, Dennis remains stationed as close to the stairs as humanly possible. And, guys, if you just saw that corner, the vibes are horrendous in the basement.

Horrible. Like, George has to keep telling Dennis to come close to. so that the flashlight Dennis is holding actually shines on the boiler. Exactly. And this is where our story starts to become a classic bit of family lore. Oh, God. So that while Haley was not technically there to witness this part, she feels like she was. So the story goes, that as George is doing his best to inspect the boiler with some less than steady lighting assistant.

Some shaky flashlight work. From Dennis. Dennis says, dad, there's someone here. No. Now, George is only half paying attention, so he's like, of course, Dennis. We've all seen old Gus. He's our friend, remember? No, he's not.

But then Dennis responds in a voice that is strangely calm, given what he's about to say. Dennis says, no, dad, there's someone else. And at this, George sits up. He looks around to check that it's not Haley trying to scare her little brother. And when he sees nothing besides Dennis and old Gus, he's like, okay. Hey, do you know who it is? And Dennis shakes his head. And then he pauses.

And then he says, it's a man. No. That's enough for me. His name is Morris. And then Dennis looks straight at George and says, Morris wants us to leave. Now, George has been on enough mushroom trips to know that there are mysteries in the world

that he does not want to fuck with. So he grabs Dennis by the back of his shirt and calls ass up the stairs. carrying Dennis like a suitcase basically. Which does not stop Dennis from shrieking, we live in a haunted house. So loudly that Haley and Lisa and Warren all come running. Haley is thrilled by this ghostly turn of events.

While Lisa just wants to know when the boiler will be fixed. I'm so tired of Lisa. It doesn't even makes sense. Make her go downstairs and fix it. Okay, so what is your next move upon finding out that your house is potentially haunted? Do we have family where we can? can go. Can we leave? Can we leave? Um, I'm gonna say no. So we need a hotel for just maybe a day. Okay. Because she needs a hot shower, even though I do not like her, but she is a woman that we are

trying to take care of. Mm-hmm. We need to go to a hotel and we might need to leave the cat and dog here. I'm so sorry for the night. And if we can't, if we can take them, great, but if we can't, the cat knows what it's doing. You're right. Maybe we bring the dog. Yeah. It's a black cat too. It's a black cat. The black cat will be fine. Well, at that moment, Lisa's wrath is a bigger problem to George. He had been able to inspect enough of the boiler to know that whatever was going on was above his pay grade. So he finds a repair man on the yellow pages and then he does what any reasonable father would in the year of our Lord and Savior in 1998, which is go to the local library to find out if there is any historical reason to believe that his house might exactly might be

haunted. This trip to the library helps confirm what George suspected, which is that no one has died a grisly death in their house. Yeah. Wonderful. At least not recently enough to be recorded in the newspaper archives. And that's a scary part. What's happening before then? We don't know. We don't know. But George's biggest clue in this mystery comes not from the library, but from a chance encounter with a neighbor whose family has lived in the same house for going on like a century at this point. George is out cleaning the yard one day when he sees this neighbor, and he thinks to ask him if any of the previous owners had ever mentioned any weird goings on in the house. And the neighbor's like, not really. And then he's like,

Well, I guess there was Old Man Morris. According to the neighbor, Old Man Morris was the owner before last of George's house. So it's George, an owner that we don't know, and then Old Man Morris. Somebody got the hell out of there after Morris. That's who. Old Man Morris had lived in the house for decades. He had no real family or even really friends in town. Like he was basically only seen when he was tending to the house or the yard, which he kept doing well into his 90s when he died in the house. house of a heart attack. Now how would you feel about learning someone died in your house and would it matter how they died? Yes, I need to know the state they were in when they died because did they

peacefully transition that is so important. Like if they did not, we need to cleanse it. We need to do something for them. We need to throw them a birthday party. I don't know what we need to do. Yeah. But I need to know how. And the heart attack would confuse me because what was he doing when he had a heart attack? No, you're right. Was he mean spirited? I don't know. These are all important questions. Haley is really wanting to answer these questions and is a true child of the 90s who basically only started watching Sabrina the teenage witch because her dad would not let her see the craft. Haley volunteers to run a seance. Haley, this is a horrible idea. This is horrible. And Lisa agrees with you. Of course. If Lisa agrees, do not do it. At this point, even Lisa is like,

George, you got it, you got to do something. We got to do a seance. Because there have been some strange happenings since that fateful basement trip. Like when the repairman came to fix the boiler, he couldn't actually find anything wrong with it, even though the water still sporadically runs cold in the shower. Windows would slam shut in the kids' bedrooms, though only when it was too cold to have the windows

open at night anyway. Photos and pictures would fall from the walls, but only ones that Lisa had hung. And at a certain point, all this supernatural phenomena start to become too much for poor little Warren the dog. And this is when Haley and Dennis start noticing little puddles around the house.

The dog is peeing. Lisa insists that Warren can feel the anxiety in the house, which means that she needs to spend even more time devoting herself to him. Oh, God. And what this means is that it's Haley and Dennis who end up on Warren cleanup duty. So, George decides it is time to call an outside reinforcements, which

presents its own set of problems because you cannot just look up ghost hunters in my area. In the yellow pages. Yeah, and Google didn't exist yet. Oh, no. Exactly. So what would you do? Exactly. What would you do with 1998? You've got a ghost. We got to go find

somebody. But where? Word of mouth. How? You don't go around the town. Also, to be honest, I'm going to say I would have probably went to the church. They're like, hey, you got somebody that can get holy water. What do y'all have in here? Please. Y'all need to, I need help. Yeah. Do you have a particular denomination? Are you going

Catholic? I'm going. I'm going wherever I can. And to be honest, I need a black woman. As quickly as possible, I need her in the space. Yeah. Because she's going to be like, uh-uh, y'all need to leave. Get out. Get out.

The same it. This ain't it. Yeah. Well, what happens next is probably my favorite part of this whole story. One night while channel surfing, George is struck by the most brilliant idea. It's almost like fate. And it certainly has nothing to do with the joints that he keeps hidden in a shelf too high for the kids and Lisa to find. Two days later,

the doorbell rings. Haley answers, and she is greeted by a vision that she will never forget. At the door is a woman draped in blue velvet and silver necklaces. There are crosses and stars, evil eyes and angs galore. Overall, this is a black lace kimono, and on the woman's head is a jade green headscarf. Think like early Erica Badu with a little bit of steepy necks. She was giving it to the girls at the door. Haley screams, oh my God, it's you.

Because at her door is none other than Miss Sapphire. I'm so sorry. The legend of local TV commercials. The. The Miss Sapphire. She pauses and sniffs the air before crossing the door frame. She gets Haley a little pat on the shoulder and says, Come, child, today you learn how to see beyond the world of men.

Oh. Now, I... She kind of ate that. I think George is brilliant for this. But would you... you hire someone to fix your ghost problem off of a late night TV commercial. It is the 90s. Listen, we've all wanted to order Peter Popoff's Miracle Water.

Okay? So I have been a victim of wanting to order the miracle prayer water in the middle of the night. I probably would. Honestly, if she was on TikTok shop today, she could get me. The Florida Water. The Florida Water, please. People get shit from Etsy Witches. I don't think they should.

I don't think they should because you don't know what they did. You don't know what they did to it. Also, what did they fuck up? your package. What if they just send you something they don't mean to? It's like olive oil. Or just like I wish for a love spell and now I have a death spell. I don't know. Everybody dies. Exactly. And that's why you should hire off a late night TV commercial. Hire local. Hire local. And at least she has a commercial. She's putting money into her craft. She got money. So the children follow Ms. Sapphire as she walks through the house like knocking on

walls and inspecting dusty corners. Haley is too starstruck to talk. So it's Dennis who's like, why are you called Sapphire? And Miss Sapphire is like, Ghost despise the color blue. That's how I knew I was called to this work from a young age I felt the inherent blueness of my spirit. They don't like blue. I need more blue things.

Lisa, who had been all on board with fixing the ghost problem, now had some questions. She turns like, you hired the 1-800 late night witch? Yes, I did. But George is already asking Ms. Sapphire about her process with genuine curiosity.

He's like, is it okay for my children to watch you work? Will they disturb you? By this point, Ms. Sapphire is like opening every single kitchen cabinet. And with her head under the sink, she's like, of course, it's fine. I'm always being watched. That's what it means to be connected to the spirit world. George is like, yes, of course. That makes sense. Oh my God. He then explains that Dennis is the one who had seen the ghost. So Miss Sapphire crouches down to look Dennis in the eyes. And after a really long moment, she just nods. And then she's like, children are naturally sensitive to the spirit world. I was around his age when

I started hearing the voices too. Two. I'd be like, Dennis, you hear something? And then she starts sprinkling salt in the corners of the kitchen. Get that salt, baby. At this point, Lisa is rolling her eyes so hard that it looks like she's the one getting exercise. Lisa, please.

After Miss Sapphire determines that the kitchen is clear spirits, she sets up shop right at their kitchen table. She's lighting incense and candles. Exactly. She rings a small bell three times to gauge the energy of the house. And at this point, it's time for her to go from room to room to room to detect any spirits. This is when Lisa abandons them. She's muttering something about waste of money and she goes up to the office.

Meanwhile, George and the kids follow behind Miss Sapphire like at some kind of church procession. As she goes from room to room feeling like the walls and the light fixtures, she has this long silver chain with a pendulum at the end. And in each room, she waits for a sign of ghostly movement. Dining room? Nothing. living room all clear home office kids bedroom all fine so we're safe we got some places we can sit sit around and be fine i guess it's when miss sapphire gets to the upstairs bathroom that she pauses miss cold water the pendulum starts making small circles above her palm okay why is it scaring me

her eyes widened before she says there's an older gentleman here oh god he's very connected to this place. His name is Morris. Not other than the. This sends Haley and Dennis fleeing back to the kitchen where the salt will protect them. George is dumbstruck because he had never actually told Miss Sapphire about Old Man Morris. So George is now Miss Sapphire believer. He is in awe of her talent and sensitivity.

Are you in all of Miss Sapphire's talent? I'm in awe. I'm in awe. I'm in awe of her writing. Honestly, she's got a great pen. The pen. Dude, the pen on Miss Sapphire. Find this woman.

Well, unfortunately, Miss Sapphire has actually only made more trouble for George because now his children are now absolutely 100% convinced that there is a ghost in the house. Oh, they should have been convinced two weeks ago. George is like, okay, what does Morris want? And Miss Sapphire closes her eyes. and then she's like, Morris doesn't want to let go of the house. This house was his life and he's having a hard time here, especially since you brought her in. Oh.

And at this, George feels a chill go down his spine. He's like, you're not talking about Haley, are you? Because George can tolerate a lot of things, but he will not tolerate a ghost fucking with his daughter. Miss Sapphire is immediately like, no, Morris loves the children. That's why he doesn't like her. Morris isn't like the way she treats the house or the children. Not Morris being actually like an ally And then Ms. Sapphire is like

Morris says he'll leave if she does She got to go today I said that she had to pack her bag over the $10 So she got to go now for sure Well my next question here is Would you kick out your girlfriend of a TV psychic Told you that a ghost didn't like her And based on the expression on your face

I kick out my girlfriend for less She would have got kicked out over the $10 So the Pomeranian the $10 The screaming in the shower she, 10 strikes you're out, baby. Well, George definitely respects the hell out of Miss Sapphire, but he's like, I'm not going to let a ghost run my dating life. Is there anything else we can do here? George, please.

Unfortunately, Ms. Sapphire actually does have a solution that does not involve breaking up with Lisa. She's like, goes through actually a little bit like houseplants. They get sad when you don't talk to them or like include them in your daily life. So, Miss Sapphire tells George, every morning when him and the kids wake up, Everyone in the house must turn a circle clockwise four times and then greet Morris. Simple good morning will suffice. Simple good.

Hello, Morris. But the process has to be repeated at night except with a counterclockwise circle. Okay, now Morris, now you're getting a little bit much. And a good night. And a good night. Miss Sapphire says there should be enough to satisfy Morris who, she says, does not seem to be a vengeful spirit. Okay. Just a lonely one.

He just wants a family. Exactly. Oh, Morris. We are almost at the end of our story. Would you be okay doing this little ritual for the foreseeable future? I would be grudgingly do it every day. I would be like, good morning, Morris. Hi.

Good night, Morris. I'll be like, which way is countercloth? That would be the part that would trip me up. I'm like, I'm going to just do eight circles both ways. And if you're still mad, I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm literally sorry. I don't have a clock on me right now.

I can't do this. Good morning. I only use electronic clocks. I love you. Maybe a family game. night and when they let Morris play. That'd be sweet. They'd do that.

Yeah. This is the best thing that has ever happened to Haley in her whole 13 years of her life. I mean, she's having a great time. She has a real life ghost in her house. And not only a real life ghost, but one that she is required to communicate with. That's her new homey. Wow. So obviously, she leads the charge.

Every morning, she reminds Dennis to say good morning to Morris. She talks to him while she brushes her teeth. No, I'm scared. She even catches George talking to Morris about like his old roadie days. he's weeding the garden. The only person who does not participate in this new ritual is Lisa.

Even after George asked her to do it for the kids, whenever Haley or Dennis mentioned Morris, Lisa just huffs and rolls her eyes and tells George that he shouldn't be encouraging this sort of behavior. Encouraging. We're going to die. This is so you can stay here, babe. They're not paying a bill. This is your rent.

Now you're spinning your ass in a circle and talk to Morris. The ghost wants you gone, Yeah, literally we're doing this so you don't have to get out. But maybe this is why Lisa is the only one who the shower continues to run cold for. Oh. And Little Warren the dog never seems to fully recover from all the paranormal happenings. In fact, Lisa's final straw is when Warren starts doing that thing that cats do where they just stare at nothing. Like one day Warren refuses to stop staring at the basement door.

He won't allow anyone to drag him away. He starts yelping if Lisa goes anywhere near the door. And after hours of this. Lisa finally packs her bags and warns doggy bed and leaves. And Haley and Dennis never see her again. And that's basically our story. I do have some updates, but I wanted to ask, do you think Lisa is a villain or just a woman driven to the brink?

So I think both. I think Lisa has a low tolerance level. So I think she is driven to the brink of her tolerance, for sure. Like, I think her tolerance was like this. And she was, she tried as long as she could. I do think she was being a bit like a meany, meaning pants. And honestly, Lisa, you're kind of a bitch. So you could have just turned in a circle.

It's not that bad. Do you want hot water? Do you want your little dog to be fine? And Morris said, and your little dog too, you can get the hell out of my house. Literally. I just think a woman who loves Excel spreadsheet shouldn't try to become a stepmom. No, you want order. Like you can't.

And I feel like a family, let alone a blended family can be very chaotic. And also... With a preteen? She didn't... I was just about saying she didn't get into the teenage years of having a stepdaughter. So she should have just packed her bag

a long time ago. Yeah. Well, the updates are... Oh, God. About a month or two after Lisa moves out, George invited Miss Sapphire back just to have a check-in with Morris. He and the kids hadn't heard anything

from Morris in a while. Like, not even a slam kitchen cabinet and they were honestly kind of sad about it. They miss him. So George was happy to hear that Morris had, in fact, not moved on yet. yet, but he was just content.

He's happy. He's happy. George had continued his reading on local ghost lore since that faithful basement trip, and he was curious about the color of his aura at this point. And according to Miss Sapphire, their aura is matched, like two twin flames. And that is how George starts dating Miss Sapphire. Once Haley and Dennis move out, George starts accompanying Miss Sapphire and her ghostly adventures as a spectral videographer. Wait, no, he got back to his witchy rudes.

George, look at you. And our very last update. One day when Haley and Dennis are all grown up and George and Miss Sapphire are out on the road, Haley and Dennis are catching up on the phone. It's close to Halloween, and Haley brings up Morris the Ghost. And for the first time,

Haley notices that Dennis looks a little sheepish. And this is when, finally, over two decades later, Dennis confesses. He's like, I have a secret. That faithful day. when the boiler broke, Dennis was deep in his Pokemon phase, and instead of spending time with like Charzard and jigglypuff and squirrel, as was his God-given right as a child in the 90s, he had to follow his dad down into the gates of hell. So he decided to have his own little fun.

He made the whole thing up. He had simply come up with the name Morris on the spot, and the fact that it matched the name of the man who died in their house was a freaky little coincidence. Dennis swears Haley to secrecy. So to this day, George still does not know the truth about old man Morris, although it is worth pointing out, to this day, no one is quite sure just how Miss Sapphire knew the name Morris. And that is the end of our story. Or the neighbor that they went to after.

He said that. Do you think Dennis just accidentally tapped into the astroplane and Morris is real? I think that Morris is real. And I also think that sometimes, it's like when you meet somebody or like we do this all the time when you look at each other and you're thinking the same thing and you say the same thing I think that we are all attached to a collective consciousness

that we can only access if we are really like into it and I think that he truly was like I'm gonna make something up and then Mr. Morris said watch this watch this you think you about to make something up watch this watch this baby I'm about to change your life I'm about to change your life because think about being Dennis and this lady's

says, oh, his name is Morris? I know. And you're like, this shit's crazy. I know. I have chills. I'm scared. Miss Sapphire knows too much.

She got her a man, so there you go. She got everything she wanted out of it. I do wonder if Miss Sapphire perhaps conspired with Morris to be like, we got to get this bitch out of here. You know what? Game recognized game. game I'm get a bitch out of here.com LLC. Get her out of here.

Pack her bags. What do we got to do? And she got paid? And she got a man in a house? Miss Sapphire. I'm a fan of your work, girl. I'm a fan. The divin that you are, Miss Sapphire. Can you imagine? Coming to the door like that with the silver chains on?

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You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at NormalGossip. You can follow me on all social media at Hey Dene. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at Defector Media to watch today's episode. Normal Gossip is written by me, Rachel Hampton, and J. Tolviera. This podcast was produced by Sierra Spragley Ritz and J. Tolviera. Our audio engineer is Samantha Gatsit. Emily Cherish is our video editor. Theme music composed by Rishi Kesheir Way.

The co-creators endowered your queens in Normal Gossip are Kelsey McKinney and DeFectors' supervising producer Alex Tujong Laughlin. Justin Ellis is Defector's Projects Editor. Jasper Wang is DeFectors Business Guy. Tom Lay is our editor-in-chief. This season was made in memory of Dan McLeod, who ran our merch store, which you can find at NormalGossip. Store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art. Thank you to Brandy Jensen, David Rock.

Catherine Shoe, Sabrina Embler, Chris Thompson, Dave McKenna, Patrick Redford, and Ray Roddo for your help with this season. 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 didn't hear this from me.