Normal Gossip - Prank Sinatra with Jenée Desmond-Harris and Joel Anderson

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

We're BACK for season TEN and more than ready to be petty! We brought Jenée Desmond Harris back, along with her husband Joel Anderson, for some gossip about a mom who just can't quit pranks.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

Try Hard is back with a new season featuring conversations with Ingrid Nielsen, Anna Sale, Rishi Kesheirway, Alexander Chee, and so many more guests. This season, host Alex Sujong Lothlin, is diving into guest tryhard moments, the big decisions, the pivots, and the leaps of faith that came to define their lives. Alex will be talking to an OG lifestyle influencer who decided to leave her YouTube career behind her, an author who chose to write the book he wanted to write instead of the one editors wanted, and a fancy pants business consultant who stepped off the career treadmill to do something radically different. Each of these episodes digs into the powerful stories we tell about ourselves. And what every guest has in common is that they've asked themselves the same question. What if I told a different story? Listen to Try Hard from Defector Media wherever you get your podcast.

Oh my God. Oh my God. What? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, wow. Oh, my gosh. What?

Hello and welcome to season 10 of normal gossip. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton. And in each episode of this podcast, we're going to bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. That's right, y'all. We are back, baby, and better than ever. I cannot believe how long it's been since I've communed with y'all, my little flock of gossip birds. I've missed being in the gossip kitchen, whipping up fresh treats for all of us to enjoy. And look, I'm already back to mixing metaphors. Then you miss me? Before we get in today's, lovely little gossip treat, we've got some major announcements, as you just heard me say, today's episode marks the beginning of the 10th season of normal gossip.

The season felt so far away when I took over back in December of 2024, but somehow we're here, and we couldn't not mark the occasion. For a while now, we've been thinking of this as our all-star season, a season where we not only bring you some of the wildest gossip to grace our inbox, but we also bring back some of our favorite guests, along with some new friends that y'all have been requesting for ages. So buckle the fuck up. You might have already noticed one of the ways we've chosen to celebrate our all-star season. Last year, our friends over at Radiotopia put on this event called the Radiotopia Mix Tope, which was kind of like a little white rabbit situation where we can

pose a little audio love letter to one of our fellow Radiotopia shows. Season seven guests, Rishi Kesheirway, and host of Song Exploder chose normal gossip. And he did us the huge honor of composing the new theme song you just heard. I was obsessed. from the moment I first heard it, and I'm truly so, so, so grateful to Rishi for not only making the song, but for allowing us to use it this season. So everyone say, thank you, Rishi. And finally, the last major change for this season is that normal gossip is now doing video. Yes, we have finally decided to join y'all in the modern world. So if you would like to watch this episode, head on over to YouTube.com slash Defector Media and check us out.

This isn't necessarily my first video rodeo, but I am very much still learning, so please bear with me as I learned to, like, actually look at the camera. And speaking of bearing with me, I do want to take just a short little moment to thank every single one of y'all for your kindness and grace while I was recovering these past few months. If you listen to last year's finale, you'll know that I was diagnosed with Bell's palsy in the week between Christmas and New Year's, which definitely forced us to adjust the end of our production schedule. more importantly, it forced me to actually reckon with what I need to make this work sustainable for me and for the normal gossip team, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate y'all giving us the space and time to do that. Just know that if you reached out over the past few months, I saw it and it meant the world to me. Okay, that is enough housekeeping for today. Let's get into the motherfucking gossip to kick things off right. I'd like to introduce the very first guest

of the season, Jeney Desmond Harris and Joel Anderson. Jeney Desmond Harris is a Slate staff writer and editor. She writes the Dear Prudence advice column and previously worked at the New York Times. You may remember her from the season seven episode of normal gossip, romancing the stone. Joel Anderson is a senior staff writer at the Ringer and a co-host of the press box and ringer tailgate. He most recently worked at Slate where he hosted seasons three, six and eight of the award-winning slow burn narrative podcast series. And in addition to being lovely and talented individually, y'all should probably also know that Jenae and Joel are married, which makes them our very first guests that are a couple. Jenae, Joel, welcome.

Man. It's so good to see you. This is like a slate reunion, like, you know, meeting in there. What was that, a kitchen in the Brooklyn office? Oh, yeah. I would see you in there. I'd be getting my oatmeal or something and you'd be in there doing your thing. Yes.

So, yeah. I was always so excited to see you. Yeah, man, likewise. Well, usually I ask my guests what their relationship to gossip is, but you guys are actually the first married couple that we have had on the show. Wow. Really? Crazy.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. But you guys' presence made me want to ask, do you feel like being married to each other has changed your relationship to gossip at all? One thing is you have someone who always has to give you the gossip they have. Yeah. With like some exceptions, Dahl's pretty good about not telling stuff about his friends.

But I can like see it in his eyes when he's holding something back. But I respect it. Wow. You got to spec your bro. Yeah. You can't do that. That's not respectful. But he's not good at lying.

I mean, no, no, there's nothing to say. And it's like his eyes are really big. But in general, I credit it to us both being Geminize. We love to talk and analyze things, especially just kind of going deep on the emotional side of things. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking headline gossip. Yeah. But we're good for a lot of, oh, is she still like that?

How do you think she feels? And we can kind of go off something like that for a while. Yeah, yeah. We're just fascinated at people and how they interact with the world. And I think that that's where the gossip comes from. It's just like, wait, that person, they're no longer posting their husband on Instagram. Like, what are you things going on there? You know, they're posting them in six months.

What's happening? You know, that kind of stuff? And he's probably better than most. You know how men are stereotypically like, not good at gossip? And they say, my friend is getting divorced. And you're like, why? I don't know, I didn't ask any questions. He generally has, like, he has pretty good information,

although I sometimes have to prod to get a little more reporting. So I actually am a friend, when my friends get divorced, they call me to talk about it. I will keep the information that needs to be under lock and key, under lock and key. Oh, so maybe that's what's behind some of the I don't know. You actually do know. I mean, I don't need to say everything about everything, but, you know, like the broad strokes, you know, I'll tell you,

like if somebody cried while they were talking to me or whatever. So, yeah, I'm that person in my friend's life. Probably because you're a man who actually asked follow-up questions, which is hard to find these days. That's right. You know what? I'll take that, man. I remember in seventh grade, and man, this guy ended up becoming a prominent person

so I can't even say his name here. But he was struggling, man, and he would, like, come to me and just talk about all this problem. And so, like, I always used to say in college I had friendly on my forehead. I felt like people would unburdened themselves. to me. And so I do, I possess a lot of gossip that I never tell, but if I do have some stuff, I'm taking it to Jenaic. I mean, Jenae would have been a psychologist in another life. I could see that. I would have loved to, but I don't think that's a healthy approach to being a psychologist. You don't want to be a psychologist because you're like, I can't wait to hear all the bad, weird stuff.

That would have been my motivation. That would have been wrong. Well, you know, speaking of gossip, a little birdie told me that you have some gossip for me. And I'm so excited to hear it. I've been on here once before. Mm-hmm. And what is similar about this gossip and the gossip I shared then? Yeah. Is that it's a little bit less gossip and more a report on someone just having a lot of nerve and audacity.

That's a kind of gossip, right? That is definitely a kind of gossip. Joel and I have two kids, and this story takes place when we were getting ready to have our first kid. after a pretty long journey with like IVF and what have you, like a lot of medical intervention. And we were really wanting to just do everything right, you know, thought all the eyes, cross all the T's. So even though it was going to be a planned C section, we took all our friends' advice who said we would need a doula. Yeah. And I was like, sure.

I mean, before you have a kid, you don't know any. If someone tells you, you're going to be tired and miserable and confused and this person will make it better. you're like, okay, yes. Sign me up. And Joel decided to take on the task of finding the doula. If you read like Reddit threads on moms or expected moms, men are fucking up, duck, you know? And so I just always wonder, I don't want my wife to be the,

like, well, my husband did do nothing, you know, he didn't end. And so I was really big into like the division of emotional labor and all that other stuff. He read like one too many Atlantic articles about this. Not one too many. He read the right amount. And Joel is also very competitive. So his orientation toward being a new father was like being in competition with all the other fathers.

I love him want to help and also like I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. So like I wanted to like you know read up and be a part of it. This is my footnote is that Joel is someone who loves to hire a guy, gender neutral. Mm-hmm. He doesn't want to just go on Yelp or something. He wants like a hookup from his Twitter followers. He wants it to feel like a special connection and like he's found the very best person. It's a network. You got to work your network. Yeah, he wants to work his network to find the person.

If I need something done, like, why am I just going to accept whatever the algorithm shows me? Yeah. With the dula, I had a therapist in Oakland, a black woman. You know, she knew about all my concerns about being an expecting father. So she sent me this website where you could find all these doulas. And so I picked out, you know, five names, something like that. And just, you know, started calling and trying to reach out to me. people. And so I'll throw it back to you now, baby. And so we're getting closer and closer to the

due date. And he tells me that he's found someone and gives me the rundown of like her basic qualifications, which we don't know. The qualifications are she's a doula who lives near us. Yeah. And she is a person of color, which was also important. Yeah. You hear all these things about black maternal health and let's get someone in the room. Yeah, absolutely. Not going to perpetuate that. Yeah. And he's like, well, I've found her, but you should have a Zoom call with her to make sure that you like Makes sense. I called her and I'm talking to this woman. I'm like, oh, we're vibing.

Okay. I felt like, oh, like, this is a person. If she's going to come into our house in a really sensitive time, this is the kind of person I would want to be here. Like, she was cool. Yeah. So I log into my Zoom appointment at the agreed upon time. So she's like, hi, hi, I'm not going to say her name.

However, nice to meet you. And we go over the due date and any concerns I have. And she shares a little bit about her general philosophy, which, again, all sounds the same. Yeah. There were a couple of moments where I thought she came across a little forceful. For example, somehow the issue of Vaseline came up. I assume it had to do with like moisturizing the baby skin or maybe like circumcision healing. Yeah. And her eyes like narrowed and she was like, that is poison. You're putting petroleum on your baby. And I was kind of, again, I didn't have a lot of confidence. And I'm open to the more woo-woo earthy side of things. So I was like, okay. okay, well, I'm happy to use Shea Butter, whatever it is instead. Again, I thought, whatever. I'll do what you tell me to.

I just want to have this baby and keep it alive. Important. But she's starting as I'm looking at her to look familiar. And I'm asking myself, do I issue my high school classmate? Do I know her from somewhere? And I text Joel and I'm like, make sure you actually look at the screen because I think we know her. And so he comes on, oh, hey, and he says hi to her and he gets a look at her face. We wrap up the call with her.

and as we get off, we put together her image with her name, and we have a revelation. This is a famous person. Anyone in our age range would know her from... The way I'm going to be asking who this is after this recording is over. Yeah, we're going to tell you. But again, I don't want you to have a defamation suit on your hands. Thank you so much, and I appreciate that. Okay, but it sounds like you guys did not end up going with this dula.

We did. Oh, incredible. I mean, who are we to deny her the opportunity for a second career, right? And you're right. You can't be on your whole life. Yeah, it was years ago, too, at this point. You know, we looked at her website and it was like, I have such and such dual certification and such child care. We didn't look at the details, but it sounded like a good paragraph of, you know, experience.

And she came through a hookup through my therapist. We still need to ask about that. But we did decide to still go with her. She still seemed reasonable. We still, like, obviously are busy trying to get every put the crib together. We don't have time to go start from square one and do another duel search. Yeah, we vibe. Like, it was like, she was cool.

And it was like, all right. Yeah. So the due date gets closer and closer. She's told us that she's going to come see us at our home and get to know us. Then she will meet us at the hospital on the C-section date. Then she will come to our house the day we get sent home from the hospital and do whatever she does with her Vaseline alternative moisture. I think she said we haven't signed the contract yet because there's something going on with like the PDF situation on her in, but she said we have an agreement, right? I'll be there. We have an agreement. I'm so excited to work with you. Things are getting closer and closer. We're hearing from her less and she has not made the visit to our home. I'm getting nervous.

And we would text her to kind of check in. Oh, we haven't had like the conversation about the plan, the birth plan, second birth plan or any of the other stuff, but let us know. And we heard back from her once, like, I'm at a lot. a birth. You know, it was an emergency birth. And what can you say? Literally nothing. And then the big day comes. We go to the hospital at 4.30 a.m. or whatever it was. Keep in mind, we have a plus two. It's still kind of COVID era. We can have two other adults come. My mom is one and we have a spot for her. She's on the list. Yeah. We were already at the point where I was like, man, I feel like I'm bothering her. You know what I mean? It's like, the more that you reach out to them, it's like, oh, you don't trust me? You? You You know, what's the deal?

So I was just kind of like... And then there's a layer of like, is this because she's famous and she thinks we're just trying to get more attention from her? So we're in, you know, getting prepped or whatever. I'm like, can you text her and tell, ask her when she's coming? So he texts her and then I'm sedated or busy. Yeah.

I'm having a C-section and didn't get an update until I had the baby in my arms. And there's no Dula. And of course we're both very tired, very overwhelmed, very emotional. Yeah. She's not the first thing on our mind. but she is the person who's supposed to be there to help us manage everything, right? Yeah. I think we probably waited another like 12 to 24 hours before texting her again,

just because the nurses were so wonderful, right? Right. There wasn't a huge unmet need, but where was she? Especially as we got closer to all it's almost nighttime. Which is really scary because I'm like, man, you know, I've never done this before. I don't want to be, you know, whatever out of it. And so I'm thinking, well, she'll be here for this part, right? Yeah.

Once we got home, I was like, she'll just come to the house because that's when we won't have the nurses anymore. And that's when we'll really need her to figure out, like, how the hell we take care of this kid. I remember getting home, sitting on the recliner, having the baby and being like, can you text her again? Nothing. She didn't even say congratulations, man. No congratulations, no acknowledgement, no nothing. We never heard from her again. Again, that's it.

We never heard from her. She ghosted us. You got ghosted by your Dula? We got ghosted by a Dula. Anything could have happened. Luckily, everything was fine. Everything's fine.

But then we went and looked a little more into her website and Yelp reviews, like once we'd had a bit of sleep and everything. And she lied about everything. I looked back at that paragraph that talked about her 25 years of child care experience. That's impossible.

She's been on a million spinoffs of shows. She cannot have been doing Dula work that whole time. I think she counted her child care experience starting from when her daughter was born. Or maybe taking care of siblings or something like that. Oh, yeah, it's like the first time she babysat. Well, I'm a doula as the older sister of a brother who was born when I was nine. Yeah.

And to be fair, it didn't say she had 25 years of dual experience. It was like childcare experience. And then the kind of like certification she mentioned were not legit things, right? Like the water birth. Special certification, yeah. These weren't like professional bodies. And then her Yelp reviews. she's done this to other people.

She's ghosted multiple families. At least two other times. Oh my God, guys. That is an incredible story. I'm so sorry that happened. I'm so glad that everything turned out well. You know, we turned it okay. And for our second child, we did not hire a doula.

No doula. And you know what? That's real. Okay, well, now I have some gossip for you. Okay. That does involve children. Today's story is about a prank. And because it's normal gossip, I'm sure you will not be surprised to learn that is about a prank gone wrong.

But before we get into today's hijinks, I want to know what are your opinions on pranks? I feel like I have a vibe that Joel is maybe a bit of a prank apologist. But please let me know if I'm wrong. I don't feel like you do, you don't do a lot of pranks. No, that shit annoyed me. Really? I didn't like that foolishness. So I didn't praise a frat because I didn't want to have to be out in the woods,

naked with honey on my body trying to get out. And you know what? Trying to get beat up. No disrespect. Yeah. The craziest things that ever happened in my house, I had my homeboy come and stay with me when I lived in Oklahoma City. It was two of them.

And I'm in the bathroom. I don't know if I was taking a shower or if I was just, you know, having a moment. And all of a sudden, a bucket of ice comes over the top. dropped on me. While you're in the shower? Yeah, and I was so pissed. I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like 24. But I was like, bro, like, what are we doing here, man? Putting toothpaste in people's ear, like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not with that. So I'm not a prank person. No, it's too much. I have a couple of pranks that I'm proud of. Oh. So when I was a lawyer at a big law firm in D.C., there were a lot of people who I didn't like, mostly because I

didn't like the work. And I just resented being there. But in particular, I worked for one partner who was probably 60-something. And between the partner and me was a more senior associate, guy who was just a jerk, just always giving me assignments of the last minute, not explaining things, blaming me for things. Yeah. And I did decide I was leaving the firm to go pursue journalism, media, what have you. Yeah. In that period where I had a foot out the door, and I didn't care about them anymore, I really enjoyed myself. Oh, hell yeah. April Fool's Day came up, and I just decided to play a joke on the senior associate who I hated,

because he was wound up so tight, and his whole thing was always, like, wanting to please the partner he worked for and throwing me under the bus to make that happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I went to his office, and I was like, let's say his name was George. Jim told me to get you, and Jim was the partner we both worked for. And he's like, why? What is it? What is it? And I said, oh, the underprivileged children are downstairs in the conference.

conference room and you're going to be giving them a speech on how to become a lawyer. And he's like, his, I got lied. He completely, he's turned red. He started sweating. And I let him sweat it out for like a good five to seven minutes before I told him April Fool's. Yeah. But I just really enjoyed seeing that. So I guess I'd like a prank that someone deserves. Okay. So you're the prank apologist. Yeah. In this couple. Okay. I love that. I don't have that prank dog in me. I really, it's not an aversion. It's more that I simply never think. that far ahead. Yeah.

Also, you don't want to see people suffer. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't go that far. I host this show. Okay. That's true. Fair point. Fair point.

Well, this is not today's friend of a friend, whose name is Nina. And Nina's love affair with pranks began when she was just six years old on the most auspicious day of the prank calendar, April Fool's Day, exactly. When her older brother gave her what looked to be just like a simple. plastic whistle, which are, as I understand, the nightmare of parents in general. Because of the noise. Anything making a noise. Yeah.

Well, this whistle was special because instead of a piercing note, it let loose the sound of an outrageous fart. That's kind of cool. I kind of fuck with that. As you know, the funniest sound possible to any child under the age of like 13. And also, Joel. Yeah, I forget that. That's cool.

I like that. So for weeks, Anina Tara. her family. Anytime someone would sit down, there she was with the whistle and a fart and a gleeful shriek of April fools. Fart, April fools. How many days before this fart whistle goes missing in your household if one of your children gets one? I'd probably let him have it for a good two days and get tired of it. Or they would get tired of it first. I think he'd bring it in the house, use it, then I try to hide it. I think I don't want to deal with that no more. Yeah. Nina's parents lasted like two and a half weeks. Good for them. All right. Tolerance. Yeah. And then they explained that April Fool's

jokes had a time limit. Usually a day. That's funny. That's true. Yeah. But it was too late. The prank was out of the bag. Nina was infected by the prank bug. And Spencer, her older brother, was thrilled to have someone to share in this particular mental illness with him. So the year after the fart whistle, Nina and Spencer learned how to peel labels off of canned goods and like replace them. Wow. Wow. What this met is that for months, Nina and Spencer's mom, Gloria, would be like opening a can of black beans for taco night and end up with a can of clam chowder. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. I was, oh, man, I was just thinking about how frustrated that would be.

Oh, my God. This one actually kind of backfires on Spencer, who as the oldest is usually the one who is blamed for ring leading. To this day, Spencer still shudders when he remembers the night his mom made him eat clam chowder tacos. Oh, wow. As the baby of the family, Nina had it really good though. And I got to say as a younger sister, there's nothing better than blaming something on your older brother. My older brother remembers to this day a time when I drew on the wall in his bedroom and he took the blame for it so I wouldn't get in trouble, which is very sweet. Shout out to you, DJ.

Your brother took the charge for you, for real? He did. He still talks about it. That's amazing. I don't does this like that. I want to be like that, but it would be nice if he would. I was going to ask you guys. I feel like your kids are.

little young to be pulling pranks at this age. So this is a hypothetical. But as parents, do you think you'd be able to tell when one child was taking the fall for the other? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah? Yeah. Well, I don't know. Des hasn't gotten to the age where he's ever tried to lie yet. He doesn't know how. Yeah. That's so cute. I imagine he would love to do pranks. Yeah, he would. He's going to love pranks. I mean, speaking of farts, he has a whoopee cushion. Yeah. Where he puts it on the ground and says, mommy, is it okay if I sit right there? And I have to say yes and act like, I don't see it. And then I'm surprised when there's a part zone. It's like, oh my God, where'd that come from? Well, this dynamic between Nina and Spencer reaches its apex when they're in high school

at the prestigious Sweet Briar Academy, which, like, if you're imagining the high school rivals of like a rag-tag group of misfits from a 1990s high school movie, that's what Sweetbrier is giving. Nina and Spencer's family, of the St. Clouds are actually black sheep at Sweetbrier because their money is not generational. They are new money. Papa St. Cloud is a partner at a big fancy law firm, but his dad worked on the factory floor. All of this means that once Nina and Spencer enter high school, the focus of their prank war shifts from their parents to their hoity-to-oity school and all of its stuck up inhabitants.

But you can only get away with listing the school for Salem Cregs list for so long. That's a good one too. Maybe I'm a plank apologist. That's what I guessed when I came in here. But, you know, well, know by the end of this episode. The night before swim meet against Crestwood Prep, also known as the Battle in Toads, Spencer and Nina pulled their allowances and bought hundreds and hundreds of plastic frogs that they released into the school's Olympic-sized pool. Wow. But they didn't just stop there. They put plastic frogs in the drinking fountains.

They put plastic frogs in the toilets. And even in the sink in the faculty lounge. Would you be impressed if your kids pulled this off? Yeah, it's funny because it's like a really good joke. But in this day and age, with like all the cops in schools, it's either a joke or it's a felony conviction. Internally, I'd be like, you know, y'all kind of show it out, man. I'm probably appreciate that.

But publicly I'd have to be like, y'all really can't do that, man. You just don't know how it'll be received. But it is, I think I would like the personality of a kid who wanted to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And these kids were convinced that they would get away like Scott Free. They were like, the other school's going to be blamed for it. It's going to be completely fine.

Oh, because the frogs were the other schools mask. Exactly. Exactly. And they even scoped out the school. They know that the school is rich. So they're like, they're going to have cameras. We know where the cameras are at. These are prank professionals.

They had it all planned. Except they missed a camera. And it was one that wasn't even really supposed to be there. Someone had been stealing lunches out of the faculty fridge. So one of the teachers had set up a little nanny cam. And this is how Spencer gets caught. Oh, man. And he is the only one caught on tape because Nina was waiting in the hallway.

So once again, Spencer takes the fall. Oh, man. The morning of the swim meet against the battle and towed, Spencer has to clean up every single frog on campus, all 350 of them. He is suspended for two weeks. And the principal swears that if he ever sees the name St. Cloud on anything except the honor roll, or a diploma, there will be hell to pay. Do you think this is an appropriate punishment? I think suspension is dumb.

Say more. I mean, you've done something at school, so you're going to go sit at home unsupervised and not get an education. Cleaning up the frog, sure, but yeah, not the suspension. And I don't think the principal should threaten to retaliate later. Like, let it be done, let be over, you know? Yeah, you would have to talk to me about that.

Like, hold on, bro, what did you say to my kids? Yeah. In Catholic school, the punishment, you had to sit, basically like in school's suspension. They call it Penance Hall. Yes. Mm-hmm. I got Penance Hall during a Saturday Penance Hall.

So you were already there for Penance Hall, and then you got another one? R.I.P. Brother Casey. But I don't like the way he was talking to me. Yeah. We were sweeping under the stadium. I threw the broom. I didn't like the way he was talking to me. I was like, oh, fuck, I'm not doing this shit, man.

So then I got P.A. My high school experience is that I got 10 P.Hs as a sophomore. And up to my senior year, I got like 30. It didn't get better for me. I just know you were that bad. Yeah. My parents, I mean, you guys were my mama, she was standing. She said, I had to go up there.

She had to go up there. She had to go up to the school. Yeah, she had to go to school. Well, Nina and Spencer managed to finish out their high school careers without any more incidents after this. Like, under the threat of expulsion, they're like, you know what? We're okay on this. And once they graduate, they both swear that they will never be caught dead on Sweet

Briar Grounds ever again. So for about 15 years, Nina's love affair with. Pranks is dormant. It helps that she goes into a field that is not really known for its prankishness, data science. Okay. And as the daughter of an epidemiologist, I'm allowed to say that statisticians are not known for their 15-minute type 5 routine. I would thought they would need a release, to be honest, but maybe not.

They're doing Sudoku for release, Joel. It's really a problem. Oh, man. That's a motherfucker. Yeah. Okay. This is how Nina ends up meeting her husband, Liam, who is also a data scientist. They're set up by a mutual friend who's like, you guys are the only stats nerds I know who are actually funny.

So you guys should get along well. Liam's humor is more on the dad joke side of the spectrum, but this means that Liam and Nina have like a beautiful Venn diagram and like right in the middle as physical comedy. So they spend a lot of time watching compilation videos of people falling down. So not funny to me. Oh yeah. I tried to get here to watch this video. two guys jumping off a house into a table. Yeah.

She's not with it, man. That and like, what did you still? Like, people fighting animals? Like, people fighting like a kangaroo. Oh, yeah, I love that kind of stuff. I don't get it. I just don't. Okay. So this dynamic of having different kinds of humor is familiar.

Mm-hmm. I want to ask a kind of controversial question, which is, who is the funny one in your household? Oh, Joel's a funny one. No. Yeah. No. Of course you. It's okay to say that. It's not sexist to say that. You're the funny one.

I know when things are funny. I'm not necessarily the person, like, producing the comedy, but I can identify something hilarious. See, I think your humor is good if it's mean. If she can be cruel or something to say something mean, no, no, no, no, what I'm saying? If you're going to make fun of somebody that deserves it. It kind of lines up with my prank philosophy. Like, I wanted to hurt that guy. I wanted to make him uncomfortable.

She can really do it. I'm a lot more. Generous? Yeah, than that. Good natured. Yeah. Well, I would say not gender. No, I'm just saying, but I don't, you know, goofy.

Goofy. Yeah. I like Anchorman. I like Talladega Nights. Oh, yeah. I like Napoleon Dynamite. Oh, God. Oh, Lord. I hated that movie. Oh, my God. I was like, I never get to watch Napoleon Dynamite again. I mean, you can watch it whenever you want, but I don't understand any of that stuff. Well, at the time that our story takes place, Nina's in her late 30s, and she has two children of her own. And I think if there is one thing children do, it is surprised their parents.

Or at least this is what Nina is thinking one day, when her sweet daughters, who have not an ounce of, of prankishness in their tiny little bodies, and who are, in fact, very business-like. They sit her and Liam down. They present a color-coded slideshow, arguing in favor of their one most desperate wish in the world, which is to attend none other than Sweet Briar Academy. Wow.

What? Okay. I have complicated feelings about every school that I went to, which is why I'm not a parent. But would you feel any type of way about your kids wanting to attend any of the schools that you went to? Oh, yeah, I desperately want my kids to go to Howard, desperately. But I won't say it because if I make too big a thing of it, then they won't.

If my kids wanted to go to my high school, that would actually disappoint me. I feel like I emerged from the experience without a fun school experience, but like it hardened me. It made me smarter. You know, I had to learn, but I wouldn't want my kids to do that. I like the way that Jenae describes her school experiences. Like, I want them to have that. The reality is that the options for middle and high school in Neonestown are kind of mediocre. So Sweetbrier is the best option. So assuming money is not an issue here,

would you let your children go to the hoity-to-o-o-o-a-school that you hated? Well, this is a very broad statement. I'm sure I would have lots of exceptions to it in my own life, but in general, I lean toward a kid going to high school where they want to go. Yeah. It's such an important time of life, and happiness is so fragile, and friendship is so important, and it's tough. And if you can be in a physical environment, a social environment, that for whatever reason you like, sure. Yeah. Know your kid. And this is like, yeah, if you, if this is what you really want to do, then I'm not going to stop me. Nina is on the same page, which is how she finds herself sitting through her own personal hell, the annual Sweet Briar Academy School fundraiser. Oh, man. You might be asking, what could a school as prestigious as Sweetbrier Academy possibly need money for? They have so many high-earning alumni, none of which have ever been investigated by the SEC or mentioned in indictments with words like money laundering or.

the Cayman Islands. The year that our story takes place is the same year that Sweetbrier decided to build out their marine biology program. Oh. Because every teenager and younger wants to be a marine biologist. Yeah, man. Yes, exactly. Is Sweetbrier located in a state that is entirely landlocked with no coast to speak of,

not even a peninsula or a great lake? Yes. That doesn't matter, though. They can build their own. Exactly. At this fundraiser, Sweetbrier's principles says to the room of parents, you can't put a price tag on your children's future, ladies and gentlemen. Convincing. It is. It speaks to your soul. Yeah. And then he proceeds to go through a PowerPoint presentation that labeled the cost of the aquarium,

the fish being flown in from Australia and New Zealand, even the artificial seawater treatment plant. Wow. Something important to note is that the story takes place in the world where QR codes have taken over all of our lives. So instead of using a checkbook to donate, Sweetbrier, parents, and alumni are encouraged to go to this QR code to donate. I'll just interrupt and say I'm impressed that Nina was even at the fundraiser. No, it's true. She could have skipped. She wants to be involved. She loves a kid. And now she's an alumnus. So now you can kind of work shit and bend shit to your favor. Yeah. Yeah. You got to have a seat at the table if you want to change things. As you might be able to guess, Sweetbrier Academy attracts a specific kind of parent, the one who says that money talks but wealth

whispers. And this is why there is a second screen in the auditorium that is purely dedicated to donating the donation amount. So with every new donation for the Marine Biology program, there is a name and a donation amount that gets displayed because it's such a quiet little whisper of wealth. And amid all these quiet little whispers of wealth, Nina feels a familiar urge start to rise, one that has been dormant for over a decade now. She's feeling an urge to pull a prank. Nina's like, wouldn't it be so funny to do a donation under a fake name? And it does not take long for Liam to be right there with her. He is immediately like, oh, like Hugh G. Rection?

Yeah. Don't pretend. You don't like that kind of camera. I mean, don't, you know, courtesy laugh. I got it. I'm just acknowledging that I get what he was going for. Yeah. Nina's like, exactly, babe.

I love where you're going with that. We got to be smarter than that, though, because she's like, this prank cannot be connected to me. We have children now. I simply cannot be a ringleader. And Liam's like, you're right. We can't donate from our own phones. So we have to find someone to call. We have to find an accomplice who's willing to do this for us.

And in the end, Nina's like, there's only one person I would want to take the fall for me. And it is her brother, Spencer. That's right. In the year since the plastic frog prank, Spencer has translated his love of, goofs and physical mischief into a career as a rock climbing instructor. This maybe helps explain why when Nina calls him from the Sweet Briar Fundraiser, he is immediately down to clown, though not before asking what's in it for him. Nina's like $25 and revenge served cold, which is more than enough for Spencer.

Is that enough for you guys? Would you do this for Nina? I'm too scared of technology and making mistakes with technology. Yeah. I wouldn't trust myself to do anything involving a QR code, a phone. I would think it would be like traceable. This is not the path I would choose. It's just I need to know how close I am to my. It sounds like they have a lovely brother-sister relationship.

And so that probably would nudge me in the end. If you, it's like, how important is this to you? Okay. But my thought is there's so many ways things can go wrong that you don't even think of. Yeah. That it scares me from doing stuff. Well, Nina returns to the auditorium. She tells Liam that Spencer is in, so all they have to do is wait.

So they wait and they wait through donations from like the Kensington family and the Wickham Stokes family and whatever the fuck is going on. And then there it is. A $100 donation from your mom right up there on the big screen for the entire Sweetbriar auditorium to see. That's what he chose, your mom. The room erupts in laughter and Nina feels the familiar thrill of like a perfectly executed prank.

The Sweetbrier Principal who is still talking about like the importance of a strong childhood foundation in marine science is like, okay, I think we've had our fun here, ladies and gentlemen. And Nina's like, I sure the hell hope not. And her dreams are fulfilled because a few minutes later, a $100 donation to the school from Onlyfans rolls across the screen. That's a better one. That's a good one. Yeah. This one does not go over nearly as well. Nina hears a small child asked, Mommy, what's OnlyFans?

Nina is like ecstatic. This dopamine hit is going to last for at least three weeks. And best of all, she got off clean. She's like there's nothing to link back to me. She sends Spencer his money and she texts him a thumbs up. Like, best $25 I ever spent. You guys kind of already told me what you think of this prank. But I kind of feel like donating like $300, $275 for a prank is a lot.

They still got my money. They still got my money, man. It was temporary embarrassment. Yeah. And I gave you money on top of the money. I'm giving you again. What would have been funny would to pretend to be a big donor to the school, set up a meeting with the principal, and then the link goes to OnlyFans instead of Zoom.

And they now have that on their work computer and have to answer for it. The OnlyFans was good. I was also thinking, like, the Central Tennessee Abortion Fund. Something like that. Yeah. I mean, the important thing is that she felt resolution. And she closed the loop on this whole experience. And I bet going forward she felt better about being a part of that school community

because the score had been even to her. Oh, yeah. She spends the next few days just like writing this sweet dopamine hit. She's just giggling about, mom, what's only fans as she's like cleaning up data sets? But then one day Spencer calls her and it is very clear that he is not happy. Spencer is like, Nina, how did you manage to get me in trouble again? I knew it was traceable. Spencer's like, they emailed me at my.

job about your dumb prank. And he explains that he had received an email from none other than Sweet Briar administration about an inappropriate donation. I'm not going to read the whole email. But the most important part is the last paragraph, which reads, furthermore, our staff and administration are aware of your history of disruptive behavior and damage to the reputation of this community and its student body. Wow. What? Your past and current actions demonstrated a shocking lack of morals that are not becoming of a Sweetbrier alumnist. Should we find any more evidence of your wrongdoings, we will refer the matter to local law enforcement. Wow.

Man, that's what I was afraid of in the beginning. That's some ho shit, man. Before I get to Nina's response, any immediate thoughts or feelings about this email besides that's some ho's shit. What did they do? Google his name. I mean, how did they trace him back to the other incident? Have they remembered this the whole time? What?

These schools are small communities. That's right. And those names, it's like somebody that went to school there was a teacher that works in, you know, administration now. And they're like, man, is that Spencer? That family, they're, you know, full of shit. Yeah. So that's what happened, I bet. Well, all Nina can think is sucks to suck loser.

Because not only was her name not mentioned a single time in the email, but her married name, Jefferson, means that she cannot be connected in any way to her idiot brother. So Spencer's like, what if I get fired over this? And Nina is like from your job at the climbing gym. But instead of that, she says, that's rough Spence. And then she's like, how did they even find your phone number? Because remember, Spencer donated over a QR code on his phone. And Spencer's quiet for a moment before he's like, isn't that normal to have your phone number public on your LinkedIn?

What? Nina's like, make that private? Also, why do you have a LinkedIn? You're a climbing instructor? Also, I'm just like your phone number on That's crazy. Because I have a hard time finding emails on LinkedIn. Right.

You know what I mean? Where would he even put it? I don't think there's even a space for it. No, he had to add it in somewhere in one of them. It's in his bio. Yeah, that's crazy. Well, Nina reassures her brother that it is not an actual crime to make dick and ball jokes in a PowerPoint presentation for rich parents.

But I kind of want to turn this into a Dear Prudence question. Okay. So, imagine someone writes in, Dear Prudy, I decided to pull a prank at a fundraiser for my children's school by donating under the name your mom and only fans. I think this is totally harmless. Still, I made sure to get my brother to send the donation so my name wouldn't be attached. But then the school emailed him at his job about it. Should I come clean?

Should I let my brother fall on the sword? Or should I carry the secret to the grave? I think we have to wait and see what happens with the local law enforcement part of things. Because if nothing is actually going to happen to the brother, then you just owe him a nice dinner out, a gift, more money, the co-pays for his therapy sessions, whatever, to make up for the emotional toll of this. But nothing really bad has happened to him,

so it doesn't make sense for her to take the hit if he's not actually going to suffer as a result or have a really serious legal problem because then, you know, they're going to kick her daughter out of school. Yeah, exactly. And she really cares about their experience and they're innocent here, right? Yeah. So I think, like, right up until the point

where her brother is served with some kind of legal paperwork, there's no reason to come clean. Well, a few weeks passed and no one gets any more threatening emails, all seems well. Nina is starting to feel good. She's maybe even planning another prank. When one day her mom, Gloria, is waiting for the girls in the Sweet Briar pickup line,

and Gloria sees a UPS man come out the admin building, and he is, like, visibly freaking out, because the Sweetbrier parents have blocked the UPS man into the loading dock with their cars, and my man has got packages to deliver. For most people, the response to this would be not my problem, but not for Ms. Gloria. She pulls her car out to make space.

She encourages the other parents waiting in the pickup line to make just enough space for this UPS driver to back his truck out. Gloria's like, my good deed is done for the day, until later that afternoon when she notices a small streak of brown paint on her otherwise pristine silver Mercedes. A Mercedes that she had spent years talking about buying, in retirement. So Ms. Gloria does what any sensible woman does with the Mercedes, which is alert the proper authorities. In this case, the police, her insurance company, UPS headquarters, and the

principal's office at Sweetbrier, in that order. That's definitely somebody's mama. Nina doesn't learn about any of this until she arrives home later and her mom is recounting the story to her. Gloria is telling Nina that she alerted the school. And at this, Nina feels the blood drained from her fate. She's like, what do you mean you call to school? And Gloria's like, do you want some reckless UPS drive around your kids? I don't. And I minded the security footage for my insurance. But Nina is only concerned about one thing.

She's like, Mom, did you give Sweet Briar your last name? Oh. Oh. And Gloria's like, of course I did. Oh. And Nina feels her heart sink because if they know Gloria's last name, they know Nina's maiden name, which connects her to Spencer. Oh, no.

So, you're Nina. Your prank web might be unraveling. What do you do? Again, wait and see if they put it all together. Yeah. Because you never know if the admin who answers the phone has the information on the only fan's donation, the last names. Yeah. They could because like we're saying they, I guess it's a small community and they talk a lot, but I wouldn't assume a catastrophe is about to happen.

Yeah. And this is fairly harmless. Yeah. Like it's like, you know, you wouldn't think anything bad would come of it or whatever. because of that. I understand her anxiety about it, but I'm just kind of like, they're busy people too. It's not going to happen after this. Nina comes clean to her mom. She spills the beans about everything immediately. She does not have the ability to keep a secret at this point. She's like, ah, here are the donations, the only fans,

here's the email Spencer got, here's everything that happened in the past two weeks. And after asking Nina what exactly in OnlyFans is all Gloria can do is shake her head. She's like, wasn't it enough when Spencer nearly got expelled when you guys were kids? And Nina's like, it was all going perfectly until you told them your name. Gloria's like, Nina, you did not graduate from there in the Stone Ages. They know who you are. A week passes after this, a week where Nina feels her heart drop every time she checks her email. And she has just managed to convince herself that everything is fine when she gets a certified letter.

It's from Sweetbrier Academy, which is not that crazy they get made. from the school all the time. But this letter is different. The return address is the school's charitable organization, and on the envelope is two names. Two Nina Jefferson, it says. Oh. And under that, it says,

AKA Nina St. Cloud. Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, no. Nina's hands are shaking so much. She can't open the envelope, so it's Liam who has to pull out the letter, which is very long and on fancy, heavy stationary.

And in bold letters at the top of the letter, it says, incident report, donation board's sabotage. Once again, cannot read you the whole document, but this letter calls into question a troubling breach of decorum that sullied the image of Sweetbrier, a lewd and undignified act that required a comprehensive forensic audit of attendees social media accounts. At the end of this letter, it reads, our findings indicate that you attempted to perpetuate fraud through an accomplice. Your boyfriend. brother, Mr. Spencer St. Cloud, an individual with a known record of vandalism and malicious intent against Sweet Briar Academy.

Man, look, this is the Karen shit. These are super Karen. Yeah. Well, the letter ends with a request to join a Zoom meeting at 7 a.m. the next Monday morning to discuss restitution to Sweet Briar and in students and steps to settle the case outside of court. They're throwing around all this legal adjacent terminology, but it's not official. They're just saying things that sound really threatening.

There's no case. Yeah, they want them to be scared. Yeah, they want them to scare them. They're really trying to scare them. I'm sure it worked. Well, what are you doing if you received this letter? Are you going to the 7 a.m. Zoom meeting? No.

Give me a subpoena. But if you get on there, you don't have to say nothing, right? I guess you wouldn't have to. I mean, it's like, I'm curious what is this about? And then they start asking questions like, you can talk to my attorney, you know? That or not go at all. Yeah.

Next time I get a scary legal letter, I'm going to send it to you guys. So you can tell me what to do. You mean, they probably used AI to write that too. Oh, they totally did. Yeah. Make it seem more litigious. It probably has like, and honestly, what you did was really bad. Yeah.

Well, Nina immediately calls Spencer, who, sure enough, had received the exact same letter. And the two of them decide that they don't really have much choice. They feel like they have to do something they've never done up to that point, which has faced the music together. Nina is like simmering with rage at being caught red-handed over something so stupid as a marine biology program and a landlocked state. Meanwhile, Spencer is kind of happy that his sister is finally going to get in trouble because he's been taking the fall for their entire relationship. The day of the Zoom meeting, Nina makes sure to put on her best show. She puts on a little Brooks brother crewneck and some pearls.

She texts Spencer repeatedly to make sure that he is ready and not taking the call from the climbing gym. Did they prepare their story together? Well, when the time comes, Nina goes to the Zoom link. She sits in the waiting room and she sits. And just as she's wondering if she got the time right, she sees Spencer pop up on screen. And he's thankfully not at the climbing gym. He is wearing a bow tie for some reason.

But then someone else joins the call. And it's not the principal like Nina expected or even the president of the Sweet Breyer charitable organization. It's Gloria. Nina is like, oh my. God, how could this get any worse? They called my mom. She and Spencer are stunned. Spencer's like, Mom, what are you doing here? Did Sweet Breyer call you? And then Gloria is like, it doesn't feel so good, does it? She got him. I knew it. She got him. I was like, oh, yeah. That was good. Gloria, we forgive you

for using chat GPT to write the letter. Yeah. It worked. Oh, that got him. Oh, that's so good. She's like, my sweet, stupid children, I sent a letter. A whole lifetime of pranks and I am sick of it. Your life is yours to fuck up, but you are not going to jeopardize my grandchildren's education. That's really good. Would you take that off, Mimi, talking to you like that? I'd like to say I would. Yeah.

Yeah, I think I would know I deserved it in this situation. Yeah. Well, so the first email that Spencer received from the school actually was real. But once Nina confessed to her mom what was going on, Ms. Glory decided she had had enough. So she actually conscripted her granddaughters into helping her. They borrowed some stationary from the school and they set up a Zoom link because Lord knows Ms. Glory was not going to be able to set up a Zoom link on her own. Honestly, the hardest part was convincing the girls that pulling a prank on their parents would be fun.

And to this day, they're still like, pranks are stupid. But at least we get to go to school in peace. They have better things to do. Yeah. Exactly. They have marine biology to study. Right. Hopefully in a new lab. And that is basically the end of our story. I have exactly one update. But before I get to it, do you think there are any villains in this story? The principal. Yeah.

For holding that grudge and for just taking things to another level with being upset about this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's real. Yeah. And creating a culture of exclusion and snobbery and letting it exist for so many years. That's from the top down. I agree with that. Yeah, I mean, there's no villains. I mean, the one thing, I think I'll be with Nina is like, I mean, it's time to move on now. Do you know what I mean? Also, Nina, like, next time you feel motivated to do a prank, take 24 hours, sit with it

and workshop it with someone and think about the potential pitfalls. Don't just do it in this world. You can't be a good prankster if you're not, like, doing a little bit of planning and forethought. Jeanne is really good at talking people out of doing stuff or whatever. Like, she's, I mean, there's a bunch of tweets and stuff in my life. Well, speaking of. That's actually kind of a perfect segue into the update that I think Joel might love.

You don't know. So this update came actually after we emailed our friend of a friend to tell them that we chose their story. When we told them that we anonymized the prank donation name to only fans, their response was, quote, I might use that at the next fundraiser. I have a list going. An out-of-state friend will be donating, and I may add that. Oh my God. Let's come up with something better. She's a person that's got to get get back, man. She's scared because she'll hold something forever. I would tell her, don't just keep coming up with more weird, raunchy names.

Wait until a moment when you can do something that's actually really good. If you're going to risk them calling the cops on you again. You said, step your prank game up, Nina. Think bigger. To make it worth it. You don't understand that kind of comedy, though. So you're not a good judge of it. I think I understand it, but I don't appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at NormalGossip at Defector.com.

Or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 Gossip. If you love this podcast and want to support us, become a friend or a friend of a friend at support normalgossip.com. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Normal Gossip. 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 Kesheirway. The co-creators endowered your queens in Normal Gossip are Kelsey McKinney and Defector's supervising producer Alex Sujong Loughlin. Justin Ellis is Defector's Projects editor. Jasper Wang is Defector's Business Guy. Tom Lay is our editor-in-chief.

This season was made in memory of Dan McCafflin. who ran our merch store, which you can find at normalgossip. Dot Store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art. Thank you to Brandy Jensen, David Roth, Catherine Shue, Sabrina Embler, Chris Thompson, Dave McKenna, Patrick Redford, and Ray Roddo for your help with this season.

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