Normal Gossip - S1 Ep9: Season 1 BONUS: Your Family Gossip

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

We’re back with a special gossip treat for you! Kelsey is joined by Normal Gossip producer Alex Sujong Laughlin to react to YOUR family gossip stories. 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 Kelsey McKinney (@mckinneykelsey) and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin (@alexlaughs).

Hey, quick favor. We are conducting an audience survey. We'd be really grateful if you could take just a few minutes and answer it. Please visit survey.prx.org slash gossip to take the survey today. That's survey.prx.org slash gossip. Thank you. Mom's special smells are here and she's eating four bags of Cheetos. Hello, my little gossip fiends and welcome back to normal gossip, the show where we bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world, or in this week's episode, five anonymous morsels of gossip from the real world. Welcome to the first of two season one bonus episodes. Today is the family drama episode. We asked you to call to Voice Memo to email to carry your pigeon in your family gossip and you absolutely delivered.

We got calls about secret siblings, about family reunions, about your parents, your grandparents, your second cousin's sister's wife, and we are going to get into it. But first, I need to introduce you to my co-gossiper this week. Everyone say hello to Alex Sujan Loughlin. Alex, say hello. Hello. Our editor, Justin Ellis, is here too, but he's not on audio. He might jump in, I guess, if the gossip gets good enough, but we'll see. Anyway, if you follow us on any of our social medias, you already know Alex because she is often posting like super fun behind the scenes videos. Alex is the producer of the show. She is a genius. She is my friend. I am happy she is here. I'm embarrassed. Why are you embarrassed? Those are all facts.

This is very nice things all of a sudden. There's more nice things. Buckle up. In the next bonus episode after this one, where we answer some frequently asked questions and do a little more gossiping, we'll talk about how integral Alex is to this operation. But I just want to highlight up top here that we are a really small team. The company that funds this podcast is a small subscriber-based cooperative called Defector Media. The show does not have a whole production group with half a dozen writers and producers and a ton of financial backing. It's just me and Alex and our editor, Justin Ellis, and some friends at Defector Media who pitch in when we need an extra hand.

So the fact that I sound good and that this podcast is fun to listen to is all Alex is doing. Alex is the one who brought you the dreaded Colton sound, the chirping crickets on the camping trip, the girls singing karaoke in the season finale, and every other joyful sound that makes the show fun. And today she is here to join us as we go through five of the best family gossip stories y'all sent in. I have to say this is actually not my first appearance on Normal Gossip because I was in fact one of the drunken singing girls. Oh yeah, that's true. And I just remember that. Yeah, so you have actually heard my voice before. Yeah, just singing. Yeah. I did one thimble of wine. I was actually drunk. So you all have been sending in so many gossip stories about your

families and truly there were too many for us to play all of them. So we picked our five favorites and we're just going to go through and play them and Kelsey and I will react to them as we go. Kelsey, please feel free to pause if you need to react. Oh, okay. I'll feel free. Just gonna scream. Yeah, so this is this first story comes from Poppy and it's about her uncle. So my uncle married a woman who is my age and I found out through social media that he had a baby, was married to this woman and that also my friends from high school knew this woman because she went to elementary school with them. Let me pause. Pause. Okay, so a woman her age had a baby with her uncle and all her friends from elementary school

know this woman? I just don't understand how does she not know? I mean, I guess maybe she's not close to her uncle but it seems like she went to different high school. It seems as if they're in a small community if her uncle is with somebody she went to elementary school with. Okay, keep going. It is a long convoluted story but essentially my uncle lived in a part of Texas and did not keep in contact with my family. Over winter break for one year, I found out that my uncle had a secret Facebook. Going to his Facebook, I was able to locate a picture of his now wife. Okay, nice. I went to her Facebook and found out that we had mutual friends with someone who was my best friend when I was in high school. Okay. So I went to go talk to my best friend in high school saying,

hey, do you know this girl named and she said, what, why are you asking me that? And I said, oh, because I see her connected with my uncle's Facebook and she says, oh my god, is your uncle the old man? He's the old man. Okay. So this does answer some questions, right? Her best friend when she was in high school knows this girl from elementary school, right? So she must have gone to one elementary school and then not gone to the high school. Sure. The old man is just incredible. Is your uncle the old man? That is clearly like, it's like a nickname that the friend group has adopted to refer to this guy. It's like when you don't want to learn your friend's

boyfriend's name, so you call him like Skater Mike or something. It's like, but in this group, they're just only calling him the old man, which is, they can't be saying that to her face, right? I mean, they probably did not think that this would last, but they weren't wrong. Clearly. Okay. All right. I'm ready for more injected into my veins. So it turns out that they had had this like really secret love affair. They'd had a child. Married and my half of the family didn't know about it. And now they have two kids and they're still married. Hey, mom and dad, how did you meet?

The thing that is incredible to me about this is imagining what the family group chat must have been like after she found the secret Facebook page. The secret Facebook page. Did whoever her parent is who sibling the uncle is must not have known, right? Presumably. I don't know. So then you have to call your dad and be like, dad, what's up? Your brother's secret marriage. Your dumb brother's secret marriage. Some girl that's my age and has two kids.

Nightmare. The thing that's like, I just, it feels very chef's kiss is that like this man cared enough to keep the secret to get secret married and have a secret family and all that. But he also cared enough to have a Facebook presence to start. Like who wants to be on Facebook that badly? I just, okay. Like, yes, you're right. Because what's super weird about this is like you wanted to keep it a secret. I assume from a whole side of the family, since she didn't know. What kind of secret page? Is it a different name?

Like how, how, why are you setting up more than one Facebook page? Oh man. Like, oh, I'd like two passes to hell please. Like sign me up. Oh my God. Okay. The next story we have comes from someone named Josh and it is about his mom. So when I was a kid, um, my dad was pretty straight laced and definitely not okay with drugs whatsoever. Like didn't really drink much, but definitely like, you know, weed will kill you, all that sort of stuff.

Can we pause already? I need to pause. What I really like about this intro is the clarification of when I was a kid. My dad was pretty straight laced. Like I'm like, what happened? What happened to your dad? What's he up to? My mom didn't really seem to care as much. But regardless, one thing I remember as a child is that my parents' bathroom would occasionally smell kind of like a skunk or something. Like a weird smell, but you know, you don't know what that might indicate when you're a child. And so I looked at my mom and my brother and my dad. So like all boys except for my mom,

and it was this weird kind of skunky smell that only came from my parents' bathroom. So the conclusion I reached as a child was that that just must be what like periods smell like or like vaginas or something, something feminine, um, had that unique odor that I would smell when I like changed the trash or something in my mom's bedroom. This is Josh. Oh my God. I just, oh my God, I love it so much. This is like, oh, mom, it's been a period again. Eighth time this month. You're a sixth grader walking through the like gym locker room. Like wow, so weird that so many people have their periods recently. So stinky. Oh my God, it's, oh, bless his heart.

And I kind of kept that conclusion until late in high school and finally, you know, I had some friends who were smoking weed and I was like, hey, that smells like my mom's bathroom. You know, wait a minute. So yeah, I've never really said anything about this to my parents, but my assumption is my mom must have had some sort of secret stash around somewhere. Justin, please, what do you need to say? Justin is here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for interjecting, but we actually need to go back because like he says what he changes the trash or something in his mom's bedroom. So is he saying that as a child, he's doing like, it's sure he's doing chores, but he's doing this forensic detective work. It is pretty funny to think about like, I think it's a pretty common chore, right, to be like

my child will get all the trash from all the small trash cans and put them in the big trash can. And like it's very funny to be like a lift, think about a little kid lifting that small trash can and being like, oh, it smells like periods and you know, one time I was, I was babysitting a very small child as a boy, a small child boy and he came up to me with like a handful of tampons and he said here and I said, oh, thank you. And he said, these are my mom's sticks for her butt when she bleeds. And like, you know, he knows more, I think about menstruation than many boys learn. I wouldn't know I'm not a boy, but you know, Justin, yes. Okay, as a boy who was raised by as representative from Boys Town, who was raised by a single mom, I'm just going to say

right now, Josh is doing way more forensic work. While being kind and maybe like some sort of proto baby feminist, but like, there's so many layers of jumping to here that I don't think I ever, ever really got to. And I'm just saying, before I took health class at high school, I would have not been like, oh, you know what, this was probably because my mom is menstruating, and it is per cycle. And I need to respect that. Anyways, this is incredible, because also the fact that he's like, my dad was really straight laced. I have like several questions about that, right? So like, is this a front that your parents were putting on in order to discourage you from using drugs as a child seems like yes. But the other option, which is funnier, is to consider that his dad also just

assumed that that is what women smell like. And the mom is just like, so much smarter than everybody in the house. She's like, my lady smells. Mommy's special smell. It's my time of the month again. I've had a hard day. Time to retreat to my period in chamber. She's just roaming through the kitchen, pawing at snacks, and she's like, oh, mom's been having a real bad period, fellas. I'll take you to McDonald's tonight. We should get out of my house. Mom's special smells are here, and she's eating four bags of Cheetos. Oh, I'm crying. Jesus. Okay. Thank you, Josh. What a blessing this story is. We got tears. Okay, our next story comes from a friend named Rosie, and it's a doozy.

So this is the shortened version. Essentially, my mom, I know I said cult in the email title, and I think it is, but you might disagree. My mom is a next Mormon. I was raised Mormon as well. Safe to call that a cult. You know, they married very young in the LDS faith, and so my mom got married when she was 19. She had a horrible relationship with my father. They divorced many years later. Just around the time that I came out, actually, I came out as a lesbian. Extremely rude to overshadow your big moment by being like, I'm coming out. Divorce. Divorce. We're getting a divorce. Whose life event is bigger? Continue. But then like a few months later, my mom also came out, and I was like, okay, dramatic. Oh, I'm so happy for the mom.

This is creepy. I'm happy for your mom. Agree. Okay, continue. Let me live. But she came out, and then fairly soon after, she started dating this other woman who was also an ex-Mormon and going through a divorce with her husband at the time. Sorry, the fan heat has just turned on. And so they both sort of moved in together and then started dating because I guess lesbians are like that. Anyway, years go by. We move house. They break up. That's not the main T right now. So my mom is a teacher. And just as we sort of move to this new place, she gets a new job at a new school. And at this new school, she befriends the PE teacher. I'm imagining, well, I hope it's a woman and I hope there's love, but also I imagine this

isn't going to go well. PE teachers have like two forms, right? It's like either you're just like love sports or you're like, and used to play sports and we're really good at them, or you're just like extremely hot. And it's unclear to me like which group this person is going to be in. Do you know what I'm talking about? Neither of you know what I'm talking about. No, I was imagining Ms. Trunchbull from Matilda. Oh, yeah, that makes more sense. What I'm imagining is like every PE coach I ever had was like, used to be a college softball player and was just like excellent. It was a great coach. And then we also had great coaches, but they were like much younger. Why are you shaking your head? No, my dynamic at all. I mostly have like creepy dads.

No, that was those were my PE teachers. I don't think I had any dude PE coaches. Wow. Lucky. You know, they start chatting and just hanging out after school, you know, going to the pub for drinks or whatever, hanging out for games nights in a group, wholesome, friendly fun. Excuse me while I relight my cigarette. Oh my god, icon. Icon. Rosie. They're having, you know, cute wholesome fun. And at these gatherings, the PE teacher brings her longtime girlfriend and my mom really hits it off with the PE teacher's girlfriend. Really hits it off. But the PE teacher and this woman have been together for like seven years. They live, they live together. They have an apartment together.

Like they have caps. It's a whole thing. But my mom and this woman are really starting to hit it off. And like I said, this is the shortened version. But at the minute, my mother is embroiled in a lesbian love triangle drama. Like this PE teacher, like it goes so deep. She found out that something was going on and this woman just won't break up with her girlfriend for some reason. Anyway, like I'm, I'm on my mom's side because she's my mom, but also I'm like you. I do think it's like kind of rude that she's like, oh, I came out as a lesbian. And then my mom also came out as a lesbian, which is very dramatic. And now she's embroiled in a lesbian love triangle. Like it's kind of rude that your mom just like usurped any amount of romantic drama you could

have within like two years. Well, something I'm wondering is that it sounds as if they are both adventuring into their sexuality at the same time. They're kind of coming of age at the same time. I wonder if they are trading notes, if they are sharing anything like like is Rosie like her mom's lesbian coach? Are they doing it separately? Like, you know, is Rosie sharing TikToks with her mom that are like, you know, you're the things about we have a lot of questions culture that you need to know. Incredible. Oh man. Yeah, I have so many questions. So the story is from Victoria. And it is about her sister. My sister was about 21, I believe. And she was dating her high school boyfriend of about four,

five years. They broke up once, but very shortly after got back together. And she was looking at home and just kind of wanted to change the scenery. So she decided she wanted to go nanny abroad and be in Alpair for a few months. I feel like I have heard dozens of people talk about doing this and no one ever actually do it. I've never met anybody who has done this. It seems a little like a fake job, like the kind of job like architect where you like don't know anybody who does it. Like architect. I mean, like, the job of an architect is something that is overrepresented in pop culture. And like, magazine editor. Well, I know a lot more magazine editors than architects. But that's because that's my fault. Whatever. You're right, though. The Alpair is like a classic

romcom trope of like, Oh, no, I'm nannying. And possibly go to this floristry school while she was there. Oh, she could stop off at the airport. And we actually go to the airport on the same day because I was traveling abroad with my high school at the time. So we go to the airport together. Really lucky timing worked out with that. And I go to Paris or forget exactly my first stop, but I'm going to Paris. And I get a call a day later from my mom saying that my sister got deported. Whoa, a day later. So she must have just gotten like turned away at customs, right? Yeah. What the heck? She's been working on this for months. Why the hell would she be deported? So she goes back home and was really sad about it. Turns out her paperwork just wasn't aligning,

right? Like it looked like she was going to be staying there for a long time without enough money in her account. And she was interrogated for literally 10 hours in the airport, very traumatized. They were just really going in on her. I mean, this sounds like classic, like I'm 21 years old, and I try to do a big thing and I'm in way over my head. Yes. You show up at airport customs and you're like, hello, I'm here to live in France. And they're like, no, that's not very American 21 year old thing to do. But also sucks. Like customs people are terrifying. Yeah. I've never had a good experience going through customs. And at the time, we thought that was just so strange. Like why were they so pressed about this girl going to London for a few months when

she didn't need that much money? Like she was going to be an all pair there. So we also saw it was really weird and I didn't get much details out of her because I was gone at the time and then I was in college. I don't know. It just didn't find out a lot of information about it. So it turns out a year later, she's like, all right, I'm going to try to give it another go. Like I really want to go there and she's gotten past all the trauma and caused her from being interrogated for that long. And we're all really proud of her for sticking to it after going through that experience. And so she buys another plane ticket and it's like, I'm going to go for six weeks. She's packing so much. And we're like, you don't need to bring everything you

fucking own with your girl. Like you're going to be back in, you know, four or six weeks, whatever it was. And she's like, I don't know. Like she'd never gone on a European trip before. She's like, I just want to bring everything I own. Four to six weeks is like the, that's visitors visa, right? Like that's why it would be easier to go for that. I'm sure. How long was she planning to go before? Was it like two months? She didn't say, I don't think. Which might have been the problem. I don't know. Okay, continue. And she goes there, ends up loving it so much, no problems at that time. She has all her paperwork in order. I think her visa at that time was then good for six months. And while she was there, she literally just like fell in love with the city

and she would be sending us pictures of the kids she was nannying and just, you know, pictures of the city saying how much she loved it. We're like, Oh, that's so awesome. And she's like, I just want to hear longer. So she was like, I'm going to start applying to actual forestry schools and making it. Justin, what are you trying to say? Justin? I'm sorry, but there is so many layers of nonsense and bullshit here. First off, first off, she's already she's sending pictures of kids. First off, how did she get a job? How did how did she just did she just knock on every single like beautiful, well, well put together door, you know, along the streets and say, Hello, are you wealthy? Do you have someone to look after your your children? I can sing scales to them. I know how to

like, Secondly, secondly, the scam is afoot. Her I'm going to stay longer is I want to study flowers. I do think the my understanding of like the au pair market is that there is a high demand for au pairs. If you are willing to be paid less than people who like live in the country and would require a higher wage, that is my understanding. So if you are willing to work for less than the going rate in London for nannies, it probably would be pretty simple to get an au pair job would be my guess. In fact, you know, if you have any au pair gossip, we will take that the hotline is two six seven nine gossip call it in. We'd love to hear about your au pair drama. But I mean, floristry school sounds sick. I would love to learn how to put flowers in a vase seems fun.

Yeah. Okay, continue. So she could stay there for up to a year. And she luckily, you know, got in touch with a friend who worked for the where was his friend the first time. And we just things have worked out timing wise. And at this point, my mom was starting to get suspicious thinking, you know, this is really weird. This isn't like her. Some of her storylines weren't adding up should we would ask her her address to mail her things and she would provide us with address of the kid she nannied. And just my mom started to catch on the things and I thought my mom was just being really critical or I don't know, paying too much attention because my mom is like that. She's always been like that all up in our business, you know, getting spies

literally at school aids to spy on us to make sure we're not doing anything wrong. She's always just been overly attentive and whatever you want to call that. Okay, this is providing a lot of interesting context for the daughter wanting to like eat to a different country. It also is like, okay, so I have a sister and like we were we fought a lot of children. But as we got older, it became very much like whatever you say, I need to tell mom, I will tell her, right? Like there's like a kind of your like, it's us versus them mentality that I do understand here where she's like, I'm the younger sister. I like, don't ask questions mom, like leave her alone and let her have her fun time. But you can say that and then still go to

your sister and ask those questions for your own information. Yeah, I am riveted. And so I was just like, no, mom, like you're not doing her enough credit. And so I was defending my sister this whole time, not thinking anything of it, just she's having a great time. And then time goes on, probably, it was coming close to a year now of her being there. And I'm in a year into college at this point. And my brother was starting to do some, you know, being online too, because he thought it was strange. She thought that she was lying about random unnecessary things. And so he finds a picture on Facebook of her getting married full on by like, you know, if you are going to get secret married and not tell your family, you cannot post photos on Facebook.

Again, with the like, basic cover your tracks. Do you really want to be on Facebook that badly? Also, like pictures of her getting married, like, I just, I have so many questions about this. My first question is like, if you just elope like at random, usually you don't have like great pictures of you getting married, right? Unless you've like arranged that ahead of time. So for there to exist photos of her getting married, that means at least you have to have some forethought into this decision and plan of some sort. Although it could be like tagged photos of her, maybe like a little tag yourself, like it's not this is not a difficult or delete your Facebook. Clearly, we would be better scammers than any of the people. That's so true. But we don't. So

we're also failing. Okay, I'm ready. Keep going. She's secret married. If we were secret married, nobody would know. Nobody would know. Dress with this older man. Oh, maybe this is just like a photo shoot or something. This is so weird. Mind you, this whole time she's abroad, she's still with her boyfriend back at home. I didn't mention this at all. There's the boyfriend, he's back. And they're communicating. Wait, so she has been gone for a year and the boyfriend, and he hasn't gone to see her? Yeah, he's just like, I'm here, baby. What kind of high school boyfriend is this? High school boyfriend, bud? Like, buck up. Oh my God. Wow. Okay. She went to, went on vacation in Greece, which she said

she was there with the family. She was babysitting, you know, helping out while they were on vacation. Turns out that was not true. She was on her honeymoon in Greece. And she's texting her boyfriend at home saying, oh my God, I can't wait to go on her honeymoon here one day. It's so beautiful. What? She's living just full on a double life. She's on her honeymoon, talking to her boyfriend at home, and her husband didn't. She was still in a relationship with her boyfriend either. Apparently, things have been rocky with them, not the husband, her boyfriend, so they weren't communicating as much anyway. And there's a time difference. Pause, pause, pause, pause. What? Oh, wow. So she's doing two secrets.

Does this person think that just like, when you're on the other side of the Atlantic, it's just like, there's like win-and-row rules where you can just like get married and go on a honeymoon and then like that doesn't exist? Wow. Okay. Wow. I just, I just, what is she saying to her boyfriend? Like who does her husband think she's talking to on the phone? Well, she just, right. So this is the thing that's weird to me, right? You've been in a relationship for four years. You're in England. Theoretically, you should be video chatting. Like this is not 2002. It's 20, what, 15? She's 2014, 2015. So like Skype exists. You can like video chat your boyfriend back from back home. So like, just you're now new husband who you went

on a honeymoon to Greece with, think that you just like have a close friend that like what, like, who didn't come to your wedding? Yeah. And like, he hasn't met any of her family. Is he not like, that's odd. That's odd. Yeah. Yeah. Did she like tell him he was, she was an orphan? My extremely young American wife have never met any of her family members. So normal, not at all shady to simply marry a 22 year old American au pair. He just thought that she was, you know, exploring this new city and trying to figure herself out, but didn't know that she was living a double life, obviously. He was the one that dropped her to the airport, you know, being like, Oh my God, have so much fun there. Can't wait to see you.

Crazy shit, though. So my sister, her whole world can crash down. Yeah, no shit online. He sent it to my family and my mom called me just saying your sister fucking got married and didn't tell anybody. And I called her nonstop. Like, we're all calling her nonstop. And she first called me back out of everybody and broke down. I mean, obviously her web of lies was found out. Web of lies. Web of lies. Like, this, this sister clearly loves her sister still and is also like, you know, she can handle dialectical thinking where she's like, yes, two things are true. Web of lies. And like, I still have my perfect sister who I love. Justin. I feel like that was a perfect Kelsey interjects question moment with the brother. If you're the brother,

do you choose the nuclear option here to reveal all this to the family? Right. So what's interesting to me here about the brother's decision is like, you know that your mom is like, Hovery, put it nicely. So like, the decision to tell her is the nuclear option, right? She, the brother could have just told this sister who called us and been like, Hey, we've got a situation. The situation is wedding photos of our sibling. A literal international incident is what this family has. We have a transatlantic problem. And what we need to do is call our sister. Like, nothing is going to clue your sister into the fact that you have told your mother like every member of your family calling her phone.

And the fact that her mom more than likely called the fucking State Department immediately. Like, my daughter has been trafficked. Help my sweet precious angelic child has been taken. The thing is, sometimes your siblings make decisions that are not good. Sometimes they get secret married. The answer here is to not involve your mother immediately. Like, if this was my sister, I'm going to get on a fucking plane and I'm going to show up in London and I'm going to be like, what the fuck are you doing so that then I don't have to sit here and call her on my phone. Like you need to pin this person down. Yeah, I think the knowledge that

the mom is extremely intense and controlling is like very important context here. But clearly is shaping many of the decisions being made. So from there, everything started coming out slowly but surely we have like an inter not an intervention but like a sit down with an intervention family and her and her husband and he's a saint like he forgave her for all of it. Great. Wait, I just okay, we're missing some real key details here. Where's the boyfriend? Where's the boyfriend? Where's the intervention? Where's the meeting? Does the boyfriend think he's a saint also? Are they rolling in like six members of this family deep to London? Like to do this intervention? Like what happened? Oh my god. And also who are these children?

Whose children? Do you think she's actually an au pair or are these her children? I don't, I at this point, I don't know, keep playing more. I know my sister has her reasons for why she didn't want to hold my family. I mean, for one, the guy is 12 or 14 years older. So she's at this point almost 30 and he's about 45. So yeah, 15 age difference. And she was really nervous of how my mom would judge her because my mom has always been hyper critical of her in particular and my sister would kind of give in to her judgments and let it dictate her life and there was a lot of anxiety. But no one ever thought that she would get married without telling us. So it caused a lot of pain in my family. Makes sense. Okay, pause, pause, pause.

Okay, one, your mother is allowed to be hyper critical of you for this, not because you are dating someone who's 12 years older than you, but because you got secret married in a six-month time period. Like that is a choice. Like it's your mother is allowed to be critical of that decision. Like, I know she's annoying you, but also you're acting ridiculously. To be honest, it kind of still hurts to think about that she would manipulate us like that and particularly when she knew I was defending her. I kept defending her to my whole family and I was always really close with her. So it hurt more so. It caused her to have falling outs with a few of my siblings and my parents for

a little while. No one trusted her for a long time and we're still, I don't know what we're fully agreeing about trust. We just know what she's capable of now. We talk all the time now, me and her. I'm not all the time, you know, every few weeks. I don't know. But I love her. I'll always trust her, but there was just, it's a web of lies. It was every part of her life she was lying about. The kids she was nannying weren't really kids. She was nannying. They were her nieces and nephews. She did occasionally watch them, but she didn't have a job at first. So that's why, when she first went there, she got deported because she was planning on going there for a long time. I will also add that her and her husband met in the United States. I'm from

they met in she was there for a weekend with her friends and he was here for like a bachelorette party. So they met there while she supposedly was on a break with her boyfriend. And they continued talking online. There's just so much I have a lot of details, but yes, hope you enjoyed. Did we ever enjoy? Thank you. Okay, so now a lot more is making sense to me, which is like, when you go through British customs, they are like, when's your plane ticket home? What are you doing here? Where's some fucking proof for why you're here and when please leave? So it makes perfect sense to me that this girl who is love struck by this man she met at a bachelor party is a question mark is showing up to customs and they're like, what are you here for?

And she's like, love. And they're like, no, that's not this love island is a show. That's not the UK. You have to get out. Oh, no. Oh, no. So she she got back together with her boyfriend. She made this whole plan to move to England. She was doing this simultaneously. Yes, woman is a logistical goddess. I just okay. This is yet again, my number one problem with people who are like, having ongoing long relationships with two people who don't know that they're having relationships with those two people is how are you awake? Like, isn't it emotionally exhausting to maintain two complete relationships and also maintain the lie that they don't know about each other? It must be. Are you tired? Especially at this level that involves international

travel, immigration, visas, floristry school, there's so many details to keep track of. Right. Also, like, I just cannot get over the brother finding this on Facebook. Like, that's the thing that would have like broken me. You're misbehaving. Fine. You're misbehaving and I don't know about it and have to find out from Facebook. Not fine. So okay, here's our last story about a grandmother who has a great time. What? A story about a grandmother with this secret. A grandmother who has a great time. This is why I'm not on my- Rock and roll granny. Okay. Okay, so I am 25 and I'm just finding this out recently because I was talking to my aunt and this is all on my mom's side. So

my mom's dad passed away like before she even met my dad. So way before I was born. And so when my mom was getting married, my grandma was like dating someone else who everyone fucking hated. His name was Norman. He fucking sucked. Fucking Norman. We hate Norman. We hate Norman. She was like, well, our grandchild can't not have an maternal grandfather that just won't do. What? Why? People, traditional values, whatever. Um, so they actually like didn't get married. I literally did not know that they were not married. They just like had a domestic partnership or whatever. Um, which like I didn't even know straight people did that. But like grandma and Norman did. He's my partner.

And everyone's like, fuck you, Norman. I love that. Okay. Like she didn't want to marry him because he sucked. She just wanted me to have a grandfather. So then my whole family moves to Florida for some reason and then she decides she is going to fuck up her life. Hell yeah. She used to be like the most social like senior citizen in the world. Like she's part of like every thing. And she had like a really tight-knit group of friends. So it was like very big. And there was this couple, Freddie and Natalie. Great names. And Freddie is like her bestie. Like I have known him since I was four. That's really cute. Like just was always there.

When I was in high school, my mom was like, how would you feel if Graham dated Freddie? What? Pause. What about Natalie? Okay. All right. Okay. I do like that your grandma had friends. That's really nice. I like that she was super social and that she had these like long-time friends. That's very cute. My grandparents have some long-time friends and I'm obsessed with them. I love the idea of you being a high schooler, which is like fully old enough to know that like grandma is like doing some shit and your mom coming to you and being like, what would you think if just your grandma dated this guy that you've known her whole life? What would you think about that? What? You would immediately

be like, oh cool. So grandma is fucking Freddie, right? Because you're 17. You would be like, why would you phrase this this way? So what's going on with Norman? Okay. Where's Norman? So why did this whole family move to Florida? The entire family, three generations up and moved to Florida. What are you guys doing? I was like, I just, I guess, I saw it coming because Natalie had died like a couple years before and I was just like, I don't know. Haven't we always joked about granddating Freddie, whatever? But recently I found out that she was sleeping with Freddie the whole time, just because I was weak. Um, and I always knew that like Norman sucked and then when he died, she got zero.

And he left her nothing. Okay, so this is much less ominous because grandma and Freddie, it seems like we're both widowed by this point in time when mom comes and is like, what if grandma dated Freddie? Yes. But what we now know is that they were both having affairs the whole time before they were announced. It was like forcibly ousted from her home by his kids because they hated her. For what I thought was no reason. However, he knew she was cheating on him the whole time and never said anything about it. However, he told his kids about it. So they hated her and that's why she lost everything. Oh my God. That is petty. That is Alex level petty of like, I know that you are wronging me and rather than confront you, I will store it away until I die

and then you get screwed. Alex. Yes. Terrifying. But also, I'm sorry. It's extremely this like kind of parental relationship is extremely confusing to me where you're like, Oh, I know that my wife is cheating on me. So I'm going to tell my children. Yeah. It's weird. Although I guess it is kind of fair to hate her if she was sleeping around on your dad for their entire relationship with her cool friend, Freddie, who no one hates. Everyone likes Freddie. Freddie's golden boy. He looks like he's 60. He's so young. He can still drive. Walks on the beach every day. So a few years ago, she's like, I'm going to move in with Freddie. Also, my mom doesn't know that she she was cheating on Norman. Only my aunt knows this.

And she's moving with Freddie and we're like, you can't like do this again. Like, please don't like put yourself in a position where you could lose everything. Like they didn't want to get married. But they're living together. And it was just like, if this ends badly, I don't want you to lose everything again. You know how like, everyone's always talking about how it's bad if you have to manage up, right? Like, oh, you have to manage your boss. That's bad. This is like parenting your grandma is what we're talking about where you're like, grandma. I know that you like to like fuck around a little bit. And in the past, that has gotten you into trouble and left you with no house or money. So maybe we could consider not doing that in the future. Like what in your life?

What kind of power dynamics are these? Yeah, that's, it's really intense. And she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Like the end of last year, Freddie like fell and like something happened with his head and he was in the hospital and his family came down. He's fine. Thank you. Good clarification. And my mom and my aunt are like having dinner at their house the day that he's coming home. Like just supposed to be like, yeah, you're doing great. Normal. So my mom, my aunt and my grandma are like sitting at the table waiting with Freddie. And his daughter, one of his daughters is supposed to be there. Okay. And she's running like I think like an hour later, some shit. And so they're like, okay, I guess we're gonna start

eating. She shows up with a whole food salad. So it's not at the table. Freddie goes to the bathroom and she drops the bomb. She's like, Oh, by the way, Barbara, we're fucking kicking you out. I love it. Like the whole food salad is like punctuating this very dramatic mic drop. I just like the like the level of drama that's happening in this like retirement community that is then being like the actual drama is having to come from the generation beneath it. Me thinks and also my aunt thinks that the same thing is happening where like his kids assume or maybe they even know that like he was cheating on their mom

with my grandma, even when she was like dying. So they hate her. They took everything once again. So everything is gonna be fine. I love this storytelling. Thank you. Just funny. This is just funny. Okay, great. So the funniest part to me is I said I've known her since I was like a toddler, right? Also my family's Jewish. So it's Freddie. Freddie came to my bat mitzvah and came with Natalie because this is before she died. And he was like honored like he had an aliyah on the bima, which means like I call him up. We say he says a prayer or a blessing.

I mean, before I read the Torah, you only give it to three people. So he was like very special. And he also gave me my talit, which is like the prayer shawl, which is like like it was his talit from when he had a barb and so that's really nice. Now he's like 90. Um, so he was like push and 80 at that time. So he is having this special honor and his wife is sitting there watching him be like blessed before God by the daughter of his. And I just think that that's a really fun spicy detail. Okay, bye. Wow, that was a really fun, spicy detail. It's really, it must be so jarring to like look back at a central moment in your coming of age and realize that like the dynamics that you

thought were happening around you completely wrong. They were not. You thought it was your fun family friend, Freddie. And he was, I guess, but also grandma's fuck buddy, Freddie. It's also really funny to think about like, I don't know if this is true. So please call in if it's not. But I assume if it's your bit, you get some say over like who reads these things. No, I don't know. Justin's, I don't know. It's funnier to me to think about her choosing Freddie and just creating some kind of drama where the moms were like, Oh, no, we hate Norman. We don't want Freddie. Freddie, Freddie. This one, the one last thing I think the funniest point to be that made me want to die and gag on

that is that I'm just imagining there's like some shitty button. It's the DJ playing like 90s hits, like Spice Girls and shit as the family is like simmering in the background. And our caller is just like living it up, having the day. She's so happy. So fucking happy. And just like she like coiting out everybody enjoying like the like special fountain drinks that are there for all the kids and everything in the family is like knives out. This is incredible. Wow. Thank you so much for the stories. What a treat. A true blessing, that one. Thank you so much for listening to this bonus episode. We will be back in two short weeks with another bonus episode where Alex and I will answer some of your hot burning questions. If you have a gossip story to share with us in the

meantime, email us at normal gossip at defector.com or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 gossip, but please be aware that the voicemail box will cut you off after three minutes. You can follow me on all social medias at at McKinney, Kelsey. This podcast was produced by Alex Sujan Laughlin. Defectors Project's editor is Justin Ellis. Our editor-in-chief is Tom Lay. Thank you to the rest of the Defector Media staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber based media company. If you love this podcast and want to support us, subscribe to defector at defector.com. I'm Kelsey McKinney and remember, you did not hear this from me. I call myself low energy Jeb when I'm in a recording situation.

This is the second crazy thing that I've learned about you today. The first thing that you listen to girl boss videos in the morning. I'm sorry, Alex, what?