Normal Gossip - S3 Ep3: Loud Cats and Thin Walls with Sabrina Imbler

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

Defector staff writer and creature correspondent Sabrina Imbler joins us for a story about the lives we lead on the other sides of extremely thin apartment walls.  Follow Sabrina on Twitter @aznfusion and pre-order their book, How Far the Light Reaches!  You can support Normal Gossip directly bybuying merch or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend at supportnormalgossip.com. 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). Credits recorded by Emma Waldner.

Alex, do you think that we should tell them our little secret? I think we should. Our secret is that we are going on tour this summer. Woo! We're going to be sharing a new gossip story with you all, but this time live on a stage. There will be special guests and glow sticks and games. It's going to be so messy. You can get tickets at normalgossiplive.com.

And bring your secrets. Because we're going to read them. Do you go to the wall? Do you press your little ear up against the wall to hear the end of this height? I go to the wall. I feel out the thinnest part of the wall and then I slowly sink to my knees and I get a little cushion so that I'm comfortable. Hi, and welcome to Normal Gossip.

I'm Kelsey McKinney. In each episode of this podcast, we're going to bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. Today, I'm delighted to have with me my coworker at defector.com, Sabrina Imbler. Sabrina writes about all kinds of creatures on land and sea and elsewhere for the site. They previously worked at the New York Times and have a book called How Far the Light Reaches, A Life in 10 Sea Creatures, which comes out in December. You can preorder it wherever you buy books.

Sabrina, welcome. Thank you for having me, Kelsey. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy you're here. I'm so excited to do gossip. How are you feeling? This is truly the highlight of my summer, gossip in general, and also this. I'm so excited.

Wow. Oh, I'm glad to hear that your life is full of gossip. That is the first question of this podcast classically, is what is your relationship with gossip like? Thank you for asking. You're welcome. I admit like some other guests have said that I've been thinking about this since I've been listening to the podcast and I think that my relationship with gossip has changed

over time. Like when I was a child or an adolescent, TBT, TBT as a grown, I think I really relied on gossip as a way of sort of like just getting through high school, like getting through middle school. And I think I really thrived on like interpersonal gossip, like what the popular hot kids were doing, what they were saying about me, what they were saying about my friends, like which boys had crushes on any of us, like spoiler or none. You never know.

But I think some things have come out since. But I think that in this new phase of my life, I think that I am less interested in sort of like personal friend gossip. I think I love to hear like fun things that happen to people that I know. But I think that the gossip that I'm mostly traffic in in my day to day life is like professional gossip and that is the gossip hill that I will like die on as being useful and important. And I think part of the reason I've been able to sort of stay working in media for as long as I have.

Can you say a little bit more about that? Yeah. I guess when I started off working in media, I had the assumption that everyone like wanted me to succeed. So funny in retrospect. And I was like, wow, like everyone just like, you know, like there's a clear career path and like, I'll just follow it and one day I'll be stable and employed and I will respect all of my coworkers and they will all respect me.

And that has not happened. And I think that pretty early on in my career, thanks to some of like the very wonderful like women I worked with in predominantly like male science news outlets, I learned a lot that it's just important to know who's good and who's not so good in the industry. And one of my coworkers actually at one of the internships that I did, she recommended something that I have since unpacked in therapy. But she recommended that I keep something called a receipts folder. Oh, yes, this is a good piece of advice.

Yeah, which basically whenever anyone at my company, generally a superior would say something that was a little bit racist or classist or homophobic or any sort of like flavor offensive, I would just take a little screenshot and then I would put it in my Google Drive called my receipts folder. And at first it was like, this feels a little petty, but then I guess as I've just moved on to other jobs and encountered some of the same people like at different institutions, then it's like, I no longer have to be like, oh, like, did that person say that like thing that I remember?

And then I'll check and I'll be like, oh, it was worse than I thought it was. And like, oh, like, did they ever hold themselves accountable? Like, absolutely not. And I still do this. I mean, I think it's less like, I know some people in the past have talked about sort of holding onto morsels of information that like in a time of crisis, you can deploy like a little like dart guns, but I think this is more just for me as like a way of not gaslighting myself.

Like as I continue to work and as I continue to like sort of be explained experiences that I had where I was like, that was traumatic or like that was fucked up, fucked up. And someone else would be like, that's just how it is. And sort of I look back at these receipts and I'm like, oh, yeah, like, no, actually, like I was right. And like, I was right to feel harmed in that situation. And keeping that Rolex has also just helped me figure out like, OK, seems like I really did not like working there.

What if I just didn't work right? Yeah, so it a little bit like a diary, but it's just a diary of like the worst screenshots I've ever seen. I also got this advice my first year as a journalist, which was I was told to keep two folders. One of them was for receipts and the other was for compliments, the idea being that like you can remember the good things that have been said to you when you're in a bad place, but you can also remember the bad things that were said to you when you've forgotten them, right?

And like, it's come in so useful in my career because yes, it's good to remember like, oh, this person who said this thing to me actually said it in these very terrible words, not the ones I cleaned up in my head. That is really good advice. And I wish that I had also been giving a positive folder. I got to start one. Yeah, I got to go. I got to go back to my Google drive. So obviously gossip is useful, right?

And you made the distinction between like now you're using gossip in a work sense for more disrupting power, like these kind of useful causes. Is are you also using work gossip for fun or is fun gossip just dead to you? That's a very good question. I think that work gossip can be fun and spicy when it sort of like this podcast, like doesn't really relate to me or like the people that I work with. Like when I was working at a large company that I will not name, it was so fun to be like, oh, these people are married.

Oh, these people are married. Oh, yeah, these people are married. Like actually it's kind of like one big family and they all live in like one city, like just outside New York. And I think that kind of gossip was just for fun. Like it's not really materially affecting my ability to succeed here, except for just kind of being reminded by like the noxious cloud of like nepotism that hangs over like so many industries.

Yes. And then of course, there's like fun like, oh, like you dumped this person for like this co-worker. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good plot line in general. I mean, I guess it happens a lot in media, not less so in science media. I feel like science media is very, very less spicy, I would say. Incredible transition. Thank you for doing my job for me.

I do want to ask you about the gossip of your actual work, which is do creatures gossip? Do creatures gossip? This is a stupid question. It's actually literally not a stupid question and I was racking my brain for like what negative gossip I could pull out from my book, but you actually summarized perfectly one of the essays, like I guess the end of one of the essays in my book, which is there is this worm. Okay, alright.

There is this worm that lives in the sea and it is very iridescent, so it's like very beautiful if you sign on it. Wait, I'm sorry. I already have a question. Yeah. What's the difference in a worm that lives in the sea and an eel? An eel is a fish. Okay, great.

Continue. And a worm is like, yeah, just an invertebrate. So like no bones inside this worm, just like an exoskeleton. So there's this worm and it can grow up to 10 feet long, but you actually don't see it because it lives under the sand. It just sort of coil, like its body just extends into the sand and it just has little like mandibles, like these big jaws that extend out of the sea. I hate this so much.

And it has these like feeler antennas, it's sort of like sense around. So this worm, the scientific name is Eunice Aphroditois, speaking of French words I cannot say. A worm. And it's also called the sand striker, but it basically lives under the sand and it just waits for things to pass by. And if it's one of its feeler antennas, like senses a fish, it will just snap its jaws shut and drag the fish underground.

Extremely rude. Very rude. Also very scary. And they mostly hunt at night. So it's like the fish, like I don't really know, I guess how important vision is for like the fish that it hunts specifically, but it's just very hard to sense. I'm just, I'm really upset by all of these details. Ten feet long, just going straight down like a pole underneath the sand, snapping little

fish out of the water, like a Venus fly trap. This whole thing upsetting, sand striker terrifying. But also very beautiful. If you put it in the light, it is rainbow. And I do love a shiny creature. Wait. It is rainbow. How do they get it into the light?

Like you can like removes it. Yeah. You can remove it. And also sometimes people who have home aquariums, they'll like buy live rock, which is like basically rock that has like some, maybe it has some coral in it. And like they're really important for saltwater aquariums. But if you buy live rock from like maybe like a less reputable aquarium store, sometimes tiny sand strikers, like when they're so, so tiny will live in the rock and then they'll

slowly grow bigger and bigger in your aquarium. And people will be like, that's so weird. Like yesterday I had like a yellow tang in my aquarium and like today there is no yellow tang and like they will go like nuts trying to figure out what happened. And then it's always like someone will just put their hand in the tank and there will be like a very long sand striker just coiled up hunting in their home aquarium. Oh my God. It's horrifying.

I am stunned by this. Like the sand striker is so exciting. It's also, is this what the children's book Rainbow Fish is based off of, unclear. I like, it's sad that this worm is so mean and also underground where we can't see it. Wait, what does this have to do with gossip? Okay. Yeah. So let me, let me get to the gossip.

I'm so focused. So this worm is just living its life in the sea floor, just hunting and it would seem like it's a losing game for fish, right? Like the fish swim by like they're, they have no way of like sensing how like where this worm is. But scientists discovered that there is this species of fish called Peter's Monocle Breams which are just like regular, they look like regular fish. I don't know.

That's a fish. Okay. Just a fish. They're like a little bit silverly, like a little bit yellow, just cute fish. And what they do is they, if they like see one of their own eaten by a sandstriker, they'll all hover above where the worm is and they'll blow little like bubbles onto where the worm is hiding to basically expose the worm. And then once the worm is exposed, like it could be eaten.

So it has to like go away and like find a new place to burrow. Yeah. And so they basically like have this fishy whisper network where they're like, we know that, that like a worm is there. So like, come on gang, like let's go over and like blow some bubbles on it. These little Peter's fish, they're doing like solidarity to disrupt power structures. They are. Incredible.

Wow. That's so nice. I'm so glad I asked this question. Thank you for asking this question. Oh, incredible. Well, thank you for this journey into the world of creatures. I now have a new ocean fear, which I had plenty to begin with. So it's exciting.

Snap, snap. Yeah, I'm just going to get snapped up. Okay. Sabrina, are you ready to get into it? You want to do, you want to do the story? Do some gossip. Oh yeah. Today, we are journeying into the beautiful tree covered hills of the Appalachian Mountains

to a small city where a friend of a friend, Annie, lives with her fiance, Dylan. Annie and Dylan have only been engaged for a couple of months when their living situation absolutely deteriorates. Like it is early 2020 and many bad things have happened. The first bad thing is COVID-19. The second bad thing is that Annie and Dylan's best couple friend, like in the whole world, have abandoned them. The minute the pandemic hit, their friends, Teresa and Lauren decided to move.

Oh, that's so rude. And they all lived in like the same giant big box apartment complex and they lived like across the hall from each other. It was a dream. It was like friends. And I bet that other couple like moved to some like idyllic cottage, like surrounded by nature, like a beautiful place to be during the pandemic. Yes.

And it's like, it's hard to find, like if you're in a couple, it's hard to find other couples where like everyone gets along. Yeah. Do you know anything about this? As someone of couple privilege, I do. I think that my partner and I have, we do have like one other couple that we go and we have fun hangs. Everyone gets together.

Everyone gets along. But the other couple, they're both like so much fancier than me and like very elegant and refined. And so I feel like I have to sort of like mask. They listen to this podcast. I love you. Hello, Sabrina's couple friend. Invite me for dinner.

It sounds fancy at your house. Yes, it's, it's, it's hard to find a couple where all four people sort of can vibe. Yes. Okay. So for two years, Annie and Dylan, they lived across from their best friends. They hung out all the time. It was like one of those truly rare situations where everyone liked each other individually too.

Like they would hang out not just as two couples. They would just make dinner and like sit at the table for hours until Lauren's big candlesticks like burned all the way down. They're a little like pod for the first month of the pandemic. But about a month in, Lauren, a seer had looked into the future and was like, this pandemic is going to last at least a year. Like I shan't be staying in this apartment. Okay.

What else has Lauren predicted though? Because she was right. They're like, we're going to move to the desert because it seems secluded and also beautiful and you are like, welcome to come with us. But Annie is like, one, I hate the desert. Two, it like feels like you're not actually invited to come with them, right? It's like your friends are just abandoning you. The minute that Lauren and Teresa move out, the scales from like Annie and Dylan's

eyes fall away and they realize something, their apartment, which has always brought them so much joy and love and laughter actually sucked. Do you have any experience with poorly managed apartment complexes? Do I have any experience in that realm? Yeah, I would say in one of my apartment buildings, twice at one of my apartment buildings, a human chat on my front door. No. The same one also had mice and we also lost hot water so frequently.

And whenever we would call our landlord, she would be like, I'm at a funeral, so I can't talk. And we were like, you know, so many dead people, everyone around you is dying. But there was no, we were like too young. And we were like, oh, like, oh, like that's so sad. Like we just were too afraid to call our landlord like on her bullshit. Okay, yes. This is exactly where Annie and Dylan are.

They live in the old apartment you lived in, basically. And also like the elevators never work. Like after Teresa and Lauren move out, Dylan gets like stuck inside an elevator for like an hour and the fire department has to get him out. What floor are they on? I don't know, but like fairly high up to the point where you like can't walk, right? There are mice. In the past, when there were mice, they managed to like laugh it off with their

pals, Lauren and Teresa, right? They were like, ha ha, our cute little mice. Like what are we going to do to problem solve this? And now Lauren and Teresa are gone and the mice are just little terrorists that they don't want around. I mean, four people against mice is such a different situation than two people against mice. Teamwork.

So Annie and Dylan's lease is up April 30th, 2020. This is a terrible time to move. Do you think that they should move? You know, I'm going to say I hear their concerns that the elevator is often broken and that the that there are mice yet considering the novel coronavirus and the chaos of the state of the world. At that time, I don't think that I would move if I were them. I would wait it out a little bit.

I also, like Annie and Dylan, realized that my apartment was kind of bad at the beginning of the pandemic, but managed to stay there for two years because I was so afraid. Annie and Dylan had a long debate about this. They were like, you can't hire movers because it's a pandemic. You can't even see another apartment in person really in April, 2020. And they're like, plus we know the devil here. We don't know the devil in the new apartment.

But they find this apartment and they're like, you know, our apartment complex is huge. There's this other apartment that's only like one of three. Maybe the risk of moving is worth it because we could live somewhere where the complex is a little smaller, fewer units, and at least it would reduce our risk for infection. And also we don't have to live here anymore where we don't have our friends and we're sad.

So were they able to see this new place in person? No, they saw photos of it. Oh, just photos. They find this apartment. It is a former store that has been converted into three apartments. So they all have like really high 20 foot tall ceilings. Like imagine if a Barnes and Noble got like divided into three apartments. Oh, they all have the exact same layout.

This is important. I'm going to walk you through it. All three of the apartments are railroad style. OK, so there's a front door with like giant windows because remember this used to be a storefront and that opens up into the living room. After the living room, open floor plan into the kitchen, just like a bar counter between them behind the kitchen is the bedroom. And then there's like a bathroom and a laundry area.

Something that's important to understand is that the wall between the kitchen and the bedroom does not go all the way up to the 20 foot ceiling. It only goes halfway. Oh, my God, like a bathroom stall. Yes, like if you stood on top of a chair, you could like peek over the wall. But that's still within the same apartment. It's not peeking over the other apartments. OK, no, it's still your apartment.

And like Andy and Dylan are like, this is kind of good, right? Because that means that because there are no windows on the sides of this apartment, the light from the front windows can get to the bedroom, right? So they're like, it's not the worst thing in the world. But they're also like, we would be able to hear each other all the time because there's not a real wall. You know, this one is cheaper. But like, what do you think?

Do you think they should move into this new apartment? Is it on the ground? Like I'm still caught up about these storefront windows. Yeah, are they are they? Is it on the like? Does it face a sidewalk? Is it on the ground floor? Yes. So I want to imagine like a store that had like a one story store,

like in the suburbs that has like just been chopped into three sections. Yeah, I mean, that just seems like whenever I've had an apartment that has a window that looks directly out into the street. It's like, I put curtains there. Like I don't want anyone watching me make my pasta or like eat my depression meal. Yes, yes. You're like little tequitos. Yeah. And if it's like 20, like that sounds like, wow, it's a lot of light. But that just means that everyone is just looking into your business.

And I just feel like you would want to keep it closed. But how do you even find curtains that big? I I really feel like I would not move into this new apartment. OK, so your concern with this apartment is privacy, essentially. Yes, I think I'm less concerned about the lack of a complete wall between the kitchen and the bedroom and more concerned that there is really this. It sounds like just these one this one really big window on one side of the apartment that sounds like you want to have like look face to face

into people who are returning from Walgreens. Right. OK, yes. All of that is the correct read on this situation. Annie and Dylan move in May 1st. Amazing. OK. It's a hard move because like they can't hire movers and they have to wear masks and also moving in general is an Olympic sport and it's hard. But they get all their stuff in and they like order a pizza

and they eat it surrounded by boxes and they're like, you know what, I think we could make this really nice. In the morning, there's a bunch of light through the huge window and like the they realized the kitchen appliances are all brand new. And they're like, hell, yeah, the bathtub very deep, like whole adult size person deep. This is great. Annie is like a creative type.

So she's like, you know what, I'm going to unpack every box immediately. She's like, I can't paint, but I can hang art. I can't rub up the floors, but I can arrange rugs. Within 24 hours, this place looks like they've lived there for a year. Three days after they move in, a moving truck pulls up. Out of the truck, tumble, a guy. And a girl Dylan looks out the giant front window while they unload and narrates to Annie, who's in the kitchen, what's happening?

He's like, they're about our age. Annie straightens up. Dylan is cruising for couples. Yes, she knows that Dylan is like, could these people be our friends? We need friends. And they're like, you know, we got lucky once with neighbors. Like maybe we'll get lucky again. Imagine these people like moving during this incredibly stressful time period.

You look into the 20 foot tall window and there's just two people with their faces pressed up against the glass. Like they're breath fogging up the window. Yes, yes. OK, Dylan continues narrating, right? Because Annie can't see what's going on. And he's like, they're unloading an easel. They're unloading a banjo.

They have a really beautiful couch. They're both wearing chocos. Then he's like, they have one cat. Then he's like, they have two cats. Then he's like, they have three cats. Oh, OK, what happened between two and three cats? One cat. Good. Two cats. Great. I'm biased because I have two cats.

But I think once you get into three cats, that's when I'm like, interesting. Is this an obsession? Which isn't to say that you can't have a healthy relationship to cats and have three cats. I just think it's it's cuspy, you know, like three cats. What's the difference between three and four or four and five? I feel like I feel like you can sort of mass a colony really quickly. That's so true.

Can I ask you a question about your cats? Are they quiet, your cats? My cats love to scream. My cats love to wrestle with each other, bite each other's fur out, smack each other. Yeah. OK. All three of these cats that are moving in next door are Siamese cats. Oh, they are talkers.

OK, so I did not know this, but I learned from a very reputable site called FAQCats.com and I quote, Siamese cats are more social than most cats. They pine for attention. They are more interactive with their owners and require more care than other cats. Their intense vocals are a form of communication. Now, I could be wrong, but this reads to me like they scream. I feel like they yodel.

It's like it's like it's a piercing call. OK. Dylan and Annie don't know this, but they learn it very quickly because the Siamese cats before the new neighbors have even finished unloading the boxes are like yelling. Annie and Dylan realize that the walls between their apartments are so so thin. I do not know how insulation works, but I guess the dividing walls that were like slapped in to this big box store were made of like fucking tissue paper,

because Dylan and Annie can hear everything. The construction company just like went to like a blick and was like, let's just get some card stock. Yeah, that's fine. Just tape it up. They'll never know exactly. They'll love the window. They won't even think about the walls. Yes, they and, you know,

and, you know, nobody is coming to see the apartments. How would they know? They're just looking at photos. The walls are so thin that they can like hear them when they set boxes down. Like they can hear them washing their hands in the sink. They can hear them like chatting about the new apartment and like hear them turning on a computer to like play soothing music for the cats. Oh, what kind of soothing music like classical?

Yeah, like like some kind of YouTube video for cats. I don't really know much about cat music, to be honest. The cats like Bach. You know, I my my cats will sometimes like accompany us when we watch a movie and there are movies that my cats hate and there are movies that my cats love. And recently a movie that my cats see. Oh, they really did not like die hard.

OK, well, explosion. But they they loved the Godfather, which I was not expecting. Yeah, they were entranced by the movie. Are your cats Italian? Have you asked them? I think they're cultured. They're cultured. Yeah, wow. They're cinephiles.

Wow. Wow. OK, criterion collection. OK, so our Annie and Dylan, like are they being quiet as they sort of like listen to their neighbors because they're like we can hear our neighbors. And now they're in this awkward position where they're like, you know, do we go like, introduce ourselves? We assume that they can hear us at the same decibel point that we can hear them. So they're like whispering in the kitchen.

They're like, what do we do? Do you think they should go introduce themselves? What do you think? You know, I think I think you have to I think to get ahead of like your first interaction being like a confrontation over noise. I feel like I would go over and I would be like, oh, like these walls. Am I right? I'm just kind of trying to find common ground because I feel like a possible path forward is like the couples uniting

and being like, let's get a better wall and like right sort of rectifying the situation. So I would definitely I would definitely introduce and I would bring a treat. Oh, a treat. Annie and Dylan, I don't think have any treats. But they're like, you know, it is a pandemic, but we can wear a mask and like introduce ourselves from a distance. Not to talk about the walls necessarily, but they're like, wouldn't it be weird if we could hear everything going on

on the other side of this wall and we don't know these people's names? And like vice versa, it feels like very uncomfortable. So they go outside and they're like, hello, we're here. Like we're your new neighbors. It's so nice to meet you. They learn that their neighbors are named Lily and Ben. When they go back into their apartment, Dylan text Annie and is like, Lily and Ben seem nice because they can't talk about it

because they can hear through the walls. And Annie's like, I know Dylan and Annie are like so bored, right? It's the pandemic. There's nothing for them to do. So like each day, whenever one of them is like in a different room and the other one hears something, they're like texting updates about this couple as like a scouting report to decide if they can be friends with them, right?

They're like piling a dossier. Yes. But like a dossier have only very obvious things, right? Like Annie tells Dylan that like the girl has a whole arm of tattoos, like a whole sleep of tattoos. Dylan's like they drive a VW bug. Annie's like, I saw a cute cat sitting in the window, right? Like it seemed really happy, even though they're loud. Dylan's like, I heard the guy playing the banjo for the cats

when you went on your run, right? It's like it's like mundane and all-encompassing and like fun in a time when nothing is fun. So they start to like compare notes on their meaningless interactions. They're like, does the fact that they play like nice music for their cats mean that like they're good friends, right? Like like one of these little things mean about them. For two weeks, Dylan and Annie are basically having this same conversation

going in a big circle of like, how do you make a friend as an adult, right? Like how do you, especially during COVID, but also just in general, they're like, how do we become friends with our next door neighbors? Do you know the answer to this? I mean, it's a hard question in any circumstance, but I feel like the stakes are so much higher when it's like these people literally share a wall with you. So if like you sort of make a gesture of friendship and you're rejected,

it's like you have to see them and hear them like all the time. So I feel like you have to tread, tread very carefully. And also on top of this, you know, there's COVID procedure and you want to be safe and you're not trying to go into someone else's apartment. But it sounds like Annie and Dylan are already texting a lot. So like maybe an online hang could happen. I don't know. I support them. I support them wanting new friends.

I feel slightly suspicious of this like quirky indie couple with their banjo playing soothing banjo music to their three screaming cats. OK, this is like basically the process you just went through is the conversation that Annie and Dylan are having, right? They're like, well, we could invite them to dinner, but then what if we don't like them, right? We could like go on a walk with them. But that seems like oddly intimate for someone you've never met, right?

And they're like, also, they have all of this information because they can hear them through the wall. So they're like, we couldn't even make dinner for them because we know that they're picky eaters, right? Like they're like, we know this because we can hear everything. So finally, they're like, you know what? We have seen them carrying beers into their apartment. We know they drink beer.

We're just going to go over there on Friday with a six pack and be like, do you guys want to sit in the park and have a beer with us? That's really good. I think that's a great overture because it also feels like, oh, we will still do this like on our own. Like if you don't join us, though, there is not a lot of pressure. OK, I think that was I think that's a great move. Go Dylan and Annie.

OK, so they go over on Friday, right? They're like, well, wait till Friday, they go over on Friday and like looking back, they remembered that like it had been kind of quiet that whole day, but they assumed that the couple next door had just finally realized how thin the walls were, right? They go over and they knock and there's like no response. No one there.

They look around and they're like, oh, the VW bug is gone, right? Like they're not here clearly, fine, people go places. So they go back to their apartment, but the whole evening they're like listening really carefully, right? They're like, where are our new potential friends? Wait, can they look through this other couple's like 20 foot window at the front of their apartment? But they don't. OK, OK, respectful.

OK, I would be nosy. I mean, we're going to come to that in one second. You're just OK. So they go back to their apartment and they like listen really carefully the whole evening and they realize like there's nobody over there, right? Because like usually the cats are yelling all the time and like there are no cats yelling.

So they're like cats are gone. Yeah, they're like no cats, no beer bottles opening, like no chatter. Like they must have just like gone somewhere. Dylan's like, did you see them leave? And he's like, no Dylan's like, hmm, they like must have left. And so for like several days, they're listening and there's nothing at this point, knowing that their blinds are open. Do you go over and look? Absolutely.

I mean, I clearly I clearly would have gone over immediately. Yeah, done like a friendly knock, which is that is rude. But it's times are hard. It's a pandemic. You're trying to make friends. So yes, I am very curious just to hear what they see through the blinds. They debate for a couple of days, like the ethics of like peeping Tom. And like everyone who's walking by this storefront apartment

is already looking into the window. So it's not like you have any privacy that's being violated, it's my take. Yes. And Annie and Dylan are like, if anyone asks us what we're doing, like we'll say that we know that there are cats there and we wanted to make sure that they were OK, right? Like they are like ready to like they're treating it like it's a crime. Annie and Dylan have like a plan B, C and D for every scenario.

Yes. I respect it. For a couple of days, they weren't going to look in the windows, right? They were like, they were like, no, no, no, we're going to respect their privacy is like we're not that desperate for friends. But then they had a zoom call with their friends in the desert. And like it felt like old times and their friends seemed so happy. And also they were like, oh, my God, we made this new couple of friends and like y'all are going to absolutely love them.

OK, that's kind of rude. Yes, it's rude to make new friends. I agree. Well, to like abandon your friends, like living, I feel like it was just like hard to be in a city like during the pandemic. And just to leave and now you're in this beautiful desert, you can see the sky everywhere. There's like the like the stones of the ground or like court site. Probably like you're just living your best life.

And you're like, we actually met this like amazing couple like and you can see your friends like I'm sure they brought up the walls. Like I feel like they I'm sure they sense that their friends were suffering and yet they still decided to do a little flex. And yes, I don't know if that was right. Annie and Dylan are like, you know what, fuck it, we're looking in the windows, right, like we deserve it. So Annie and Dylan shield their

periphery to block out the sun so that they can look into this house. And they're like, OK, they didn't move out, right? Like their stuff is there. But like also the apartment is really well designed. And Annie is like furious. She's like, these people have a great like perfectly designed department. They have three cats, like they live next door. They could be our friends.

And now they have like disappeared off the face of the earth. Three weeks after they disappear, Annie gets a little gift. And the gift comes in the form of a package being delivered to Lily. Three. So it's been three weeks. OK, the package is now sitting outside Lily and Ben's door. What do you do? I mean, you can't open it. That's a that's a crime.

That's that's a yeah, if you were to walk, I'm not supporting felonies. But if you were to walk by the package, again, it would like you have to avoid not seeing those names on the package. I think I would definitely use that information and then just Google them. Annie manages to wait three days. She's like, well, maybe they'll come back. She waits three days on the fourth day. She's like, that's it.

She goes and she gets the package and she's like, perfect excuse. I'm simply keeping this package out of the rain. I'm such a good neighbor. Oh, the package was like outdoors. Yes. Oh, OK, that that feels good, because if it was like in a hallway, then it's like you have to leave it there. It's inside. But if it was like on a stoop, like, yeah. So she brings it inside.

Now she has Lily's last name. So she finds her immediately on social media, right? She's a public Instagram. Annie is like scrolling through the photos. The most recent one posted is of Lily and Ben together. She's like scrolling their pics of them moving, pics of the cats. But like no evidence that they have gone somewhere, right? There aren't like trip photos or anything.

Does she look into like the tagged photos of them as well? Yes. OK. And there's like nothing there. So she like keeps scrolling and she finds like an adorable engagement photo of them. And she's like, oh, my God, so cute. And she looks at the date and she's like, oh, my God, this is the exact same date that we got engaged on. So she like carries her creepy phone into the bedroom. And she's like, Dylan, I found Lily's Instagram and look.

And she watches Dylan look at the phone and see the date. And then she watches him try to click the little circle with the tagged accounts button to navigate to Ben's profile. But Dylan does not have an Instagram and he is social media illiterate. What he does is he double taps the photo. Oh, my God. Annie, you should have screenshotted it and then given. But I respect someone who doesn't understand Instagram. So good for Dylan. What do you do?

Like your fiance has now double tapped a photo from your neighbor on Instagram, who you do not follow. You know, in college, I walked through a crisis of this nature because she was stalking her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend and was like several, several years deep into Instagram. And then 14 posts. Absolutely. Like liked the post, freaked out. Her first response was to turn off her phone.

And then I was like, OK, let's let's turn it back on. And then she unliked it. And then she did. She chose flight. She deleted her Instagram. And I was like, you're just not going to have an Instagram again. Did she make it out? Like, what happened? Well, she never got a message about it. But like, I also I realize I'm not up to speed as to like

how you get notified. Like if someone likes it and then unlike it, like maybe you just see that like lock screen thing. But then once you go and check, it's like not there. I think I would just unlike it. And then I would like give myself like a little talk in the mirror where it's like, let's be careful next time. Do not hand our phone to Dylan.

Cannot trust Dylan. OK, Annie fast on her feet immediately. She's like, give me my phone back. She follows Lily. She slides into Lily's DMs and is like, I'm so sorry that this is creepy, but I'm your neighbor. We've met. You haven't been back to the apartment for a few days. So there was a package outside your door and I have it in my apartment

because I didn't want it to get wet in case it rains. So I just wanted to let you know that I have it. OK, this is a sign of how Annie is like well adjusted. And I'm like a creature of a cave being like a tree. Yes, Annie's a genius. But on Instagram, you can see if someone sees your message and she like Lily hasn't seen it, right? It's now mid August.

Two months have gone since this couple like disappeared. It has been two weeks since Lily like sent the message because Dylan double taps the photo. When Dylan comes in from walking their dog, like all smug. Annie can tell he's smiling like before he even takes off his mask and he's like, they're back. Oh, my God, they just pulled into the parking lot. And Annie's like, what?

And as she sees this, she can hear the front door of their apartment open. She like hears the woman like unloading the cats again. So finally, their potential friends have returned. They're like, OK, we are not missing this fucking opportunity again. We are enacting our plan right now. Amazing. So they so they walk out of the apartment to meet to intercept them. Yes, they go out with their beers and they're like, hello.

Where are your neighbors? Like we have your package. I don't know if you saw my message on Instagram, but like it was sitting outside. So I brought it in like we have beer. We're not sure like what your comfort levels are, but like we could have beers in the park. If you guys wanted to, it would be really fun.

Annie is like sweating. She's so stressed, right? She's like a nightmare. Just like a monologue that they've been preparing for months. And this couple, Lily and Ben, are like, oh, my God, yeah, like we would love to get to know you. Like thank you for keeping our package. We have beers in our fridge, too. Like if you guys are comfortable with it, you're welcome to just like come in.

And they're like, yeah, we haven't seen anyone in weeks. Like we don't care about risk level anymore. We need friends. We're going inside. OK, everyone goes inside. Annie pets all three of the cats. But like the rhythm is off, right? Like it's not a natural connection, even though it really feels like it should be.

Are they robots? No. OK, what's weird is that like Lily and Ben are like an alternate version of them, right? Like all four of them went to the same college. Oh, my God, couples started dating after senior year. Like the women in both couple are artsy and the men are musical, right? Like they're comparing notes and they're like, oh, my God, it's so hard to plan a wedding in the middle of a pandemic.

Like we're worried about losing our security deposits. We're worried about like our anti-vax relatives, like the only real difference between them is that Lily and Ben are board game people. And Annie and Dylan are firmly not board game people. I am not a board game person. And so I sympathize where I feel like hanging out with board game people can often be like, you'll really like it. And then I'm like, I'm not going to like it.

And oh, like people who don't like games like really like this. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure I won't like it. OK, Lily and Ben, board game people bring out Settlers of Catan. Oh, my God. Do you play? Doesn't that game last like eight hours long? I think so. But I'm asking like, you're in this situation where like you need friends.

You have no other friend options and you're in these people's apartment. Like, do you play? And I mean, I think also like it's the pandemic. You haven't talked to anyone. Like I feel like socializing with anyone is going to feel weird. So I think they have to suck it up and they have to play. And I am very curious how how this game will go. OK, so they play.

It takes a million years, as you know. The game is like fine. They don't like it. But what's like weirder is that the conversation is so stilted. And even though they have so much in common, it feels really awkward. Like there's almost no small talk. Both Ben and Lily are like making a lot of eye contact and like asking so many personal questions.

Wait, Ben and Lily are making eye contact with each other and then asking very personal questions of Annie and Dylan. No, they're making eye contact with Annie and Dylan. Oh, like they're the type of people who make like very good eye contact while they're talking and they're like, let's get into our traumas. Oh, my God, this sounds so stressful. Yes, it is stressful near the end of their second beers. And after losing his like longest road card,

Dylan is like, where were you guys for two months? Yes, Dylan. And go for it, like kind of look at each other mischievously. And they're like, I know it's a little immature, but we spent the summer at our summer camp. Like we both went to summer camp every summer from like age six until the end of high school. And like then after high school, we were counselors.

And this summer, we went back as kind of like a last hurrah. Like Ben was in charge of leading lifeguards and I was in charge of leading the art cabin. OK, so they were counselors. Yes. OK. Annie in her head is like, do these people not have jobs? Like, how did they do this? She's like, I would also like to go to summer camp and not work.

But before she can ask, Dylan is talking. Dylan is like, oh, yeah, I went to summer camp as a kid, like which one? And they say the name of the summer camp and immediately Dylan and Annie know this camp. They're like, we understand where this disconnect is coming from. That is a Christian summer camp. I know a lot about evangelicals. I was raised evangelical.

Lily and Ben are not evangelicals exactly. But and I don't know how much you know about this, but they're like a very particular brand of progressive. I'm doing air quotes, progressive Christians, where they like they believe all the same fundamental religious truths, but they like maybe vote Democrat as like a centrist. And they're like they're like the granola kind of Christian, right? Like they're wearing chocos.

They like to rock climb. They are so, so nice and so eager. And they are just not people that Dylan and Annie would be friends with if they did not live right next door. Oh, man. So Dylan and Annie make it through this game, right? They're like, look, they're like not making eye contact with each other, right?

They're like just heads down, finish the game, get out. They're like censoring all uses of the word God in Catalan. Exactly. And pretty quickly afterward, they're like, we have to go home. We have to work like pretty early in the morning. It is like exactly the kind of first date where you like, you know, the other person or in this case, people are perfectly nice and would make really nice couple of friends for someone else, right?

Late that night, Dylan whispers to Annie in the bed and is like, I don't think they could be our new best friends. Poor Dylan and Annie. Just quiet. And he's like, and he's like, no shit. But they're like both bummed because they like this is supposed to be our friends. But they're like, we're just too different, right? Like we're atheists, we're dog people.

We don't like talking about the great traumas of our lives and we hate board games. All together, yeah, pretty, pretty different. I I'm so sad that Annie and Dylan have to go back to their quiet, quiet life after two months of just be or like however long they were gone of being able to just be noisy as they are having this conversation. They can hear the conversation going on on the other side of the wall. And Lily and Ben had the best time. Oh, oh, Lily and Ben.

And they still don't know about the wall, I guess, because Annie and Dylan are being so quiet, I guess so. One thing we were told from the person who sent this in is that the people in this scenario, like no one ever talked about how thin the walls were. Like no one ever mentioned it. Got it. Time moves on. Lily like has a job, so she like teaches theater at the local high school. And once the school year starts every day,

she's like leaving in the VW bug and coming home in the afternoon. Ben does not seem to have a job. So like all day while Annie and Dylan are working, they can hear Ben like puttering around his apartment. This is unideal because one, it's distracting. And two, Dylan takes every single call on speakerphone, like all of that. Oh my poor poor Annie and Ben. Yes. So one day in early October, Annie is on an important work call

and Ben picks up his phone on the other side of the wall. And he is like talking about something really loudly and really unimportant. And Annie is like, I absolutely not like I need him to be quiet. So she like texts Dylan and is like, can you please do something about this? Dylan like goes out the front door. He goes next door. Annie can hear like muffled talking. She hears Ben say like goodbye on the phone and then Dylan is back.

After her work call, Dylan is like problem. Because you made me go talk to Ben so that he would hang up his phone. We have now been roped into another game night. Annie's like, no. I mean, this is just hard. Like when you try to be friends with people who are your neighbors and then you're like, actually, I don't want to be friends with them. You have to see them all the time.

And then if there's that disconnect where they want to be friends with you, I just feel like you either need to you can't like make excuses, right? Like or else you'll always have to make excuses. So I think you either have to suck it up and go and. Like bring like a very short game, like be like, let's play this game instead. Like this game that lasts like 30 minutes or something. Or you have to have a hard conversation about why you don't want to be friends. And I avoid all conflict.

So I would go over with the very short game. Because I also, I mean, I'm just curious, are they thinking about moving? Like this doesn't seem sustainable as an apartment in general. Annie waits until Lily gets home, right? She hears Lily get home and then she goes into her bedroom and she yells to the front of the house, can you bring me some Advil? My head is killing me. Dylan brings the Advil to the bedroom and it's like, you little sneak.

Annie's smarter than all of us. I know. So all night, Annie just like watches reality TV on her laptop in bed with her headphones in, right? Like they get to stay home because now Annie has a headache and their neighbors know this because they can hear through the walls. But around 10 p.m. Dylan comes in and he's like motioning to her to take off her headphones.

She does. And immediately she hears it. They are fighting. Oh, no. I thought it was going to be spicy and fun, but that's stressful. On the other side of the wall, they are having a screaming fight. Remember, they have now been back in this apartment for like a few months. And Annie and Dylan have never heard them fight.

So Annie is like what's happening and Dylan is like, apparently Ben hasn't been playing with the cats, even though he's home all day. Annie's like, so she thinks that he's not pulling his weight and Dylan's like, it seems like it. But remember, they work at home. So Annie's like, but Ben does play with the cats. Like we hear him. He's at home all day and we hear him like throwing the little mice and stuff.

But they're like, we can't have this conversation because like we can hear our neighbors so clearly, they can also hear us. So they're like texting at all, right? The fight is like expertly matched, right? And like so even that it feels like listening to our Annie and Dylan are just stunned into silence, like staring at the wall, eavesdropping. Very aesthetic and aesthetic fight. Yes. By the end of it, Annie and Dylan are like, we're exhausted

and we haven't even been fighting. So they like wake up in the morning to pure blissful silence. And they're like, we don't know like how to handle this. Like we don't know how to interact with these people. We also have information that like is kind of important to the fight they were having. But that would require us to reveal that not only did we hear the fight, but we can hear literally every single thing that they do.

Like, what do you think they should do here? I'm just confused why Lily and Ben, like after like cohabitating like in this building with Annie and Dylan, like they must hear all of Dylan's calls. So like they must know that that fight would carry. And like, I guess maybe they weren't thinking about it. I guess like interfering in that like defending Ben by being like, actually do we hear him play with the cats?

Like we hear the jingle, like we hear them. Yeah, it's like feels deranged. So. And I have a sympathy for Lily, like she's out. She's working. She comes back. Like Siamese are very needy and, you know, I think I would I think I would not say anything. And then if there were like another fight about this issue

or an or a different one, then maybe I would like regroup. Yeah. OK, that's what they decide. They like they're like, we can't we probably won't say anything. Like unless one of them brings it up to us, not our like not our circus, not our monkeys. They like take their dog for a walk to get coffee in the morning because they feel hung over from staying up late to listen to this fight. And they run into Ben and Lily outside and Ben and Lily are like

blissful, like they are like priming a bookshelf. They are giggling. Lily is like playfully bonking Ben on the nose of the paintbrush. And Dylan are like, what? They're like, this is so weird. Ignore it. Move on. For weeks after this, Annie and Dylan are like aware of how much noise they're making, right?

Like they're not quiet people, so they're still like having conversations. They know they can hear, but they're like aware in the back of their mind so they can hear everything that they say, right? They stop like doing some of their like louder activities, right? Like they keep their sex quieter. They're like they had this bit where they would like talk in a robot voice while they unloaded the dishwasher to make it fun. And they like stop doing this because they're like,

we can't let our like fake friends know this about us. That just sounds so stressful, like to be in an apartment and to feel like you can't be your full robot. I know. OK. They start like because this is now like the main saga in their life because of COVID, they are also texting their old friends, Lauren and Theresa about it, right? They're like providing updates on what Ben and Lily are doing.

They're providing updates on like the bits they've had to get rid of, right? This whole thing. And Lauren and Theresa are like, we actually rode like horses into the sunset with our new couple friends. Yes, exactly. That means that a couple of months later when Annie and Dylan hear another explosive fight, they are live texting updates to Lauren and Theresa. This time the fight is about camp.

Ben doesn't have a job. He picks up some kind of freelance work online, but not very much. Lily is like mad about this because she thinks he should get a job. She wants them to both have careers and be like contributing more money to their household. She's like, I want you to find something you're passionate about like me. You can't just like keep sitting around here. Ben is like, I have found something.

And Lily's like, OK, what? And Ben's like camp, I want to work at the camp. And Lily's like, that's not a full time job. The camp doesn't hire year round staff. Lily's proposing all sorts of things, right? She's like, we could move across the country. You could work at a bigger camp that does have full time staff. I could get a higher paying job, which would give you more flexibility

on and on and on. Ben is like, no, the camp is my purpose. The camp is my calling in life. That's what I mean. That's what I want. This time, things are serious. They hear like Lily yelling about their future. They hear her like slam her engagement ring down on the table. Annie texts the group, the group thread with Lauren and Teresa.

And it's like, RIP Ben and Lily. Oh, my God, I'm just like in my mind, imagining like the tiny, like tinny sound of a little ring going onto a counter. Yes, everyone in the group text is like divided on whose side they're on. Right. Like some of them think that Lily is right. Ben should have to get a job. Some of them think that Ben should be allowed to work at the camp and like chill. It seems like I guess I don't really know what rent looks like in this town.

But this seems like a nice, it like a nice apartment with a very nice ish. An apartment that looks nice. With like a very huge window, like lots of space. Like they clearly decorated it so nicely inside. I just feel like how are they affording this kind of lifestyle with like just Lily working at this high school? So I feel like if they they my gut is saying family money is supporting some part of this lifestyle, in which case it's not like

Lily needs Ben to work, like to afford. Like I feel like if that that would have come up in the conversation, it feels like she just wants him to work because like she expects that of him. Right. I you know, I'm going to say, I don't find either side like super compelling. Yeah, they're not. Annie is like so annoyed because she's like, I have this just choice drama happening next door to me, right?

Like I'm essentially watching a Tom Stopper play like every couple of months. This is great. She's like, I have nobody to talk to about this. And like it's only Dylan and we're already conferring notes. She's like, so when she runs in to the neighbor that lives on the other side the next day and that woman also looks exhausted. Annie is like, this woman must must be exhausted because she's up all night listening to the same fucking fight that I am. Right.

So Annie tries to make a small talk with this woman because they're like walking the same way. And she's like, oh, my God, aren't you tired from listening to the fight last night and the woman's like, what? And Annie's like, the fight our neighbors were having a screaming fight. And the woman's like, no, I'm tired because I'm a nurse and this is a pandemic and I'm working all the damn time. I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm asleep. It's good for this neighbor. Yeah, and he's like, this sucks. Now I look like an idiot one. And I have to say, like, thank you for your service to a nurse, which doesn't feel good. And two, I'm like, oh, for two on making neighbor friends, right? Just like absolutely obliterated.

When Annie returns from getting her little coffee still the morning after this big fight, Lily and Ben are like outside watering their plants, like making little jokes. They're like booping noses with the little. Oh, my God. Yes, I find this play fighting so disgusting. It's Annie's like, I hate this. I hate it. I don't understand what's going on. Things are quiet for a couple of weeks.

But then in January, it happens again. This time, Annie was out to dinner with a friend. She returns home to Dylan sitting on the bed typing furiously. She can hear the fight. Dylan's like, I've been taking notes. Oh, my God. Apparently, Lily came home with another cat. Oh, three is a slippery number. It's a slippery number. It's so easy to adjust.

I feel like, yeah, uh, uh, is it a baby cat? Is it like a like a kitten? It's I don't think it's a kitten, but it's a young cat. OK, OK, Dylan has been taking very comprehensive notes of this fight. He has written in all caps with quotes around it. This cat is black. It doesn't even match our other cats. OK. OK, what a charged statement to make.

The Google talk is like explaining so much. All of the fights are like combining together, right? Ben says he doesn't want a fourth cat because he doesn't want to take care of four cats. Lily's like, but you don't take care of our cats that much. I had to take care of them when I get home from work. Ben's like, I do ask our neighbors, they can hear everything. Dylan has written a note after this,

like a little comment in the Google doc that says, quiet for three minutes because I think they remembered I'm here. But then they forgot again, so the fight continues. Lily is like, I saved this cat. This cat needed a home. Ben's like, there are lots of homes where cats can go. Lily's like, well, I don't see why it matters. I'm the one who makes the money.

So if I want another cat, I think I should be allowed to have one. And Ben's like, that's not how relationships work. Lily's like, the cat is cute. I'm keeping the cat like in discussion. And Ben is like, if that's how it's going to be, maybe I should leave for a little bit. And Lily's like, you know what? Maybe you should.

Wow. Annie has been reading all of this very rapidly while the fight is still going on. So she has come into the third act of the fight happening through the wall. But she's all caught up. She's all caught up now, which is that Ben and Lily's timeline plans got fucked up because of the pandemic.

And that seems to be the actual root of this problem. Like what they're fighting about is that they were supposed to be married by now. And then like in the summer, Lily was going to get pregnant and have a baby, right? And Ben is like, we cannot have four cats and a baby. And Lily is like, first off, Memphis, apparently one of the cats, is old.

Second off, we cannot have a baby in this apartment with no full walls. Wow. So this is like Lily got a cat to preempt the death of Memphis. I mean, 10th of one of her beloved cats. Ben is like, people have had babies in worse places than this kind of nice apartment that just is like missing a wall.

Lily is like, no, I don't want to have a baby before we're married. Fine. She's like, I don't want to have this conversation anymore. At first, Annie and Dylan think that it's silent, but then they can hear very vaguely that they are still talking, just quieter. Do you go to the wall?

Do you press your little ear up against the wall to hear the end of this height? I go to the wall. I feel out the thinnest part of the wall. And then I slowly sink to my knees. And I get a little cushion so that I'm comfortable. Yes, of course they do this. They have to.

They press their ears against this little piece of guard stock wall. And of course, they can hear everything. But they are not fighting anymore. They're not talking about the fight anymore. They are like sweet talking. Oh my god. Annie and Dylan are like, this is boring.

This is not what we signed up for. They go to bed. The next morning, as you may guess, Annie isn't a real full-me-once-shame-on-you-full-me-twice- don't-get-fooled-again headspace. So she's like, I assume that everything is fine now like it's always been, right? They always have these big fights,

and then they're fine in the morning. But in the morning, Ben's gone. They don't hear him. He doesn't seem to be there. For like a few days, he's gone. About a week later, they hear him come back, pack a bag, and leave while Lily's still at work. And the cats are still there.

Ben didn't take any of the cats. The cats are still there. All four cats. Annie texts Lauren and Teresa and is like, it's over. Like he moved out. So for a couple of months, this drama is gone, right? It's kind of quiet except for the Siamese cats yelling. Lily is much quieter than Ben.

So they're basically gone. But then, as you may remember, Annie followed Lily on Instagram. In March, Lily posts on Instagram. She posts, quote, Happy birthday to the best guy I've ever known. I'm so grateful to get to do this life with you. Two kissy emojis, picture of Ben.

Oh, my God. Annie screenshots it. She sends it to the group thread. There's a division in opinion in the group thread. Half of them are like, oh, my God, they're still together. The other half are like, this is a decoy, like no way. This is a decoy. I feel like this shows that Lily still has hope

for their future. And their four cats. Yes, but you think that this is a decoy. I feel like people who might follow her. For like, yeah, your Instagram followers. The next week, two weeks before everyone's lease ends and they move out, Annie notices that Lily is wearing her engagement ring again.

It's an audio medium. You gotta say something. Oh, my God. Okay, sorry. She's wearing the ring. And also, everyone is moving out, perhaps? Yes. Well, at least Annie and Dylan know

that they are moving out, right? Oh, okay, good. Thank God. They're like, no more. Good. Does Annie ask Lily about the ring? No, but a week after that, Ben comes back. Oh, my God.

And Lily isn't having like any phone calls that they can hear, like with Ben. No, they have heard nothing from that side of the wall. Wow. So Ben's back. Ben's back. Annie, she's done playing like softball.

She sees Ben walk outside. She's sprinting out there with the dog. She's like, Ben, hello, long time, no seeing. She's like frothing at the mouth. Yes. And Ben's like, oh yeah, it has been a long time, hasn't it? And Annie's like, yeah, hope everything's okay. Like, good to see you again.

And Ben laughs and is like, ha ha, everything's fine. I just like got a two month gig at the camp. I just feel like everyone is lying to Annie. Does she bring up the fight? No, Annie's like, ha ha, that's great. But inside, she is dying. Inside, she's about to explode from the pain of not understanding what's going on.

Inside, she wants to sprint back into their apartment and tell Dylan everything. Of course. But she finishes her walk, right? The next two weeks before they move out are calm. And unfortunately, we're like kind of nearing the end of this story. Everyone moved out on the same day.

Both couples moved out. And they did not see each other again. Turns out that good fences like thick walls make good neighbors. It's a little bit of an unsatisfying ending. So I want to talk a little bit about what happened and what you think happened here. Okay, wow.

Like, do you think Ben should have accepted the cat? What has the story taught us? What do you think? This reminds me of the coffee story where there just aren't, it's an interpretation one. I think that from what I gather from Lily and Ben's life is that it's very aesthetic and has certain things that are important to convey

on Instagram, like the three cats and your upcoming nuptials with Ben. And I just feel like it seems unlikely that Lily and Ben would have had like a reconciliation that like happened entirely over text or like wasn't done in the house. I just feel, I don't think, yeah, I guess I think that that post on Instagram was a decoy.

I think that maybe they got together in the end, but I really feel like it's, if they did, it's like on very shaky grounds. Does Annie still follow Lily on Instagram? Like, have there been updates since? Yes, so she still follows her Instagram. The only update though, is that like they're still posting Instagram pictures

of each other, but like less frequently. And they moved out in May of 2021. Our main couple has gotten married since then, but Lily and Ben haven't. But sometimes people have long engagements, like, but if, you know, you were talking about that timeline that they're on, like to have a baby and like to get pregnant, like to get pregnant,

I just don't, I just feel like why, I don't know, maybe there's something about like saving face about like not breaking up the relationship. Mm-hmm. Who do you think is the villain here? I think that Ben seems a little lazy, but I think that you cannot get a cat in that apartment and not consult your partner.

Like, you can't get any like large animal that makes noise. And especially like three cats, like I think that I as a rational person could be convinced into three, but I think that would be a hard, hard limit for me. And I feel like there is just, there is so much difference between three cats and four cats. And I think that that was rude.

And I think that, I mean, also as someone who recently has transitioned to cats that didn't know each other into becoming roommates, like that took six months of pain and effort. And like just to bring a cat home and also to sort of allude to this cat's like, you know, dramatic and perhaps like traumatic experience that like led this cat to being saved.

I feel like she was guilting Ben into accepting this cat when it's like, Ben has a right to say, like who is welcome at the apartment that like he also lives in. And I just, I think that was, that was the moment when, when Lily lost me entirely. So it is Lily to you. I think so.

I think so. I'm a civilian. Do you think that there are like any morals to take care about eavesdropping? I think the real moral is that you should never move into an apartment that you haven't seen in person. And that like, they could have just remained in this apartment with a couple of mice,

like you deal, you get used to the mice, like you kill the mice, you hire an exterminator instead of this like hell hole, like not being able to talk in your apartment. And yeah, I think that another moral of the story is that no one should have four cats. Okay. There's one thing that I left out of this storytelling

as we went through because like I really can't decide how important it is. Like I've moved it around multiple times writing the script. But this couple, Lily and Ben, right? They would have these giant yelling fights, three that we went through. And every single time, like clockwork, when the fight ended, they would have very loud sex.

Like our friend of a friend told us that there was no pause between the fighting and the sex. They wrote, quote, I have heard that they went from screaming one way to screaming another. Oh, what a turn of phrase. I pause it, this question to you. Could the fights have been a performance?

Could it be a kink? I think the fights are a kink. I mean, I think that these, that this Christian couple, maybe they don't have the language to like understand fight kink, nor do I, to be frank. But I feel like they're sort of discovering

that maybe this works for both of them, but our, haven't like talked enough about what that looks like in their relationship, like to do it healthily. Okay, now I'm convinced that they are together. And like, yeah. So this has completely changed your perception of their relationship.

I think so, yeah. I mean, it does. Why? Cause I think it, it, it converts the fight. Cause it could just be makeup sex, right? Like that's the other option, is that the fight isn't a performance. It's just like angry sex or makeup sex. Yep, that is also a possibility.

And I think I'm more attracted to the answer that includes fight kink. So I'm choosing the world that I want to inhabit. It's good to do it for the plot in general. Yeah, it brings more pleasure to everyone involved. And like, I hope there is more discourse about kink in like, in, in their circles and their community. It feels more fun for everyone than Katan.

But I also hope that they find a space where like, they can sort of consensually have their like angry sex, but not disrupt their neighbors because their neighbors did not consent to being a part of the fight kink. Right. Yeah. It's also like, there's an element of performance to this that I find very interesting.

Like the minute we, I read this email, I was like, oh, it's very fascinating to me that like, you were the audience to this, right? That like your neighbors, who did not end up being your friends. And only after they ended up not being your friends did these fights start. That's so interesting.

Maybe Lily and Ben, when they were looking around for apartments, they were like thin walls. Which one's that? That's what we're looking for. Huge window. Like that's what we're looking for. These like exhibitionists.

Sabrina, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was an absolute joy to have you. Thank you so much for having me, Kelsey. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a while. You and me both. Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at normalgossipatdefector.com

or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 gossip. If you love this podcast and want us to keep making it, become a friend or a friend of a friend at supportnormalgossip.com. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at normal gossip. You can follow Kelsey on all social media at McKinney-Kelsey.

This podcast was produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin. Defector's projects editor is Justin Ellis. Our editor-in-chief is Tom Lay. Jay Tolviera is our production assistant. Thanks to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively-owned subscriber-based media company. Normal Gossip is hosted by Kelsey McKinney.

My name is Emma Waldner. And remember, you did not hear this from me. We'd like to give a special thank you to Elissa Petrelli and Rebecca Giacomelli for sharing your Siamese Cat sounds with us.