Radio Rental - Episode 08

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

Radio Rental...Returns Welcome to Radio Rental, a mysterious video rental store with a VHS tape collection of TRUE scary stories, narrated by the people who experienced them. On today’s tapes… >> Wrong Mom > Jump Cut

Thank you. stories we tackle next. Plus, you could win a nice prize just for sharing your thoughts. Head over to tenderfoot.tv slash survey and let your voice be heard, and you'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card plus a Tenderfoot merch pack. It only takes a few minutes, and it makes a big difference. Thank you for being part of our community. We can't wait to hear from you. Hey guys, Radio Rental is officially back. For the next six weeks, we'll be releasing new episodes every Thursday. In celebration of our return, we're giving away 10 real-life Radio Rental VHS tapes to 10 lucky listeners. To win one, all you have to do is rate and leave a review for the podcast on the Apple Podcasts app. We're randomly selecting 10 usernames and we'll announce the winners in just a few weeks. These real Radio Rental

VHS tapes are super cool. So if you're enjoying the podcast and excited about our return, rate and review Radio Rental on Apple Podcasts for a chance to win. Thanks, guys. We'll be here every Thursday for the next six weeks. Enjoy the show. Greetings fans and friends. You've reached the voicemail box of award-winning radio personality Terry Carnation. Terry is currently either indisposed or besieged by a mob of his most loving devotees. Either way, he is too busy to pick up the phone. Leave a message with your request. Perhaps you would like to purchase a signed napkin or an actual lock of Mr. Carnation's hair.

If so, please go to TerryCarnation.com. If this is the IRS, Mr. Carnation would like to refer you to Section 2202 of the CARES Act, which gives him an extended grace period until December 30th. Thank you. Leave your message at the tone. Your voicemail greeting has been successfully updated. Okay, one down. Next item on the agenda. Let me see. Oh, hello, old friend. I was wondering when I'd be seeing you again. Come in, come in.

Welcome back to Radio Rental. A lot has happened since last we met. Oh, I would love to give you a hug, but as we all know, sadly, the golden age of hugging is currently on pause. Six feet of distance, if you please. In fact, could you please stand behind that stain on the carpet? See it? Down there? No, no, no.

The other one. Back up. Nope. No, not that one. Not that one. The other one. No, the other other one. The reddish brown. Yep. Or is that a green? I'm not sure. There we go. Good. Well, how convenient that I have never had this carpet cleaned. So, you caught me updating my voice mailbox greeting.

I try to stay up to date with the latest digital trends. And the voicemail, believe it or not, is still quite relevant. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised at all the tender messages I received during our break. Here, let me play you some of the recents. Hi, my name's Joe. I have a membership with you guys. I rented a movie, and I'm just wondering if I could get an extension on it. I'd really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Bye. Okay, Joe, if that is your real name.

Whoever you are, you're either a master of condescending sarcasm or just really vague. Okay. Hold on, hold on. I think this one will be more affectionate. Not sure what I'm supposed to do when I have not returned a movie after several months. If I rewind it, will the 50 cents at least be taken off? Let me know.

Okay, so those two may have been more logistical requests, but I assure you, some of my earlier messages were quite effusive. Now, as you can tell, I'm clearly needed here at Radio Rental. I'm happy to announce that I'm back and ready to share new stories with you all. And boy, do I have some insanity this time out. Let's get in the Wayback Machine and take a trip to the grocery store. Remember that place?

This is a time before Instashop or Uber Carts and eFood or GrubGrab or whatever you call it. Just a good old-fashioned trip to a harmless grocery store. What could possibly go wrong? It's a common childhood memory. Running errands with your mom. As a kid, you're just going along with the motions.

Waiting for the boring adult tasks to be done. Grocery shopping is the most common errand of them all. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Everyone goes to the grocery store. I was an only child for a very long time, so I would accompany my parents almost everywhere. Grocery shopping's always sort of an ordeal where you hold it off until the last possible second

and then inevitably have to go for that big haul on the weekends. As a child, you would just come along with her on Saturday. You'd get put in the front of the cart. You'd get told to mind your P's and Q's for a minute, and afterwards maybe we'll stop and get ice cream on the way home. We had gone to some big box store, whether that was a Sam's Club or a Costco. It kind of escapes me now since they're all pretty much the same. The cart was half full with whatever we had decided we would need that week.

And she had pulled me off to the side and she said, you know, stay here, I'm gonna grab a couple of things, be right back. It was something that she had done before. It was something that it just made it easier for her to move around and not have to lug an entire cart. She had just pulled me off to the side and said, sit tight. And I just kind of nodded in that way that kids are like,

yeah, whatever, like I'm listening, but I'm not really listening. And went back to playing my video game, which at that time was a little lime green Game Boy color, busy plugging away on Pokemon Crystal. Focusing on the screen, very engrossed in my Game Boy. You can see things in your periphery, but you aren't really seeing them.

They're more of colors and shapes rather than actual people or things. I remember at one point, the cart just starts to begin moving. I remember seeing red fingernails. I just remember stopping and kind of looking up and looking at this woman. She had very tanned skin, very bright red lips. I remember thinking how weird it was for a moment that there was someone with bright red nails pushing this cart.

My mother is not a very feminine woman. We're Midwestern people, We're pretty sturdy folk. She would never paint her nails, and if she would, she would never paint them bright red. I don't know what it was, just this animal sense of, I just want it to stop. I don't know how to make it stop on my own. I don't even think I was old enough to be consciously aware of the bad things that can happen to children, especially children left unattended.

We started to move, and we started to get further and further from where my mother had originally placed me. I think it was that sensation of moving that started kicking me into gear of, we're going somewhere and I'm going somewhere with this woman and I'm trapped. I can't move. I'm sitting here in this child safety basket in the front

and if I want to move, I need help getting out. If this woman is taking me somewhere, unless I do to move, I need help getting out. If this woman is taking me somewhere, unless I do something immediately, I will be forced to go wherever she ends up taking me. This has to be a mistake. People don't just start pushing a child in a cart for no reason. Fight or flight, and when you're such a young child, you don't know what to do.

Sometimes it's also fight, flight, and when you're such a young child, you don't know what to do. Sometimes it's also fight, flight, or freeze. I just remember pausing and feeling that icy stab of panic. I don't know you, and something is happening here that shouldn't be happening. I also, as a child, have been very, very talkative, very outspoken, and I remember my brain catching up with my mouth a second later, but very loudly saying, You're not my mom.

She leans in, and I remember her teeth. I remember them being yellowed. And I just remember her leaning in, almost like we were sharing a secret. You're not my mother. And this woman kind of got this weird look in her eye, almost one of disbelief. Continuing to push the cart and stared at me,

and she's like, well, what are you talking about? It just seemed like a very point blank thing, like I don't know you, you don't know me, like why are you acting like I'm the one in the wrong here? And she, with intensity in her eyes, just sort of leaned in and was like, but honey, I am your mom. I remember feeling that this is not right. This isn't correct. And that blind sense of panic when a situation is bad and you recognize it's bad and you recognize

that like it can get worse. She was pushing the cart away and kept insisting that I was her kid, pushing me further and further away, trying to get me to quiet down, trying to get me to just go along with the green store there's usually broken up into like smaller islands. Sometimes it's books, sometimes it's clothing. And I remember looking over this island of produce and seeing my mom on the other side and just yelling really loudly, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom.

Looking back now, it's kind of dumb because you yell Mom. You're at a grocery store. There's probably hundreds of people who are mothers. Like, why would one child yelling Mom get my mother's attention? I don't know if that scared her. I don't know if she just wasn't expecting it,

but the woman pushing the cart stopped. And I yelled it again, like, louder, like, mom. Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. My mom would always tell me this story when I was younger, that the second I was born or whatever, she could pick out me crying in a nursery. She could pick out my voice, like one kid yelling mom from across a crowded grocery store.

My mother, again, is a very intimidating-looking woman, and she just comes charging across this grocery store. The woman who was in front of me, she just looked spooked. I just remember her looking at me and realizing, I think, that she lost control of this situation and just leaving. One minute she was there insisting that I was her child, and one minute she was just gone. My mom starts running over and she gets into my face,

what was happening, what was that? And at that moment, it just kind of all came to a head like, oh, this is a situation that something bad happened and now my mom is mad at me for it. And when you're a kid, you don't really make sense of situations in the way that are normal, so you see your mom emotional and worked up, and looking back, she's obviously not mad at me, but concerned, scared about the situation.

I just remember her getting in my face and being like, what was that? Who was she? What was this woman doing? By the time she had calmed me down and I had told her that there was a woman, we had kind of established what the situation was and she realized I wasn't lying, I wasn't making this up, this wasn't some kid imagining things. Costco's one of those types of grocery stores where you have security cameras pointing in and out, you can see people on the screen coming and going, and then they record everything,

they make you present like a ID. You have to be a member, you have to be a member, you have to be somebody who, you know, belongs there. Once we had told somebody, it was at the point where she had slipped out with a bunch of other people and nothing became of it, nothing happened. Which to me is just kind of, I think, what makes it sit most in my head.

Nothing became of it. As an adult now, 20 years later, it's like that lack of resolution that kind of makes it stick with you. Imagining now that it could have been something for kidnapping for God knows what reason. I mean, people kidnap children all the time for sick things. I mean, I feel like that could have been the worst case scenario, giving her maybe the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was just confused.

But I don't think so. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at Ben MGM, the king of online casinos. We'll be right back. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for T's and C's. 90 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Crime Writers On is the podcast where authors and journalists talk about the latest true crime series, documentaries, and podcasts. Talk about what's on the charts and find those up-and-coming podcasts

you'll be talking about. It's like a fun and smart book club discussing what makes good storytelling and teaching how to become a critical listener. Or not. And stick around for the Crime Writers Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down reviews. It's the original true crime review podcast.

Crime Writers On, wherever you get your podcasts. Like probably right here. Well, what did you think? Sounds like some lucky therapist out there is about to get a loyal new customer for life. Now, as you were savoring that first tape, I came across some more fan mail. This time, good old-fashioned snail mail

via the good old-fashioned U.S. Postal Service. Long may it wave. Rest in peace, Postal Service. R.I.P. Now, where is that letter opener? Okay. Now, this was sent in by one Dylan Ducuto.

Ducuto? I don't know. Dear Terry Carnation, please come back from the Dominican. We miss you and we're pretty sure your cat's gone. He stopped eating the treats we put through the mail slot. Well, that got dark pretty quickly, didn't it? I suppose I should go find Malachi.

Don't worry, he's part Carillion Bobtail. He knows how to take care of himself. Did you know a pack of Carillion Bobtails can fight off a grizzly bear? Oh, it's true. Look it up. Google that shit. Now, how about you amuse yourself with the next tape while I go off and look for him? Okay. Off I go. This was in 2009, so I would have been 20. I was living in a smaller apartment.

I had a girlfriend who went to school, and she would come visit regularly, like every weekend. Our relationship was pretty casual. We said I love you and stuff like that, but never had the conversation about living together or getting married or, God forbid, having kids. It was never like that. I mean, 20 years old, standard semi-long distance kind of thing. She was over one night. My girlfriend got there, I want to say 6, 7 o'clock. We went to Arby's, picked up some Arby's, came back, ate all that, made some popcorn and started our movie. We were watching a DVD that she had brought.

It was the movie Revolutionary Road. We're watching the movie and then within a split second, even faster than that, like faster than a blink, I found myself sitting on the foot of my bed in my bedroom as opposed to living room where we were. And I was nude. And the lights were turned off. I didn't feel groggy or sleepy or anything like that. It was just so sudden. Immediately after the jump reality I've ever known.

Spent a good second or two trying to catch my breath and when we came to on the bed, I don't really know what else to call it, I was kind of panicked. My first thinking was, am I hurt? Am I okay? Found that, yes, I was okay. You know, I'm not bleeding anywhere, you know. But that took a couple seconds to figure that out.

It took me a couple seconds to realize I was in my room. I had to look and see my poster on the wall and stuff for me to go, holy crap, okay, I'm in my room. I spent a couple seconds thinking that maybe I died or something because it was just so bizarre. And then I realized that my girlfriend is sitting right next to me, also nude, and she looks like she saw a ghost. I tried to speak first but I choked like there was something caught in my throat. I don't think she blinked the

whole time. Her eyes were just pasted open. It was a really eerie look. Wide eyes, white as a ghost, mouth agape like you had just seen someone pop out of a grave she was trembling shaking sort of like that tremble you have after you know a near miss in traffic where your whole body is just rigid and shaking a little bit shallow breaths

I guess you could call it shock and shaking a little bit. Shallow breaths. I guess you could call it shock. She asked me what the hell happened. It was the first thing she said, which surprised me because I thought it was just me. And that honestly made me even more afraid because I was hoping she had answers. But that was the first thing she said is what happened. Did we turn the lights off?

Did you turn the lights off? Did you turn the lights off? Did I say it was time for bed or anything like that? I wasn't expecting her to ask. I thought I was going to have to sound crazy and tell her, hey, something just happened, and then she's going to call me nuts. But no, she asked me what happened. I don't know Did you turn off all the lights?

Did we decide to go to sleep? No Okay, what the hell's going on here? Right away I thought Something must have fallen off the wall And hit my head or something You know, I was trying to rationalize it From what I could tell just talking to her

That she experienced the same thing I did She didn't see anything that I didn't see, and vice versa. What if your life was like a movie? Was someone or something calling the shots behind the lens? If a part of your life was slow or boring, it simply snipped out. Cut to next scene. The jump was like the cut of a camera in a movie. Like the way we're talking now,

the camera would switch from me to you, me to you, as we took turns speaking. And the way it happens when it transfers the camera is so fast. There's no fading or clipping or anything. It's just a very sudden switch. That's exactly how fast and unexpected it was. It came out of nowhere. When I found myself in my room, my blinds were open and the moon was creeping in. Everything was turned off and I mean it was equally as creepy as finding myself in a completely

different room, let alone the lights being on and off. It was almost like we were sitting in the dark the whole time. Sitting on the edge of the bed, both of us right on the foot of the bed. We were dressed, sitting up straight, all four feet on the floor. It's not like anyone was falling asleep. But after the experience, our clothes were in a crumpled heap by the couch,

and we've never done that before. They were always either put in a hamper in the bedroom or left on the floor in the bedroom. That really stood out to me. That was strange. I decided I should call my mom. I was kind of a kid I guess and didn't know what the heck I was supposed to do in that kind of situation. When I picked up my phone I saw that it was four

hours from the time that we were watching the movie. Last time I checked the clock it was 11 p.m. Next thing I knew we were on the bed and it was 3 a.m. That just floored me. Immediately after we had that brief conversation about do you know what happened do I know what happened that was maybe two minutes then checking the lights and finding our clothes was maybe another two, three minutes. And that was when I decided to call my mom because nothing was adding up. I was going to ask her if she thought we should see a doctor, if we should go to a hospital, if she wanted us to go to her place or what to do. She said she knows that carbon monoxide leaks can have these kinds of effects on people.

I have a carbon monoxide detector, but that's just a machine and they fail all the time. So I took my mom's word for it and she said, just go to the hospital, honey. Call me when you leave. Let me know you're okay. So I'd say about 10 minutes after the jump we were out the door. I decided we were gonna go to the ER in case we had been drugged or ate something poisonous or who knows what. I know it probably wasn't the right choice for me to drive considering everything that was going on. I probably wasn't the best candidate to be behind the wheel. I didn't see any other choice. I had to get to the hospital. We told them that we were

having issues with our memory and we felt a little funny. We didn't want to tell them what happened for obvious reasons. We just tried to play it off like, oh, you know, it might have been carbon monoxide or some kind of mold. Can you just, is there any kind of blood test you can do? So they did just a standard blood test. I'm not sure if they were checking for drugs or what. They said we came back, no drugs in our system and no poisoning of any kind that they could find. My girlfriend kind of thought maybe she had

a seizure and I tried to explain to her that it happened to both of us. You know it wasn't just you I don't think it was a seizure. But she was adamant. So she got like a CAT scan to check her brain functions, which came back exactly as it should have, clear as a bell. I was constantly bringing it up for a while, for a few weeks. It was all I wanted to talk about. When my friends came over, it was all I wanted to talk about.

Things that guys online were saying and all this and that. And she just wanted it to go away. It affected our relationship. It was already kind of difficult to begin with, with the distance. Her friends didn't really like me at all. She didn't want to talk about it. I did. I embarrassed her when I brought it up around her friends and it just, we were just done. The next day, came home from the hospital, laid down in bed for a while, tried to sleep.

My head kept kind of telling me that maybe it was going to happen again. It could happen at any time. You didn't see it coming last time. It could happen now. So I couldn't really sleep. But almost immediately, as soon as she left in the morning, I started, sounds a little childish, but just Googling things. A lot of my searches led me to some pretty serious conspiracy sites. I wanted some real concrete answers. I was looking for something scientific. And it just kept bringing me to bizarre things, to be honest. I threw a Halloween party shortly after, and I was all messed up in my head, because it

was all I was thinking about, obviously. A lot of people brought up Samhain. I'm not sure if it's pagan or what it is but it's a day where the dimension from our world to the world of the past is open and they're able to come here and supposedly mess with us and some people have been known to go there unwillingly or unwittingly, I should say. I mean, a crazy situation can only have a crazy explanation. So I entertained every idea that they would give me.

Hobgoblins, Samhain, quantum death. And I was always trying to tell her what I was hearing from these people. I wanted to share these things with her and she said I sounded crazy. And I don't blame her. I'm sure I did sound a little crazy. Now when I look back on it, it's very eye-opening, almost educational in a way, where I learned that I don't know everything. I can't control everything. Sometimes things happen that you can't change, you can't control, you can't understand,

you can't explain away with anything. So it was pretty educational. I guess I was kind of a cocky little asshole, like 20 years old, running around slamming my religious grandparents. You know, science has an answer for everything, don't you know that? I learned that I don't know anything. I don't know if it made me a believer, maybe a little more on the agnostic side. Just because I know it sounds lazy, but science is failing to explain it for me,

and maybe there is something else at play that we can't possibly ever understand. And in that sense, I wouldn't say believer, but in that sense, maybe opened up my eyes to the possibility. I haven't been going to church or anything, but I understand more when people do. Because at the time I had this mentality that there's an answer to everything.

There has to be. I was just convinced that there was an answer out there and I just wasn't finding it. I've settled on I don't have a theory. I don't know everything. And I never will. Chilling, huh? That is so one of my absolute favorites. It's so relatable, don't you think? I mean, who among us hasn't been watching old reruns of Night Gallery,

then found themselves suddenly naked in the dark in another part of the state in somebody else's yard, the cops pulling up, your perp walk on the front page of the local paper, private parts barely blurred out. It's just so, it's so relatable. Been there, done that. Wait a minute, do you hear that? It's coming from one of those boxes.

Malachi! There you are! You've gained back some of your weight, all of your weight, and then some! Oh, very nice. What have you been eating? Oh, oh, oh, good God. Oh, good God, Malachi, what is that smell? Is that a poached salmon? And clearly not a fresh one. Oh. Oh.

Gag reflex. Well, friend, it looks like I'll have my hands full for a while with Malachi and his pesky salmon. I see you backing towards the door, and I don't blame you. Well, I do hope you'll join me again soon. I have the most tantalizing selection of ghoulish, macabre, hand-picked tapes to share with you this next go-round. Farewell, thrill-seeker. Until next time. Oh! farewell thrill seeker until next time radio rental is created by pain lindsey and brought to you by tenderfoot tv in atlanta

executive producers pain lindsey and donald albright hosted by rain wilson as his character terry carnation produced by pain lindsey mike Rooney, and me, Meredith Stedman. Written by Meredith Stedman with additional writing by Mark Laughlin. Sound design by Cooper Skinner. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set. Additional production by Christina Dana and Mason Lindsey.

Cover art by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. Voice acting by Ryan Jones, Casey Willis, and the Tenderfoot TV team. Shout out to Tiny Doors ATL for the creation of our real-life miniature radio rental store. You can check that out and more on their Instagram at tinydoorsatl. Special thanks to Grace Royer and Oren Rosenbaum at UTA, as well as support from the Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, and the team at Cadence 13. If you have a Radio Rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at yourscarystory

at gmail.com or contact us via the form on our website, radiorentalusa.com. Follow us on Instagram at Radio Rental and on Twitter at Radio Rental USA. You can also follow the beloved Terry Carnation on social media. Just search at Terry Carnation. On behalf of the Radio Rental store, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate and review. And don't forget to share our show with a friend of the genre. Thanks for listening. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for 20 years and have taken people into haunted places to uncover macabre tales and dark secrets.

On my podcast, Haunted Canada, I share bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening right now. Then join me if you dare.