Welcome to Night Vale - Unlicensed S3 E3: Pest Control
Episode Date: May 23, 2025Unlicensed, the first fiction show created by Jeffrey and Joseph since Night Vale, returns for a third season. Lou Rosen and Molly Hatch are unlicensed private detectives, scraping by on whateve...r cases they can get from their little office on the fringes of LA County. Reeling from a devastating betrayal and a major earthquake, this season finds Lou and Molly trying to rebuild their lives and evaluate their futures. But those futures might not be as long as they hope. Lou and Molly start what appears to be a quiet case: a series of strange home break-ins all involving ex-employees of a defunct Long Beach stereo manufacturer. But this case will quickly bring them up against an opponent more ruthless and resourceful than they've ever faced before. Lou and Molly have always gotten by on their wits, but what to do when facing an enemy who can outmatch them in both wits and violence? A cat and mouse game through the forgotten regions of Southern California, including a shady direct-to-video movie studio, the unglamorous workers neighborhoods of glamorous Catalina Island, and the distant remote parts of the desert, where help cannot reach you in time. There will be grave danger. There will be deaths. But maybe some things matter more than survival. Listen with a free Audible trial today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Hey, Nightville, it is Jeffrey Craneer speaking to you from April of 2026 with a couple of cool things coming up.
First off, we're going to be in Europe touring our newest Nightville live show, Murder Night in Blood Forest.
We're going to be in Edinburgh, UK, on May 27th.
We'll be in Manchester on the 28th. We will be in London on May 29th, and we will be in Amsterdam on May the 30th.
You can get tickets for these shows at Welcome to Nightville.com slash live, and hopefully we'll have more.
shows coming up later this year. Who knows? Just get on our newsletter. Go to Welcome
to Nightville.com. Sign up for our newsletter. We will send you emails twice a month to let you know
all of the news that you need to know about Welcome to Nightville. One of the big news things to tell you
right now is that our other hit podcast, Alice Isn't Dead, is coming back on April the 13th, written by
Joseph Fink, produced by Disparition and starring Jacica Nicole. More episodes of Alice Isn't Dead
return on April the 13th. So make sure you are
still subscribe to that podcast.
Finally, do you want some cool
nightbale merch? Go to Welcome to
Nightville.com, click on store, and we have
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click on live, if you want to see our live
shows, we will see you in Europe
and hey, thanks.
When you were little, you and
You've on have braced
in the
class of recrace,
always in
trying to
negotiate and
to make
the application
for the app
Negocate
Tid,
you can't
to renew with
this instinct
with without
operation
gratis,
no amount
minimum and
no free
mensuel.
You're
made for
negotiate,
and the
TD is
there to
this
is the third
and final
episode of
Unlicensed
Season 3
we will
put on
this feed
to hear
the rest of
the season
and who
boy doesn't
get intense
this one
really puts
our
detectors
through
something
you can
listen
to all
three
seasons right now with an audible free trial. Please do it. I really want people to hear this show
because I'm very proud of it. Okay, here you go. I learned I like Thai food tonight. My abuelita,
she made tamales for her brother's restaurant. She used her grandmother's recipe, which was given to her
by her grandmother. And this is the recipe I use now at my own restaurant. At home, we eat a lot of
the food I do not sell. Other times we get burgers or pizza or wings. We keep it simple in my family.
When Molly asked me to come eat Thai food, I almost said no. But I am glad that I said yes.
I ordered pad Thai with chicken. I remembered hearing something on the radio about how
Pad Thai was created by the Thai government to unify the nation.
So, seemed worth trying.
Plus, my mother always said,
if you don't know the restaurant,
ask for their most popular dish.
Oh, it was delicious.
Umami and spice cilantro,
crunchy beans sprouts,
and the shock of lime brought it all together.
I'm so thankful for such a lot of,
a lovely dinner, but I'm so angry about what happened to you, Lou. I know you can take care of yourself,
but if you ever need anything, anything, you name it, Hector will be there. Unlicensed,
Episode 3, Pest Control. At first glance, you may think that a dingo looks like a dog,
and you'd be correct. They're both canines.
The main differences lie in the dingo's wide jaws, flexible joints, and sharp wolf-like teeth.
At a quick glance, you might be tempted to pet a dingo.
Take it home, name it Bailey, ask it if it's a good boy,
give it a greenie and tie a bandana around its neck.
You may be tempted to try.
Many people have.
Dingo's born in captivity have been domesticated successfully,
but, like their canine cousin, the coyote,
their predatory drive is hard to kill.
It's possible to tame them, but at what risk?
My office is wrecked.
I'm shoving loose files and papers into any drawer I can find.
Molly's mending the closet door, which is hanging off its hinges.
Tammy calls with some work for us.
Give it to me.
Anything to keep my mind off the night I'm having, I say.
A woman, Lisa Carruthers, reached out that morning to Tammy.
Two skunks were left on Lisa's front porch in a cardboard box,
delicately held shut with neat bows of twine
and some errant holes poked in the top.
The skunks were nestled together in some Easter grass
and shredded newspaper.
When Lisa had opened the box,
the creatures leapt to be.
free and Lisa ran back inside. They did not bite or spray her, but they did dig up her lawn and tear
the cardboard box into bits. Lisa wants to sue the culprit for harassment. Tammy told Lisa that she needs
to know who did it in order to sue them. I told her she can't sue the skunks, Tammy says.
Chasing down, a skunk-wielding prankster sounds so much more relaxing than being hunted by Neil
McCarty, so I tell Tammy we'll take it.
Hector agreed to hide the bag that Neil is after in his storage room,
tucked discreetly away in a catering tray.
It's not Fort Knox, but it'll buy us some time until we find a safer place.
The next morning, we drive up to Lisa Carruthers' Granada Hills home.
It's on a suburban street three blocks west of a Ross dress for less.
Lisa is on her knees, trying to mend the grass in her lawn with patches of sod.
Lisa is giving us her version of events.
and ends with, I screamed and shut the door once I figured out what those things were.
I could have gotten sprayed, or worse, rabies.
I imagine those skunks were as scared as she was.
It's interesting that they sprayed neither Lisa nor her porch.
Where are the skunks now, I ask, but Lisa doesn't know.
Animal control was called, but they still haven't come out.
I look across Lisa's lawn.
There are still cardboard and newspaper everywhere,
but I notice there are shreds of a heavier-weight paper in the mix
with some handwriting on them.
I pick up a couple of these particular pieces
and show them to Lisa and Lou.
Then I ask Lisa,
Did you see a note with the box?
She looks a little embarrassed at having missed an incriminating note.
I tell her it might be nothing,
might just be more scrap paper.
It would be the world.
the world's hardest jigsaw puzzle to try to put these back together into a comprehensive message.
And even then, it's possible the handwritten note wasn't anything more suggestive than a grocery list.
But still, we should find as much of these scraps of handwriting as we can.
Could be something to it.
Lisa offers to work on this, since she's already cleaning up the lawn.
Great, I say, because there's no way I was going to do it.
I ask if anyone else was home at the time of the incident.
She says that normally her 16-year-old daughter Emma would be home,
but she's been at her father's house in Winnetka all week.
She'll be back later today to spend Thanksgiving weekend with Lisa.
Lisa adds,
Actually, Emma's been grounded.
I let her go to her first high school party last week.
She got drunk and came home after curfew.
So Emma's grounded at home with her dad then?
I ask.
Probably not. Lisa grumbles.
Todd's version of Grounded means they order DoorDash and play video games together.
Do you think whoever left the skunks could have been targeting Emma?
I ask her, bullies, pranksters.
Lisa says, no, everyone loves Emma.
She's popular.
I'm the one people don't like.
Lisa rescues cats through her organization.
You've got to be kitten me.
It's hard to get mad at people trying to.
to help animals, but you'd be surprised, she says. People get mad at me all the time for no reason.
When I ask her to give me an example, she says, maybe I'm not a team player. All the other shelters
around here keep taking in rodents and exotics. Meanwhile, there are dogs and cats, true
human companions that deserve our focus more. I'm opinionated about this, okay? The other shelters
know my stance, and they can be a bit terse with me.
Lisa elaborates on the dangers these true human companions face
by telling us a nauseating rumor about an overseas puppy farm smuggling purebreds
through the front of a city-run shelter here in L.A.
But the puppy suffocated on the trip and they arrived dead,
covered the whole thing up, ditched the dogs, and pretended eat in says with
an intense conspiratorial tone.
I ask Lisa what this has to do with the skunks left on her porch as a prank.
It wasn't a prank, she says.
It was a message.
You want to give us a thought on who sent this message then?
I ask.
Oh, absolutely.
She says, Gregory.
He was the only volunteer of mine I ever had to fire.
According to wishful thinkers on Instagram,
Foxes show love and affection, indicating their desire to be domesticated.
When wolves were becoming dogs, it was survival of the friendliest, not the fittest,
that helped them survive in human quarters.
The same behavior is being demonstrated in some wild foxes.
They're curious about humans as a species, and are seeking a closer relationship with us.
They're not there yet.
They're testing the waters.
You can't rush evolution.
If you were to go into the woods and snatch a fox out of its den and keep it in your house as a pet,
it would still be considered a wild animal.
Foxes are predators, even if they're nice and cuddly.
One day, its natural curiosity and instincts will take over.
And it will mortally wound your pet cat.
Or worse, someone in your family.
There is a difference between taming and domesticating.
In the former, you're working in harmony with a creature's nature.
In the latter, you're working against it.
Gregory Keller, disgraced volunteer of You've Got to be kitten me,
is lazily petting a gigantic Maine coon named Hugo and his
condo in Sherman Oaks, recounting a tale from a couple years ago of how he tried to get Lisa's
car towed for illegally parking at an adoption event. Volunteers were known to park there without
incident to help set up and transport animals, but once Lisa dismissed him as a volunteer, he wanted
to get her back. A rule's a rule, Gregory says, with a shrug. He called 3-1-1, telling them a car
was blocking their event and needed to be removed. Fortunately for Lisa, she moved her car before
the tow truck arrived. I tell him about the skunks left on Lisa's porch. Gregory Huff's. Couldn't be me.
I wouldn't risk getting rabies just a spooker. Hats off to whoever did it, though. She fucking hates
skunks, he adds. A bit unusual for someone who loves animals so much, I say. He shakes his head.
Sometimes people would show up at You Gotta Be Kitten Me
with lizards or parrots or hamsters
asking for help finding them a new home, he explains.
Every time she'd make the person feel like shit for even asking.
One time a dude brought a tarantula.
She threatened to hose it down with raid.
Gregory says he took the tarantula without Lisa knowing.
He hid the spider in the back.
He knew he could find someone to take it.
Tarantulas are chill, he says.
Just the coolest little monsters.
He called around leaving messages.
Eventually, a shelter in Santa Clarita called back,
but he'd given them the number for you've got to be kidding me.
Lisa was the one who answered.
She was livid that he'd secretly kept that, quote,
giant insect in her shelter.
So she fired him.
She actually did me a favor.
I couldn't keep working with her and stay sane, he says.
I got nothing on this skunk thing that happened to her.
but if you find out who did it, high-five him.
Before we head out, Lou asks if the Santa Clarita shelter was able to rehome the tarantula.
Gregory says, yep.
He points to a terrarium next to his coffee table and outcrawls the only spider I have ever considered adorable.
Her name, he says, is Medusa.
My phone vibrates in my back pocket as Molly and I get into my car.
It's Caroline.
She's checking in, but I can hear her pacing and shallow breathing.
This woman's anxious, but I can't lie to her.
I have to tell her about the mysterious M, the garbage bag of stuff he gave us,
the ransacking of my office, along with the threatening note in Neil Bacardi's handwriting.
Were you followed?
What was in that garbage bag that he would want to take?
She says.
Oh, everything's still accounted for, I reassure her.
We're still working on your case, but we have to live.
lay low for now, and maybe you should too.
Mesopotamian and Egyptian artifacts reflect that humans have raised pigeons since at least
4,500 BCE. They were our domestic counterparts, often being raised as pets or livestock.
We taught them how to find their way back home, and they helped us deliver messages for a brief
few thousand years. Then, one day we turned them loose on the street. We no longer had any use for them.
They weren't our pets anymore. They were vermin. Hardly wild, and needing comfort and structure,
they have learned to survive in spite of their discounted status, albeit poorly. Their reputation
for being scrappy and unsavory comes from their discomfort in having to
to thin for themselves.
A pigeon's nest is a haphazard pile of sticks,
trash, lacking structural integrity.
They love to eat seeds, nuts, fruit, and vegetables,
things you would find in your garden, pantry, or fridge.
Creature comforts.
A taste of home.
I'm a drive up to Santa Clarita.
I take a few of the scraps of paper I pulled from Lisa's lawn.
The little slippers of handwriting I can see
seem to be made with a gel pen,
blue ink, but not standard blue ink,
a softer, more sky-blue color.
One of the pieces has three letters in a row,
and I can see that they're all carefully drawn
in round, bubbly strokes.
Midge, at the Santa Clarita Animal Shelter,
remembers Lisa as, quote,
"'A bit headstrong.'
Midge said a lot of shelters support each other
by sharing volunteers, sourcing foster care,
even taking on other animals if they have space
and the other shelter is overrun.
Lisa would only take dogs or cats,
which Midge says is fine.
A lot of places can't handle more than that.
But Lisa, Midge says and then pauses,
she eventually finds her words and continues.
Lisa had opinions that came off,
to me and others as judgmental.
Sometimes, we felt angry and hurt
based on her tone of voice.
Plus, Midge adds, more assertively now,
shelters need to build mutually beneficial partnerships,
and neither you got to be kitten me nor our shelter
were able to build such a relationship.
The Santa Clarita Animal Shelter, Midge explains,
has made successful partnerships with wonderful organizations, like the Oak Spring Wildlife Sanctuary
in Kegel Canyon, and they even found exotic animal enthusiasts willing to adopt non-traditional pets.
Were any of these exotic animal enthusiasts skunk lovers, I ask?
Oh, domesticated skunks are adorable, midge squeals.
They're desented, so they'll never spray you, and they're just the sweetest.
If you ever met one, you'd be a skunk lover too.
Descented, meaning their stink glands are removed.
Lisa was not sprayed, and we did not smell skunk at all in front of her house.
I'm starting to think that someone delivered domesticated skunks to Lisa.
They didn't intend for Lisa to be harmed, just scared.
If I wanted to look into domesticated skunks, is there someone I should go see?
I ask.
Oh, you're talking about Hank, Midge says, without hesitation.
Hank is the only guy in L.A. County I know that raises skunks.
Hank sometimes shows up to adoption events with them, sets up a booth and everything.
People can't get enough, she adds.
Midge gives us his information, saying he's a bit odd, but mostly harmless.
He's very helpful, though, always willing to lend a hand when it comes to offloading
the errant iguana or Flemish rabbit.
We head back west.
Hank's address is in Lake Balboa, not far from Lisa's house.
Hank warmly users us in when we tell him we're here about skunks.
His home looks like it was decorated by the same people who did the cheesecake factory.
Except there's a winding labyrinth of hamster trails
stretching across the ceiling where one might have crown molding.
We explain what happened with Lisa.
He says that he doesn't know her.
He just knows her as Emma's mom.
Emma is friends with Hank's daughter Olivia.
Olivia and Emma are in the same grade.
They met at a cat adoption event in Lancaster last year.
Emma was in charge of a booth for You Gotta Be Kitten Me
and Olivia came to support her dad,
bringing along her pet boa constrictor Tristan.
Hank gets lost in his memories for a minute.
He says,
Emma thought Olivia's snake was so cool
and the next thing I knew,
Olivia was begging me to bring all of our animals.
one by one to meet Emma.
Sweet girl, she really got a kick out of our squirrel Russell.
I asked if he ever interacted with Lisa at these events.
Hank says no.
He heard about her, though.
Emma had said her mom wouldn't stand to have these kinds of pets,
but Hank had told her she could come visit Olivia
and all the animal family anytime she wanted.
Come to think of it, Hank says.
I haven't seen Emma in a minute.
In a minute. According to Hank, the girls used to hang out all the time. He doesn't know exactly what happened, but he thinks they had some kind of falling out at the beginning of the school year. Olivia hasn't really talked about it with him, though.
What kind of falling out? I asked. I didn't pry, says Hank, crossing his legs, accidentally kicking an empty hamster wheel. I hope it'll pass. Olivia hasn't been herself in weeks. I jumped back into Lisa's case. I said,
say, as someone who knows skunks, we were wondering if you knew anything about what happened to
Emma's mom? We explain about the box of skunks, Lisa's belief that they were an attack on her,
our belief that the skunks were probably domesticated. Hank straightens himself up and speaks
slowly, choosing his words carefully. I would never misuse my skunks to cause someone else
distress, especially if there's someone my daughter cares about. I tread lightly. Maybe someone hopped the
fence in your backyard, I say. Could a couple of your skunks have ended up in the wrong hands?
Do you microchip them? Good question, Molly. I ask it again in a different way. The skunks found on
Lisa's property. If we took them to the vet to get scanned, would they show up as registered to you? Hank
stands up. You think this was me, don't you? I mean, I see how you might think that, of course,
but I'm just as confused as you. Hey, we're not cops, Hank, but our client wants to understand
who did this to her and why. You're a skunk expert in a skunk-related case. That's all. I'd like to
see my lawyer. Hank's watched too many police dramas. Hank, this isn't like, but before I can finish,
A tall, lanky teenage girl appears in the doorway.
Hey, daddy, can you sign this release form for my field trip?
The girl looks up and sees me on Molly.
She looks at her dad again.
What's going on, she asks.
I take it this is Olivia.
Hi, I'm Lou.
That's Molly.
We're private detectives.
I say trying to find my soothing voice.
I don't want a hand kicking us out.
Or Olivia, for that matter, if she sees how worked up we got her dad.
Olivia, she says, shaking both our hands, everything okay?
It's nothing, hon, Hank says.
Here, let me sign your form and you can go.
You don't need to worry about any of this.
Well, well, I might have a few questions, I interject,
if that's all right by you, Olivia.
Oh, I definitely have a question.
Because as Hank takes Olivia's release form,
I see she's already filled out the top with her name, grade, date, and contact information.
She's filled it out in gel pin, not a normal blue ink, but a softer, more sky blue.
In those letters, they're all carefully drawn in round, bubbly strokes.
Olivia, do you know anything about this?
I ask, as I pull from my pocket a couple slivers of damp shredded paper covered in sky blue ink
drawn in round, bubbly strokes.
Her eyes twitch a little.
Her hand smooths back her hair in an awkward, jerky gesture.
But she keeps her voice level when she says,
This is weird.
You're weird.
What's happening?
So that's it then.
Lisa wasn't the target.
Emma was.
These two friends had a falling out,
and Olivia, in her anger, sent two skunks,
and a threatening note to Emma's house,
not knowing that Emma was at her dad's this week.
I can feel Hank getting ready to kick us out,
so before he can, I blurt,
what happened with you and Emma?
Olivia's face reddens, tears welling up in her eyes.
Hank puts his arm around her and shoots me the nastiest look.
I deserve it.
I think you should go, he says to me and Lou.
No.
Olivia sobs.
Why?
Why did she?
I tell her that the skunks chewed up the note.
They're wild creatures after all.
Olivia's silent for a second.
Then she says,
she broke up with me, okay?
I'm not over it,
and you can judge me for it.
I judge me for it.
And wait,
your detectives?
Hang on.
Did something?
happened to her? Is she okay? Olivia asks, her voice cracking. This is her first real heartbreak,
and she's falling apart in front of two complete strangers. Poor kid. I want to give her time to
grief, but Hank's gesturing for us to leave, so I get to the least tactful but most necessary
question. So, Emma was your girlfriend, but then she broke up with you. And for that, you skunked
her house, I ask.
Olivia screws up her face and says, no, no, the skunks were a gift.
Oh, well, shit, I think and look over at Molly, who seems to be thinking the same thing.
The note and the box of skunks were part birthday present, part apology, part take me back, baby, please.
The two girls met at an adoption event their parents attended.
Emma with the cats and dogs, Olivia with the snakes and squirrels, and skisks.
They headed off wandering between booths, often stopping to admire the strangeness of offbeat domestic animals.
Tarantulas are fuzzy and cuddly.
Skunks can be litter trained like a cat.
Foxes have amazing wild laughs.
Pygmy goats are backyard friendly and can walk on a leash.
Emma came to love two of Olivia skunks.
She even named them, Checkers and Yatzy.
after the breakup, it felt wrong to keep them, according to Olivia,
so it was only natural that Emma have her two little skunk children.
In telling us all of this, she looks pleadingly at her dad.
Hank is as shocked as me and Molly, if not more so.
He's learning right now that his daughter's friend was her girlfriend
and that his daughter gave away a couple of his skunks.
I'm sorry, Daddy, I should have asked first, she says,
I don't know what I was thinking.
Hank twists his scowl into a thoughtful grin.
You were thinking of getting your girlfriend something nice.
That's all. Hank says,
I'm sorry I didn't know you two or a couple.
Let's go find those skunks, and then we can get ice cream and talk about it, okay?
If you try really hard and are willing to put up with societal side-eye,
you too can have a domesticated.
skunk. There are entire Reddit threads dedicated to skunk owners posting selfies of them
and their precious pets in an array of filters. However, as a skunk owner, you need to be your
pets protector. Once you remove the glands that emit their signature noxious odor, the skunks are
defenseless. Spraying would-be attackers is their
primary way to ward off predators. Once you remove these glands, you can't turn them loose in the wild
again. It's unethical. You, a human, made a choice to domesticate a creature. You can't undo what's been
done. We call Lisa, who launches in immediately about the scraps of paper she's collected. She's certain
she's solved the mystery, and that the handwriting is from some woman over in Silmar who used to work
for the ASPCA and that they, Lisa, I interrupt her rant.
Lisa, we've figured it out.
We'll be at your place in a few minutes.
We're bringing friends.
When we arrive, Hank and Olivia immediately start calling for the skunks.
Lisa squints a little and says,
Olivia?
Olivia's dad?
Lou and I tell Lisa what we learned.
She's trying to process all this when a Ford Bronco pulls into the driveway.
It's her ex, Todd, returning their daughter Emma back to her mom's house.
Emma looks confused by the presence of me and Lou,
not to mention the messy lawn still dotted with clumps of shredded cardboard.
But what really throws Emma for a loop is the sound of her ex-girlfriend's voice shouting,
Checkers!
Yotsie!
She looks at her mother for answers.
You can help them look for the skunks, but you're still grounded.
Lisa says, which doesn't exactly help with the confusion.
Emma takes a handful of dried cranberries from Hank and Olivia
and joins in the efforts to find checkers and Yatze.
Between calling their names, there's the beginnings of a new friendship.
They can't get back the one they had before,
and it sounds like they aren't getting back together,
but it's probably true that they're the only two skunk girls in the valley.
After about an hour, Hank is cradling Yatsy and striding down the sidewalk.
He found her underneath the car.
Checker is next to come out.
He was tucked away, holding very still in the camellia bushes.
He runs straight to Emma, who scoops him up.
He nuzzles into her elbow nook, then scampers up her arm and perches on her shoulder.
Emma's beaming and scratches his chest.
Let me see it.
Lisa says, Deadpan, making her way.
to Emma. She gives checkers an appraising once over, then pets the length of his pelt. His tail curls under
her hand. You can keep this one, she says, and Emma squeals with excitement, throwing her arms around
her mom. Lisa hugs back, careful to hold her body away from the skunk. Lou drives me back home.
I'm riding the high of a case ending with good feelings, but I crash quickly when we turn my
corner. There are red and blue flashing lights in front of my building. Lou walks with me to my apartment.
My door is smashed open, still holding on to one hinge. The couch, my favorite piece of furniture,
the only thing that belonged to me outright in the furnished sublet is sliced open with its innards
sprayed all over my living room. The bathroom door Sophia helped me repair is hacked in half.
My books have been torn apart.
Even my fridge has been yanked off the wall.
And there's a note by the front door
in the same familiar handwriting as the note at Lou's office.
I'm losing patience with you. Where is it?
The note says.
This was finally my home.
And now it's another crime scene.
I feel violated.
Sophia runs over and,
hugs me. Oh my God. Thank God you're okay. I didn't have your number. I was so worried. What's going on,
Molly? It's too much to explain to Molly's neighbor what's going on, but Molly shouldn't stay here
alone tonight. Stay with me, I tell her, at least through the holiday. Oh God, it's Thanksgiving
tomorrow. I keep forgetting. I'll order acid turkey. Are you a cranberry sauce or a
cranberry jelly person.
On Thanksgiving morning, Lou and Molly watch the Macy's Parade and the Dog Show.
Molly hopes Sophia is enjoying her new TV.
Lou makes coffee and eggs.
She and Molly go for a walk.
The day is crisp and bright.
The air quality is so good they can see the 210 stretch all the way to San Dimas.
They see purple echinacea and ball cacti.
They do not see the dozens of lizards,
resting camouflaged on stucco walls and palm stems.
They see no clouds.
The sky is an incessant blue.
On a day that celebrates gathering together,
two women talk about their families,
about how little they visit them,
about how much they love them in spite of it all.
They see a billboard for a new,
movie starring Sidney Sweeney and Timothy Shalomey and both agree it looks like Oscar Bate, but
it still looks good. Maybe that'll be something to go do tomorrow. They talk about whether they
should even bother making a salad for dinner tonight. One of them says green bean casserole is basically
salad, and the other agrees. They don't talk about the break-ins. They don't talk about Neil
Bacardi. They don't talk about the floppy disc or even the teen girls and their skunk drama.
They enjoy the air, the sun, the hills. They admire the eastern skyline of the San Gabriel Mountains,
which have remained unchanged to the human eye for as long as humans have been here.
Facing the grandeur of the horizon, they do not notice a 2019 gray-haprail.
Honda Civic, idling only a few doors down from Lou's house.
Like lizards on stucco walls and palm stems,
gray Honda Civics are prolific and insignificant.
Person could stay unnoticed in Honda Civic.
And a person does stay unnoticed for two full days,
watching Lou and Molly's every move.
Hey, Jeffrey Kramer here to tell you about another show.
show from me and my Nightvale co-creator Joseph Fink. It's called Unlicensed, and it's an L.A. Noir-style
mystery set in the outskirts of present-day Los Angeles. Unlicensed follows two unlicensed
private investigators who small jobs looking into insurance claims and missing property
are only the tip of a conspiracy iceberg. There are already two seasons of Unlicensed for you
to listen to now, with Season 3 dropping on May 15th. Unlicensed is available.
exclusively through Audible, free if you already have that subscription. And if you don't,
Audible has a trial membership. And if I know you, and I do, you can binge all that mystery
goodness in a short window. And if you like it, if you liked Unlicensed, please, please rate and review
each season. Our ability to keep making this show is predicated on audience engagement. So go check out
Unlicensed, available now, only at audible.com.
