Episode 633: Listener Tales 93
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Hey weirdos, it's Ash. Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about the spooky perks of Wondery+. It's like having a skeleton key that unlocks ad-free listening and early access to new episodes. So don't wait, try Wondery Plus today. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.

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Masterclass always has great offers during the holidays, sometimes up to as much as 50% off. Head over to masterclass.com slash wondery for the current offer. That's up to 50% off at masterclass.com slash wondery. Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna. And I'm Ash. And this is Droom-uh-maw. What would it be backwards? Hold on. M-O-R-B-A-D. This is... Dibrom. This is Dibrom.

Welcome to Dibrom. Dibrom. This is different. We switch places, you know? It's Manic Monday instead of Freaky Friday. Yeah, it's Nuts Monday. This is uncomfortable. We hate it. Everyone around us has a different opinion. Everyone around us hates it.

My daughter would not speak to us. She would not. And I was like, you love us as like who we are. I walked downstairs and Sydney barked and growled at me and ran at me like, who are you intruder walking into my house? Because I don't, let's be honest. You don't look like me. I don't look like Ash. I don't look like you. I look like various things. Sorry.

You look like a lot of things. I do. I look like I've caused a lot of issues. You look like you stay causing issues. What did you say? I remain causing issues. I don't know what I look like. It's not you. You just look like...

You just look chill. I mean, you're pretty chill. And with a widow's peak. I drew this on. A drawn-on widow's peak. The wig didn't come with one. I said, oh, wait, the missing piece. We need a widow's peak. I have a gossed shirt. A gossed shirt. So there you go. And it's pink. Pink. So I had a little bit of ash. A little sparkle of ash. There's nothing of Alina in this getup. No, Ash even put bronzer on me. Yeah, of course they did. For the first time.

I've never worn bronzer. I don't have any bronzer on right now and I feel naked. I didn't over-align my lips. Nope, I did. You did. You actually look great with an over-aligned lip. Oh my god, thank you. You're welcome. Oh, we forgot to put long nails on, Alayna. We did. I should have stuck like pieces of tape or something on there. All right, we're back. We said if you're not wearing nails, then you're not doing drag. And we're doing drag today, honey.

Although my nails have never looked like that, thank you. And if they fall off, I go immediately to my boy, Helly, Nail Ninja. We're just going to let it go today. We're just going to let it go today. You know, sometimes you got to work through it. All right. Well, it's a good time off to remove nails. No, I never do. No, you can't do it. Only when I take my day off. No. Oh.

I hate wigs. I know. This is so hard. I hate wigs. Okay. All right. Okay. It's Listener Tales. It's brought to you by you, for you, from you, and all about you. I probably should have said that, but I don't remember that. That's okay. So I can't do it. I can't be Ash. You know what? Few can. Who can? You know? Only Ash. Just me. Yeah. But we have Listener Tales today. Just fixing my nails.

You are like me today. You're getting distracted. Yeah, I'm getting distracted. You have to find something to fiddle with. Oh, I do. I will. Don't you worry. So should I start, Ash, or should you? Elena, go ahead. I hate it. I hate it so. Start. All right. Start. Are you going to do my hair flip? No, don't reveal.

Oh, okay. Oh, the hairography is hair on the thing. We do a little one. Just a little one. Mine is not that dramatic. It's more dramatic. No, it's not. I'm bringing it down a little bit. All right. You've never flipped your weave off, so. I haven't ever flipped my weave off. I'm crying. I'm literally crying. But that's because I'm an empath. Okay.

Alright. Alright, this one is... Oh, by the way, Merry Chrysler. And happy... Oh wait, you wouldn't say that. Merry Christmas. Happy Yule. Happy Yule. There you go. Happy Yule is what Elena would say. I hope your holidays have been so gorgeous. So gorgeous. That really isn't me. I feel like I would just say, fuck you. I'm literally crying. What other things do you say? That's about it.

I think you covered it. That ran the gamut. Wait, wait, wait. Tobias, come on the show. Oh, that too. Okay, okay.

oh i literally have tears in my eyes you're too oh oh this is an unhinged one everybody that's what it's supposed to be all right so like we said hope your holidays were gorgeous fuck you so this one says sarah the boogin the boogin something like that the bogan the bogan no it's boo boogin boogin it's en or i n

It's both. It's like boog-in, boog-in. Boog-in, boog-in. Boog-out. It's lost all meaning. You never had one in the beginning. I was going to say, I didn't know. Anyway. I lost another nail. Oh, not another nail. You've got to go see Helly. I know. So to start off this story, I have to give some background on my great-grandma, Bea. She was a very quiet person who kept to herself a lot. When she did talk, it was usually to ask a question, criticize something, or talk about what she called the boogans. Boogans. Well, however you spell it. That's what she called ghosts. Ghosts.

Ah, I like that. She had a lot of encounters with ghosts in her lifetime. Most I can't remember because I was young and she rarely spoke. One encounter I do remember was when she was in the hospital. A man came to her bed and told her, it's not your time yet.

Now, a little background of the ghost in question here, Sarah. I grew up in a haunted house. There were certain rooms that would just creep us out and we'd feel something in them. Same. Relatable. Yeah. My house used to be a doctor's office where autopsies were performed and is over 100 years old. So that may play a part in it. Maybe. That's so cool. Maybe. I don't remember this too well, but when I was very little, my parents would find me in my room seemingly by myself. And when asked what I was doing, I would say, I'm playing with Sarah.

She seemed friendly, and other family members had seen her on occasion as well. One of the most notable was when my mom came home when the house was empty and saw a little girl staring out the window of one of the rooms that gave us the creeps. My oldest brother saw her and may have used to play with her as well, but I don't quite remember. This happened on Christmas when I was very little. I used to sleep in my brother's room for Christmas Eve, and this particular Christmas, Grandma B was to sleep on a cot in that room as well as she was staying over for the holiday.

Now, I overheard my parents talking about Grandma Bee staying over, and they had to use the phrase, sleeps with her eyes open, to indicate that she was a light sleeper. Little me had no idea what that meant, and in my mind, I was shocked, taking it very literally. Like, she's just laying there like...

How could somebody sleep with their eyes open? So I decided that night, Christmas night, I was going to see for myself. I stayed up in my brother's top bunk, patiently and quietly waiting for Grandma B to fall asleep. Then I snuck down the ladder to have a peek. I stood over my Grandma B to see if she really did sleep with her eyes open. Grandma B. My Grandma B. Did I say that in tense? No, but it just sounds like that. Grandma B. Grandma B.

Her eyes were closed as I was looking and then suddenly shot open. I absolutely booked it out of the room and into the bathroom to hide as I was frightened, being caught standing over her. After a while hiding in the bathroom, I went back to bed and fell asleep. The next morning, she told everyone that she had seen Sarah the Boogan standing over her that night. Sarah the Boogan. Sarah the Boogan. I kept silent, but years after she continued to tell that story...

And I kept my secret until she passed away, probably almost 20 years later. I finally told my family and everybody was shocked and very amused that I was the ghost my grandma had seen that night. The Boogan. The Boogan. I love it. I like that. I like that. Short, sweet, and to the point. That is. And that's very, that's very Christmas. That is so Christmassy. Very Christmas ghost story where it's like, I'm the Boogan. It's Christmas tomfoolery. I think, I feel like Boogan is a, is a thing. Like that's a thing that.

They do call spirits, I think. Boogans are brutish hairy orc quaggoth crossbreeds, sometimes known as spider killers. You know what? I was about to say that. Huh. But then I didn't want to come off as a know-it-all, you know? I know. Usually that's my job. It is.

The Boogans is also a movie. It's E.N. But they're like yucky. And then in the Trolls movie there's Bogans. There are Bogans. That's why I thought you were talking about Bogans. I like the Bogans. The Bogans. The Bogans. Your turn, Ash. So Ash's turn and it's going to be Listener's Loathe.

Listener Tales Christmas Edition. Christmas. And it says, attached, you will find a putt-a-foot of my Christmas Edition Listener Tales. I hope you enjoy. I will.

Who knows? All right. It says, hello, my spooky obsessed friends. Love you and your podcast so much. I love you. Thank you. I don't know if I can say your name yet, so I'm not going to say it. Don't say it yet. All of the congratulations on all of the things. Marriages, new and old, kids, cats, books, giving me nightmares for a week, etc. Thanks for all that.

That's true.

That failed pirate Carl fucking Pansram. No, he was creepy. He was crazy. Yeah. Can't put my finger on why he tripped the night terror switch. However, I did not sleep for several nights. Thank you. He was a wild one. So I get that one. No, he really was. For sure. That's valid. He's an underrated scary one for sure. Yeah.

My name is Leanne. Go ahead and use it. There you go. Today I'm offering you an example of my dad's questionable parenting choices in the form of a listener tale Christmas edition. Let's get after it.

This is the story of when my dad had my sister and I get pizza delivered to a murder scene. First, a bit of context of how my dad just is. He and our mom split when my sister and I were very young and my dad never remarried. So his gauge on all things child related can be far from standard at times. Not in an abusive way, more of a they are clean and alive, therefore they are just fine kind of way. Kind of like the dad in Overboard. Exactly. Just like, you know, it's fine.

Our mom moved to the Midwest and we spent our lives flying between the two. Dad in California, mom in Indiana, Michigan. Oh, that must have been so interesting. I know. Because you're seeing like totally different areas. And flying that much.

You really did. You really did. Because when you said... To a murder scene. Get pizza delivered to a murder scene, I was like, did your dad murder someone and then call you to bring pizza? That's also what I thought. This explains it. This explains it. Now we know.

My dad worked days, a.k.a. the worst six months of his working life. Who works days? It is the absolute worst thing ever. Both quotes my dad firmly stands by to this day. I kind of get that. I know, I get that. So it's around lunchtime and my older sister and I are sitting around the house, most likely watching absolute trash TV because while there was never food in the house, we had all the cable channels. We were waiting for our dad to get off work to take us to our family's yearly Christmas party when the phone rings. It's our dad and he needs us to do him a favor.

Now, this is very odd because no matter his work shift hours, whenever he needed something from us, he would just swing by the house because we lived in his patrol area. Side note, this meant it was also okay to leave his two kids home alone while working graveyard ship because, quote, if anything happens, I will be the first to know. We live in my patrol area. I mean. And then it says questionable parenting. Valid. Valid. Questionable, but valid all at the same time.

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So dad is on the phone and has a task for us to complete, and we must follow his instructions exactly as they are given to us. These instructions were as follows. Call the Pizza Hut in Lakeside. Ask for the manager. Explain we are the daughters of one of the officers that just hauled ass out of the restaurant. Request for delivery to the following address. Don't actually remember it, so let's just say 1234 Crazy Street in East County, San Diego. Ha ha ha.

stress the fact that whomever delivers the pizza is not to pass the first patrol car on the block under any circumstances. That part was extremely important. I love that in all this time he called you guys to reiterate that information. He could have just called the pizza people himself. Yep.

Now, at this point, my sister and I are following these instructions to the very letter. As this whole situation is freaking us out big time. Everything about it was just off and strange. An hour, maybe two, go by and dad calls again. Pissed. Pissed.

He said he gave us specific instructions and they needed to be followed and they were not. Now he has a quote-unquote mess to deal with and doesn't need this today. Now we're not only confused, but we're also scared. Our dad only yelled at us if we broke something while fighting in the house. So getting chewed out by him was not standard operating procedure. We continue to wait for our dad to get home, all while trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Several more hours go by. Finally, our dad gets home from work and apologizes to us.

saying he's sorry for yelling. That's good parenting. That is good parenting. That he stopped by the Pizza Hut prior to coming home and spoke with the manager and that she told him we did follow his exact instructions and that she is very sorry her dumbass employee can't follow simple instructions. All right. The specific instruction of not to go past the first patrol car.

Why was this important, you might ask? Well, it turns out the delivery address was a few doors down from a murder scene. Uh-oh. So this is what went down. On this Christmas Eve, 1991, also this is the most early 90s parenting ever. While sitting down for lunch, a call came out over the radio of shots fired, man down. This is when my dad and his fellow patrol officers on duty ran out of the restaurant to get to the scene. Once they arrived, they find out that two tweaked-out

had been fighting out front of one of the houses on Crazy Street. At some point, person A went into his house and left person B outside in the yard. Person B was not done fighting. He was like, he said, I'm ready to go. He said, I still got energy and found something to stand on to look through a front window of person A's house where he was met with a shotgun blast straight to the face. Oh my God. Holy shit. Yikes.

Fell straight back into the yard, missing most of his head and face. Human debris all over the front yard.

Oh, no! Oh, no!

And my dad responded by saying, yeah, that guy right there and pointed to the dead dude a few feet away. I mean, your dad is the most 90s cop I've ever heard. Also, don't be an idiot. Don't make a joke of a crime scene unless you want to get scarred for life. You just walked under yellow tape. Get out of here. Who do you think you are? Whatever you see is your own fault at this point. Also, like, where was anybody telling you not to? I know no one's stopping you. At this point, the delivery driver almost dropped the pizza, started screaming, throwing up and basically having a massive panic attack.

which is the thing our dad, quote, didn't have time for right now. In all fairness, dumbass should have followed directions. And what asshat thinks it's okay to cross under yellow crime scene tape because, quote, I want to see what's going on. Yeah. My sister sat on the couch listening to this explanation of things completely dumbfounded. We could not believe that our dad, a law enforcement officer, had his children get pizza delivered to a crime scene.

As if this is a 100% normal thing to do. I have no words other than highly questionable parenting. Keep it weird, my dudes, but not so weird you still want lunch while working a murder scene and therefore have your kids get you delivery. P.S. It was pizza for all the law enforcement officers on scene, not just our dad. They're a whole group of weirdos that I've known my whole entire life. Lord help us. Ha ha ha!

What a 90s tale. That was an amazing 90s tale, Leigh-Anne. I've never heard of a more 90s father. That was great. And I love your dad. Oh, man, that's great. I bet your dad is awesome. Yeah, definitely. As he got older, he got awesome. Yeah, definitely.

All right, my next one is Listener Tale Holiday Hanukkah Ghosts. It's a miracle. Just kidding. It's a puttifah. A miracle. A miracle. Truly a miracle. I know, puttifahs are a miracle. They are. All right, so it says, Hi, lovely ladies. I initially sent this back in April when I was new to your show and had just heard last year's Holiday Listener Tales episode.

Since then, I have become so much older and wiser, and am therefore resending this as a double-spaced puttapha, and at the appropriate time of year, and I'm not going to apologize for the fact that it's really long. Never. See, I've learned so much from you. You have. When you said you hadn't heard many Hanukkah-related ghost stories, I knew I had to chime in. By the way... They said this is my time to shine. It's my time, baby. By the way, hi, my name is Emma, and you can use it because it would be so thrilling to hear it coming from your beautiful voices. Is that creepy? No, Emma. Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma. Emma, Emma, Emma.

Emma, Emma, Emma. First, I have to say that since April, I have listened to every episode and have become a hardcore follower. Thank you. Love you. It's so nice to find such a badass couple of women in this very male-dominated genre. Yes! Thank you. I mean, oh my god. Yes!

I especially appreciate your sisterly relationship. It's really at its peak today. Oh, no. It's really on display. It's on display every day. And it reminds me of my own relationship with my younger brother. As a historian, I really value all the research you do to bring your stories into life. And Dave. I was going to say shout out to Dave. Shout out to Dave. As a historian. Oh, I was going to read the same thing again. As a historian. Just one more time.

I have to give a special shout out to the Lake Shawnee Amusement Park episode. I love that episode. That was such a good episode. Whoa! I haven't been that terrified since, well, my own ghostly experiences, which I am going to share with you right now. Hell yeah. I am playing with my hair more than you ever would. And I can't stop. Should I be playing with mine? Obviously. Oh, okay. Starting at the beginning, I grew up in a, oh, Queen Anne Victorian in San Francisco. I would love that. Wake up, San Francisco. Okay.

Whoa. Shut up.

Had just sent a ghost hunter slash paranormal investigator to every house on our street for research for her new book about ghosts. That is wild. I wonder which book in particular it was. I don't know. But what a like. What a life to live. What a flex. That is a flex. They're just knocking on doors being like, ah, so Miss Steele down the road sent us to research your house. She'd like to know if your house is haunted. Damn. That's great.

the realtor was thrilled to inform my parents that ghosts had in fact been found in their new house yippee one of the defining features of my parents house is that it has a super long creepy hallway we love it my room and my brother's nursery were on the opposite end um

of the long hallway from my parents' room. Thanks, mom and dad. And we were quick to discover that was the more haunted end of the house. Thanks. Thanks again. Yikes. Many of the standards occurred in those early days. You know, lights flickering, doors opening. Elena, I know you can relate to all of the times as a teenager. I literally said out loud, okay, ghost, I need to sleep now. Please stop while

I literally have said that before. I was like, I really got to get sleep. After having to get up three times. Yep. Yeah.

So you would have this moment where you were like, is it a burglar or is it the ghost? Am I about to be killed? You just never know. No, she was always the ghost. Yeah. And it sounded like work boots. Yeah, it did. Like heavy work boots. Mm-hmm. Some days my mom, sister, and I would remark about how the previous night had been particularly noisy to the effect of, did you hear the hallway last night? Oh, yeah, you did too? Did you hear the hallway was bumping last night? That hallway went crazy. My dad was always the unbeliever. Don't worry. We'll circle back on that one. Mm-hmm.

The most frightening thing I remember happening constantly as a young child, though, was when I would hear people putting dishes away in the kitchen. About halfway down the hallway, there was a banister to the staircase that used to be the maid's staircase or the back stairs to the kitchen.

Oh, no. Nope, no parents. Oh, and hearing the clanging of dishes while the lights are pitch black. Yeah, that's horrifying. No, no. Makes me think of The Sixth Sense.

Yeah. That scene. Oh, so freaky. Just some ghost dinner parties. Yeah. When I went to college, my little brother took over my bedroom. That's hilarious because I was just saying literally the same thing. Many years later, when he was already in college himself, I mentioned the putting away the dishes noises.

His face went completely pale. He said, what? I heard that all the time too. I can't believe you never mentioned that to me. You guys got to talk more. I know, seriously. That was some serious confirmation that it wasn't just the fancies of Danielle Steele haunting me as a child. No. I'm sure you're dying to hear about the Hanukkah part by now. No, let's go. As you have mentioned, Elena, our ghosts also like to join the party. Me.

We saw way more activity during and after big parties and, of course, renovations. Oh, yes. You probably want to know what made my dad a believer. I do. I do. I really do. Yeah, we do. It wasn't the footsteps in the hallway or my door opening or the dishes or the secret door in the wall of the basement. No.

Excuse me? Buried the lead there, sister. Girl, what? And then in parentheses, yep. Yeah. Or finding whiskey bottles in newspapers from the early 1900s in the rafters during, guess what? Renovations. Oh my god. That must have been so cool. That's so cool.

No, it wasn't those things. It was the Hanukkah party that went on after we all went to bed. There was a Hanukkah party after you went to bed? I kind of love that. I love it. Well, the end of the hallway where my bedroom was is still to this day for sure a hot spot. The dining room is the place that as children we always avoided and held our breath whenever we had to switch on or off the lights. Huh. It had the most haunted look as it had all the original mahogany wall paneling from the 19th century. Oh my god.

I just felt like more of a rose in that moment. Oh, I love that. I need to see it. Please send a picture. Yeah, I want to see. It's the place also with the most ghostly vibes. I love it. It is Obvi where my parents hosted company. So one Hanukkah night, I came into the city with some friends when I was in college at Berkeley and my mom made latkes. Oh, yeah.

For a group of about 10 to 15 people, including some family friends. Something to know about my mom is that she's legally blind. So, A, she would def not have been putting dishes away in the dark at any point in my childhood. And B, she has a very unique way of checking to make sure all the candles are out at the end of the night. My parents are very fire cautious. Ours too. Yeah. This is very weird. We weren't allowed to have candles. No. My mom. Your grandma. My grandmother. Yeah.

Her mother. Yeah, they would not let us. No. Ever. She. She. Yeah. So when we would all go up to bed, if the menorah was not done burning yet, you don't blow out those candles. Nuh-uh. Oh, yeah. My parents would put it in the sink to finish burning without, you know, burning the house down. Oh, that's pretty smart. Anyone else do this, fellow Jews? Because that would scare me. Yeah. Leaving a candle of any kind lit. Yeah. Yeah.

I never even thought of that. Debbie was saying that her and Pat, her husband, used to bet on which candle would go out first. So they wouldn't go to bed at all. They'd just wait for the candles to burn out. That makes sense. I get that. I know. That's smart, though, the sink trick. Yeah, the sink trick is very smart. Yeah, because then it's pretty safe. Because if it falls, it's in the sink. It's going in the sink. The sink's not going to light on fire. I mean, to my knowledge. You're like, nah. Water's right there. Yeah.

Anyway, point being, my parents were very fire conscious. And even after my dad checked, my mom would go around feeling the wicks of the candles on the table with her fingers. Damn. To make sure they were not only out, but not even hot anymore. That is some badass mom energy right there. She's like, I'm just going to, I'm just going to palm the flame. For real. If there is one. Palm the flame. Damn, does she have fingertips anymore? Seriously. Seriously.

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So this night, after celebrating the miracle of fried food when my friends and I had gone back to college and my parents had long gone to bed, my dad, you know, the unbeliever, was woken up around two or three by a tapping on the front door. No. Also some fun news. Our front door is 500 pounds of 10 foot tall cast iron and glass. I need photos of this house. Seriously, that house sounds gorgeous. I need photos. Photos. Photos. I

I need pictures. I love it. My dad described the noise as somebody tapping a fingernail on the glass door repeatedly. One of these? One of these fingernails, you say? One of these? It got stuck to me. That was weird. It's literally just a post-it, but I didn't like it anyway. No, it's a nail. I know. It gave that... Don't shatter the illusion, okay? It gave that vibe.

Uh, um, hi, bye. Nope. Yeah, that's how I feel. I'm obsessed. Yeah.

Around the same time he was scanning photos for my grandma's birthday slide show. Yes, when scanning was a thing we did. It's so funny because I thought you meant like looking. Oh my god. Like scanning a room. And claims that a picture showed up on the screen that was not on the scanner bed. In fact, no one had ever seen it before. It was a picture of the dining room with someone we don't know sitting in the chairs from a time before we owned the house. Shut the fuck up. I love that. Wow.

I love that. I love that. I love that that was a literal ghost Hanukkah party in the middle of the night. Yes. Like they were literally like, hey.

Hey, just having a little party. Just showing up. That's incredible. That's amazing. Now, between then and my latest story, I met my husband while living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved in together into a rented, gorgeous octagonal, is that how you say it? Octagonal? Octagonal. Octagonal. Because that's something you can do as a graduate student in Albuquerque. Crazy cheap rent.

we thought it was so cool that they were always shooting breaking bad right across the street am i dating myself yes i am hell yeah yes i'm 35 hi alina hi what's up you're i mean i'm so young i'm so young he's so old shut up oh excuse me fuck you

I told my then boyfriend, now husband, about my experiences growing up in a haunted house, and he was intrigued. But like many boyfriends before, thought it was more of a funny story than a scary one. He had never had any scary, scary ghost encounters. Yet. Oh!

Oh, you were about to bring it to them. Literally. The first night we slept in the bedroom, we were falling asleep when we were jolted out of bed to a truly horrifying sound. It was like the wall started cracking all around us, but like in a clockwise circle. Like this cracking would sweep around the room in a circle from one side to the other, enveloping us in the bed. What the fuck? Never figured out what that was. I love... I'm obsessed. That anticlimactic isn't even the right word. It's just like...

Nonchalant as fuck. I love just... Never figured out what that was. Nochalance to be found. We're going to move on from that. Wow. We would frequently see shadows moving in the dining room, which was a separate room with a swinging door on each end, and each of those little pass-through windows into the middle of the kitchen. While standing in the kitchen, we would catch the shadows out of the corner of our eye through the little window. I think I remember you talking about dining rooms in particular in one spooky episode. Probably. Probably, yeah. I'm sure at some point.

That's fucked up. Wow. Again, not a chalant to be found. No. Or actually the most chalant to be found, really. Yeah.

But the worst was the shared hallucination slash dreams my husband and I would have. Ooh, let's get into it. Yeah, that scares me. I love a shared hallucination slash dream. We both, have you ever had one with somebody? No, but I love the idea of them. It's a great idea. They're awesome. We would both frequently wake up to a dark shadow with a sinister presence standing in the corner of our bedroom. That sounds like it sucks. I don't like it.

We would both also see some sort of spinning plate above our heads in bed. What? After years of living in my parents' house, I never felt a sinister present from those ghosties. I was comforted by the movie The Others, thinking that ghosts didn't know that they were haunting us. That's kind of how I feel about my papa's house. Yeah, they're not trying to bum you out. I always just think they lived here first. They're just going about their business, you know? Yeah. It's like, I was going to say residential hauntings. I thought you were going to say Resident Evil, and I was like, what?

Huh. No. Interesting. I was gonna... I meant to say residual hauntings, but I said residential. That makes more sense. You just thought Resident Evil, you know? That kind of wasn't Ashesverse. You alright? You're pretty. It's seeping into my... It's the blonde. It's the blonde. We actually bleached Elena's hair a little too soon. This is my real hair. Oh my god, Matt. One time we did. No, you guys saw when I did my hand flip, it almost went flying. Yeah.

All right. All right. All right. But that Albuquerque bedroom was dark. My husband shared the feeling. We could not wait to get out of there. So by the time we were staying at my parents' house when I was pregnant with my son in 2019, congrats. Peace. Peace.

My husband had no longer thought the ghosts were some cool backstory. He had his own haunting experiences. And while he never had heard anything too out of the ordinary in my parents' house, he believed my stories. That's good ma'am right there. It is. He also said he never felt anything sinister like he did in Albuquerque. Sinister bad? Until...

I was pregnant, sinister Bible. Uh-oh, then it became sinister? Sinister Bible. Bible. Literally. Sinister Bible. Something changed. At that point, I had started sleeping with noise-canceling headphones on because, hi, pregnancy, a.k.a. the time when you don't sleep before you have a baby and then you don't sleep some more. Oh, it's a beautiful time. The first time I slept at my parents' house when I was pregnant, I was upstairs on the third floor, which used to be the maid's quarters in the Victorian days. I started staying in there when I was in town when my brother took over my old room, as it tends to be less spooky up there.

It's interesting that the third floor is less spooky. I know. You would think it would be the most spooky. Yeah, right? I feel like the... Oh, no. Oh, girl. I feel like the extremes of the house are always the spookiest. Yeah. The bottom and the top. Yes. Things in the middle are usually just what they are. Yeah. You know? Just like the meat of the haunt. The meat. The meat of the haunt sandwich. The bread is the scariest. Yeah. The haunt hoagie. That's the meat in the middle.

Your brain just did some shit. I liked that. The haunted hoagie TM. Or putting it on a shirt. Someday. Yeah. Someday. Someday. Anyway. I guess the ghosts weren't that thrilled with that development because I woke up in the middle of the night to the feeling of someone's hand squeezing my knee. Nope. I hate that. I told myself it was sleep paralysis and didn't move for a few minutes. Though my thought was, oh shit, do ghosts like babies or something?

Oh, no. When I came back five months later for my baby shower, my husband was with me and I was much more pregnant. I could not get comfortable in the full-size bed with him. So I woke him up and made him relocate to my old bedroom where my mom and dad had put a king bed temporarily because of, yup, renovations. Oh, my God. Sleeping pregnant, not sleeping pregnant. Yeah. It's such an experience. That must be a lot. The more pregnant you get, the more you're just like...

Get the fuck away from me, everybody. It's kind of like it's just getting you ready for when the baby comes because then you're never going to see it. Oh, yeah. It makes you real ready. Yeah. It's like conditioning. It is.

Well, I put my headphones on and told myself I was too preggers for this shit. You were. But five minutes later, my husband woke me up. Take off your headphones. That feeling in my stomach. I knew what was going on. What'd you hear? I asked him. Oh, no. He said, my dad must be walking up and down the hallway. Never mind. I didn't really want to move. So preggers. So I said, OK. Five minutes later. OK, that's it. He shook me awake. I heard the shuffling sound in the hallway and I could deal with it until I heard it come into the room. Oh, I don't love that.

The shuffling steps came down the hall and straight into the room to the foot of our bed, despite the fact that the bedroom door was still closed. No. I knew exactly the sound he was talking about. All right, we're going back upstairs, I said. I know exactly what you're talking about, and it's never my dad. No matter how many times I told myself that it was growing up, it's just never my dad. I love that she's just telling her husband this. She's like, I'm going to be real. I'm going to be Frank. I'm going to be Francis with you right now. That's not dad. It's never my dad. It's never going to be my dad. Never was.

my dad. I love it's just never my dad. Just never my dad. Well, I hope you enjoyed my spooky Hanukkah tales. I love it. Thanks so much and keep it weird but not so weird that you move from one haunted house to another one in New Mexico because they film Breaking Bad across the street. You know where the scenes where Walter meets Lydia at the cafe and then you move out because there's

Somebody who's not doing well living in the backyard stalking you. Yep, skipped that part. And also a shadowy presence in your bedroom. And things move themselves in the kitchen with the little pass-through window to the haunted dining room and then get pregnant and have ghosts be way too into your unborn child. Okay, this took me three hours to write. Hope you like it. Bye. Emma, if you can't tell, I'm an Elena Fane girl. Oh, Emma, I love you.

P.S. Since writing this to you, I was contacted by an old friend from middle school who told me she has vivid memories of hiding in the bathroom because she was too afraid to cross the haunted hallway to get back to my bedroom since she could sense that there was something lurking out there. Damn. More confirmation. P.P.S.

Also since writing this, I bought a new house. Congratulations! I researched the owners for fun. There was one owner who was an Irish immigrant and a cop who died in a shootout in the 1940s. Whoa. And he lived there the longest. I definitely stood alone in the living room feeling the vibes and shamelessly asked the real estate agent if they knew of any hauntings before we signed. Like a long time, alone, feeling the vibes. And I said aloud, are you there, Sergeant? Necessary. And happy to report, only good vibes.

vibes. I love picturing you in the middle of your living room just going, are you there, Sergeant? It's me, Margaret. It's me, Emma. Good vibes, though. I like the good vibes. I love that a lot. That was a great story. I love it. Emma, you rule. And that was amazing. I'm trying to see. I'm going to move past Christmas to another holiday. What's the holiday? Just because this one involves a foot. So I feel like it's necessary. Necessary?

necessary question mark listener tales that time we found a foot on the 4th of July okay I mean how can I not go to that one alright you know

Well, let's go to this. Hey, weirdos. I'm Nicole. And yes, you can use my name. Shout out to my cousin Kayla, who is a fellow listener and also on the weirdest river trip of our lifetime. I mean, I really hope it doesn't get any weirder than this. Okay. First, a little background. Every year, my family floats the river near my grandparents' house for the 4th of July. That's fun. For those of you who aren't from the Midwest. Me. Me.

Floating the river usually involves putting in upstream on a local river with some type of flotation device or small boat. You get to enjoy the beautiful scenery, typically hot weather, and at least for my friends and family, partying your way downstream until you reach your predetermined destination. Ah!

Don't worry, we always designate a driver or have a pickup ready. Don't drink and drive, my friends. Yeah, great, great. Great, great. Great, great. Our family usually uses a combination of canoes tied together, inflatable tubes, and kayaks. Oh, that sounds fun. That does sound fun. This particular trip for normal paddlers would be three to four hours with short breaks. That sounds like a lot. My arms hurt right now from that.

I you would hate this yeah you would too you would hate this for sure we would hate this I think you would hate I would hate this as well as ash yeah yeah you would hate that so much yeah okay that's what I thought I would like the I would like the partying part and the floating part earlier in my life yeah I think these days I think I'd be like I'm too tired could you be just like a floater

And everyone else does. No, because I can't. I couldn't float for like three to four hours. I feel like I would panic. Me too. However, when 90% of the adults are highly intoxicated and you're stopping at every sandbar for pee breaks, we usually expect six to seven hour trip. No, no. We had roughly 20 people on this year's trip with kids, seven kids under eight years old, one to two coolers in each canoe, stereo hooked up and old rock jams blasting. This is my happy place.

Most of my favorite summer memories have been made in this section of the... We're going to Google it. We're going to Google this one. I don't want to ruin your river. Yeah. Hold up. Hold up. We're going to have Google say it to you. Makoketa. Makoketa. Makoketa. That's fun to say. Makoketa. So, most of my favorite summer memories have been made in this section of the Makoketa River. Makoketa. Makoketa. Quite honestly, this included, and I feel this is a safe space for me to say that given what happens next. Yeah, this is always a safe space. It is. It is.

So back to the trip in question. About 45 minutes into our seven-hour float, we all have a solid buzz on when my cousin, floating ahead of the group in his kayak, notices a boot floating just beneath the surface of the water. The water is muddy, but pretty clear this time of year. He tells my brother, who's slightly closer to what he assumes is just a stuck boot.

Thinking he had just found a random shoe, my brother grabs the boot out of the water. And I shit you not, there is an entire tibia fibula covered in a dirty sandy sock sticking straight out of the tied boot. What? Hello? Blink, blink. Hey, perfect job. Thank you. Back. What? What? Excuse me, what would you say? What the fuck? That's what you would say. Okay.

followed up with that's what you said you were like nailed it you did you nailed it nailed it nailed it so um oh my god that's oh my god that's crazy what the fuck shocked at the sight of a human fucking leg my brother dropped the boot back into the water not today and honestly i can't believe him we floating

The two guys stared at each other for a minute and then yelled for our parents who were in a group of canoes tied together nearby. And all the commotion, the music gets turned down. They were like, turn down the tune. They were like, we need to see. And my mom yells to me that they found a foot. Hey, hey. We found a foot. We found a foot. Imagine. And you got a buzz on and somebody yells to you that they found a foot. How do you move past that?

You sober up real quick. Yeah, that's a sobering moment. Now, at this point in time, I was in my own world about 20 feet behind the group talking with my friend. When I finally figured out what she was saying, I was positive this was just my family playing a joke on me. I would think so, too. Me, too.

Oh my god.

I dropped it back in the water because like, what do you do? I don't know. Now the group is yelling at me, half saying to leave it and the other half saying to call 911. I look over at my mom who nods at me as if to say, do it. Being my morbid self. Thanks, ladies. You bet. I pull the boot back out of the water and throw it on my kayak. I'm proud of you. So here I am, 50 minutes into a seven hour float with a right lower leg on my kayak.

Oh my god. No one had cell service, and to be honest, we were a little worried the DNR wouldn't be cool with our general lack of life jackets and planned alcohol consumption. It's planned, and you have a driver. There you go. After talking with my uncle, who is an EMT, and my mom, a nurse, we decided I would paddle back upstream to the nearby sandbar, where we could easily reach later via gravel road.

Again, I already have a buzz on and my ass had to now paddle upstream. Oh, no. I'm not an athletic girl. Me either. So this took a bit. Once I reached the beach, I set the foot down in a clearly visible place I could later identify for the police. The whole time I'm paddling, all I could think was, oh, my God, I can't wait to tell Lainey that I'm paddling.

I'm obsessed. Because even though we're not best friends in real life, we are in my head. And now we are. We are in real life. As morbid of a discovery we made, our family still enjoyed a full day on the river and had a blast. You guys are reckless and I love it. I love it. I would be so worried that the rest of the mans was somewhere underneath us. Which would show us. Yeah. After we got off the river at 6 p.m., my uncle called in our discovery. We sobered up a bit and went down to the scene to give our statements to the sheriff's deputies. Pick

Picture a fairly intoxicated sunburnt mother of two with a morbid fascination for all things true crime trying to set the scene for the deputy like I'm some type of professional who doesn't just listen to a lot of podcasts and watch too many murder documentaries. Yeah.

This is actually wild. This is a story and I love it. I would pay money to watch that body cam footage. I would too. The next morning, my brother went out to the scene and showed investigators specifically where we had pulled out the boot. While he was there, they dug into the sand and found pieces of denim. A few weeks later, we found out they excavated the area and did recover a body. So he was floating with you. He was floating with you. My fear confirmed. Yes. Yes.

After a few months, they confirmed the body was that of a missing man from the area who was last seen in November 2020.

even though this whole experience was wild and a story I will tell around the bonfire for years to come it was not lost on any of us the impact our discovery made I only hope we brought this man's family a little justice at this point there's never been yeah a little piece sorry at this point there has never been an official cause of death release that I know of and although there's lots of rumors for what may have happened out of respect for his fit this man's family I won't speculate good on you

Sometime when I'm not running on fumes, I will send in my best ghosty stories. Please do. Please do. Turns out I'm fairly sensitive in spirits good and bad. I almost said fairly. Turns out I'm fairly sensitive. That's so me. That's very you. In spirits good and bad, really dig my vibes. Both my children are similar and keeping our home cleared and cleansed is a constant battle. About two years ago, I saw several mediums and ended up needing to perform

form a ritual to remove a negative attachment from a past life. Ooh, send over that information. Yeah. Things have gotten much easier since then, and my life has transformed into something truly beautiful that I didn't know was possible. Oh, that just made my heart so full. Love you both, and look forward to seeing a new episode every time they pop up. Thank you for all the time and energy you put in the podcast. It has gotten me through many long work days and house cleaning days. Stay weird, weirdos. I feel like I'm

could like feel her energy through the put a phone and that i love you you have great energy nicole that was great energy yeah it filled me with happiness i loved that is this you on the river in your gmail thing is it i think oh no that's a pool okay but i still love you floating in a pool wow all right so listener tales a light-hearted sign from the afterlife not afterlice after life christmas tale life after life

Do you believe in life after lice? Do, do, do. I need to just move it into a thing I can see. We'll just keep... I believe that lice is in your hair. I really don't think you're strong enough. Oh, lice, lice, lice. And I'm a hairdresser, so I know about lice. I actually, there was a lice...

scare out of my salon once and i thought that we were gonna get to leave but we couldn't you couldn't you had to stay that was unfortunate fight through the lice anyways listener tales a light-hearted sign from the afterlife christmas tale about life hey weirdos i'm katie you can use my real name katie katie katie i am typing on my phone and can't figure out how to type how to double space this shit so i did my best you know what your best is all right it's great it's great

It's short and sweet, so hopefully that makes it less strenuous on the eyeballs. Blind is about over here, so I can feel the pain. I feel like all I do is listen to Morbid, day in and day out. One could say I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with you. I'm obsessed with you. Where? Obsessed with you. Hell yeah. Lots of eye rolls for my husband when I shush him for trying to talk to me when he gets home from work and I'm deep in an episode. Priorities. I'm triage that shit. Let's get in. Anyways, let's get into it. Start sad, but don't worry, it gets better. Cool. When I was in fifth grade, my brother Kevin passed away from...

Is it glioblastoma? Yes. Oh, I'm so sorry. It's the most aggressive type of brain cancer. I was one of six kids and it was a tough year for all of us, especially my parents having lost a child. I can't imagine. No. We knew the holidays would be particularly rough.

When it comes to Christmas, my mom loves wrangling as many of us to help decorate the house as she can. As you can imagine, with six kids, we have all sorts of Christmas ornaments on the tree. I know. From school age. My favorite being my older sister's preschool ornament that is literally just a piece of scotch tape on a string with a reason hanging from it. Everything gets hung up.

It's like the SNL back of the Christmas tree skit. Oh my god, yes. My mother-in-law sends that to us every Christmas. It's so funny. I'm obsessed with just the piece of scotch tape with a straight hanging and a raisin hanging. Does that go at the back of the tree? That shit is right. That shit is so right. Because if my kids made that, I'd be like, let's put it on the tree. I love it.

We have a lot of ornaments with our names on them and we scour the box to find our respective ornaments and hang them up. So one morning right around Christmas time, the year my brother passed away, my dad came to us and said, you'll never believe what happened last night.

As a brief backstory, my brother absolutely loved the 90s karate movies, Bruce Lee vibes. He sounds amazing. Watched them constantly, especially when he was sick and home all the time. It was a running joke in our family that those karate movies were always on. My dad said he was laying on the couch in the family room watching TV after we had all gone to bed and heard what he thought was the doorbell ring.

He got up to check and no one was there. Before even making it to the couch, the TV in our living room, yeah, late 1990s, early 2000s, we had two gigantic 9,000 pound box TVs, living large.

clicked on and it was absolutely blasting a karate movie oh that was him now this tv had channels one through ten so basic so basic shocked it wasn't black and white and the movie was on a channel he saw on the main tv as being in the hundreds yeah like how how yeah he shut it off quick so as not to wake the rest of us up

I love that. What a badass sign to send to your family too, a karate movie. I know. I love that. I love it. Oh my god, my heart. Yeah.

He asked my brother for a sign. Before he could even blink, something fell from the Christmas tree. My dad got up and sure enough, a heart-shaped ornament, I'm going to literally cry right now, a heart-shaped ornament with my brother's name on it had fallen from the tree to the family room floor. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. Believe what you will about this kind of spooky stuff, but in that moment, I think we all felt peace for the first time that year. No, I have actual goosebumps. Oh.

bumps of the goose variety oh like full i figured a happy little goose bumpy story would be a good palette cleanser if you will i seriously love you guys so much and we love you and your family please continue to keep it wicked weird oh yeah picture of the ornament included just for funsies oh my god oh wow oh my god i just got chills all over seriously oh and i wonder if they glued it back together

I know it kind of looks like that actually. Because it looks like there might be a little crack in it. But I can't tell if it's the light but I think it is. But that is, that's him. The fact that you're, first the karate movie happened and then your dad was like we miss you and it's been hard. Like can we have a sign? And immediately his ornament and like, like Katie just said there was six kids in that family. Yeah. There's billions of ornaments. Yeah. All over. I mean our tree is three kids and it's like a billion ornaments. I can't imagine six throughout the years in that age. No.

For that one to fall. That's special. That's really, really special. That's awesome. That's a Christmas motherfucking miracle. Oh, we love you guys. We love Christmas. We love 4th of July. We love floating. We love floating. We love each other, clearly, because we really dedicated ourselves to this. I love nails.

You love nail. I love a manicure. So this was amazing. It was so much fun. Loved it. Can't wait to get out of this. Yes. Love you. Love you so much. Can't wait to see you in something like this. Back at you. Do you want this? Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, I do. But yeah. So we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird.

But not so weird that you find a severed foot while you're just trying to float and get a little buzz on on the 4th of July. And also, keep it a little weird that you get this lighthearted ornament that's a sign from your brother. And also, he's playing karate movies in the background because that's fun. And there's some good karate movies, especially films from the 80s and 90s. I love karate movies. Karate movies forever.

Also, Grandma Bee and the Boogin, keep it that weird because boogins are weird and that's awesome. Send pizza to a crime scene, but only if someone requests you to do so. And follow the fucking instructions. Also, ghostly Hanukkah parties? Sign me up. Let's go. Where's the lock keys? I love it. Keep it that weird. And we love you guys! Oh my god, I almost lit that on fire. Imagine. Oh my god.

If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.