MFM Minisode 444

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Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder, The Mini Soda.

That's right.

It's the hometown episode Where we read you your hometowns or your stories or your adventures or your grandma's adventures.

Right.

You've got stories.

They've started in hometowns.

They're ending up in random celebrity stories.

I mean, we've now gone the full gamut of any story you want to tell us via email.

I'd love to see a master list of just topics that have been covered.

That would be kind of amazing, right?

There's a challenge.

Snake pit.

Sinkholes, treasure, and wall.

Like, it just would be so.

My alcoholic grandma, who was nice, but also yelled at me this one time.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We want to hear it.

I want to see it.

All right.

Do you want to go first?

Sure.

The subject line of this email is hometown, stranger danger and childhood fuck politeness.

Hi ladies, year one listener, love having your voices in my ear while traveling and appreciate y'all using your platform to respond to the ongoing horrors.

Thank you.

If only we could do more

about these ongoing since 2016 horrors.

As a child, I spent a lot of time at the library entertaining myself while my mom ran errands nearby.

When I was nine, I was sitting alone on a couch in the corner of the library reading when I noticed a man sit down across from me.

As an introvert and an avid reader, I did not acknowledge his arrival.

After a minute, the man asked what I was reading.

I raised the cover to show him and kept reading.

He asked my name, and the stranger danger alarm went off in my head.

I told him my name was Riley, in parentheses, not my name.

And when he asked where I went to school and where my parents were, I gave fake answers for those two.

Just wait.

Okay.

Wanting to get out of this conversation, I set the book down and mentioned needing to use the restroom, parentheses, which was around the corner and on the other side of the library.

As I approached the bathroom, I felt a knot in my stomach.

Instead of going into the bathroom, I ducked into an aisle a little past the entrance to the women's room and hid behind the opposite end cap.

I could see the bathroom through the gaps in the shelves, but unless someone was really looking, they could not have easily seen me.

I'm clenching right now.

Not long after that, I saw him come around the corner, check to see if anyone was looking, and then walk into the women's restroom.

How old was she?

Nine?

Nine.

Holy shit.

Upon realizing that it was empty, he ran out, saying something under his breath and quickly left the library.

I immediately told the staff member what happened and spent the rest of the evening talking about books with the staff until my mom showed up to take me home.

Needless to say, my solo library adventures were paused until I was old enough to have a cell phone.

Stay sexy, trust your gut, and fund your local library, Danny.

Amazing.

Look for a librarian.

That's another great piece of advice.

Look for a librarian and also listen to your gut.

Listen to your gut.

What's that weird feeling?

Even if you're wrong, doesn't matter.

You move on with your day.

Because also, if in that case, and I mean, Danny, the nine-year-old wonder.

Yeah.

Because Danny felt that feeling in their gut and then just was like, I'm just going to step over here and not do the thing expected and see what happens.

Absolutely.

Brilliant.

Brilliant.

My first one is called, well, actually, it's similar.

Classic Hometown Pervert Story.

Hello, MFM crew, longtime listener, second time writer.

I grew up in the suburbs.

All the fun places to hang out as a kid slowly started to be replaced by pharmacies and needless retail stores, leaving few things for teenage me to do.

I remember that.

My friend got a summer job at the Dollar Movie Theater, so that became where I spent a lot of my time.

Uh-oh, warning, red alert.

What?

Cheap movie theaters are where some creepy people go to spend their time.

I don't know.

We had like our main movie theater in Woodbridge in Irvine that fell on hard times and became the Dollar Theater, but it was never like, it was just like second-run movies.

It wasn't like creepy.

But yes, I read you the title, and so clearly there's a person.

Well, I just think it's just when the entry fee is so low, it's kind of like, oh, you could sit in here for two hours.

Right.

And children might show up.

The manager, sometimes they work there.

Let's call him Dave was super chill.

Near closing time, employees would sneak their friends in the back.

We'd fill containers we brought from home with as much popcorn and soda as we could eat and drink.

We'd hang out in the birthday party room

playing board games until all the customers left and all the employees had clocked out.

And then we'd all watch a movie after hours.

Dave had awesome board games, games, never seemed to care when someone smelled like weed or slipped some booze into their cup or how much popcorn we ate, which all made him a cool adult in our eyes.

It was the perfect balance of wholesome fun and rule breaking.

One random day in the summer, I got a call on my cell phone from, I got a call on my cell phone.

I got a call on my cell phone from Dave.

That last time you did it, your face thought you did it right.

Like it was like, from, from, from.

Cell from?

From, from, sell from.

Leave all of that in, please.

This was very unusual.

Dave only had my number in case one of my friends didn't answer when I called to be snuck in the back of the theater.

After a very confused hello, he responded with, I'm sure you've seen the news by now, so I just wanted to call and kind of explain the situation a little.

Oh, no.

No, you don't need to do that, adult.

Phone to phone.

Teenager.

No.

You're only going to make this worse.

I told him I didn't know what he was talking about and immediately typed his name into Ask Jeeves to figure out what was going on.

That's right, kids.

Before Google, we would ask a fake internet butler for information.

Jeeves,

is my movie theater manager a straight-up sex criminal?

Jeeves, are you a straight-up sex criminal?

Jeeves, will you print up a list of sex pests in my area?

Because I have to get a job by my team.

As he was rambling on about being super stressed, going through a rough divorce that doesn't excuse his actions, yada, yada, yada, I was reading the articles popping up on Ask Jeeves.

While he was out for a walk, he decided the best way to feel like he could gain control of his life was to expose himself to two young girls who were walking home from school.

I mean,

dude.

They reported him to the cops, good, and he was immediately caught.

Dave sadly murmured that he wasn't going to be around the movie theater anymore, aka he was going to jail.

My 16-year-old nerd self wasn't socially prepared with what to do when you realized that a person who knows you, who has your phone number, and who you are currently on the phone with, had exposed himself to children.

So I panicked and went with, try to console him so he doesn't get mad and go crazy on you.

Reaction.

Women, we've all had that reaction before at some point.

Also, you could do that thing where you're like, sorry, what?

Wait a second.

And then you just hang on.

Yeah.

I told him I just saw the news article and not to worry and how it wasn't that bad.

And Americans are prudes with nudity.

But he just paused and responded with quote no it was that bad day

i know i felt guilty for a while after that for encouraging a flasher but then i remembered that i was 16 so i should cut myself some slack yes jesus christ yeah you this was a test you did not have to pass totally you were supposed to be learning from this experience and you did god damn at least dave was there to be like no don't don't let me off don't let me off

he clearly knew what he did was fucked up and he was going to jail that was the last time i heard of Dave and it was the end of the Dollar Movie Theater Hangs.

The new manager ran stuff by the book.

Somehow they kept going.

They were like, we'll call him from jail.

Yeah.

The new manager ran stuff by the book, but hey, he didn't flash children.

Fuck.

Stay sexy and don't trust adults who have teenagers as friends.

Such great advice.

No name, it says, she, hers.

Yeah.

It's that and that thing where like when you're a teen and you're either like you always want candy or you're like, I want a party or whatever, you have to keep your eyes open for the people who are facilitating.

Totally.

Oh, just hang here.

Spend your time here.

You can be here.

Chill out here.

Right.

Why?

Why do you want children around?

You're actually not as cool as you think you are or a fun hang at all.

And if you're doing it for good reasons, there will be an old lady in the front and there'll be another lady over here.

Or your parents will be invited to party with your friends, cool parents and going coolers.

That's my childhood.

It'll be fine.

Yeah.

And turns out cocaine too.

Like like who the fuck knew the whole time i mean it's the 80s right yeah

yeah god damn okay i just am so blown away because it's so in those stories you're like okay a person does that thing and then they're just they must just be without a moral center yeah and to so for this person to basically listen to someone he pretended to be friends with yeah make excuses care enough to tell to solve them don't do this for another person don't do it for me don't do it for anybody this is what i loved when i asked for hometowns at parties or whenever I was out and about, it was like, what was the thing?

Who was the teacher who turned out to be?

What was the, yeah, like the theater manager.

Those are the stories that are like, every fucking town has one of those.

I don't care if you don't think you're into true crime.

Every town has one of those.

What's your wolf and sheep's clothing story?

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

You guys.

That was a real one, not just an example.

Please ask us to send that in.

Please tell us.

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Goodbye.

This email just starts, Karen.

I've loved you since Mr.

Show.

Georgia, I'm a Georgia.

Aw.

You two love grandmas, and you recently asked for, quote, any fucking story.

So here we go.

Put that on the list.

Any fucking story.

Any fucking story.

My fierce Italian.

This email is wild.

I'll just say that.

My fierce Italian-American grandma died in 2021 after a long life of overfeeding house guests, yelling at her children, and spoiling her grandchildren.

When the pandemic subsided and the family was finally able to gather for her funeral, we converged on the San Diego suburbs, the area where she spent most of her life.

After a small but heartfelt memorial service, one of my aunts instructed everyone to drive to the nearby mall where we would honor my grandma's wishes of having her remaining ashes spread at her favorite department store.

What?

I was going to think in the fountain or something.

In the, okay, this is amazing.

She's like, I love pennies.

No.

Pennies.

I want to live there forever.

You can't just sprinkle people.

It's literally illegal to put cremaines wherever the fuck you want.

Not allowed.

Upon arrival, my aunt opened her trunk and pulled out a red solo cup, grandma's cremaines,

waiting to party, and a bottle of water, which she hastily combined and handed to my sister, who was instructed to stir.

Apparently, my aunt was worried that the ashes would blow away in the wind.

Oh my god, you made ash mush?

Ash batter.

Ash batter.

Oh my god.

She was afraid it would blow away in the wind.

So just make it wet.

Yep, so she came prepared.

But to put it lightly, my sister did not appreciate being assigned this task.

Makes a lot of sense.

Well, it turns out that when ashes are combined with water, the result is a concrete-like paste.

So my sister had to stir vigorously as we herded our family of cats over to the sidewalk planter nearest the mall doors.

She then proceeded to scrape as much of grandma out of the cup as possible, dumping her into the dry soil.

We snapped a few family photos, and as soon as it was over, my sister handed me the cup, still coated with grandma.

Still coated with grandma slurry.

Oh my God.

With a look on her her face telling me this was my problem now so i grabbed it and my mom and i walked inside the department store in search of a trash can we eventually stopped to ask an employee at the jewelry counter where one was which prompted her to kindly offer to throw the cup away for us

i hesitated but it felt insane to tell her she couldn't have my trash so i handed it over instead of just throwing it away this lovely woman placed the cup on the jewelry counter and continued chatting with her co-worker My mom and I walked away, giggling nervously, feeling guilty, and hoping that the cup eventually made it into the trash, but also knowing that that's where grandma would have wanted it to be all along on the jewelry counter, listening to the tea get spilled.

Oh my God.

Right?

So true.

Yes.

Kind of like fate steps in and does

his part or her part

or their part.

Stay sexy and don't mix cremaines with water, even if your aunt tells you to, Becca, sheer.

That is one of the most bananas I've heard.

You can't,

let's frame that.

You can't do that.

No.

Also, but here's the aunt.

What I love about this is like big family kind of be real.

Yeah.

We're all going to a place.

How's this going to get screwed up?

Right.

You know, whatever.

We've all seen cremaines blowing in the wind.

Yeah.

She's like, that isn't happening to my mother getting blown all the hell over.

Absolutely not.

And like, no one's like asked her, like, is this a great idea?

No one, everyone knows not to ask her.

Yes.

It's a great idea because Aunt whatever Joan doesn't like to be asked about her ideas.

Unless you've got a better idea.

Do you have a better one?

Do you have a better one?

And do you also have a red solo cup to have that idea happen in?

Who's got the cremains?

Then buy.

That is so fucked up.

I love it so much.

Who's got the cremains?

Who's got the cremains?

In their trunk.

The lady selling jewelry, of course.

She's the one handling grandma's body now.

You know, I'm going to take this solo cup home.

I hate to see it go to waste.

You know what's crazy is I sold this ring and I forgot to throw this garbage away.

Okay, this one's a little long,

but we asked for it.

I'm not going to tell you the name of it.

Okay.

Imagine me whisper yelling this at you because I fear for my actual life, but you asked for wedding drama and petty family feud stories.

So gather around, ladies.

It's time to gossip about my big sister.

Settled in.

I will be as vague as possible to maintain plausible deniability, but I am prepared to go into the witness protection at the same time.

My older sister got engaged after being with her partner for almost 10 years.

Still taking her sweet time, towards the end of their roughly two to three year engagement, Big Sis finally pins down a wedding date and books a beautiful venue for the following summer.

Perfect.

Then my own partner and I got engaged at a college.

Everyone is happy.

Love is in the air.

Now, my partner was and still is active duty military.

Very long story short, because it's complicated to explain deployment and training schedules, He's basically given an ultimatum when it comes to choosing our wedding date.

We had until no later than the following summer, like my sister, to have a traditional wedding or delay indefinitely until another window presented itself.

So to take advantage of this rare opportunity that instead allowed us to plan a whole year in advance and thinking it would be really fun to spend so much time with our families partying all summer, we picked a date about two months after my sister, right?

Seems fair.

Two months after her wedding, her big sister's wedding.

I mean, okay,

right.

I wouldn't use the word fair.

Okay.

There's variables that we don't know.

The big sister got her date out first.

The big sister got her date out first, and the little sister is respecting that and doing it two months later.

Two months, not even like in the same month.

So it's,

it doesn't matter.

Okay.

All right.

But let's see.

My sister, I could see my sister getting pissed about this.

Okay.

Sure.

This gave her as much buffer space as was possible while still barely meeting our deadline.

That's the other thing is she's doing this because they have, like, they're not, she didn't.

My whole family was super supportive and I was genuinely so...

You've come down hard on this, on the writer's side.

My whole family was super supportive and I was genuinely so stoked to share this unique experience with my big sister.

It was an excuse to spend more time together because we lived in different states and had for a while.

It sounds to me like she told the family before she told her sister.

What she's saying is this is a chance for the family to be together all summer, but also for my sister and I to bond over wedding planning together.

Of course, but a lot of people don't want to bond with the second bride on their own wedding.

No, there's, you shouldn't, no.

But I'm saying, isn't what you just read hers basically saying my whole family was supportive of this, and then I'm going to tell my sister?

It does sound like that.

That worries me.

Okay.

We could share.

No, I'm not arguing.

I'm literally

saying what I'm scared of.

She's the last to know.

We could share Pinterest pages.

Also, like, yeah, you could have asked me instead of told me, even if it's not happening.

Okay.

We could share Pinterest pages, vent about planning anxieties, and build registries together.

We have wildly different tastes and interests, so there would be no fighting over who would get this or that.

Rationalization.

It would be so fun and special, right?

No, incorrect.

Now this is period, period, period.

Wrong, period.

She, period, was period furious.

She wanted to be the, now this is where you're going to turn on her.

She wanted to be the bride of the season.

Oh.

It's fucking Pergerton all the goddamn sudden.

That's fucking.

Hold on.

Can I switch back?

Exactly.

I knew you would, right?

She wanted to be the bride of the season.

That's like when someone's like, it's my birthday month.

You have to pay for everything.

I know, but that's the thing is I don't agree with it or whatever, but this is the world people live in.

So the idea that you thought your sister would love to share the wedding season with you is crazy.

I don't know.

Like when you're dealing with people who you just never know what their reaction is going to be and what it's going to be based on that day, that minute that when you were 10, you did this.

You never know.

It's so confusing.

That's true in general.

Yeah.

But I think when it comes to weddings, it's the same thing with don't wear a white dress.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't have the wedding two months after mine.

And basically

just completely hijack all the heat I'm going to get.

I don't feel that way.

I'm just saying.

I totally hear you.

I think, and everyone let us know.

What if we get into a fight about this?

What if we get married on the same day?

I think a month buffer is enough.

Two months is extra.

I disagree.

So, how long do you think a season?

Oh, so you do agree with her.

I completely think this is to the person.

So, in the same way that I would never have a birthday week or month, because I'm like,

leave me alone.

There's some people who would be like, this will be great.

It'll be so fun.

And there's some people who are like, my day.

You know what I mean?

And it doesn't make sense to me, but I can see the my day people being like.

And there was a different way she could do that, that, have done this delicately and been like, Look, I'm so sorry.

This is the only, okay, here we go.

What is what do we do?

Because, because this is fascinating.

Let's get advice.

Let's get advice.

We can give advice.

This is great.

What break your shit apart?

But my thing is this: when you start the storyline of it'll be so fun, everyone, the whole family will love it.

You got to know that once you're doing that, pause it and go, why do I have to do this so hard?

Right.

And also, like, I don't know how they'll react.

I guess, yeah, I guess my sister has reacted very badly to things that I did not expect.

And I got in big trouble for a thing.

And it was worse because I was so excited about it that it's just like

they'll get you.

They'll get you.

Yeah.

Okay.

It is.

It's, well, you know why?

That's the person you're supposed to know the best.

Yeah.

And so when something like that happens, then you're just like, wait, what the fuck?

It's just like the lack of the benefit of the doubt, you know, or like the lack of even considering the intentions of this person she's known her whole life.

Yeah.

And it being all about being the bride of the season for two two months.

It's just like bullshit.

It is.

Here we go.

There's a lot more to talk about.

You're like, there's four more pages of this.

And we're going to do a whole nother episode, a Friday episode of advice.

This is the mini-sode of the advice.

I think it should be.

Yeah.

She wanted to be the bride of the season and couldn't believe I was trying to be the center of attention.

She screamed and begged and cried to my parents on multiple occasions to not let me get married because it wasn't fair.

She then tried many, many tactics to directly convince me to not get married, campaigned to as many relatives as possible, admitted to me that she did not want to waste the time she had off from work to go to my wedding after her own, and ultimately didn't want to be a bridesmaid or even attend my wedding in the first place.

And it says she was and she did.

So is your sister's name at the bottom of this email?

I hope so.

Oh, mine?

Oh no.

I will say my sister and I are close friends now.

She has calmed the fuck down and we are, she is reliable now.

So this is old shit and she would fucking admit to it 100%.

Okay.

She thought my parents favored my fiancé over her own because our dad was also a veteran.

She thought we were too young to get married at all.

Stop doing the voice.

Et cetera, et cetera.

There's too much.

You're putting too much English on this thing.

I know, I know, but I get it.

She then decided to, quote, be the bigger person by formally postponing her wedding while blaming me for being the selfish little sibling and stealing her light.

Rather than having a, okay.

The reality of the situation was that she and her fiancé were completely unwilling to compromise on their guest list that far exceeded their chosen venues limit.

That's the real reason they moved it.

They had no choice but to find a new venue and therefore a much later date since venues book up quickest in the summer.

I'm sorry though.

What?

That person writing is saying it has literally nothing to do with the decision she made to have the wedding two months after.

So it's additionally

like that's rationalization.

I am sorry.

I hear you.

It's like that might have happened.

Yes, that might be be true.

And in addition, I don't even fucking want it now anyways.

Yeah, she's basically saying, you're just lumping up on my thing and it's not.

But look, I get, yeah.

This is what, like, it's family history.

When you have a person that either does this a lot, you've seen this before, it's not the first time, then it's like a huge explosion over something that seems like, wait, to everyone else.

Yeah.

Therapy.

Family therapy is when you're an adult, it's still a thing.

Yeah.

It's pretty great.

She then secretly eloped before my wedding altogether.

She's just like triple birds of the whole family.

The kicker is that even after she not only got married first and still had an over-the-top Kardashian level destination wedding of her dreams a year later, she was still so bitter about everything that she didn't speak to me for almost three years.

Yeah.

You're going to hate this.

Stay sexy and stay out of Bridezilla's way.

A.

P.S.

Sorry.

Are you Bridezilla or is your sister?

Right.

I get.

I'm in the middle now.

P.S.

I want to to shout out all my trans siblings in the U.S.

going through it right now.

You exist.

You are loved.

You are important.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Wow.

That was a lot to unpack.

I mean, we thought we wanted like the hot tea goss.

Yeah.

But everything has a side and we see our sides based on the shit we've been through.

Totally.

The Xerox goes like this for you.

And you know exactly what the situation is.

And then the Xerox goes like this for me.

And I'm like, hmm.

And I just want to convince you of basically my perspective because it's basically my borrowed drama I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't have gotten married two months after me which you didn't do I mean but that is it in a nutshell it's just do you see my need yeah do you see my need to either have the whole season locked off right a crazy need sure

and also then it's this thing of like I could only do it this one day yeah and it's like then then how do you do it so that you can bring your sister in right instead of like, it's not that big of a deal and you're being too blah, blah, blah.

I'm doing it.

I know what you mean.

Yeah.

It's like both parties could have worked through that in therapy and it could have turned out as beautifully as she wanted it to.

But if they've never been able to, then they couldn't.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

I mean, if it's sister issues,

there's kind of nothing worse than like adult sister issues.

Yeah.

Oh, for sure.

It's so disappointing.

Because you're like, we're grown up and we're the only people and we can't fucking.

Yeah.

It's like, will it ever end?

Yeah.

We're going to be little old ladies.

And every time your parents said, she's your only sister, it's all my mom, all my mom would scream at us.

She's your sister.

And you're like, you hate your sisters, mom.

Yeah.

No, she doesn't.

But also, but I do think, too, it's like one of the worst times my sister and I went through, it was when my mom was in like the middle of Alzheimer's.

So everything was like,

I think there's extenuating circumstances.

There's obviously like, you know, the family birth order where it's like.

Totally.

the expectations

yes but then there's heightened emotions you didn't live in town so it was like and laura did right so like oh yes

that butting of heads oh there's i mean like issues times a million ultimately grief ultimately the issue is this can't be happening right and it's happening in slow fucking motion and you're the only person i can yell at about it so i'm gonna yeah Fuck, we figured it out.

We solved it.

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Very similar.

The subject line of this email is:

And then in parentheses, it says, maybe don't read this out loud.

I love that.

Okay, it says, hi, y'all.

I'm not great at all the mushy stuff nor writing.

So I'll just say, I love you all and everything you do.

I was born in 1974 in Aurora, Illinois.

Yes, Wayne's World.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Which is now the second largest city in Illinois.

I wonder if that's because of Wayne's World.

That makes sense.

In the late 70s, we lived in the world, isn't it?

Laverne and Shirley, too?

No, they lived in Milwaukee.

That's right.

I'm thinking of that part in Wayne's world where they go to Milwaukee to see Alice Cooper.

Okay.

Go back.

Go.

It's same universe.

Okay.

So in the late 70s, we lived in the best cul-de-sac in the world.

Every house in our little neighborhood had multiple kids from five to middle school aged, probably 25 of us total.

Wow.

Fucking powerful.

In crane, incredible?

Just

in crane.

Insane and incredible, is what I just tried to say.

I've had a lot of caffeine today.

Okay.

I would love artwork of like 25 little kids holding up the word in crane

with like a with a streetlight on top of them.

And there's a crane in the background.

And there's one, the 25th child is swinging on that.

Yeah.

And then the bird, an actual crane, a bird.

Yes.

Just keep adding.

Yes, and.

Trying to think of any other kind of a crane.

Cranium.

Frasier crane.

Frasier crane.

You did it.

Okay.

So we ran completely unsupervised and were mostly feral.

One late spring afternoon when I was five, the older kids, including my 12-year-old sister, deigned me cool enough to accompany them to one of the few undeveloped areas around.

It was a small patch of woods with a creek running through it, maybe three blocks away.

When we arrived, the other kids kicked off their shoes to wade into the creek, trying to catch tadpoles and crawdads.

I wandered farther down the bank, peering into the grass at the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

I quickly formed a plan and took off running for my house.

Once there, I ran to my room, dumped my pillow out of its case, and sprinted back.

Relieved that everything was as I left it, I scooped up my treasure and loaded it into my pillowcase.

Oh no.

Before I could show anybody what I'd found, my sister yelled that it was time to go to my brother's baseball game.

We sprinted home where my mom was already in the car yelling at us that we were late.

I crawled into the back, gently cradling my bag.

When we all arrived at the ball field, I sprinted to the full bleachers, climbing under them to further inspect my find.

That's when it occurred to me.

Everyone there needed to see what I had.

I reached into the bag, ran out from under the bleachers to the front, holding my arms up in triumph.

In my pudgy little hands, I held maybe 20 baby garter snakes.

Oh my God, it's like Pee-Wee's playhouse or Big Adventure when he

comes up.

He rescues the snakes from the burning.

Oh my God, that's...

What?

No.

And also babies.

Baby.

A little kid with baby snakes.

I would think the world is ending.

Hey, everybody.

apocalypse yeah exactly it's like you will obey me exactly demon child the zelle bub is here

oh my god sorry i i remember a couple grown adults bailing off the sides of the bleachers a few screams and at least one what the fuck

Mostly, though, I remember the looks of anger and embarrassment on my sister and mom's faces and my mom whisper yelling at me to, get rid of us now.

I was completely shocked.

Could these people not see how cool I was?

Where were they supposed to cheer?

What were they supposed to react to?

And everyone was supposed to be like, yes, we love you.

Stay sexy and maybe pat down your five-year-olds before loading them into the car.

Amanda.

Amanda, you are probably a cool adult.

20 baby garter snakes in a pillowcase.

And you know she had to use that pillowcase that night to sleep.

You know what I mean?

Like back then,

you didn't get rid of shit.

The smell as she lays there, like, maybe this was a bad idea.

Okay, I I have a bad idea one, too.

That's just kind of funny.

Incredible.

And I'm not going to reflect.

Wait, is this the last one?

Yeah.

Finally.

Finally.

Four hours later.

Hello, narrating mammals.

I grew up working at a small community pool as a lifeguard, and they never took me off the staff email list.

Yeah, you know, like that's just the great start to a story.

It's so good and weird.

And specifically.

We know what's happening.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so specific and it's such a funny, like, I'm going to tell you something about that now.

And they did.

It's normally updates about maintenance.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Always do.

Should it be like, did you ever get not taken off an email list and something happened?

We'd love to hear about it.

Yeah.

Right.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What were you CC'd on or BCC'd on or not BCC'd on that you should have been?

Tell us the story.

We don't want your job stories though.

We want something weird like whatever's about to happen here.

I definitely heard one though once when this woman realized that she had been tracking her period in the company-wide calendar.

I heard that online.

It was like a a story, you know.

That's so embarrassing and weird.

So, something like that.

Yeah.

God damn.

God damn.

And like written like my period and like color-coded it and shit.

Or like, maybe it was even worse.

Maybe it was ovulating because you're trying to have a baby.

I don't know.

So send us those.

Yeah.

My favorite murder Gmail.

Let me finish this for you.

Okay.

It's normally updates about maintenance, schedules, and occasionally a story about a patron.

One day, I got this email from the 60-year-old parks and Recreation Director of the Small Town.

That was supposed to be Vince.

Oh, yeah.

The email is titled, Eating in Lifeguard Chairs.

And he gets right down to business, telling us that a director from a neighboring town's pool saw one of our lifeguards eating spaghetti out of a bowl with his fingers while sitting atop the lifeguard stand.

It's like Charlie from it's always sunny in Philadelphia.

Seems impossible.

Yeah, the director of Parks and Recreation went on to explain that pizza, teriyaki chicken bowls, and spaghetti are not acceptable items to eat while lifeguarding, and that the video he saw when looking back on the security footage was, quote, embarrassing.

Yeah, public pools have some wacky stories, but it's not always the patrons.

Stay sexy and make sure you watch your children at the public pool because the lifeguard isn't Sarah.

Sarah, if I were you and I was on that chain that I shouldn't be on anymore, I'd be like, are we allowed to drink boba drinks?

How about

just start asking about specific things?

Deli sandwiches six inch foot long.

No tomato, though.

Is that okay?

Literally just like you just named three things that aren't appropriate.

Does it make any sense?

Does any, is anything else super appropriate?

Baghetti with his fingers on the lifeguard stand.

In a bowl.

Yeah, in a bowl.

In a legit bowl.

Not even like, yeah.

Send us your story, whatever the fuck it is about any of this.

Do you need advice?

Maybe once an episode we could do an advice question.

For sure.

We used to give advice sometimes.

So people would ask us questions.

We always tell people what to do.

I mean, we love to, but specifically,

I feel like specific problems like that, we always were like, it has to be low stakes advice because we didn't want to ruin anyone's life.

No, no, low stakes or like, what would you have done?

Because it already happened when you're not like basing your life off of our decisions.

Almost like it's a ripoff of am I the asshole?

Am I the asshole?

Where it's kind of like, here's the thing.

Was I in the wrong side?

Totally.

What if we call it pick-aside?

I fucking love it.

My favorite murder at Gmail.

I am so excited for these.

This is like, this is a whole new, I could do 10 more years of this shit.

Thanks for listening, you guys.

So much, Kathy.

Stay sexy.

And don't get murdered.

Bye-bye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an exactly right production.

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Our editor is Aristotle Aceveda.

This episode was mixed by Liana Squalacci.

Email your hometowns to myfavorate murder at gmail.com.

And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

Listen to MyFavorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page.

And while you're there, please like and subscribe.

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