MFM Minisode 420

Speaker 1 This is exactly right.

Speaker 1 This podcast is sponsored by PayPal.

Speaker 2 Okay, let's talk holiday shopping.

Speaker 1 From now through December 8th, you can get 20% cash back when you pay in four with PayPal. No fees, no interest.

Speaker 2 This limited time offer is perfect for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals you've been eyeing. Save the offer in the app now.

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Speaker 2 Goodbye. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 No one brings out your inner monster like a bad neighbor.

Speaker 2 Claire Danes and Matthew Reese find that out for themselves in The Beast in Me, a new eight-episode drama from the team that brought you homeland. Danes plays Aggie Wiggs, a grieving writer.

Speaker 2 Reese plays Niall Jarvis, her new neighbor and possible murderer.

Speaker 1 But who's the monster and who's the bad neighbor? That's another story.

Speaker 2 It's a game of cat and mouse that sets them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 1 The Beast and Me, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 2 You will not want to miss this. Goodbye.
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Speaker 2 That's bombbas.com slash MFM code MFM at checkout. Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Hello!

Speaker 2 And welcome to my favorite murder.

Speaker 1 The Mimi Sode.

Speaker 2 The Mimi Sode, because Mimi's on my lap right now, drooling.

Speaker 1 Mimi did a real good poke up from the bottom of the Zoom screen.

Speaker 2 Like...

Speaker 2 Here, let me get her on camera for you so you can have something nice to look at rather than my something wonderful. Fucking face.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Mimi the supermodel with her tiny tiny mouth oh pretty hi lady

Speaker 1 you want to go first sure

Speaker 2 okay

Speaker 2 the title is i'm not going to read the subject line which i can't believe more people haven't done that is hilarious full credit to this person yes and then it says in parentheses but if i did it would be and then it tells the whole story and it's great hilarious

Speaker 2 and then it just starts i'll be honest the main reason it has taken me so long to write this in is because i absolutely panic at the thought of not having a good opening line.

Speaker 2 So I'll let you use your imagination and pretend that this one was particularly fantastic. Sigh, here we go.

Speaker 2 I'll apologize in advance for being incredibly verbose, yet another reason I have procrastinated sending this. Someone's been using the the Thoris.

Speaker 1 I bet someone got their $10 word out.

Speaker 2 In 1984, my parents moved to a huge house about two blocks from the largest local high school central.

Speaker 2 My mom was nine months pregnant with my sister, but being the badass woman she was, she still helped move all the boxes and furniture despite it being her due date.

Speaker 2 She went into labor four days later. This isn't actually relevant to the story referenced in the subject line, but my mom is going to sound pretty neglectful in a minute.

Speaker 2 So I wanted to make sure and paint her as the strong, amazing woman she is before throwing her entirely under the bus.

Speaker 1 Get her under there.

Speaker 2 It says, right about

Speaker 2 now.

Speaker 2 This person should be a writer. Okay.
Okay. Sometime in the upper 80s, I believe 1987 or 88, my brother asked my mom if he could walk down the street to play at his best friend's house.

Speaker 2 It was the 80s, so she said sure and waved her six or seven-year-old child out the door to walk down the street, which is so normal. Sure.
And didn't expect him home until the streetlights came on.

Speaker 2 She never could have imagined that the next time the door opened, it would be two police officers on the other side telling her that her son had been abducted. What? Okay, yeah, this gets crazy.

Speaker 2 Apparently, my big brother was walking down the street, as advertised, when a woman saw him by himself and decided she had a grand opportunity to make some money.

Speaker 2 She had a knife and threatened my brother with it to get him to comply and come with her.

Speaker 2 She then needed to find a payphone so she could call my parents and demand a ransom for the return of my brother, who by this time was crying.

Speaker 2 Nevertheless, she dragged my bawling brother to the closest place she could find, the high school.

Speaker 2 There was indeed a pathon there, but to get to it, she would have to cross the practice field and get to the tennis courts on the other side of the main field.

Speaker 2 And it says for scale, this is like three city blocks. It is a huge high school.
Okay. All with a screaming, crying child who was pleading with her to take him home.

Speaker 1 So fucking traumatizing. So creepy.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 He even offered her his own money.

Speaker 2 Turns out his not fully formed brain was concocting a plan to give her monopoly money in exchange for his life which is equal parts funny and absolutely heartbreaking yes as she undoubtedly shouted at him to shut up and continued dragging him to the payphone the football team on the practice field began to notice something was wrong

Speaker 2 I have searched high and low for an article about this, which I know exists because I have seen it.

Speaker 2 But because I can't find it and because I hate asking my parents and brother to relive this part of their lives, I am recounting this from memory as best as I I can.

Speaker 2 The football players saw my brother crying and this disheveled woman holding a knife and correctly assumed he was in danger. They surrounded the woman and one of the players tackled her.

Speaker 2 As football players are wont to do, I guess. I'm not sure what part of scary lady with small child and knife made the idea of tackling seem appealing, but that is indeed what happened.

Speaker 2 The police were called, probably using the very payphone she planned to ransom my brother through because 80s, and my hysterical hysterical brother relayed that he lived two blocks over and wanted to go home.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So that is how my mother came to find out that my brother actually never made it to the neighbor's house at all. And it says, because calling to make sure he arrived safely just wasn't a thing.

Speaker 2 It wasn't, though. It really wasn't.

Speaker 1 No one ever called anyone unless you had to.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 2 And instead was dragged by a stranger in search of a payphone, but was luckily intercepted, pun intended, you're welcome, Georgia, by the football team and returned to my mother.

Speaker 2 My brother doesn't like to talk about this incident much, but he did surprise me once when he brought it up and credited this experience for his obsession with personal safety/slash weapons and trying to keep our family safe from harm.

Speaker 2 He is a wonderful man who would move mountains for those he loves, and he has always been there to bail me out of a few unfortunate situations.

Speaker 2 I am beyond lucky that our story didn't end in tragedy like so many others, and I am so grateful that I can find a modicum of humor in such a terrible memory.

Speaker 2 I think that is why I relate to your podcast so much. My family has always imbued humor into sad or scary situations for better or worse.

Speaker 2 Stay sexy and make sure your kid arrives safely at their friend's house. Offer your kidnapper monopoly money.
Don't offer your kidnapper monopoly money. Oh, wait, I've got it.

Speaker 2 Stay sexy and let the football team rescue you, Virginia.

Speaker 1 Nice one, Virginia.

Speaker 2 Like that turned quick.

Speaker 1 That just like, yeah, because in my my mind, like talking about walking across that school, it was just like empty school, wind is blowing. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 That the loneliest thing in the world is like an empty school.

Speaker 2 Totally. 100%.

Speaker 2 And then like this woman probably had mental health problems, which is so sad, but like a knife to a six or seven-year-old child. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just no. Wrestle her immediately to the ground.

Speaker 2 These teenagers.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 These brave teenagers were like, nope.

Speaker 1 They're not standing by. No, it's the best.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's really wild.

Speaker 1 Very lovely. But also, it's the kind of thing where it's like, stuff like that happens to people.
And then

Speaker 1 she's attributing his need for, like, to keep people safe. And that.

Speaker 1 And that is how bad things bring about good things. Like, it's like now he is maybe over vigilant, but then that care and concern benefits all these people in his life.

Speaker 2 Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to read you the subject line. So

Speaker 1 it just starts, hey, Karen, Georgia, and assorted animals. I'll jump right into it.
My dad's family moved around a lot when he was younger due to my grandpa's job with the military.

Speaker 1 One of the places they lived when he was a little older was the Caribbean, where my dad got a job on a sailboat and became friends with the owner.

Speaker 1 Fast forward about 15 years, and my parents wanted to take their three young kids on vacation. Since they're cheapskates, they decided to take us down to Belize.

Speaker 1 Those fucking cheapskates.

Speaker 2 It's so cheap. I don't know Belize that well, but shit.
No.

Speaker 1 We literally went to the same lake every year.

Speaker 1 Don't be crazy. And

Speaker 1 it was a drive. It was a three-hour drive, and we drove it there and back every time.

Speaker 1 A country in Central America where my dad's friend was now living to stay with him and his wife for a couple weeks.

Speaker 1 On one of our last days in the country, my parents took my older brother and I on a tour of Monkey River, where we were supposed to be able to see crocodiles and manatees.

Speaker 1 For reference, the tour consisted of only my family and a tour guide in a little boat floating down a river and up the shore of the jungle.

Speaker 1 I guess manatees were a really big selling feature on these tours because as our time slot was running out, our tour guide really seemed intent on finding us a manatee to take pictures of.

Speaker 1 Finally, he spotted one in the distance.

Speaker 1 However, as our little boat got closer and closer to the manatee, it became clear that it was in fact not a manatee in the water, but a man floating face down next to a boogie board.

Speaker 1 He was wearing a green and blue wetsuit and he was still strapped to his board at his wrist. Given that he had drowned in a kind of remote area in the jungle, we were the first ones to find him.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm just, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It says, this was a while ago, and I don't fully remember what the tour guide said to my parents since I was paying attention to the corpse right beside our boat, but I'm pretty sure that the tour guide knew who the man was and said that he'd been diving for oysters.

Speaker 1 At the time, the police and Belize were pretty corrupt and had a reputation for arresting tourists for crimes they didn't commit in order to elicit bribes.

Speaker 1 So the guide told my parents not to mention the body to anyone and that he would take care of it.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 Cue my parents having to explain two very important concepts to their six and eight-year-old children.

Speaker 2 My god.

Speaker 1 Death and that snitches get stitches.

Speaker 1 To this day, I get super stressed when going through customs since my parents absolutely forbade us from talking to any customs agent, a six-year-old and an eight-year-old.

Speaker 2 That's like a great way to just like implant trauma on top of trauma. Yes.
You know?

Speaker 2 Yes. The stakes go wildly high.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So our parents absolutely forbade us from talking to any customs agent when trying to leave Belize.

Speaker 1 I also refused to swim in the ocean for the next couple of years because although my mom had said the man had probably passed away from a heart attack, six-year-old me knew deep down that it was sharks that had gotten him.

Speaker 1 Sure, sharks or a giant clam that opened and enclosed. You know, that's always...

Speaker 2 Schnap.

Speaker 1 That was my big concern. Really? When I was young.

Speaker 2 A giant clam.

Speaker 1 I saw it in some...

Speaker 1 weird 70s children's thing where it's like a real-life swimmer and a real sized up clam.

Speaker 2 I can picture it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, my mom has taken my brothers and I on lots of sketchy vacations since then.

Speaker 1 Most involved her flying us across the Atlantic Ocean by herself to stay for months at a time with strangers she met on the internet. What?

Speaker 1 And then in parentheses, it says, my mom is not a murderer, you know.

Speaker 1 And then it says, that was probably one of the most memorable, oh, basically, so aside from that, that was probably one of the most memorable trips we've been on.

Speaker 1 Thanks for making this great podcast and giving me something to do instead of studying for my college finals.

Speaker 2 Oh no.

Speaker 1 And then it says, you've definitely knocked my GPA down a point or two. To which I will say, you've definitely knocked your GPA down a point or two.

Speaker 2 Hit stop.

Speaker 1 It's not that good.

Speaker 1 SSDGM and don't go looking for manatees.

Speaker 2 Margo. Oh my God.
Have you seen the video? I think it's in Thailand.

Speaker 2 I'm probably completely wrong about the animal and the place, but in Thailand, there are these like crocodile or alligators who have these little webby fingers.

Speaker 2 And they've learned that in this river, if they lay on their backs and hide their body and put their hand up like they're drowning, it looks like a human is drowning.

Speaker 2 And the people jump in to save the human because they have these little like fingers. And from far away, it looks like a hand being like, help me, help me.

Speaker 2 They've learned that people will jump in and like.

Speaker 1 And then did they attack the people and try to bite them and eat them? Yes.

Speaker 2 Oh my God. These little arm hand thing.
I mean, it's the creepiest.

Speaker 1 You tricky little bastards.

Speaker 2 It's nature. This is why.
This is why. Yes.

Speaker 1 Everybody's

Speaker 2 evolving. Evolving.
The Bible. Evolving.

Speaker 2 It says why. This is why.

Speaker 1 This podcast is sponsored by PayPal.

Speaker 2 Okay, let's talk holiday shopping.

Speaker 1 From now through December 8th, you can get 20% cash back when you pay in four with PayPal. No fees, no interest.

Speaker 2 This limited time offer is perfect for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals you've been eyeing. Save the offer in the app now.

Speaker 1 So whether you're buying tickets to an improv show or a whodunit board game, PayPal helps you make the most of your money this holiday.

Speaker 2 Expires December 8th. See paypal.com slash promo terms subject to approval.

Speaker 1 Learn more at paypal.com slash payin4 PayPal Inc. NMLS 910457.

Speaker 2 Goodbye. Goodbye.
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Speaker 2 Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Okay,

Speaker 2 I guess we asked for people to tell us their weird childhood hobbies. Oh, good.
Which is fun. Yeah.
Oh, and you know what?

Speaker 1 I feel like the file folder just opened and it was that one where the girl got the kit of like sparkle of glitter.

Speaker 2 Remember it was balloon animals.

Speaker 2 The fucking balloon animals.

Speaker 1 Wasn't there a sparkle one too where it was just like sparkles?

Speaker 2 I don't remember. Okay.
Anyway, yes, but yeah.

Speaker 1 Balloon animals was recent.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay.
So this one's called Peanut People.

Speaker 2 Hello all.

Speaker 2 Sort of day one listener. I started from the beginning in 2018, so whatever that is.
Yeah. You asked for weird childhood hobbies and I remembered mine that I think helped me figure out my career path.

Speaker 2 When I was around eight, we had this big plastic jar of shell-on peanuts. It was old and stale and needed to get thrown out.

Speaker 2 Kind of like those big tins of popcorn that everyone got for Christmas that eventually got emptied out and turned into trash cans. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I was feeling crafty one day and I took the peanuts and started drawing faces on them. It started off as a bit of a joke.

Speaker 2 I would carry them around in my bejeweled purse and tell my friends made-up stories about the peanut people.

Speaker 2 Some laughed with me. A lot probably laughed at me.
Either way, it was a hit.

Speaker 2 So I expanded on this idea. Either way, it was a hit.

Speaker 2 It does not track from what you just said. People are laughing.
I think that's like a pure-hearted, lovely thing. It's just like,

Speaker 2 you know what?

Speaker 1 The noise was there and that's all that matters.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 So I expanded on the idea. I created a house for the peanut people.
I made walls and floors out of cardboard, painted it, and even created furniture. Oh, it was clearly more than a joke to me.

Speaker 2 I got really into building homes for the peanut people. I did the same thing, but with troll dolls.
My friend and I were obsessed. We built like elaborate houses for them.
That's fun.

Speaker 2 It became a peanut village. It probably lasted a year, but the passion for designing buildings never really went away.

Speaker 2 So here I am, 21 years later, designing buildings at an architecture firm. Wow.
What?

Speaker 1 Amazing.

Speaker 2 When people ask me what got me interested in architecture, I do not tell them.

Speaker 2 But I told you, Smiley Face. Yay.
As I found out in 2018 at one of my first internships, the job is like any and can get pretty boring. So I have always appreciated having you guys in my ear.

Speaker 2 Stay sexy and throw out your stale peanuts, Kelsey, she, her.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 I really like that.

Speaker 2 Isn't that lovely?

Speaker 1 Also, it's just like so funny for kids these days where, like, literally you cannot be near peanuts. And, like, there's the peanut allergy

Speaker 1 thing that came up, which is important and good.

Speaker 1 I'm not trying to be one of those people who's like, nobody was allergic to peanuts before. Right.
I love when comics make those generalizations. I'm like, shm.

Speaker 1 My next-door neighbor, who I was just talking about,

Speaker 1 he had such a bad peanut allergy. Like, he had to have an EpiPen at all times, or his throat would close and he would die.

Speaker 2 It's not like nobody had it. It's like nobody gave a shit.

Speaker 2 You sound stupid when you say that nobody had autism back then. It's like nobody cared.

Speaker 1 It's, yeah, they weren't paying attention. They were just like, oh, you have to, we're just going to real quick make this easy for ourselves and put you in a room somewhere and not look into this.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 And like literally, it was like an 11-year-old that on his own without his mom or anybody doing the work, he had to make sure he never ate a peanut. So he'd literally be like, what's in this?

Speaker 1 I don't know. I'm not.

Speaker 1 Like, it was sad. Anyway, he made it.
I'm a peanut allergy truther, and I'm here to say.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to read you the subject line. It just starts.
Hello, all. I appreciate all the work you and the entire company does.
Nice.

Speaker 1 Well, that's all the emotion I can handle based on my German family upbringing.

Speaker 2 I appreciate that. Nice one.

Speaker 1 So it says, let's get into the story. This last holiday trip home, I heard a casual story from my dad.

Speaker 1 While watching a crime show with him, he mentioned that the FBI interviewed him once, leading me to immediately ask for the details.

Speaker 1 Back in the 80s, my dad was a nurse anesthetist, which is a specialized nurse who sedates or induces general anesthesia for medical procedures.

Speaker 1 To make extra money, he would pick up shifts at a Chicago abortion clinic on the weekends. Well, this clinic happened to be run by the Chicago mob, specifically Anthony Tony Centraccio.

Speaker 2 Whoa.

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 1 What a name.

Speaker 1 That was kind of fun to say.

Speaker 2 It sounded great. That and anesthetist, you fucking knocked it out of the park there.
Thank you. That's a hard one.
That's a hard one. Okay.

Speaker 1 Mostly, my dad would keep to himself and do his work. So

Speaker 1 this wasn't a problem. Occasionally, he would be offered jewelry to buy while working there, which he politely declined.

Speaker 1 You need this bracelet or you want a bracelet? Wow.

Speaker 1 During this time, the FBI came to our house and asked him about his work, the clinic, who owned it, and were particularly interested in Tony Centraccio.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 1 My dad states that he was relatively vague about his responses, like likely a smart decision.

Speaker 1 The FBI also asked about the jewelry being offered, which my dad replied he never bought because, quote, it wasn't his style.

Speaker 1 Then instead of keeping this interview to himself, he told the mob members at the clinic that he had been interviewed.

Speaker 2 So smart. Tell them immediately, or it's going to seem like you fucking snitched.
Yes. You know what I mean? Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes. Self-report.
Yeah. When working alongside or with the mob, please self-report.

Speaker 2 Because you know, one of those FBI agents were on the take, too, and told them, would have told them that they talked to him.

Speaker 2 And then they'd have been like, why didn't you tell us that they talked to you? You gotta. That's right.

Speaker 1 And then there's also the embedded FBI agent who isn't on the take, who's in the mafia, overgrown his mutton chops, and he's Tony Centraccio's best friend.

Speaker 2 Oh my God. It goes all the way to the top.
Think it through when you're working with the mob.

Speaker 1 Thankfully, he didn't know anything of value for the mob to care about it. My dad is in his early 70s now, and he still volunteers his time and service.
at abortion clinics.

Speaker 1 He considers it one of the ways he can give back in this questionable time, and it's a reminder that abortion rights are human rights.

Speaker 1 He is the reason both my sister and I are in the medical field and is always proud to label himself a girl dad.

Speaker 1 I hope this makes at least one person smile while reading, even if it does not make it on the podcast. Stay sexy and don't buy jewelry with mob ties, Rachel.

Speaker 2 That's a beautiful, like a beautiful way to raise your daughter is to be like, this is what I do. And like, it's totally normal and it's just my job.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, and it's important.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's important work that has been politicized and weirdly religiousized in a way that is actually

Speaker 1 neither

Speaker 1 smart or accurate or

Speaker 2 good for our culture. And this is science, which has nothing to do with my morality or whatever the fuck, you know, or my religion or anybody else's belief, what part of the Bible they read.

Speaker 2 I mean, it kind of makes you love the mafia a little more, if anything. I know you love them so much.

Speaker 1 I really do love them, and I love Italians, Italians, of course.

Speaker 1 This podcast is sponsored by PayPal.

Speaker 2 Okay, let's talk holiday shopping.

Speaker 1 From now through December 8th, you can get 20% cash back when you pay in four with PayPal. No fees, no interest.

Speaker 2 This limited time offer is perfect for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals you've been eyeing. Save the offer in the app now.

Speaker 1 So, whether you're buying tickets to an improv show or a whodunit board game, PayPal helps you make the most of your money this holiday.

Speaker 2 Expires December 8th. See PayPal.com/slash promo terms subject to approval.
approval.

Speaker 1 Learn more at paypal.com/slash payin4, PayPal Inc., NMLS 910-457.

Speaker 2 Goodbye. Goodbye.

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Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Okay, this one is really long. It's my last one.
It will probably make you cry. I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna guess 75% on Karen crying on this one.
Okay, let's see. I'm not going to read you the title.

Speaker 2 Hey, all. This is longish, but worth it.
It also may make you emote. Be warned.
Okay. When my twin sister, Ashley, and I were 13 years old, she woke me up at 3 a.m.

Speaker 2 on Christmas morning, sobbing in my bed, begging me not to die.

Speaker 2 I vividly remember responding immediately with, Ash, I'm not going to die before you. You're going to die before me.
I'm the one who has to figure out how to live without my twin.

Speaker 2 This was not that abnormal for her to worry about. I come from a very large, close family, and we had a few grandparents die around that time.

Speaker 2 This was also the first year we didn't share a bedroom, and she was deathly afraid of the dark.

Speaker 2 In November 2020, after almost 12 years of fighting for her life, battling pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer, Ashley spent a month in a coma in a hospital in Vermont.

Speaker 2 Because it was the height of COVID, we were not allowed to see her in the hospital. Even though she was comatose, I still felt connected to her, as I always have.
She called it twin tuition.

Speaker 2 Every night for almost a month, I went outside to angrily smoke and yell at her wherever the fuck she was. I was so angry at not being able to be with her because of COVID.

Speaker 2 And I was terrified that I would never see her again. I wouldn't get to say goodbye, which didn't seem right considering we came into this world together.

Speaker 2 I'm already fucking getting choked up. I didn't want her to leave the world alone.
The entire time she was in a coma, I would yell at her. I would cry at her.

Speaker 2 I would apologize to her for yelling at her. I kept telling her, give me one more year.
I know it's selfish of me, but I can't do this without you yet. I need one more year.
Come on, Ash.

Speaker 2 I know you can hear me. What's the fucking password? What's the fucking password? When we were kids, we used to always joke about what we would do if one of us was cloned.

Speaker 2 We were weirdly obsessed with it. I guess being a twin is like a clone.
That's got to be a little jarring.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. It's It's a discussion that you would probably want to be having.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
Makes sense. How would we know who the real one was versus who the clone was? Her answer was always the same.

Speaker 2 Just ask me for the password to our bedroom because, of course, we had a secret password to our bedroom that only we knew. We had way too many siblings we couldn't trust with our Nintendo DES.

Speaker 2 At 11.09 a.m. on a Wednesday in December 2020, my phone rang.
It was a phone number that I didn't recognize.

Speaker 2 I answered it, said hello a couple times, but heard no response until finally a scratchy, rough voice said, it's Mariah Carey. Now stop fucking yelling at me.

Speaker 2 You heard me, Britt. It's Mariah Carey.
Now stop yelling. She woke up.
I immediately broke down and said, Ash, is that you? Silence.

Speaker 2 About two minutes later, a nurse picked up the phone and identified herself as Mary. Mary explained that my sister had woken up from a 35-day coma that they didn't expect her to come back from.

Speaker 2 In fact, at one point, she had died and they had brought her her back.

Speaker 2 She went on to tell me that as soon as my sister woke up, they extubated her and she kept motioning for the phone in her hospital room. When she was finally able to speak, she said, call Britt.

Speaker 2 I was her healthcare agent or next to kin and was always her main contact during any hospital stay. If you hadn't guessed it yet, Mariah Carey was the password to our childhood bedroom.

Speaker 2 My sister and I definitely had like, if you come back as a ghost, like do this one thing and that's hell. No, it's you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't remember what it was, but make a plan yeah you better call her and reset that plan

Speaker 2 you're right yeah she heard me and she came back for me she gave me one more year and i'm so grateful that she did she journaled wrote personal letters to her family and friends and most importantly to her son jordan we lost ashley april 8th 2022.

Speaker 2 i'm glad she's not in pain and i'm glad she didn't resent me for begging her to give me that year i love her and miss her so much every second of every day the connection that twins share is very special, and I feel very lucky to experience it as I feel closer to her now than when she was on this planet.

Speaker 2 I love you, Ash, and I'll see you soon. Stay sexy and don't forget the password.

Speaker 2 Brittany. Yeah.
You got me. I think me too.
Let me sit in my emotions. Where do you feel it?

Speaker 2 Feel it in your body.

Speaker 2 It's like, oh my God.

Speaker 1 It's a tightness in the throat and the chest.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 1 And I kind of

Speaker 1 we all come in and go out alone, and it is hard.

Speaker 2 But there's more maybe, but there's more.

Speaker 1 I think they just proved it, these two.

Speaker 1 Why am I so far back away from the microphone?

Speaker 2 I forgot how to podcast that. Hard leaning.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 1 there's a, that was a little bit of a, there's proof of, that humans can do more. If twins can do it, that means eventually regular people will be able to do it.

Speaker 2 Maybe. Right.
Like theirs is a high note, and we're just like, ours is here, but it's still there.

Speaker 1 But it's also that thing of like, what a lucky thing that it actually worked and that there was a little more time, especially knowing that she had kids.

Speaker 2 Yeah. She said, Mariah Carey, stop yelling at me.
Like,

Speaker 2 what the fuck?

Speaker 1 So, so she, that's a good tip of like, maybe you can bug people out of comas.

Speaker 2 Just irritate them. Yeah.
And like if she could talk to her in a coma and annoy her, she can talk to her from the great beyond. I believe that.

Speaker 2 Even though I don't believe in jack shit, I'm a fucking nihilist. I think she can go out there, have an angry smoke, and just be like, girl.
Yeah. And there's a connection there.

Speaker 1 I think so.

Speaker 2 I do.

Speaker 1 I think people can do it now.

Speaker 2 Like, did you listen to the telepathy tapes, that podcast? Oh, yeah. No.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's like.

Speaker 2 Hold on. Let me write this down.

Speaker 1 I keep seeing clips on TikTok. So, it, and it's basically like the clips are amazing, but it almost feels like it's about a documentary.

Speaker 1 So I'm like, oh, I need to actually just sit down and listen to this podcast. So I'm recommending it blind based on TikTok.

Speaker 1 But it's like basically studies where the theory is kids with different kinds of autism have the ability to have telepathic connection with their caretaker.

Speaker 2 Ooh.

Speaker 1 So if they're nonverbal, they can still communicate.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. I totally believe that.
That's incredible. Yeah.
I download. I'm going to listen.
That's amazing. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Listen. I will too.

Speaker 2 Okay. You have one more, right? I do.
Okay.

Speaker 1 The subject line of this email is, parents' house home phone number was one digit off from the funeral home.

Speaker 2 Hello, all.

Speaker 2 We had the dentist. We had the dentist one.
Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right.

Speaker 1 Hello, all, longtime listener. First time writing in.
I've been waiting for years to have a good hometown story to share.

Speaker 1 and after hearing Minnesote 416 about the girl whose home phone was mistaken for a doctor's office, I knew it was finally my time. I grew up in a small town in Ohio in the early 2000s.

Speaker 1 During this time, a new funeral home opened in town and their phone number was just one digit off from my parents' home phone. For years, we got calls from people trying to reach the funeral home.

Speaker 1 It happened so often that my parents changed their answering machine message to clarify. If you're trying to call the funeral home, you've dialed the wrong number.

Speaker 2 Because they're crying probably too, so that they can't even see the phone number correctly or dial it correctly. Oh my God.

Speaker 1 That's like the worst moment to be in charge of like that kind of executive function.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 1 At first, my mom did her best to explain the mistake to the callers, but it wasn't easy. Many people insisted they had the right number.

Speaker 1 She ended up as an unofficial unpaid secretary for the funeral home, taking messages and calling them herself to pass them along.

Speaker 2 That's so nice.

Speaker 1 The funeral home thought it was funny and even told her, if anyone ever calls for a body pickup, let us know right away.

Speaker 1 We got all kinds of calls. An elderly woman crying about her husband's headstone, questions about visiting hours, and more.

Speaker 1 My mom had the hardest time convincing people they'd called a private residence. One time, the owner of the funeral home himself popped up on our caller ID.

Speaker 1 My mom answered hello and was immediately met with him yelling, that's not how you answer the phone. We're a professional business.
You use the business name.

Speaker 2 Without,

Speaker 1 he must have been joking. That's it's psychotic.
And then she said without missing a beat, if you're so professional, shouldn't you know your own phone number? You called a private residence.

Speaker 1 He quickly apologized and hung up, clearly mortified. So he did me.

Speaker 2 Oh, as in like ex-receptionist secretary, I was like, yeah, he meant that. I've been yelling at that before, for sure.

Speaker 1 I literally would have typed up an invoice for my time and then been like, oh, if you're going to yell at me like I'm in your employee, you can pay me like an employee.

Speaker 2 There were so many times I'd pick up the phone and forget

Speaker 2 where I was because I was a temp all the time. I'd be like, um,

Speaker 2 fuck. Can't remember.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 2 okay.

Speaker 1 Over the years, the calls happened less and less. And thankfully, my parents haven't received one in a long time.

Speaker 1 Say sexy and double check the number before you hit call. Jess S.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's good. Do you think things like that happen less and less? Because

Speaker 2 just going to say that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The blue is like the number is blue in Google, whatever.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Like, when was the last time? You're like, no, you have the wrong number.
I haven't said that in fucking years. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 That's, I love, I love that. That's like such a great party story, you know?

Speaker 1 Yes, it is. It's like, hey, remember only 40 years ago, but that also is so long ago.
It's 190 years ago.

Speaker 2 Send us your store, your hometown stories of your party stories when things get slow and you got to share an anecdote that's like a little, a little raunchy, but not too raunchy.

Speaker 2 You don't know if like there's religious people there or what, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, something that's like family-friendly, either raunchy or just interesting. Like, do you have a memory about your family's landline?

Speaker 1 Like the phone that hung in the kitchen before everybody had their own individual phone.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 There was so much fighting at my house about get off the phone. I'm not paying for that phone call.

Speaker 1 And then when Pacific Bell did their like 1986 update and there was call waiting and there was call forwarding and there was like remember what year that like it was so exciting.

Speaker 1 It was it was epic because then you could no one could tell you to get off the phone because there was call waiting.

Speaker 2 Call waiting was fucking incredible.

Speaker 2 Or whatever story at my favorite murder at Gmail. We'll take anything.
There's also a mini mini soad on the fan cult if you want one more story from each of us. And they're all still there.

Speaker 2 So it's not just one. It's like years of mini-mini sodes.

Speaker 1 Fucking literal, almost a decade of these.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so go to myfavorite murder.com and join the fan cult.

Speaker 1 Yes, do all that and then stay sexy.

Speaker 2 And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Elvis, do you want a cookie?

Speaker 1 This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 1 Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 This episode was mixed by Liana Squolacci.

Speaker 1 Email your hometowns to myfavorite murder at gmail.com.

Speaker 2 And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavorite Murder. Goodbye.

Speaker 2 I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast, The Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show.

Speaker 2 I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues by talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it all. We basically sold our souls and they got rich.

Speaker 2 If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, why don't you help her? Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 4 The courtroom isn't just about justice. It's about power and money and some truly bizarre loopholes.

Speaker 2 I'm Michael Foote. And I'm Melissa Malbrinch.
And we've got a brand new show called Brief Recess, a Legal Podcast.

Speaker 4 Every week, we talk about wild tales from court, trials gone wrong, and cases and rulings that shape our world.

Speaker 4 Today, we're going to be talking about stolen antiquities, all the weird things Melissa found out in a state sale, the crazy conversations I had with a bouncer, and J.K.

Speaker 2 Rowley.

Speaker 2 We make the complicated clear and the serious surprisingly fun.

Speaker 4 From the exactly right network, new episodes of Brief Recess drop every Thursday. Watch Brief Recess on YouTube.

Speaker 4 Listen to Brief Recess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 All right, good people. What's up? It's Quest Love, and I'm really excited to announce that my podcast is back with new episodes, a new logo, and yes, even a new name.

Speaker 5 So, welcome to QLS 2.0, the Questlove Show. New conversations are on the way with some incredible guests like journalist term filmmaker Cameron Crowe.

Speaker 3 It's like the Barry Gordy thing, you know, if you send me a letter and it's B-A-R-R-Y, you didn't take the time to know how my name was spelled, and I can't take the time to know what you want from me.

Speaker 5 Listen to the Questlove Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.