MFM Minisode 419

Speaker 1 This is exactly right.

Speaker 1 This podcast is sponsored by PayPal.

Speaker 2 Okay, let's talk holiday shopping.

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Speaker 2 Goodbye. Goodbye.
The holiday season can be overwhelming.

Speaker 1 It's chaos out there, but Bombas has socks, slippers, and gifts for literally everyone on your list.

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Speaker 1 Especially those Bombas slippers that are that cool multicolor knit. I really love those slippers.
I got a pair for doing these ads and then wore them and loved them so much.

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They say variety is the spice of life.

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Food like Just Food for Dogs is the best.

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Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Hello

Speaker 2 and welcome to my favorite murder.

Speaker 1 The mini sode.

Speaker 2 That's right. It's small.
It's an episode. So we named it a mini sod.

Speaker 1 Do you see the logic that we're using here? Or are you fighting us tooth and nails?

Speaker 2 What would you call it? We want to know.

Speaker 1 The maxi sewed.

Speaker 2 The midi sewed. Isn't that a, aren't like dresses midi now too? Yeah.
The midi sewed.

Speaker 1 That's also a choice. There's also the maxi pad sewed.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. With wings.

Speaker 1 One of our greatest bits of all time. The always maxi pad bit.
Here we go.

Speaker 1 This is a classic hometown and the subject line is Classic hometown POV from my six-year-old self. Great.
Hi, ladies. I've been listening for years.

Speaker 1 Thanks to my amazing brother who introduced me to your pod. My boyfriend has suffered and that suffered Zen quotes through hours of your show.
Thanks to me.

Speaker 2 Thanks to me.

Speaker 2 Mine has too.

Speaker 1 We taught young women to de-center men by centering us.

Speaker 2 I love it.

Speaker 1 It's pretty intense.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm holding space for that.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 It literally says, okay, to the story. I've been wanting to share this story story for months and I'm finally getting around to sending it in.

Speaker 1 My classic hometown story takes place in San Diego, Poe, in 2010.

Speaker 1 I was only six years old at the time, but I remember this story so clearly and I've always had a weird connection to the girl who died.

Speaker 1 Chelsea King was a 16-year-old track star from Poe High School who left her home on the morning of February 25th to go for her regular run at the Rancho Bernardino Community Park.

Speaker 1 When she hadn't returned by 5 p.m. that evening, her family grew concerned and went to the park looking for her.

Speaker 1 The next day, her face was all over the local news and posters were plastered everywhere.

Speaker 1 A few days into the investigation, her underwear was found at Lake Hodges, 14 miles from where she went on her run.

Speaker 1 Her DNA, as well as DNA from a registered sex offender, John Gardner, was found on her underwear. At that point, it was sadly clear that she would not be found alive.

Speaker 1 John Gardner was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder, and on March 2nd, 2010, Chelsea's body was found in an isolated area of Lake Hodges.

Speaker 1 When it came out that her body had been recovered, I can remember the news playing at my house for hours. She lived less than 10 minutes from me.

Speaker 1 Being a six-year-old girl, I obviously didn't know all the details of her death, but I was old enough to know that something really bad had happened to her. I remember mourning her death.

Speaker 1 When family members would talk about her, they would always look at me and say the same thing: you look just like her.

Speaker 2 Ooh,

Speaker 1 For a little, for a child.

Speaker 2 I say that to a child everyone.

Speaker 1 And then it says that always stuck with me. And as a six-year-old, all I could see was myself 10 years later when she would be on the TV screen in my living room.

Speaker 1 I remember crying over her death and having so many confusing thoughts. I wanted to write her and her family letters.
Obviously, those letters were just a confusing rambling of words.

Speaker 1 It didn't make sense because I was a first grader, but for whatever reason, I felt heartbroken over her death.

Speaker 1 The reason is because you have empathy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's somebody in your community. And it's you learning about bad things happen in the world.

Speaker 2 Totally. It's so normal.
And actually,

Speaker 2 you know, it'd be abnormal if you didn't do that. You know what I mean? Exactly.

Speaker 1 Her family set up a foundation in her honor, and my mom and I participated in a 5K to fund college scholarships. Over a million dollars were raised in her name.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Her killer was was convicted and was linked to another murder that happened just the year before to a 14-year-old girl named Amber Dubois.

Speaker 2 I remember this.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Her foundation helped raise awareness to the importance of keeping sexually violent predators away from areas with children.
I still think about her and her family all these years later.

Speaker 1 Being told I look just like that girl really did a number on me and is the reason I became the murderino I am today. Thank you for everything you guys do.

Speaker 1 This podcast isn't just entertaining, but it's educational and inspiring. You give voices to those who lost theirs too soon.
SSDGM, Megan.

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 14.16. And I like that Megan points out that what it changed isn't that girls shouldn't be out alone.

Speaker 2 It's that sexual assault offenders, that's what should change is the sentencing laws and how they're monitored, not what we're doing, going for a fucking jog in the afternoon.

Speaker 2 Correct. It's just absurd.

Speaker 1 It's a very slow progress, but that is happening where it is. This is, we have to start looking at the people responsible for what is happening and not talking about the reaction to what is happening.

Speaker 2 Totally. Totally.
Yeah. We don't need the curfew.
It's the fucking predators who need the curfew.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Thanks, Megan.
That was a

Speaker 1 vulnerable one. So thank you for that.

Speaker 2 Totally. Okay.
This one's a little more lighthearted. Okay.
This is called When I Was a Trash Mom. Hmm.
Hello to all the fabulous people and pets of MFM from North Carolina.

Speaker 2 In Minnesota 408, you asked us to tell the stories of when we were the trash parents. So here's the story of when I was a trash mom.

Speaker 2 Back in the summer of 2018, my brother and his wife came to visit our family and our older brother came to see us all too.

Speaker 2 They wanted to get a beer in the evening after dinner at a local bar slash restaurant. Our daughters Carly and Julia were 11 and 5 at the time.

Speaker 2 And we had just started leaving them at home for Carly to babysit for short periods of time during the day, like a trip to the grocery store. So the 11-year-old is babysitting the five-year-old.

Speaker 1 It's just roll those dice. Why not?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's like you've got to start giving them some,

Speaker 2 you know, freedom and you've got to, and responsibilities. Yep.
That's scary. But it's okay.
It's okay. It's totally okay.
But I mean, it's been done for millennia,

Speaker 1 but it's the same feeling as like when Nora got her like driver's permit. And then my sister was like, wait, now she drives? Like, no way.
Yeah. And I'm like, oh, yes, way.

Speaker 2 I'll do it. Like, like, you have to let her.
Now she gets to choose wherever she gets to go. Oh,

Speaker 2 don't do it. Okay.
And then it says about the grocery store. Always paid, of course, because I was an unpaid babysitter to my half-sister when I was young.
There you go. Yeah.

Speaker 2 We were just planning to be gone for an hour or so, back at home by 8.30. And we were only going a few miles away.
Plans to drink never last an hour. It's never.
You're never

Speaker 1 unless you're a nun. Yeah.
And even then, maybe not. Like the idea, the whole idea of drinking is for more drinking.

Speaker 2 Totally. That's what it does.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's a very me statement, but it's the truth. It's like, that's the whole deal.
You break down.

Speaker 2 That's why it's addictive. Yes.
It's the point of it.

Speaker 1 The better, the more you have,

Speaker 1 the better you get at it.

Speaker 2 What's the, One is too many. A thousand isn't enough.

Speaker 1 Like, come on. Same with donuts.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 We would be home before dark. If they needed anything, Carly had a device she could text us from, and we still had a home phone.
Everything's fine. Great.

Speaker 2 I'm a rather forgetful person, and I'm always leaving things behind, especially my phone.

Speaker 2 I realized after we got to the restaurant that I had left my phone at home, but my husband had his, so no big deal, right?

Speaker 2 And at this point, you'd have the husband text the daughter and be like, yo, text me if anything comes up, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, that's a good plan.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but they didn't do that.

Speaker 1 At this point, I was like, I'm going to get baked potato skins.

Speaker 2 Oh, potato skins.

Speaker 2 Potato skins. That sounds so good.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying there's no parental skills in me whatsoever where it's like, wait, here's how we should take care of this problem or here's how any, like any, here's best practices for children, watching children.

Speaker 2 It's like, where's my Long Island iced tea?

Speaker 2 I don't care about anything else i have one hour to party right out of my way we ordered some munchies potato skins and had a couple of rounds of drinks with my husband as designated driver we were all having fun and of course completely lost track of time just before 10 my husband got a text message from carly asking when we were coming home He said we were on our way and we rushed back home.

Speaker 2 We felt guilty about being gone so long, but it got so much worse when I picked up my phone at home and saw a series of missed calls and texts from her like, when are you coming home?

Speaker 2 Should I put Julia to bed? I put Julia to bed. Are you guys coming home?

Speaker 2 Of course, she sent all of these to me before she bothered to text or call her dad.

Speaker 2 Of course.

Speaker 2 Then Carly told us how she and Julia climbed into Carly's bed to read some stories, and there was a spider in her bed.

Speaker 2 That might not sound like much of a problem, but I have unfortunately passed my arachnophobia to my daughters. So that is a big deal.

Speaker 2 So she had to kill a spider in her own bed, no doubt, with five-year-old Julia screaming the whole time. Needless to say, I felt like the worst mom ever.

Speaker 2 Actually, we felt so bad that after I overpaid her for babysitting, both of my brothers paid her too.

Speaker 2 She made over $60 in those three traumatic hours.

Speaker 2 So it wasn't for nothing.

Speaker 1 That's right. That's all that matters if you get a little money for the trauma.

Speaker 2 Totally. Like acknowledge my trauma monetarily.
That's all we're asking for. That's how we make up for it.
That's what what suing people is.

Speaker 2 Our Carly, who just turned 18, has never let us forget the time mom and dad were only going to be gone an hour and just abandon us. But both our girls have turned out pretty great.
Y'all are the best.

Speaker 2 I'm a year one listener and really loving the MFM Rewind episodes. I was a skipper for the first few years, but I'm a skipper no more.

Speaker 2 You always make me laugh. Please keep it coming.
In 2025, we're definitely going to need it.

Speaker 2 You are not wrong. Did you see the thing that was like, I had my seven-day free trial of 2025, and I'd like my money back, please.

Speaker 2 And I'd like to. I'd like to cancel my subscription, please.

Speaker 2 For real.

Speaker 2 Stay sexy and don't forget your phone. Lori, she, her.
P.S. I got an Elvis Duana Cookie tote bag for Christmas that I love, picked out by Carly.
My third MFM tote bag. Aww.
Maybe I have a problem.

Speaker 2 No, you do not. I have.
Oh, the plate.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. They roll.
And we care a lot about them.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But also, I love that that story comes full circle by the two children in the story 20 years later or whatever buying merch.

Speaker 2 Totally. Yes.
It's like a merch plug at the end of this. But it is good because I'm always like, do we have to, do we want, I'm always like, do people want more totes? Yes.
Everyone wants totes.

Speaker 1 You never don't need it.

Speaker 2 I have like 14.

Speaker 1 And how, sorry, but how long were they gone? I missed it.

Speaker 2 It seems like three hours, maybe. Oh, that's fucking nothing.
Are you kidding me? How dare you? 11 these days is like young, though. We were smoking fucking cloves already, but these days.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's so young and it's so not at home by yourself with little kids.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 Also, it is that thing where it's like, whether it's a spider in your bed or just the idea that suddenly like you look into the kitchen and everything looks kind of sinister and sharp. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like it's just like, it's such a young, it's the first time to be like, oh. And if something goes down, it's on me.

Speaker 2 And it's so quiet the first time you're like home alone. So quiet.

Speaker 1 Especially when you hear the scratching in the attic.

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 2 Oof.

Speaker 1 I was home by myself, but I was like 21 or two.

Speaker 1 And I heard something in the attic.

Speaker 1 And I had a cat that was just staring at the attic. I was like, it was probably a possum.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But then when I went, I was like, so I went into my parents, like,

Speaker 1 it's going to sound super fancy, but they have a walk-in closet that's the most low-key walk-in closet of all time.

Speaker 2 But it's like you can step step inside.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's very like 1987 version. But I went to try the door and it felt like someone was pressing back against the door.

Speaker 2 Uh-uh.

Speaker 1 And I ran, I just ran, got into my car, and drove out to my old neighbor's house. And I was like, it was like almost midnight.

Speaker 2 I was like,

Speaker 1 he's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, you have to come back with me. I think someone's at my parents' house.
And I made him come and like check the entire house.

Speaker 2 Good for you. I would have been like, I'm pretending that didn't happen.
And like, go ahead.

Speaker 1 Because the cat, the cat was, the cat was like basically pointing to the door.

Speaker 2 The cats will alert you.

Speaker 1 They will alert you and freak you the fuck out.

Speaker 2 The holidays go by fast. Halls get decked.
gifts get open, but what stays are the memories.

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Speaker 2 I love my Aura frame. I've given so many away but the one I have every year comes out at a big family holiday party.

Speaker 2 It's got pictures from like the 70s through now of holiday parties and the past two years of the holiday parties I've had in my house. It's just become a tradition.

Speaker 2 We put it out in the kitchen, everyone oozing ahs over it and like takes pictures to add for next year. It's the fucking perfect gift.

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Goodbye. Every holiday season, it's the same.

Speaker 2 You've got one person who's impossible to shop for and another who, quote, doesn't need anything.

Speaker 1 Great, then they're going to get my macaroni art.

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Speaker 1 I just got my key piece for the season, which is a plain black Mongolian sweater.

Speaker 2 You love those Quince sweaters.

Speaker 1 Right? It just came out of the bag. I think I put it on and walked directly to a record with you.
There's just nothing like a beautiful cashmere sweater when the weather turns cold and it's $50.

Speaker 2 Well, I got some underwear from them, but I also got a second pair, my second pair of their Italian leather bow ballet flats. I have one in black now and one in almond because I'm obsessed with them.

Speaker 1 Step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good, look polished, and last from Quince.

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Speaker 1 Quince.com slash MFM.

Speaker 2 Goodbye. Bye.

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Speaker 2 There's no safe like SimplySafe. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 The subject line of this email is: Runaway Child.

Speaker 1 Hi, lovely ladies, longtime listener, fourth or fifth time writer. I've lost count.

Speaker 2 When I was in second grade, I just go right into it. I love it.
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Just a little bit of a passive-aggressive hint, hint, and then here we go.

Speaker 1 When I was in second grade, my mom took a leave of absence from work to stay home with my youngest brother, who had just been born the year before.

Speaker 1 During this time, she also watched two family friends after school to earn some extra cash. I can only assume she was being compensated.
Oh, God. That was in parentheses.

Speaker 1 Brennan was my best friend at the time, and one day we decided that I was going to go home with her. While our moms were inside talking, I snuck into the back seat of her car.

Speaker 1 This is my jam.

Speaker 1 This is KK.

Speaker 2 All the way.

Speaker 1 Age nine. I just loved this shit.
I loved doing this shit. Okay.

Speaker 1 This was just a normal four-door car, not an SUV with a hatchback. So I laid on the floor behind her driver's seat, and Brennan and her little sister covered me with their backpacks and coats.

Speaker 1 And then in parentheses, for some reason I remember foil, but that seems like an absurd thing for eight-year-olds to have on hand.

Speaker 2 Maybe they had one of those like runners post-run

Speaker 2 foil jackets. Yeah, like

Speaker 1 some kind of a camping, leftover camping equipment, or someone did a 10K.

Speaker 1 How many Ks is it?

Speaker 2 5K. It's 5K, 10K.
I don't think you'd need one for a 5K, or maybe not even a 10K.

Speaker 1 How long was the last one you ran?

Speaker 2 Honestly,

Speaker 2 I used to run 5 and 10Ks when I was in elementary school with my mom. What? I know.
I loved running as a kid.

Speaker 2 What? I know. It's weird.

Speaker 1 It's still fresh, Georgia. There's still stuff to learn about each other.

Speaker 2 Look. Look at us.
Look.

Speaker 1 Look at us. Still discovering.

Speaker 2 We're still in a discovery. I thought you were like, look at us.
It's still taught. You can still, there's still time to go back.
I'm like, no, there fucking isn't. No, no.

Speaker 1 Oh, please don't you'll immediately both your hips will fall off

Speaker 1 her mom got in the car and started driving I held my breath and tried to steady my breathing we made it to Brennan's house and they all got out of the car

Speaker 1 This is where the plan faltered as we didn't actually think I'd make it to her house. Brendan was able to sneak back into the garage and get me to the basement.

Speaker 1 At this point, we had no idea what to do. Would my mom freak out and call wondering where I was? No.
Would Brennan's mom find me? No.

Speaker 1 After an hour or so, we both went upstairs and told Brennan's mom what had happened. She was none too thrilled and called my mom to let her know.

Speaker 1 I assumed at this point there'd be a search happening as we were going on two hours of an eight-year-old missing from home. But alas, neither my mom or dad knew I was gone.

Speaker 2 She went to pick her up at school and came home without her. Where is the, like, there's no.

Speaker 2 How do you miss that?

Speaker 1 She just, because she was kind of chatting and just like she got distracted. I'm sure my six-year-old and one-year-old brothers were keeping them occupied.
That's what it is. They

Speaker 1 have intense baby brain.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I don't know how I got back home, but after that day, Brennan's mom always checked the vaccine.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Thanks for all you do to make the world a better place and for giving shout-outs to teachers when talking about Karen's sister. It can be rough out there.
Stay sexy.

Speaker 1 And are you a runaway if no one notices, Bailey?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 that's not fair. It's not fair.
That's hilarious.

Speaker 1 It's like they pay attention to you when you don't want them to pay attention to you. And then no one pays attention when you're trying to do a show.

Speaker 2 Oh, you see fucking everything when I'm trying to be sneaky. And then I'm trying to do a show.
Yeah. I'm not going to tell you the title of this one, but

Speaker 2 you'll probably get it. Okay.
Hi, everyone.

Speaker 2 Then it just goes into somewhere in the Midwest during the 80s, my younger sister and I were dragged to my grandpa's house so the family could go out back and play cards.

Speaker 2 Like, what would you give to fucking be there right now?

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 1 In the 60s, you said?

Speaker 2 80s, even in the Midwest, playing cards in the backyard.

Speaker 1 Like, I mean, just, you know, there's cafe lights hung from a tree to the back porch roof.

Speaker 2 And speaking of Miller High Life, fucking, there's just like bottles popping, right? And if you're going to talk about cafe lights, you better be talking about Miller High Life, girl.

Speaker 1 That's our song. That's our country song we're about to write.

Speaker 2 Get ready. When we first arrived, everyone ate dinner and then the kids were promptly shoved into the spare room to, quote, play.
This bedroom was circa 1960 with shag carpet, rock hard bed.

Speaker 2 My grandma had this fucking room. Everything smelled musty and it had a small TV with a VCR in the bottom to play lassie for the hundredth time.
Like I am there. Yeah.
You know?

Speaker 2 It was kid prison, which is one word. I'm about seven and the oldest between all the kids.
There are five of us bored out of our minds. So naturally we need to do something about that.

Speaker 2 Earlier during dinner, I remembered seeing this massive jar in the fridge filled with red stuff. And before being shoved into kid prison, I got a sneak peek.
Now to the master plan.

Speaker 2 I convinced my cousin to go with me to get the jar because it's a two-man job. Plus, I had another cousin being lookout.
We were sophisticated criminals then.

Speaker 2 We managed to slowly carry this massive jar of cherries to the kid prison where we all stood around and admired its glory.

Speaker 2 There's nothing better in life when you're a child than maraschino cherries.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry to keep on talking about Nora, but she, to this day, anytime we go out to eat lunch or dinner, she's like, can I get a chili temple? And it's like, you're 18 years old.

Speaker 2 But it's that vibe.

Speaker 1 It's that it is a magical. It'll never not be magical.

Speaker 2 No, I was seven and I still remember the waiter at the restaurant overhearing me say, I did a million Marchion cherries if I could. And he brought me a fucking like shot glass full of them.

Speaker 2 I still, it was like one of the best days of my life.

Speaker 1 That's called customer service right there.

Speaker 2 That's fucking right. I'm sure my dad tipped like shit.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Marty.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Glory. We finally cracked it open.
All grabbed a cherry and popped it in our mouth at the same time. Almost as quick, we instantly spit it out.
Ew, gross. These cherries don't taste right.

Speaker 2 And then we decided we don't care and we went full in. I had a pink arm up to my bicep from grabbing cherries.
We were in heaven.

Speaker 2 And then, so the title of this one's called Drunk Kids because it says, fast forward to drunk parents finding drunk kids passed out everywhere with a cherryless jar.

Speaker 2 Everyone was freaking out. Kids were stumbling.
My little sister puking. It's hilarious to hear the stories because I only remember the first part of that night.

Speaker 2 To this day, my aunts and uncles can't agree what the cherries were soaking in. Some say moonshine.
Some say gin, others say moonshine. Yes.

Speaker 2 Stay sexy and don't put your boozy fruit on the bottom shelf, Suze.

Speaker 2 Suze,

Speaker 1 the, okay, wait. It was her brothers and sisters and then like cousins.

Speaker 2 Cousins, yeah. Fuck, that there's, there's something really joyous.

Speaker 1 There was a moment post.

Speaker 1 trying that like because it's so little kid to be like these taste terrible well we're just gonna keep eating them

Speaker 1 yeah i want them and i have to have them but there must have been this glory moment between like the last little kid eating their maraschino cherry and some sort of let's run on the couch.

Speaker 1 Let's chase each other, but on the couch type of thing.

Speaker 1 Like some older sister came up with a rad game for a bunch of moonshine drunk kids that probably only could be sustained for about four minutes and then it was mayhem.

Speaker 2 For the moment, there was glory.

Speaker 1 And that was

Speaker 1 true.

Speaker 1 All kids, you know, the floor is lava style game joy.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, to go back.
And you've been searching for it ever since.

Speaker 1 And you'll never find it.

Speaker 2 You'll never find it.

Speaker 1 This show is sponsored by MIDI Health.

Speaker 2 If you've ever left a doctor's office feeling unheard, unseen, or somehow at fault, you're not alone. And you deserve better.

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Speaker 2 Goodbye.

Speaker 1 My last email is a classic trash dad.

Speaker 1 And in parentheses, that's what the subject line is. And then it says four-minute read.

Speaker 1 So it says, I've been listening since 2018, and I started with the episode where you covered the serial killer in Hawaii, followed by coincidence island.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 1 The rest is history. You are truly the best slash my favorite.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 1 My parents divorced when I was in elementary school, and my dad moved out to the Pacific Northwest from the Midwest to basically start over.

Speaker 1 That meant for two weeks over Christmas and two months every summer, my sister and I got to fly out and visit.

Speaker 1 We did lots of fun activities in Washington, and my dad enjoyed the outdoors and encouraged us to do the same.

Speaker 1 Sometimes his eagerness for us to have fun bordered on dangerous.

Speaker 2 These are my favorite. These are my favorite.
Single dads. So much fun.

Speaker 1 Single dads riffing activities. Yep.

Speaker 2 How do I do this?

Speaker 1 What do I think is fun? They'll be fine is usually the mentality.

Speaker 1 One summer when I was about 14, my dad thought it would be very fun for me and my 15-year-old sister and 12-year-old stepbrother to go on a canoe voyage.

Speaker 1 He had a small canoe that we would utilize in small ponds, mostly to putter around and go fishing. The plan, dropped the three of us children off at a boat dock on the Columbia River.

Speaker 1 In this section of the river, it was a few hundred feet wide, very swift and very deep.

Speaker 2 In a canoe?

Speaker 1 In a canoe. And the Columbia River is fucking serious shit.

Speaker 2 Is it? Okay. Shut.

Speaker 1 The first thing I thought of was: I'm pretty sure we've done stories that involve the Columbia River

Speaker 1 somewhere in my filing cabinet of my life.

Speaker 1 But then also, they have their own clothing line. So you know, it's not just like a low-key river.

Speaker 2 There's no trickle for a clothing line.

Speaker 1 There's got to be like some rapids and shit. Okay.

Speaker 2 Could be wrong though. Okay.

Speaker 1 We were armed with three paddles, three life jackets, a safe, and then it says in parentheses, a safe trash dad, and a cooler of water and snacks.

Speaker 1 My sister had a small primitive cell phone, circa 2010, that we put in a plastic bag in the cooler. Smart.

Speaker 2 Smart.

Speaker 1 I kid you not, he dropped us off and casually said, I'll pick you up in a few hours downriver.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 No!

Speaker 1 I'll pick you up in a few hours downriver. Just make sure you don't go past the dock I need to get you at.

Speaker 1 And thus our adventure began.

Speaker 2 Like, holy shit. Okay.

Speaker 1 We did not realize how massive the river was until it was just us on our tiny canoe. We stayed close to the edge so we wouldn't get out to water that was too deep.

Speaker 1 We stopped for a lovely picnic lunch on a small sandbar. Our chests puffed up at our false senses of accomplishment at Lewis and Clarking our way down this river.

Speaker 1 We were almost to our pickup point when we snagged a low-hanging branch and tipped the canoe.

Speaker 1 I'm proud to say that I saved the snack cooler and after getting the canoe to the bank and putting it back upright, we journeyed on and even found the oar we lost in the capsizing floating down the river slightly ahead of us.

Speaker 2 That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 All in all, a great experience, minus getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and tipping the canoe. My dad was proud of us for doing it by ourselves.

Speaker 1 I see now that plopping three children in a massive river alone was not his best idea.

Speaker 1 He died when I was 18 after a short and brutal cancer fight.

Speaker 1 That is one of the saddest sentences you can write.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 I wish he were here to teach my kids, the grandkids he never got to meet, how to do all the amazing things he taught me to do. I like to think that he sees me now and is proud.

Speaker 1 Stay sexy and hug your dad, Mallory.

Speaker 2 Oh, Mallory. Yeah.
Like once they got back, I was like, like safely. I was like, he really like gave them courage.
And like, that was maybe the point is like, you can make it here. I'm back.

Speaker 2 Fucking do it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And maybe he was like.
secretly driving along somewhere watching them, although it doesn't feel like it no.

Speaker 1 But no, it is that kind of, somebody was talking about that, I'm sure, on TikTok, TikTok, but it's that thing of like, we really did

Speaker 1 this older generation that really was like, we were, we had play-based learning. We were outside all the time.

Speaker 1 We had to deal with, we would create issues and we had to solve those issues, like all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 My childhood mantra that my mom always said was fend for yourself. And yeah, we fucking did it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. My last one.

Speaker 2 This is called Serendipitous Half Sister.

Speaker 2 It says, approximately three minute, 45-second read at Georgia speed.

Speaker 2 Are you fast or slow? I don't know.

Speaker 2 I've got to be fast, according to my mom. Okay.

Speaker 1 Isn't it weird every once in a while you just get that thing of like how we are being perceived?

Speaker 1 Like we are being perceived in the wildest, fucking weirdest ways that like have nothing to do with who I know myself to be.

Speaker 2 No, but I think after nine years, it's got to be pretty accurate. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like I know, I just don't like it. It's not up to them.
It's up to me.

Speaker 2 Okay, well, I read fast. So here we go.
And this is. I love it right now.
Happy New Year, y'all. A little late, but I partied a bit too hard to say it on time.

Speaker 2 You asked for crazy coincidence stories in your last hometown episode.

Speaker 2 So this is the story of my father's long-lost half-sister and how a random drunk guy from Texas got sober and reconnected the two of them.

Speaker 2 It seemed like every vacation my family took, even states away, my father would run into someone he knew from long ago be it a pool campground cracker barrel or many times at aa meetings dad was like a magnet for that sort of thing maybe it had to do with the fact that aa is often astonishingly full of people you used to know Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 2 He was a masterful storyteller. Dad never grew tired of sharing stories about running wild with mischief as a little boy in the streets of New York City during the Great Depression.

Speaker 2 And then it says, in parentheses, 1930s, as if I also don't fucking know when

Speaker 2 a little of, that's what you're talking about. I get it.
I hear you. That hurts.
That hurts. I know when that is.

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 1 Just for future writers in, if you have a dad that grew up on the fucking literal streets of New York City during the Depression and you're going to brag that he has great stories and you don't share one synopsized version with us, a quickie before you get to your main, come on.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 2 I know. It's already long, so they probably are like, how am I going to get this?

Speaker 1 Please write back in.

Speaker 2 Please write back in.

Speaker 2 We spent rainy days binge-watching BHS tapes of Oliver and Hardy, the three Stooges, and Little Rascals while imagining his childhood as a soot-covered scoundrel playing in black and white.

Speaker 1 Oliver and Hardy, is that what's written there?

Speaker 2 Oliver and Hardy? Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's Laurel and Hardy. I know, right?

Speaker 1 But I think there are no more.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's a.

Speaker 1 I think one of their last names was Oliver. It was like Stan Laurel and somebody Oliver.

Speaker 2 Probably. And maybe

Speaker 2 Oliver and Hardy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 1 I hate hate to correct

Speaker 1 and also not know the truth, but that's kind of how I really am.

Speaker 2 I'm keeping it. Okay.
Now that I understand what nostalgia looks like, I can see it in memories of my father's face as he recounted the details of his juvenescence. Juvenile adolescence, like that.

Speaker 2 I guess so.

Speaker 2 There was always a moment dad will recall his half-sister, Dorothy, who had left home as a teenager. I suppose she could not get along with my grandmother, who may have had a heavy hand.

Speaker 2 Dad prayed to find her someday. She was the only one who might still remain.
Having eventually moved away from New York, my family ended up in South Carolina.

Speaker 2 I was about 11 years old when, after an AA meeting, my father spoke with a visiting Texan about his long-lost sister, Dorothy.

Speaker 2 The man's face twisted into amazement. He himself had met a woman years before who had gone on in the same fashion about her long-lost brother.

Speaker 2 The strange Texan had met her on a separate trip to New York years before becoming sober and apparently shared this very intimate conversation with her and stayed in Christmas card contact.

Speaker 2 Her name, Dottie, shorthand for Dorothy.

Speaker 2 The stranger took our phone number and told my dad, when I get home, I'll just check and let you know. Well, it was her, all right.

Speaker 2 What the fuck?

Speaker 1 That's crazy.

Speaker 2 I know. It happened quickly, and the two were soon hollering on the phone.
A few weeks later, dad was on a flight to meet her.

Speaker 2 He came back with new photos of my grandfather and even of himself, many he had never seen before, none of which I had seen. Until then, dad had only one remaining photo of his father.

Speaker 2 They all only exist in photos now, and I recount the past by these limited images I have.

Speaker 2 But this little serendipitous moment remains the story that connects them to me in ways that is still so inexplicable. I'm Irish-blooded and long-winded, so I'm afraid of sending too long of an email.

Speaker 2 There you go. But some other someday I'll tell you about my mother who, after spending 14 years as a nun, fell in love with my same magical trash dad who was under indictment at the time.
Yes. What?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 This is it. It says SSGGM and it's signed boop with an exclamation mark and a fucking emoji smiley face.
Boop.

Speaker 2 That's the person's name. That's how they signed it.
Boop, boop. Like what you do to yourself.
Their names are like a mo. Yeah.
Amo. We're synonymous, basically.
Boop, boop. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 That was delightful. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 1 I feel like people need to understand the important parts of stories. You don't have to hear the whole story about the nun and the guy under indictment.

Speaker 1 Just like the moments that their hand first touched. Like,

Speaker 1 just give us a little bit of that. What was the, what was the pre to the breakthrough to the, I am, I am going to break up with Jesus and get with you.
Like straight up criminal.

Speaker 2 It had to be hot as fuck to be like that powerful. Praise the praise the Lord.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Praise that Lord.

Speaker 2 Yes, we were nuns. Oh my God, I want nun stories.

Speaker 1 The nuns need to start writing in.

Speaker 1 Why did you accept the calling?

Speaker 1 Why did you leave the calling behind? Right.

Speaker 2 Why did you change your name and get a new fake social security number and coming on? My favorite murder at Gmail.

Speaker 1 I think this is the first episode that's not not an old record since the fires.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Oh, this is the first.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we are, I guess, I was just going to point out, we're still in the middle of a natural disaster. So we don't really

Speaker 1 like, please forgive everyone. I think everyone is getting this on social media.
We're like, no one knows what the hell is going on and no one.

Speaker 1 Everyone's afraid to say anything or we're all holding our breath and waiting for this, these next 48 hours to pass.

Speaker 1 And it's really nice that people checked in on us. And we're very happy to have been able to tell you that we're okay.
And

Speaker 1 that everyone is okay here.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Thank you guys for checking in so much.
We appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Very nice.

Speaker 1 And, you know, until next time, stay sexy.

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

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