Morbid is brought to you by Audible. Did you know Audible has a massive selection of ad-free true crime podcasts, plus thrilling crime fiction and nonfiction? Listen to best-selling titles like Along Came a Spider by James Patterson and gripping nonfiction stories like London Falling by Patrick Raddenkief. You can find whatever you're looking for on Audible. Plus, you can multitask while you do it. Listen to true crime, solve a mystery, and replace doom scrolling. Audible, stories that speak to you. New members can start listening with a 30-day free trial at audible.ca. Hey, weirdos, my name happens to be Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
It is. Yeah. It's actually Listener Tales, which is still under the morbid branch. And it's brought to you by you, for you, from you and all brought you. I was going to say, featuring special guest, The Garage. Hey. She's so hot right now. Come on down. Open up my garage. I lost it. You know what's fun about these Listener Tales today? They're from the 90s. I picked up what you were putting down there. I knew you did. Were you going to do that? I was. That's why I was waiting. I didn't even see you doing the bop little thing. It was the 90s. I also just pop a sound tone in here and it smells so good.
Good. It does. We needed a cleanse in this. Not like a cleanse of our bodies, but like a cleanse of our souls. Yeah, it's been a crazy ass day. What a day. Yeah, it's been a dizzle. It's been a dizzle. Information overload. Truly. But you know what? We cleansed. Yeah. And it's 2024 and we're in a place of move on from all that shit. We're in a place of...
Just be cool. Don't be all like uncool. That's just our vibe. It's also the Countess's vibe. Absolutely. And if you don't get that, then I don't even know what you've been doing for the last six years. The Countess. The Countess. We're going to see her. I can't wait. But you know what? What? Let's talk some listener tales. From the 90s. And I think we should start with one that I'm a little excited about. It looks horrifying. Oh. It's called The Reason I Hate Camping. Yeet.
I'm scared because I also don't like camping. Same. So I'm very excited to hear this one. I also love any kind of like summer camp horror. Like throw me in a summer camp. Yeah, it's giving Friday the 13th. Yeah, I'm always for it. So this one says, hello, beautiful spooky besties. I'm sending this listener tale for the second time because the first time honestly sucked. So I rewrote it and hope it's good enough this time. I bet it was great the first time too. I bet it was. If so, we're our own worst critics. If so, I will be listening to the episode on my way to the store to get my new pants because I will have for sure shitted. We'll get in the car, baby. Get some nice pants. Morbid is by far my favorite podcast and you said favorite in like a British way.
the OU and I love that and I've listened to every damn episode aside from catching up on listener tales I explain that in my double space 14 font for your reading pleasure I tell you girls to cut out any parts you think suck but I know you bitches won't so fuck it read the whole damn thing my dudes we will I have attached a few photos of me and my sister I'm the younger one significantly shorter one who's also in the story we are younger in these photos than in the story as As it's all we have left after a house fire took everything from us when I was nine. Oh my god, I'm sorry. That's so sad. I'm so sorry. But this picture is beautiful. It is, as well as a photo of us now. I also attached a photo of my pup. Oh, hell yeah. My pup Kyle. I love that. Come on, Kyle. Kyle. And my cat named Goose. Oh my god, I love the name Goose for any animal. That is really cute. That is not a goose. That is absolutely not a goose. I love it. Sorry if all the quality sucks. I'm sending this from my cell phone because my teenage son has kidnapped my laptop. Love, Erin. No, everything looks great to me. It looks phenomenal to me. Your cat is so beautiful. I want a gray cat so badly, but then I would have four cats, and telling people that I have three cats is already enough looks for me. I love your animals. I love...
your animals. You and your sister are so cute. I love you and your sister. I love Cal and I love Goose. So hello weirdo fellow weirdos excuse me. Please excuse the inevitable spelling and grammar mistakes as I'm writing this on a tiny little cell phone screen. Oof. Ouch. My name is Erin and my sister's name is Cassandra. We are both part of this spooky tale and you're welcome to use our real name should this be creepy enough to use for listener tales. This is a little long but worth it I promise. It's actually not even long. It's pretty damn short. At least I think it is. I haven't finished writing it yet so fuck it. We'll see how long it is at the end. You went back and forth to so many different places. That journey you just took yourself on was really fun. You know you were like no actually it's fucking medium.
about that you're like you know what fuck it it's as long as it is okay and it's not even that long yet because i haven't finished it yay I guess. I did space it far apart so it's easier to read. I got you, girls. I'm no writer, so sorry if this sucks. Actually, I'm not. Fuck it. Good for you. Don't apologize to anyone. Yeah, 2024. I'm no amazing writer like you, Elena. Oh, thank you. I'm true. You are. The Butcher and the Wren was incredibly amazing and I can't wait for book two. Oh my goodness. Just you wait. Thank you so much. It's heating up in these parts. Just you wait. I hope you both realize what a light you bring to such terrible and spooky stories and what an amazing job you do bringing humor to your listeners. And I love how much you speak on the family of victims and do what you can when you can to help. Wow, that was really nice. Thank you. I've been here since the panda sandwich.
That's probably the best one that I've heard. The Panda Sandwich of 2020. And although I refuse to listen to the listener tales, I've recently started binging them after I ran out of episodes to listen to and have come to truly enjoy them. Gotcha. Dare I say they are my favorite now? Gotcha. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, the girlies who get it, get it. And it's like, whenever somebody is like, the amount of times we've read in a listener tale, I used to avoid these like the plague and now they are my favorite. Give them a chance. That's the thing. You guys are the scariest and the funniest. So it's like, I don't know why you guys don't want to listen to you. I don't know. Because you guys rule. So it's like, these rule.
They're fun. They're scary. You should love them. Yeah. I'm glad that you do know. I'm glad everybody's coming around here. So it says, I have a certificate in criminal psychology. Hell yeah, you do. And I'm fascinated by what makes these terrible twat waffles tick. I liked that whole sentence. What makes them do what they do? I'm also an advocate for the legalization and monitoring of sex workings in Canada in order to protect and help these women stuck in hard times and hard places in life. You're lovely. You are. I spent half my life in BC and with the highway of tears so close, I feel like we could do more to protect all these women in our country, especially those who society and the police see as less important. Agreed. You are badass and I wholeheartedly agree. A little about me.
and my sister. She goes by cat. We grew up in Ontario, Canada, and we're full-blown latchkey kids. Whatever our parents. My mom wore three jobs. And dad was an abusive alcoholic, I'm sorry, who luckily was only part of my life for the first 10 years before my badass mom packed us up in the middle of the night and yeeted us the fuck away from him. Hell yeah, mom. Good for her. It was a different time in the 90s. You two babes know. So we were very often left unsupervised. In my mom's defense, I, the baby of the family, had three older siblings, and my oldest sibling is eight years older than me. It was her understanding we all took care of each other, because we led her to believe this. But me and Kat often were left to do whatever the fuck we wanted most of the time. So anyways, here's my little story. I know it isn't as cool.
crazy as a lot of the other stories you tell, so maybe this one can be a bit of a palate cleanser between some truly awful tales. No, we're starting off with it. Okay, so here we go. Let's get in the Wayback Machine all the way back to 1999. Even though it still feels like the 90s was just a few short years ago, it really does. Things were different in the 90s. Me and my family lived in a house in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada that was at the end of a double cul-de-sac. It looked like boobs from an aerial view. Behind the houses was a large green belt. I'm not sure if it's called the same thing in the States, but essentially it's a plot of protected land that can't be built on conservation land. That's what we call it. There was a large field and at the back of the field on the other side of the green belt from my home, there was a small area of trees with a tiny creek that ran through it. 99% of my time outside of school was spent here, day in and day out, building forts from sticks and mud with my sister and a few other neighborhood kids.
90s so much fun a lot of the older kids in the area used this place to smoke and drink and destroy every gosh darn stick fort we build some of these forts took weeks to build i wish i had photos they sound awesome we would go inside to eat sleep and that's about it damn damn do i miss the 90s same the summer before i turned eight and cat turned 12 our birthdays are in september virgo babies so innocent and dumb we decided it would be a fucking splendid idea to grab my parents tiny two-man tent and pitch it in the field right up against the woods at the back of the green belt why Good fucking question. Kids be dumb, yo. Our house was within eye shot, so our mom let us do it. Because again, 90s. Me and my sister, along with two of our friends who were close to our age, crammed ourselves into this tent made for two with snacks and flashlights, and that's about it. So prepared. We did bring a small diary lock to lock the zipper, because of course, that will keep us safe. And gosh, I love how a diary lock, if anybody remembers, those tiny tiny little locks. And they were like, this will stop them. And you could also probably just like break it open with your sheer force. You could literally just rip that open. We told ghost stories, ate junk, and had no plans on sleeping that night. Here's where it gets fucked. And probably why to this day, I hate, I fucking hate.
camping. Your girl's down with a camper, so she's got four walls and locks, but even that is pushing it. Funny thing is, I married an avid outdoorsman and he absolutely loves camping. But luckily, our four-year-old daughter didn't fall far from the tree and is always down to go pamping. Ooh, I call it glamping. This was before everyone aged six and up had a fucking cell phone. So we heard some movement outside our tent. We were freaked. We tried to stay quiet and pretend we were asleep. Right idea, little dumbasses. I didn't say that. You did. Well, then we started to hear ripping sounds. Think nails on a chalkboard, because that's what it sounded like in our terrorized state. Nobody wanted to move to see what was going on. So I...
I, the youngest in the group, peeked my sweet little head out of the blankets to see what was happening. Whoever this maniac was, because we never found out, slipped a huge butcher knife up inside the rain cover of the tent so we could see what he was using to terrorize a few little babies. What the fuck? Oh my god. Then he's, you're telling me this isn't as fucked up as some of our other tales? It certainly is. Then he started vigorously shaking the tent, pulling the poles out of the ground and allowing the tent to drape over our tiny little bodies.
When I say we were freaked, I can't even explain how scary this was. The man, I'm guessing man because the voice, started whispering. No. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. No. And poking us with the huge knife. Not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough for us to feel it. What the fuck? We stayed silent aside from our tiny whimpers that we just couldn't hold in. This went on for a good 10 to 15 minutes. Then it stopped. It just stopped.
We laid there for what felt like eternity just to be sure the man was gone. My sister slowly unset the tent and we all flew out of there like bats out of hell. Someone sure little fire under our asses and bolted back to the cul-de-sac into our respective houses, not looking back even once. Oh my god. Luckily, our front door was unlocked, 90s. And me and my friend, my sister, ran to bed. The same bed, because fuck no, we were not sleeping alone after that. No. We never told anybody about this. What? We were afraid we wouldn't be able to camp out again if our parents knew. You want to go camping again? And she said, but like, what the fuck, kid? You weren't going to camp out again after that anymore? That's what I'm saying, girlfriend. It very well could have been one of the neighborhood boys fucking with us, but none of the boys ever hinted towards their involvement or even mentioned it. And also, if that was one of the neighborhood boys fucking with you, they had deep psychological problems. Yeah, they've been arrested for murder. Hondo Pete. Most of the time, when the boys fucked with us, they were more than happy to brag about it. Now that I'm a grown adult with my own two kids.
Kids, I sometimes wonder how we all survived growing up in the 90s. I could never allow my young kids to camp out alone in a field, no matter how close to our house it was. Hell, I don't even like when they ask to camp out in the living room because it's further from my bedroom than their bedrooms are and closer to the front door than my bedroom. I feel you so hard on that. We had a lot of crazy times in this house, like the time my school went on lockdown due to a man with a gun outside the school screaming and yelling, telling a teacher in the school to come the fuck out and meet their fate. All because his kid was suspended for bullying. Apple tree, you know?
And the school failed to call my mom and tell her what was going on. So when she got home at 6 p.m. and no kids had been home yet, she was freaking out. Oh my god. Your poor mom. Or the time me and Kat ran away, took a ferry to a little island near our home and spent the day there. Then getting home, my dad was on the phone with the police reporting us missing. 90s though. They probably would have told him to wait 24 hours anyway. I love that you all just went on the ferry together. We're like, let's go to our little island. Like, see you later. And telling my drunk-ass dad we followed a man onto the ferry who we thought was him. He was drunk. He believed us. Incredible. Or the time my oldest sister did my makeup and hair and made me wear her clothing because she wanted to go to the fire hall, a teen hangout spot where there was dancing.
live music. Well, you had to be 13 and I was only eight. The fuck? It's just me, you know, eight-year-old Gertie at the fire hall. At the fire hall. Would you do this again? I would do the fire hall. And the idiot kids there paid me money to say bad words. Here's five dollars. Say fuck. Say fuck. Ten bucks. Say shit.
I walked home alone because that place is not my vibe. Of course not at eight years old. Damn, we were dumbass kids. Anyway, that's all. Keep it weird, but not so weird that you decide to camp in the middle of a field in the middle of the city with no protection and no ability to defend yourself against a creepy man in the dark with a knife. Love you, bitches. XOXO, Erin. Love you too, Erin. I'm glad you made it. I love you. Erin forever. Very glad Erin is still here with us, everybody, because they paid me to say bad words. Erin for the win. Why didn't you and your friends ever give me money to say shit? What?
You're a bad sister. You're a bad sister. I never brought you to the fire hall. I know. What the hell? You never brought me anywhere. Erin, I don't know why you thought that tail was going to be a pallet. It was in a weird way. It was hilarious, but also terrifying. Deeply, deeply terrifying. That was really funny, though. Wow.
All right, my next one is listener tale. The time the Lord and Savior broke into my house. Oh, I gotta hear this one. Hi, my fellow weirdos. I did all the good stuff in my double-spaced 14-point putt-a-fa, so just read that. It's a crazy listener tale for sure. I also included the newspaper article from the story and a photo of me and my quote-unquote mom friends who just can't get enough of y'all. Also a photo of my husband and I and the kiddos and the pup. I really want you to understand my vibe, I suppose. Happy reading. Oh, look at you guys. I love your vibe. Your 4th of July pick is great. What I'm assuming is Halloween is absolutely iconic. Oh my god, you two are amazing. The kids are so cute.
The puppy is incredible. Look at him just standing on his back feet like that. Your puppy looks like there is a Victorian child locked in it. I love that. That does happen. I love that for your puppy. I love that for us. I want to know your puppy's name, but the name tag is blurry. But the way that they're standing is iconic. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And honestly, I'm never going to get past this Halloween costume. Iconic. It's everything right in the world. You and your husband, by the way, because you guys can't see this. Her husband and her were the fairy godmother in Cinderella for Halloween, and he was Cinderella. It's pretty amazing. I love that a lot. Okay, let's see.
We have, hi, my weirdo dudes. Cue the gushy, I love you man stuff. I love you. And that we should all totally be best friends stuff, as you do. Love you guys in all capacities. And within my group of mom friends drinking wine and saying, oh shit, have you listened to the new episode of Morbid yet? Is pretty much the highlight of our suburban lives. That's so cool. I love that. You can use my name and all names associated within this tale because it happened a million years ago in 1993. I love 1900. I love it. When I was eight. Wow. Also, by the way, while we were reading that last one, because that was 1999, that was 25 years ago. Yeah, I hate that. Yeah, I googled it because I can't do mental math. I also have to say, I was also eight in 1993.
Hey, that's cool. What's up, girl? I just want to say I wasn't alive. Yeah, I wasn't alive. So let's all move past that real quick. But I was on my way. Actually, I wasn't. You were not. I was a star in the sky. Maybe. Pataps. Pataps. Pataps. And perhaps. I think I was going to say potentially. You were. And perhaps, I think. You liked it. Thank you. All right. I also included the newspaper article from When This Happened. It is on the front page. In my small town, this was big news. Also included are a few photos, a double-spaced put-a-fuh, and the article since it serves as proof that this batshit story I'm about to tell you actually happened, and it wasn't just a figment of my overactive eight-year-old imagination.
My name is Danny with an I, and my father is Danny with a Y, just to make things confusing. I think it's iconic. Bit of a backstory. I won't apologize for the length of this all, because I know you will not accept it anyway. No, we won't. No, we won't. I grew up in Boulder Creek, California. Not Colorado, like everybody usually assumes. I would have. I said creek, there is a creek attached to it, not just Boulder. It's in the Santa Cruz Mountains, or Santa Carla, if you get nasty. I said if you get nasty. If you get nasty. It's just if you're nasty. Are you going to get nasty? I grew up a couple miles away from Big Basin State Park, which is home to some of the oldest redwood trees on Earth. It's beyond beautiful. My family homestead consisted of 11 and a half acres of...
forest on a hill with two houses on the property, which my family owned one and my parents' best friends own the other. Oh, I love this. It was beautiful and incredibly private. We technically had neighbors, but they were literally few and far between. It was a long hoof up or down the mountain to go to a neighbor's house. As Serena's all of this was, it's also a wonderful area to be getting away with some shit. And there were a handful of drug shacks and meth labs up in our mountains. Sometimes we would play the game Firework or Meth Lab Explosion. Oh, that old game. I know, I played that too. No, I actually haven't. Our house in the forest was an A-frame house. I love those. With a gable-pitched roof that had all glass windows in the front that surrounded our front door and 20-foot ceilings. Danny! You're speaking my language.
It was built by an artist in 1979 and it was my hippie parents' dream home. It sounds gorgeous. I hope it's still in your fan because that sounds iconic. Everything about you is just iconic and I can't stop saying it. It's true, Danny with an I. Danny with an I and Danny with a Y. So hold on to your butts now, guys. I'm holding. In the wee hours of the night on Thursday, December 16th, 1993, my little eight-year-old self lay asleep on the couch in the living room. First mistake.
True. Looking out into the forest with all the windows. I had been homesick with the flu all week, so the couch was where I had been posted up. All of a sudden, I was woken up to a tap, tap, tap on the glass. And looking at me through the windows, basked in the light from the neon porch light was the most terrifying mountain man I had ever seen. Oh, God. Long hair, beard, and old army fatigue jacket. He taps on the window again and we lock in a gaze. He sees me and I see him. He has the biggest, blackest eyes I've seen to date. Then he waves as if he knows me and turns the handle on my front door.
It's unlocked because of course it is. Nice parenting. I didn't say that you did. And he lets himself inside. Oh my god. I'm so upset right now. Standing on the super 70s hippie tile of our foyer is this man. And I am paralyzed.
Oh my God, no. He turns to me and outstretched his arms and says, don't be afraid, child. I am Jesus. You must follow me. I promise you he's not. No, he's definitely not. I know this. That's so scary. I yelled for my dad as loud as I could, which was only like a quivering whisper. My dad, Danny, and my mom, Elaine, hear me and came running down the stairs with our Dalmatian, or as your youngest likes to say, Dalmatian. How cute is that? Isn't that so cute? Max, in t-shirts and zero pants on either, on by either of them. Those are some parents right there. Hell yeah. Everyone in my house sleeps naked except for me. And I still can't do, and still to this day, I can't. Like, what if somebody walks in your house and saying they are Jesus? I digress. So my dad says, who the fuck are you and what do you want?
The man that informs him that he is, in fact, Jesus, the follower, and that we must follow him. This is really scary. This is the most upsetting thing ever. My dad grabs a broom that's leaning against the wall in the hallway. Gotta do what you gotta do. And with Max grinning and baring his teeth at this mountain maniac, my dad shoves the broom handle into the man's gut and tells him, follow his ass back up the road. I think it's important to remind you all that my father has no pants on. Full-blown Donald Duck in it. Donald Duck in it. Just being like, follow his ass back up the road.
It's amazing. I have this memory forever. And now you will all have it too. Thank you so much for that gift. I'm happy. That's a good one. Dani, we didn't earn that gift. I really didn't. The way you just bestowed it upon us. Happy 2024. Be cool. And you're doing that. You are cool. My sister now emerges from her room. She was 21, but was still living at home at the time. She's wrapped up in a sheet because she too sleeps naked and just screams, get the fuck out. She has little to no idea that she was speaking to Jesus at the time. So your family is so reckless. And I love it so much. Just talking to Jesus like this. She comes out naked with a sheet.
She's like, get the fuck out. Like, no one's fearing this. They're just like, leave. This dude listened to the bro man, my sister, and yeeted himself out of my house as one super pissed off Jesus. My dad heard him ranting and raving all the way up the hill as he stood outside at 2am with no pants on, proudly defending his family. I truly love my hippie dad and always will. I always will as well. So now what? We call the cops and wait. The nearest police station is something like 10 miles away. It's a long wait. While we're waiting for the cops, Jesus decides to take himself on a little adventure to our neighbor's house over the ridge. It's probably about a 10 minute walk for any sane person, but I don't really know how long it took for Jesus. Their house is locked properly like normal people. So he breaks into their home and begins to ransack it. He's pissed off and...
breaking and smashing everything in their home that's my neighbors that's so scary my neighbors are terrified at the noise and lock themselves in their rooms and scramble to get their gun it's the woods everybody has guns while they're locked in their bedroom he finds their car keys and jesus take the wheel he steals their little blue honda crx You're hilarious. Meanwhile, the police arrive at our home. They're taking our statements when they get the call about my neighbor's house and realize how close it is. They call for backup and say they'll be back to finish our statement as soon as they check out what's going on across the ridge. The officer drives over to their place. He arrived so quickly that my neighbors thought it was still Jesus and they fired their gun. Oh my God, in the air, in the air.
out their bedroom window to try to scare whatever burglar man off of their property everyone was okay but like fucking chaos right right the cops announced themselves and had to calm down our neighbor who was apologizing profusely to the police as he told my dad about the whole thing the next day can you even imagine shooting at the cops and living to tell the tale i can't not many people can me either this shit was bananas i remember hearing the gunshots and thinking oh my god they killed the cops that wasn't the case but i have full-blown anxiety now as an adult and this may just be the night the night the seeds of my anxiety were planted you know what i'm gonna go with yes yes it was meanwhile where's jesus he's taking the nice five mile drive down to boulder creek this is amazing to me because this guy was high as fuck So high, his pupils were the size of nickels. That's why his eyes were the blackest you've seen today. Yeah, that was his pupils. The drive from my house to Boulder Creek is a narrow, two-lane, windy road, and I'm shocked that he didn't end up driving into anything or anyone. When he did make it to Boulder Creek, he stopped the car in the middle of the two lanes down... Sorry, when he...
Jesus Christ, when he did make it to that, Jesus Christ had me, not you, and the star of the story. When he did make it to Boulder Creek, he stopped the car in the middle of the two lanes downtown strip. He then decided it would be a good idea to pop into Joe's bar for a beer in a game of pool. Jesus can do as Jesus pleases. Yeah, he was spreading the word. Joe's was not open, but the owner and bartender Virgil and the owner Karen were still inside closing up for the night. Virgil and Karen, obviously. When the bartender tells him that they're closed behind the glass at the front door, quote unquote Jesus gets pissed. He walks across the street into a restaurant at the time called the Old Basham's House that had tons of antiques and decorations on the wall.
and a plethora of antique guns. He then steals an antique machine gun off the wall, and he now gets back into my neighbor's home. Wow, I just got super Boston. Back into my neighbor's. That was wild. I don't know what happened there. Back into my neighbors. I don't know what kind of soul that was. Honda CRX gets into position and drives it through the glass front of Joe's bar. Oh. The only thing that stopped him from going all the way through the back was the pool table. He drove the 75-foot length out of the bar. Oh, my God. He gets out, dusts himself off, points the gun at the bartender, who was ducking with the owner behind the bar, and demands a beer and also a game of pool. Oh, my. He throws an actual fit, throwing glasses from the bar, when they again tell him no, which, like, honestly, if you're ever in this situation, just give the fucking man a glass of beer. Give that man a beer and be like, go play pool. I'm actually leaving for the night.
He says he's a millionaire and can pay for the damage. Right. So Virgil, being the sweetest bartender ever, he was also a family friend who has since passed. R.I.P. Virgil. R.I.P. He poured him a beer and he let him sit and drink it. Honestly, the safest thing to do in that situation. So now all the police backup has arrived at my house and the neighbor's house when all their radios go off all at once about the new incident in downtown Boulder Creek. The whole side of our mountain was lit up in red and blue lights.
as all but one officer left to go to this new incident as the last officer is talking to my father on the front porch my mom's sister and i are all huddled on the couch with the most what the actual fuck looks on our faces i've ever seen we don't see much action on our quiet mountain and this was a lot for anywhere this was a lot yeah my dad comes in after what seems like My dad comes in after what seems like forever. He has pants on now. Oh, okay. That's what made me laugh. And he says he has to go with this officer to possibly identify the person that they have in custody in downtown Boulder Creek. My dad gets there with the officer, takes one look and was like, yep, that's Jesus. That's him. It turns out Jesus wandered down from a secret meth lab in the woods to our house after a drug dealer and him had gotten into a big fight. Man, this just keeps unraveling. You're also so lucky to be alive. Yes, absolutely. Like everybody in this situation. Everybody is. We were just the first porch light he saw. He was arrested and held on 10K bail and the daylight broke. I remember that all of us were just shooketh. Karen, the owner of Joe's, was set to have their annual Christmas spaghetti feed that Friday.
the bar, which she still had because the whole community came together to help clean up the damage. The families that were in need that she adopted still got their gifts that year too. A bright spot in the story. I did, however, get to enjoy my 15 minutes of fame at school when I recovered from the flu because I had the tale that everyone wanted to hear. Oh yeah, you did, Dani. Joe's bar has since rebuilt and I've enjoyed a cocktail or two there in my adult years. I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in Boulder Creek. Oh, fun fact. The video for Fight Song by Rachel Platten was partially filmed in Boulder Creek and the bar she's at in the video is Joe's. Oh, I want to see it. I do too. Still to this day, they have a sign in their bar that reads, not a drive-thru bar. That's hilarious. I love that. Good humor can get you through anything, I suppose.
Sure can. Oh, yeah. Years later, when I was 15, my mom and I were at the Boulder Creek Art and Wine Festival. My mom points to a man and says, do you know who that is? My mom was the local mail carrier and knew everybody. So I was like, no, who? Usually the answer was, oh, that's so-and-so. And you know, so-and-so's mom. But this time, my mom looked at me seriously and says, that's Jesus. She then yelled over to him and forced him.
This mom is a queen. She then yelled over to him and forced him to come over and apologize for traumatizing me when I was eight. And the apology was almost more traumatic than him trying to turn me into one of his followers. Oh my God. Oh, he was drunk and crying and it was sad. So he's, I mean, you can tell this guy was going.
through it i mean he endangered a lot of people that night that's not okay no but it's like if he was still going through this kind of vibe that long after it's like that guy was struggling yeah definitely it's sad that it doesn't sound like he got the help that i was gonna say it doesn't look like he got better no um it was honestly sad i forgave him that day he had a problem but the legend of my anxiety will live on forever i now live in the damn suburbs and i lock my fucking door at night i have now unironically I have now, unironically, a bearded husband, an eight-year-old, and a six-year-old boy, and I don't think they would be able to handle mountain life, lol. At least not the one I lived. No, I don't think many of us would. I couldn't. I have many other stories, like ones about trying to get onto the Lockheed Martin property that was just up the road from us as a teenager, and all the weird lights we used to see in the sky over it. But that's for another day. Send them on. Send it to us.
It's like a send it to Daryl thing, but different. But to us. So that's my tale. If you read this on the podcast, I have some Depends prepared for myself. And my three mom friends. Because they will all, excuse me, we will all collectively shit our pants. Shout out Taryn, Michelle, and Amber. Taryn, Michelle, and Amber. Get some Depends. Taryn, Michelle, Amber, and Danny with an I. Hell yeah. Thank you two for all that you do. And for my 40th and a couple years, my gal pals and I are planning a trip to Salem. Hell yeah. To pay our respect to our witchy, free-thinking sisters of yesteryear. So, you know, come hang with us. Lots of love to you guys and yours. And keep it weird. But not so weird that you tell your 8-year-old girl that you're Jesus in their foyer at 2am. All the love and less sinister babe vibes. Danny.
Oh, my God. I'm obsessed with you. Also, while you guys are in Salem, if you haven't gone yet, which you definitely have, so never mind. Oh, yeah. But anybody else that goes to Salem, go to the Blackvale Shop of Drew and Wonder. Or actually, maybe not. Didn't Dani say a couple of years? Hold on. And this was January. What did you say? Yeah, no, you're right. So maybe you haven't. Okay, great. So if you haven't, it's going to be so much fun. Yeah, go to the Blackvale Shop of Drew and Wonder. Go to Emporium. Is it Emporium 32? I always get the number wrong. It is 32. Oh, go to Housewitch. Oh, yes. It's like German house. Yep.
There's all kinds of great things to do. Oh, have dinner at Ledger. Oh my goodness. The food is stupid. The Brussels sprouts. The Brussels sprouts. And they make a mean espresso martini. Everything there was ideal. It was so good. So good. Also Nocturne. Oh, and Nocturne. Yeah, Nocturne is awesome. And it's probably something that we're forgetting. You know, you've got a lot of places to hit. And happy birthday in a couple years.
All right. So, Dani, you rule, your family rules. That was hilarious and also horrifying and also sad, but also uplifting at times. So thank you for all that. It was all of the above. So let's talk about a local Boston listener tale. Let's do it. Don't squeeze. Is this don't squeeze my Charmin? Like, I think so. Don't squeeze my Charmin. Haunting. Let's see. It says.
Hold on, I'm going to open the put-a-fa. Do it. Hi, Ash and Elena. My name is Amy. No need to change my name because there are probably 400 Amys in the Boston area, so I'm not really outing myself. I've changed everyone else's name in the story, though, just for privacy's sake. Thank you both for being such great storytellers and for giving people like me who reluctantly call themselves Believers in the Paranormal a platform to share our tales. You're welcome. Thank you for sharing them with us. I've pasted my story below and attached it as a put-a-fa.
Perfect. Oh, God. I would somehow end up driving by the house in this story. The first time, it felt like an odd coincidence. By the third time, it was creepy and weird, and I felt like the house was still trying to tell me something all these years later. Oh, I want to know exactly where it is. This story takes place in what was once the most densely populated city in America, Somerville, Massachusetts. Somerville. We love a Somerville moment. Somerville. From a non-Bostonian, Somerville is kind of Boston, kind of not. It's not. Perfect way to describe it, though. Kind of Boston, kind of not. Everybody that's not from Boston will tell you that they are in Boston when they're in Somerville, but you are not. But that's why it's kind of Boston, but kind of not. It's the next city over from Cambridge, and 20-plus years ago when this story takes place, it was still up and coming, as they say. Rents were fair.
cheap and the streets were filled with a mix of local townies think whitey bulgium eats italian mafia and 20 something transplants looking for a decent place to live that was a walkable to the t with bars and restaurants nearby uh my two roommates i was going to do this whole thing with like the full on boston accent but i'm not gonna assault your ears why too because i thought about it when i said when i was like bars and restaurants i think you should do it my two roommates let's call them caroline and jamie and i lived on the first floor of a fairly typical the first floor of a fairly of a fairly typical three-family house or as we mass holes call it a triple deca triple By fairly typical, I mean each floor had a separate apartment. Our apartment had three bedrooms. Mine was a converted dining room, a pink tiled bathroom from the 1920s. Oh, I love it. And a kitchen that was mostly a big open room the size of a bedroom with just a table, a freestanding oven and fridge, and a microwave on a cart against the firewall.
It was connected to a vintage yellow and green tiled butler's pantry. I'm loving this. Containing the sink and all the kitchen cabinets. There was a back door to the driveway in the corner of the kitchen that we used as our primary entrance. Our landlord had added exciting enhancements like industrial jade green carpeting and metallic sponge painted walls. I want to know who the fuck said, let's sponge paint this wall one day. People love a sponge paint.
I hate it. I know. It used to be the thing. I know. There were self-proclaimed ministers living on the second floor who held regular religious services and sometimes let people live in our shared basement. Oh, that's fun. It was quirky, but the rent was cheap. The ministers were nice. And except for the one time she called the bomb squad to defuse a suspicious package, our third floor neighbor kept to herself. Except that one huge time. This is very Summerfield. It is, honestly. It was 1999 and cell phones weren't really a thing among young and poor graduate students. So my roommates and I communicated to each other with notes left on a large, think the size of an average flat screen TV whiteboard that one of us had salvaged from the neighbor's trash. We had propped this monstrosity on top of the microwave and left each other.
other basics, sometimes passive-aggressive notes about Bill's due or who needed to get their old food out of the fridge, etc. Roommates. I've never had a roommate. It's an experience. Keep in mind that my roommates and I were fairly friendly acquaintances more than friends. Oof. That sounds like a fucking nightmare. My only roommates were like actual friends. Yeah. And that I was the only link between the two of them. We got along and hung out together sometimes, but weren't long-standing BFFs or anything. Maybe that awkward formality that comes from sharing a living space with relative strangers is the reason it took each of us so long to admit that our apartment was a spooky nightmare. We'll never know.
We moved in at the beginning of June. I was working at a magazine for the summer and had started dating someone long distance. My roommates were living similar young 27-something lives and we often walked to Davis Square to grab... I love this. I love it. We're all just like, aw. We get donuts from there sometimes. We do. We often walked to Davis Square to grab beers together or bagels on weekend mornings. Life was good. Caroline and I had just come from a horrible living situation with another person the year before. So I initially chalked up the odd feeling I'd get here and there in the apartment as leftover trauma from my previous living situation. And the feeling of wooziness in the front hall was attributed to that crazy metallic sponge paint on the walls combined with old uneven floors making me feel like I was in a fun house.
Fast forward a few months. The long-distance boyfriend had stayed over for a weekend visit. I took him to the airport around 5 a.m. the following Monday. Before we left home, he wrote a quick thank you to my roommates. We love a thankful king. We do. He wrote a quick thank you to my roommates on that giant whiteboard in the kitchen. I returned home less than an hour later. It was still a quiet house. Everything was as I had left it, except that the whiteboard was no longer propped up on the microwave. It was laying face up about eight feet across the room. I could not for the life of me understand how a heavy particle board backed whiteboard could land face up across the room. But I told myself that writing the thank you note had made the board unstable and caused it to fall. You know, somehow that note was different from...
the other notes we wrote to each other all the time it was heavy with importance yeah you know um i went it was heavy with gratefulness yeah with gratitude with appreciation i went about my day and tried to convince myself that i was just being dramatic needless to say i never mentioned it to my roommates about a week or so later caroline and i were sitting in the living room watching tv while jamie was eating her dinner at the kitchen table we suddenly heard jamie say oh followed by a few rapidly escalating ohs and ahs and holy shite and then a loud crash like what the fuck happened jamie caroline and i ran down the hall to the kitchen only to find the whiteboard once again lying face up on the floor in the same location as before only this time jamie had watched It was then that we all came clean to each other about the weird experiences we'd been having in the house. The feeling of someone standing over our shoulder in the bathroom. The odd feeling in the front hall in the front closet. Caroline came to us a few days later to tell us that someone had just called her name in the hallway. Goodbye. Some weeks after that, when Jamie's boyfriend Curtis was spending the night, her printer turned on at 2am and started printing. Only there was no paper in the printer.
They got into a fight over whether or not they should put paper in to see what messages would come through. Curtis won, and no paper was ever added. I would be team Curtis. Oh, fuck that. I would have been like, put paper in that shit. We know. Jamie's room would sometimes take on the odor of manure. Oh, God. While Caroline's room always smelled like fresh flowers. So they did not fuck with Jamie. No. I was convinced that the ghost was an old woman. Weeks passed. Caroline got a job offer in Vermont and moved out. Curtis moved in. Weird things kept happening, but nothing was too traumatizing. And as I said in the beginning, the rent was cheap and the location was good. Heck, we even had the rare luxury of off-street parking. Oh, wow. See, I don't give that up. So one night when Jamie's college roommate was visiting, I was...
by a blood-curdling scream coming from the bathroom. After a night of bar hopping in Boston, the poor girl had come back to our apartment and was brushing her teeth out of the sink when the medicine cabinet door began repeatedly opening and closing on its own. I get that that's pretty scary, but you don't need to scream about it. You're in my house. Don't be annoying. I feel like that was too much. That was pick-me behavior. That was pick-me behavior. We're just like, I don't know Jamie's college roommate. I don't know. Can you tell me grew up in haunted house? We're like, that's nothing. Get over it.
Jamie consulted a friend of hers who had done some casual ghost hunting on the South Shore as a teen. She's always had an interesting mix of friends. His advice was that we had to take back our house and tell the ghosts that we live there now and had to leave us alone. His exact words were, you need to tell the ghosts, this is my house, leave me alone. I think you have to say it nicer. I feel like you should. Curtis, Jamie, and I all agreed that we weren't anywhere close to being ready to confront this spirit. So we just went about our lives with a minor inconvenience of feeling like we were sharing our home with a fourth unseen roommate. I feel that. One day, I was getting ready to meet friends at the local second-run movie theater to see, ironically, The Sixth Sense. Remember when there were second-run theaters when you could see a cheap movie like six months after?
after its initial release. Oh, that shit's awesome. I didn't even know that was a thing. Yeah. I think this particular movie was popular enough that it took more like 10 months to get the cheap theater, but I digress.
So there I was getting ready to go. I changed my clothes, brushed my teeth uneventfully and sat down on the toilet to go to the bathroom. I was just finishing up my business and was about to reach for the toilet paper when it happened. So it is Charmin. The freaking toilet paper roll started unrolling on its own before I even had a chance to touch it. That's kind of nice. And no, for your debunkers out there, this was not a single turn. Like maybe you just knocked it with your elbow situation. The roll just kept rotating until the paper hit the floor and started accordion folding in on itself. See, that's like nice because they're like, oh my gosh, here you go. I got you. But also, please don't be in the bathroom with me. No, and also I can get my own toilet paper. Definitely. And also like that's bad for plumbing. So like.
let's calm down exactly and also toilet paper is expensive so can we not can't there's a lot here yeah at first i just watched it unroll in disbelief i'm just picturing you sitting on a toilet just being like just watching it unroll like just a full minute of just watching this like accordion and on its furrowed brow and then for some reason i started getting pissed I mean, seriously, couldn't I have some privacy on the toilet at least? I've since had three kids and realized the answer to that rhetorical question is actually no. But I was young and naive then. This was the last straw. Nobody was going to squeeze my Charmin. I mustered all the courage I could and channeled my one summer of acting camp to confidently declare, this is my house. Leave my toilet paper alone. The first attempt at taking...
I love that that was your last straw. That's my toilet paper. The first attempt at taking back my power slash bathroom came out as more of a shaky squeak. But then I said it again more strongly and then yeeted out of that house as fast as I could. Iconic. Unbelievably, that really was the last spooky thing to happen to me in that house. Maybe it's because the sixth sense transformed my feelings on the ghost a bit. Maybe they really are just kind souls that have unfinished business and I should be more empathetic. Maybe it's because I had started dating my now husband by then and was spending less and less time in the apartment. Or maybe the ghost actually listened to me and started respecting boundaries a bit more. Maybe. He went to therapy.
We all moved out the following summer, and the house has since been renovated and turned into condos. I've done some stocking on Zillow. It's currently on the market for nearly one million if anyone's looking for a new place to live. I am. In Somerville.
Either way, after the odd driving routes this summer brought me face to face with the house again and again, I feel like maybe the ghost is still trying to send me a message. So if anyone buys a first floor condo in Somerville in the next few months that you end up discovering is haunted, make sure you keep paper in your printer or whiteboard in your kitchen. And maybe you can finally get to the bottom of this mystery. Thanks for listening. And as always, keep it weird. I loved that one. I really loved that. That was so much fun. Amy, you guys are fucking funny. You are. And you know what? I stand by it. Jamie's college roommate.
Needed to take it down a notch. Yeah, absolutely. You can be honest with us. She was. It was just Jamie's college roommate visiting. Oh, yeah, exactly. So, like, you can be honest with us. Was she a lot? She was a pick-me. Was she a lot? Absolutely. She was a lot. She was. It's okay. It's all right. She's grown out of that. When your college friends come to visit or, like, you know, like when other people's college friends come to visit and you're just like, ugh. Things are getting weird. I used to get in so much trouble for expressing my feelings. Oh, boy. Anyways.
Anyways, my next one is called Listener Tale, Neighborhood UFO Summer of 1995. Let's go. It says, hello there. I'm a longtime listener and have wanted to share this story for quite some time, but I am lazy, so I never got a long... Goodbye. I never got around to writing it. Until now. Yay for being sick with COVID and being so bored. Locked, isolated in my apartment while we have an unusually warm fall. Fummer. Attached, you will find my story. Well, not mine, but my neighborhood story from a strange summer in 1995. I hope that you enjoy it. I save it as a put-a-fa, 14 font, double-spaced. Sorry if there are any spelling or grammar errors. Grimmer. I know. Thanks so much and hope to hear from you lovely ladies. Also, again, Ash was not born during this. But I was on the way. You were on the way. Right? Yeah. Well, in the summer of 1995, I wasn't. You weren't. But I was about to be on the way. That's true. I was 10.
Wow. That shit goes crazy. That does go crazy. All right. Well, the neighborhood UFO story. I absolutely love the podcast. Thank you. Thanks. And I thought you would both enjoy hearing this account from the summer of 1995 from a little town in Michigan when multiple neighbors all saw lights in the sky. Oh, I love that. My name is Billy. You can use my name and any other names. My pronouns are he, him. Thank you. To quote Sophia from the Golden Girls, picture it. Michigan, 1995. I already love you, Billy. I grew up in a very small town in Michigan. Dirt roads, lots of fields and farms. At night, the only light came from the moon and stars. I kind of love that. I do too. Sounds kind of beautiful. My direct neighbors were my aunt and uncle and three cousins. To say that the area was conservative is an understatement. Any mention of paranormal things were laughing.
at and shunned. And the same goes for anything queer related. But I digress and moved away the day after graduation. Good for you, man. Love that for you. When the lights were first spotted, it came from the neighbors. The husband, Joe, and daughter were outside at night bringing in groceries and they both saw three orange lights. They were above their cornfield off in the distance. That's where I want to see spooky UFO lights above a cornfield. Always. The lights just sat there, not moving. There was not any sound. The lights were about 100 feet or so above the corn. I love that. They're just like hanging out over the corn. Corn. It has the juice. It has the juice. Can imagine a more beautiful thing. It's corn. I can't help it. I can tell you all about it. Are you leaving this?
out when i tried it with butter everything changed that's the best part of it and yes i know all the words anyways they moved into the house and when joe looked back outside the lights were higher in the sky and moving away very slowly toward the south he got his wife and they watched them until they were past the woods and out of sight joe said that they were three lights in a triangular shape they always are he did not see a craft or object that they were attached to but said they stayed in the same shape as they hovered and then moved this of course made it into the neighborhood gossip and it was joked about but not taken very seriously Poor Joe. About a week later, my father and uncle were returning from a quick trip to the store, and they saw three orange lights above the woods on what would be my uncle's farm. They stopped the truck and watched. Like the previous time, as Joe and his family had witnessed, the lights just hovered. They didn't move, and there was no noise. The lights then quickly moved off and out of sight. My uncle, who was driving, drove the rest of the way to his house with my dad, and when they pulled into the driveway, the lights were hovering above my uncle's barn. The barn sat back, probably about a thousand feet from the house. I love this, and I just picture a cow being lifted up in a beam. That wasn't a really good cow impression. I was just going to let it go.
You know, it's okay. The sad thing was that I like really tried. It's not always, they're not always going to be hits. No, a moose got to be kind of deep. It does. It needs to be from within. Yeah. You know what? My dog Sydney is half cow, I'm pretty sure, and she can do a sick cow impression. She can. It's actually pretty fucking crazy. It's wild. But anyway, they both got out of the truck and stood there watching. My dad said that he saw the lights were on a triangular object. The object was so dark that you could only tell it was there because it was darker than the night sky. My uncle said that the shape was, quote, like if three yellow school buses were in a triangle. I had to put that in because it still makes me laugh to think that that is how he came up with the size. As I said before, country folk. I love that. My uncle and father went into the house to get my aunt and mother.
When they came out, it was gone. So my mom and aunt, as well as me and my cousins, made fun of them and asked how many beers they drank on the driveway. Later that night, the electricity in the neighborhood started acting very strange. We had gone back home and the lights would get extremely bright and then darken. The TV would go dark and then come back on. That happened occasionally. It was the country and when it was really hot or storms were happening, electricity would act weird. My mom called my aunt and she said the same thing was happening there, but that my aunt and my uncle's phone kept ringing.
When they would pick it up, it would be really loud static. As my mom and aunt were talking, another neighbor picked up. We had party lines back then when the entire neighborhood was on a single phone line. So you could have to pick up the phone and listen to see if other people were already on a call before making your call. Whoa. I didn't even know that was a thing. That's wild. The country. Party lines. Party lines. But she heard my mom. She was like, oh, hey, Joe, I need to use the phone. Excuse me, this is important. That's so wild. Can you imagine having to like have a private conversation? That's a real country. And you just never know who's listening? Yeah, you never know. Well, I guess nobody could like cook a scheme up. If I was a kid.
I would just be listening to that party line 24-7. Absolutely. I'd be Harriet the Spying. It would also be everybody's gossip. Oh, my God. It would be so easy to do prank calls, too. Oh, yeah. That's fun. Oh, man. Can we time travel? Yes. Back to Michigan in 1995. We'll figure it out. We will. But as my mom and my aunt were talking, another neighbor picked up. She heard my mom and aunt talking and asked if they were having issues with the electricity. You could just join into it. She's like, hey, is this dinner from down the street? I don't really remember any resolve to it. I think it was just the neighborhood woman talking, but I do remember that my dad seemed quite tense about it, but he didn't say anything. For the next two to three weeks, multiple neighbors saw the lights, either moving through the sky or hovering in various spots.
My cousin, who was five years older than me, who was 19 at the time, said he saw the lights move across the field while he watched from his bedroom. Another neighbor said that his cows... I can't even do it. I tried again. It got better this time. Did it? So I feel like you're on the right track. Hopefully he says cows again. Yeah. You can just say it at the end.
Another neighbor said that his cows and horses would start acting really strange and make lots of noise at night. Then he would see the lights. On Fridays, all the neighbors would usually get together at someone's house for cards and socializing. I fucking love this. Right? I'm obsessed with this. We kids would play and there would usually be a fire. Everybody sat around. That's so kind and nice. The talk was soon of everyone seeing the lights, having electrical issues, phone issues, and barn animals and pets acting weird. One neighbor said that his entire family saw the lights over their barn and then the object, craft, whatever, hit their house with what they said was the brightest spotlight. That it was so bright you couldn't even see. Then it just went off and the lights were gone.
That's the only time I heard of that happening. I wish I could tell you something exciting, like missing time, crop circles, seeing greys, or the lights chasing people. But really, that was it. It's still pretty exciting to me. I love it. For about a month, the lights appeared. Almost everyone in the neighborhood talked about seeing them. And then, as soon as it all started, it just stopped. I like to think that our neighborhood was just so boring that the aliens thought, nope, not intelligent life here, and moved on. But I digress. In all of this, my mother and I never saw the lights. Bummer. I think the aliens were just like...
Everything seems all right here, so let's move on. They're like, you know what? This is a chill individual. They seem like they're getting along. Town, yeah. Let's move on. Today, no one talks about that summer or the lights. My father and uncle have both passed away. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. They are the only two that ever continued to talk about it, but they would never say UFO, just the lights. I like that better. It's way more eerie. I personally am a believer in the paranormal. I lived in a very haunted house in my early 20s, and my father and a few other relatives visit me in my dream. Oh, I love that. They're what I call check-ins from time to time. I love it. I hope you enjoyed this, and it would be really cool if it made it on the pod. Hell yeah!
Thanks again for all that you do and for creating a community that is safe for all people of every background to share their experiences. From Billy. Billy. I'm so glad that everybody feels that way. And say cow again. Moo. No. Okay. That was a little lateral. I feel where it's supposed to come from, but it's not. It's hard. You don't have like multiple stomachs. Don't cows have multiple stomachs? No, that's definitely not where it's supposed to come from. I think they have like a deep. Theirs is like very like. But guys, this was a great.
episode of listener tales if i do say so myself and i can because this is all about you guys so you created a great episode yeah brought to you by you for you from you and all about you and we are obsessed with you love the 90s tales keep them coming because those are really fun and nostalgic yeah if you guys want to send in a 90s tale just put it in the um in the title line that's what it's called um and in the meantime we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so worthy you don't send us your 90s tales because i really want to hear them because i was only alive for like three years of the 90s and i don't remember any of it Don't go camping. Don't pretend you're Jesus breaking into people's houses. Don't take somebody's toilet paper and unravel it. And don't be strange lights that don't tell anybody what you're doing. No. Be strange lights that don't tell people what you're doing. But get a party line. Get a neighborhood. I don't know if we can suggest that. Do it. Okay, bye. That was a good one. That was a good one.