Monthly Spooky | Funeral-Home Living, Deadly Love & Swallowing LEGO for Science

Conversation transcript for the January 2023 episode, recovered from its released recording using automatic speech recognition. Separate opening appeals and closing promotional segments are omitted. Automated punctuation restoration was checked to preserve the words. Speaker names are not assigned where turns are uncertain. Not checked word for word by a human against the audio; transcription errors may remain. Dates and references reflect the original recording.

Living above a mortuary seems creepy, but it can be creepier. And love, well, love doesn't just hurt. Often, it can kill. And we're going to talk all about it tonight. Get comfortable. Turn off the lights. It's Monthly Spooky. Oh yeah, it's that time again. It's time for Monthly Spooky. Michelle, how are you? I don't know. I don't know. You seem uneasy and I think I know why.

Yeah. Is it because love is in the air? I mean, it wasn't. But now, now maybe. Yeah, now it is. Well, you see, it's the end of January, which means we're heading into the love season. We're heading into the Valentine's Day season. And that means this show will be vaguely- and I do mean vaguely, vaguely- themed around such a holiday and I felt like I wasn't gonna do it.

But then I remembered. Michelle, for those who don't know, is a born romantic just easily, seriously Weekly Spooky at gmail.com send in your dating questions for advice from Michelle actually you totally can do that but i know why didn't you tell me that this is going to be love themed. Oh, I didn't tell you? No. Of course I didn't tell you. Oh.

When do I ever tell you what the show's going to be about before we're recording? Sometimes you do. Sounds made up, but okay. Like one time. You should have known something was up when I was wearing a robe, a bathrobe. Is that what that means? With just a little bit of chest hair. Wow, my chest hair's not very thick. Okay, fine, whatever.

No, what it means is that I've been really stressed out and depressed all weekend, so I've been in a bathroom for almost two days. I mean, I took a, I take showers, but then you just put on the same bathroom- yeah, I put on deodorant, you know? Okay, listen, I don't need this level of grilling from you, Michelle, but uh, I well, we're two minutes in.

I didn't even. I haven't even fully done the introduction. So I'm enrique kuto, this is Michelle antisocial and, of course, this is Monthly Spooky. For those who've never listened before, this is our, uh, end of the month roundup of all things fun and spooky and really anything that makes Michelle not quite comfortable. Yeah, so, and I want to mention- because if you're listening to this, obviously you enjoy Weekly Spooky- my, my scary story podcast.

But Michelle has a podcast about anime and I'd like you to plug it real quick in case anybody wants to give it a listen. Okay. I have a podcast about anime. That's pretty much it. I just talk about what I'm following. I basically follow a, what's that called? A seasonal anime. And I talk about all the episodes as they're, you know, coming out weekly.

So kind of like, like watermelon or strawberries, it's seasonal. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Okay. And, and, And you're currently talking about the Trigun reboot, right? Yeah. Trigun Stampede. So, and the show is called Michelle Explains Anime Poorly. Yeah. I don't think you said the title. Oh, I didn't. No, I wasn't going to say it. You were like, never. I'll die before I say that.

Yeah. So, well, so other than your podcast, how are you doing, Michelle? What's been going on in your week? I don't know. What do you mean? I don't know. Oh, no. I went too far. I went too far. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, I'll tell you, I have had a very eventful couple weeks. Yeah. I'm not going to hang on it super long, but at the start of the year, I went on a work retreat.

And now the secret's out. I went up to carp Lake Michigan, which is very far North Michigan and stayed on a cabin on a frozen lake for a week. And I recorded two audio books while I was there, which was about the best idea I've ever come up with ever. Cause you like, I get to the cabin and then I literally just make a blanket fort out of sound blankets.

put a microphone in there and a computer and just for like two or three hours a day, I would just read and then goof off and go take photos the rest of the time and also do podcasts. It was actually kind of awesome to really realize I could take this show on the road as necessary. Yeah, it looked really comfy to the blanket for it.

It was, you know, because usually sound booths get really hot, But I was literally in a place that never got above 31 degrees. So I would just turn the heat down a little bit. And then it was just I could stand in there for like three hours. So and it's literally just a blanket fort. So I did that, had a great time.

And then I came home and immediately immediately found out my dog, Chicano, has systemic cancer and needs chemotherapy. So we started him on chemotherapy. I'm not going to talk about it a bunch here, but I'm talking about it a lot throughout the shows because we are doing a fundraiser for him. His chemotherapy treatment came out to $6,800 in total. So that's a lot of money.

If you want to help, you can go to weeklyspooky.com and click on help my dog. We've raised about $1,400 so far, and I really appreciate the help, but I'm not going to hold on that forever. So he, you know, the first week he had chemo, he was a little sick, which was very stressful because then at the last minute I had to go to Chicago for work.

And I live about four, four and a half hours from Chicago. So it's not super far, but it's not nearby. And I had to go there to do a career, to do something as a career opportunity that I can't say anything about. And people keep asking me, they're like, why did you go to Chicago? And I'm like, I don't know. I say I don't know.

So they don't take it personally when I say I can't tell you. I'm just like I don't know. But I mean, you could have just gone like, oh, I was sightseeing because chicago's so cool. No one would believe me if I said that they'd be like: you don't travel for joy. What were you doing there? For work? That's what they would say.

But I was there for three days and I hadn't even been home a week before I had to leave for that. So that compounded by worrying about my dog's cancer and worrying about all the money it's going to cost and worrying about just getting my life back on track. It's been a very tumultuous time. Yeah. But that's why I'm happy because right now I'm sitting down with my best buddy, Michelle, and she's going to make me feel all better with her cutting wit.

Oh, God. Go on, Michelle, that was it. Well, I appreciate you trying so. Uh, before we get to the spooky news, are you gonna say anything about how I've decorated the crypt? Every month when we get together in the recording crypt I try to upgrade it a little bit, try to bring it up to snuff a little bit, but of course, because of my dog's medical bills, I have had to go low budget because Usually I actually spend quite a bit of money making the place look nice.

This time around, I definitely did not spend much money. So what do you think? I mean, I think you really tried and I really appreciate that. I mean, there's a lot of scotch tape. But it's not. It's actually actually. See, that's how good I am. That's not scotch brand tape. That's the off brand of tape. Wow. It looks like the real one.

You know, I'm not trying to brag, but I believe that creativity is as important as anything. Yeah, I understand. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. And you see those ceiling fans right there? They have like kind of a spooky like blade to them. They don't turn on because they're made of Chinese newspaper. Wow. Yeah. That's really impressive. I know. And somebody was like, what's so spooky about these ceiling fans?

And I was like, well, they're full of Chinese misinformation for one. But speaking of speaking of Chinese, speaking of misinformation, we're going to, we're going to be bringing you all the spooky news after a quick word from our sponsors. all right my friends now it's time for the spooky news the spooky news this story comes from mirror.co.uk and this one i picked just for Michelle now it's not related to love it's not related to love but it is related to real estate oh this is from mirror.co.

Uk and it says: terrifying ad for flat above mortuary says tenants must quote: clean up after dead bodies. The unusual rental listing boasts a master bedroom and high ceilings, but the lucky tenant is also expected to work shifts in the mortuary downstairs for just over 10 quid an hour. Um, is it like I'm confused? So you like have to work there? Okay, I guess I get that.

It's like employee housing, maybe. That's what I'm trying to figure out is like: do you have? Is it just discounted because you're working part time there? Yeah, so, but it looks like all will be revealed. Okay, it's kind of like watching a movie with my mom. What, who is this? What is he doing? I'm like: Well, it'll happen. Yeah, I'll explain. Does your mom like that too?

No. Oh, you're lucky. When you are checking out a house or a flat to rent, there are lots of things to look out for, from bedroom size to natural light and kitchen space. The last thing you'd expect to be included in the deal, however, is a job as a cleaner and administrator for the mortuary downstairs, where you are expected to clean up after dead bodies.

So they're going to make you an administrator too. I'm so confused. So it's like, it's not enough that you have to clean up like pieces of corpses or the goo that comes out of corpses or whatever it might be. But you've also got to do paperwork because, because screw you. We hate you. God is dead and we're alone. That's basically what this is saying.

I mean, okay, we're about to get to the numbers and then we can find, we can decide if Michelle, if you would actually put up with this. Okay. Sure, sure. That's exactly what some house hunters stumbled across as they've taken to social media to share their shock at a right move listing in Swindon, Wiltshire, England, which comes with the pretty unusual caretaker job.

The apartment, which boasts high ceilings in a master bedroom, is above Hillier Funeral Service in Swindon and will set back the lucky tenant 600 quid in rent a month. just that sigh, but you will be able to make some of your money back through a $10 or a 10 quid and 10 cent per hour job downstairs. I don't think this is a good deal.

It doesn't seem like a good deal. So I have the listing right here. I have a screen cap of the listing. It says cleaning. A high standard of cleaning is expected to be maintained at all times. Daily duties: vacuum all carpets, dust and clean all surfaces and polish where necessary. Clean all sinks and toilets. Sweep and vacuum all hard floors, empty all bins, check all dispensers, wash floors as necessary.

You carry out restocking. Okay, so those are your cleaning duties. Okay, those are fine. But clean out all sinks and toilets. Some of the sinks are going to have human sludge in them. I think as long as the toilets don't have throw-up in them, it's fine. I don't know. This might be like a... You know how there are party schools? People are like, oh, you're going to that college that's a party school?

This might be a party mortuary. It's like, oh, no, nobody goes there to work. They go there to get ripped. Yeah! Just every they're doing all the autopsies with like those cheap sunglasses on people on the corpus. It's like it's like, oh, is that to make it look cool? It's like, yeah. And the eyes haunt me. Now, here are the list of weekly duties.

OK. And this is not the article. This is the actual posting. Let's see. Weekly duties. Wash all the floors. And then in parentheses, it says floors may require more frequent washings during busy periods. Okay, got it white. Is that fine with you? Yeah, it's fine. Okay, wipe down flower racks and all skirtings and it's easy. Art art to travis, arc to travis item- not fancy.

I don't know what that is. Okay, I'm sure it's like a thing that holds flowers or something polish. All stainless steel and brass. Oh, I don't like that. This is the problem. I hate stainless steel. It's so frustrating. Have you ever had to polish a giant stainless steel refrigerator at work? No, it was dumb and it never looks good. All of your work is just so that it can continue to look like stainless steel.

Exactly. Wow, Michelle, hating on stainless steel. What kind of cookware to use? Probably stainless steel. But I don't like it when it's in a, when it's a large appliance and you don't have to polish your pan, you just clean it. Yeah, I don't care. Uh, let's see, check all light bulbs. I'm assuming that that means like, and if they're out, change them, not just like light bulb, light bulb, light bulb, light bulb, light bulb that one's burnout, Not light bulb, light bulb, light bulb.

Clear leaves in the car park. Okay. So that's the end of the weekly duties. Those are not a big deal. That's true. Although 10, I don't know, 10 quid. I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, but that's not a lot of money. Yeah, we can just assume it's about the same because it's not. But it doesn't matter because it's not like I'm living here and then also living there.

and that's $10 or that's $12 and 50 cents. Okay. So you can make more working at McDonald's in the U S well, but then you don't get to clean up bodily fluids off the floor. Oh yeah, you do. I was about to say, um, see, we're both in our thirties. It's been too long since we had really awful jobs. So we're like, but you don't have to clean up bodily.

You absolutely do have to clean up bodily fluids. I'm just saying 12, 50 an hour sounds like very little to have to clean up what may be like scarring uh, things, whatever, um, I I like. My biggest problem right now is I don't know why I have to pay to live there if I have to also work for them. No, so we'll find out more.

To me, it sounds like they'll take it off of your rent if you put in shifts- oh, which you've. You've done that before: cleaned up corpses for rent money. Yeah. Yeah. You used to show apartments in exchange for discounts on your rent. Yeah. Which was a pretty cool setup. Yeah. It worked out pretty well. So, okay. Now we're on to monthly duties.

Okay. Clean insides of windows. Okay. Clean paint work. Weird. Wipe down mortuary and fridge room walls and fridge doors. Stainless steel- Michelle's Bane- stainless steel. Clean around corners of ceilings and light fittings and then, and then, under six monthly duties- which I guess would be, you know, bi-annual, semi-annual duties- strip the mortuary floor. Wow, really, that's what it says every six months- every six months, I guess it's.

It's a pretty messy job. All right, I'll strip the mortuary floor, whatever. Here's where you're gonna get mad dress code. A smart appearance is to be maintained at all times: jumpers, skirts and ties to be provided by the company, black trousers to be provided by the employee, all clothes to be laundered by the employee. No, you wash my clothes. I'm not washing my clothes.

I don't think that there's a washing machine in that apartment. You do it and also, like I'm fucking cleaning up fluids and stuff, I don't, no, no. So oh my gosh, there's. I wish I could share my screen with you right now. There's, It's actually a nice apartment. I'm sure it is. It has a fireplace. Although. Let's see. Where's the. It's a one bedroom, one bath.

Okay. So, okay, let's get back to the article. I knew you would like this when I saw it was about an apartment. Michelle, for those who don't know, is a home inspector. And she's always enjoys looking at places people live. Yeah. The work appears to involve showing doctors to the deceased, conducting mourners on chapel visits, and wiping down the mortuary and fridges.

I don't want to talk to the mourners. That's terrible. That's not all, however, as you will also be expected to carry out administrative duties like answering phones, vacuuming the carpets, and mowing the lawn. So listen, I don't know why they said vacuuming the carpets, because we've already talked about that. I have to do that, but I don't know. I mean, I'll mow the lawn, it's not a big deal, but I just don't.

This is a lot of work for like ten dollars an hour. Well, and wait to hear this. Hours are on a week on week off basis. Okay, so with a with two and a half hours every evening, Monday to Friday, as well as working Saturdays. Okay. Other normal caretaking tasks apply with the new employee expected to empty bins, clear leaves from the car park and polish metal.

Yeah. I wish I could see the whole thing because I don't see the, oh, wow. I like that it says rent was reduced recently. Yeah. I'm still trying to get people to move in there. Oh my gosh. Okay. After seeing the listing, many people on social media have shown their shock with many saying how bad a deal it is. However, others were more keen with one claiming that you might get to work with ghosts.

Oh. How? Okay. So let's just operate, or let's agree that we're going to operate under the understanding that ghosts are dead people who have unfinished business in this life. Right, let's just operate on that definition, is that okay? I mean, is that? I mean, if you'd rather put a definition out, go for it. No, that's, that's that's okay for a definition, for right now we can do that okay.

So let's say: that's what a ghost is. So they, they haunt because they have something left to do. So how bad of a life did you have if you haunt the mortuary, a place you never were in when you were alive at all? Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I've heard, I've heard theories that you know, graveyards can be haunted because people get attached to their bodies even though they're not, which makes sense.

But I don't understand mortuary. Yeah, I get graveyards being haunted because that's your final resting place. Yeah, so that totally makes sense. But the mortuary, it seems like if you were like I haunt this mortuary, it's like, oh, you were murdered here. And they're like: no, there was a discount on embalming, so my family took me here. And you're like: they didn't love you, did they?

No, no one did. Why do You think I haunt this mortuary? No, for real. Like, what? I guess, though, like, maybe if your spirit is attached to your body temporarily, because it just is, and you had a really traumatic death, blah, blah, blah. You could temporarily be haunting the mortuary because your body's there. Okay, see, and that I could appreciate. I've seen movies where there's, like, this idea that, like, the ghosts are at the mortuary until their bodies leave.

Yeah. I have seen that before. So, I guess, like, I'll give it up on that one. Or you never know. It could be former funeral directors that are haunting the mortuary because they just love it so much. That's even sadder. I made twenty one dollars an hour. Lightning strikes. And yeah, that's so sad. That makes me really sad. One person wrote on Reddit.

Wow. I'm sure this might be a good deal for someone with a very specific lifestyle. But working six days a week, with only two weeks off a year, to have what amounts to $200 left over per month after paying the rent, that's an insanely bad idea or a deal. That is a lot of working. I feel like if it was closer to $15 an hour, it might almost be all right.

Or if you could like if it was like two days a week or one day a week, you know, I'm more like I just don't think I should have to pay rent and then also work there, like I think. Or the rent should be like super minimal, like 150. That might 600 quid might be a really low rent for that area. I don't care, especially because I'm barely getting paid at this job.

So like no, no, yeah, fuck yourself. Like. This is why I love Michelle: first of all, because she's a shark and second of all, because she's always the one who swears on the show. I'm sorry, it's fine, it's fine. What were you gonna say? I'm sorry, I don't know. That's fair, uh, uh, let's see, quote: even if it's only a couple of hours a day, I would definitely expect to be rent free or at least extremely cheap.

Uh-huh, um, also you, you've got to deal with ghosts, so it's even worse. I think that that's a perk. But okay, that's a feature, not a bug, kids, yeah. A second replied, quote: did you not read the clean the mortuary bit? I'll take the ghosts over that. Yeah, oh gosh, I you. A third social media user said you have to pay to live at work above a mortuary.

Hillier funeral service. Were were approached for comment, uh, and they did not respond. So that is, that is the article. Um, you know, I don't know. So okay, so is it right to say you would not work there? I feel like you would not live there. I mean, I feel like if I could negotiate with them so I could say, like listen, I need you to either raise the amount you're paying me or you need to drastically decrease the rent, because it's already been on the market for I don't know 370 days, I guess in my head,.

So I think you need someone. It looks like the average apartment is maybe 900 quid to 1,000 quid. That's not a good deal. That's really not a good deal. Oh, and there are some that are even cheaper. Okay. So let's do this, Michelle. I'm going to be the owner of the mortuary slash landlord. Okay. And you're going to come to me trying to make this deal work, okay?

Okay. Okay. Here we go. Hello. Hi. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Antisocial. It's nice to meet you, too. Please do not shake my hand. I put my hand out for an unrelated reason. That's okay. I don't shake hands. Oh, very good. Very good. So, I see you're interested in the apartment upstairs. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it looked really nice in the pictures.

Thank you. Thank you. I had the carpets cleaned. That's great. Did you also repaint and everything between tenants? We have to because of the blood that seeps through the walls. So we usually repaint about every... Well, I mean, not really on a schedule. Every time a tenant dies, we repaint. So about every three months. Okay. I mean, if blood is seeping through walls, I'd hope it would be at least every three months.

It depends. It definitely depends. Okay. All right. That's fine. And you're comfortable with the 600 quid? No. Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. Oh, really? Yeah. Considering you're asking me to work at the mortuary, you know, I was wondering if maybe that's something that we could negotiate on. It's more like we're giving you the opportunity to work at the mortuary than asking.

I mean, we're allowing you to work at the mortuary. You know, I understand what you're saying, but I actually was offered a job by this other mortuary and I don't have to live on site so I can find a real, real cheap apartment and they're paying me $20 an hour and I only have to be there four days a week. So I just, I'm just not sure what this is.

Was that Roberto's mortuary? Um, was it Roberto's? You can tell me? No, I, I, they. They asked me not to tell Roberto, asked you not to tell me. Um, it wasn't Roberto's. Was it Steve Roberto's lover? I'm sorry, roommate, we all know, we all know and we don't even care. You know, I think I'm gonna. I don't want to do this like I'm just gonna go across town and talk to the other people, because this is a little bit too much for me.

You seem like you're homophobic, whoa, I? I just said I don't care. My problem is that he is hiding it, that he thinks that, hey, we're all so stupid that we can't handle the fact that he's a homosexual. Well, maybe he's just not comfortable with coming out yet I'm sorry. Well, maybe if his business practices were a little bit more kosher, I wouldn't mind it.

And that has nothing to do with him being Jewish. $5.50 a month. I could do it for $400, and I don't want to have to touch the stainless steel. I'm afraid that's a difficult call because recently... Actually, come inside, please. Just for a moment. I know we're just in the mudroom right now. Come inside. Come inside. But as you can see, every square inch of the building is stainless steel.

Okay. I'm just going to leave. Like, I'm sorry. Would you like a sandwich for the road? No, I just want to go. I just made them. I need a friend so badly. I'm sorry. They kicked me off Tinder. Oh, God, no, please don't. Oh, and she didn't wipe her feet. Who will clean the chrome? Who will clean the chrome? Okay, so that's exactly how it would go.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. You're a pretty tough negotiator, Michelle. I like that. Thanks. I didn't get what I wanted, but it got too scary. Well, you did get what you wanted, which was not that. Yeah. Well, we'll be back after a quick commercial break with more spooky news. And we're back here on Monthly Spooky and we have another terrifying and, uh well, in this case kind of bizarre and maybe gross, which actually is what most of these are, aren't they?

Yeah, but we got another piece of the spooky news. This one comes from Michelle's favorite place, npr. Oh, and it says six doctors swallowed lego heads for science. Here's what came out: oh, all I want to say is: I guess there just aren't any diseases or or anything worth solving with science anymore. I don't think that's what's going on. I think that these scientists, like they wanted to do like diseases, and then their bosses were like: no, no, no, you're not qualified to do that.

Here's a lego head. Here's a lego head. What you do with it is up to you all. You swallowed it, wow, okay. So when dr andy tag was a toddler, he swallowed a lego piece- actually two stuck together. Oh. What does he want a medal? Congratulations, doctor. Yeah. You know, when I was a kid, I wasn't stupid eating stuff, and I dropped out of high school.

Anyway, quote, I thought, well, just put it in your mouth and try to get your teeth between the little pieces, he says. Oh, it was accidental. Oh, that's so cute. I assumed he was just a stupid baby, and he was just like, okay, I'm going to eat this now. Yeah. The next thing he knew, it went down the hatch. As an emergency physician at Western Health in Melbourne, Australia.

Oh, okay. That's why. It's in Australia. They don't have any. Yeah, it's like once they figured out how to get the kangaroos under control, they were like, all right, we're good. We don't need any more science whatsoever. As an emergency physician at Western Health in Melbourne, Australia, Andy says he meets a lot of anxious parents whose children succumbed to this impulse. Well, that's not an impulse.

He was, he accidentally. No, he didn't. You done played yourself, kid. Yeah. Okay. The vast majority of kids like Andy simply passed the object through their stool within a day or so. Still, Andy wondered whether there was a way to spare parents from needless worry. Okay. I don't. I mean, have you swallowed anything you weren't supposed to? No, have you? Oh, I said no.

Oh, I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. I mean, it's not like you're soft-spoken or anything, so I don't know why I wouldn't hear you. So, never, anything. You've never swallowed anything you weren't supposed to, except, like, maybe chewing gum. No, I haven't. You've never accidentally swallowed chewing gum. Oh, no, I have accidentally swallowed chewing gum, but I, but I was always aware that that was not going to be a big deal.

So, oh sure, yeah, I remember in school they did an experiment in science class- I think it was in middle school- where we had a glass and they filled it with hydrochloric acid and then put a piece of chewing gum in it to show that your stomach can dissolve it. Yeah, yeah, great job. And and then we and then kids just started swallowing gum like crazy.

It became like a huge fad. The entire school was just swallowing gum. I mean, why not? Yeah, it's gonna get, it's just food anyway. Anarchy, yeah. So, uh, let's see. Uh, sure, you can reassure parents one by one that they probably don't need to come to the emergency room or, worse yet, dig through their kids poop in search of the everyday object.

But andy and five other pediatricians wondered: is there a way to get this message out through science? They really are that bored. Yeah, yeah, no, they are. Like, do kids not drown in swimming pools in australia anymore? Like is there just nothing else? Okay, I mean, what are they gonna do? Drown like this is easy. This is so easy. A rigorous examination.

The six doctor doctors devised an experiment and published the results. Quote: each of them swallowed a lego head, says science journalist sabrina imbler, who wrote about the experiment for the defector. Quote: they wanted to basically see how long it took to swallow and excrete a plastic toy. I hope they did this on the weekend. I hope that this was not Like no, this is definitely.

They were making the big dollars on that. Recently, Sabrina sat down with shortwave scientists in residence Regina G. Barber to chart the journey of six Lego heads and what came out on the other side. Wow. The study excluded three criteria, a previous gastrointestinal surgery, the inability to ingest foreign objects and an aversion to searching through fecal matter. The shortwave team, the shortwave team's favorite.

They wouldn't have to dig through. Wouldn't have to dig through poo. Researchers then measured the time it took for the gulped Lego heads to be passed. The time interval was given a found and retrieved. Michelle. Yes. Are you there? I don't know. The interval was given a found and retrieved time score, which is referred to by its initials f-a-r-t. Good for them.

Andy tag and his collaborators also wanted to raise awareness about a few types of objects that are, in fact, hazardous to kids if swallowed, and an important one is button batteries. Yeah, like watch batteries. Yeah, yeah, I imagine that wouldn't be good. The small round wafer shaped batteries often found in electronic toys- quote: button batteries- can actually burn through an esophagus in a couple of hours, says embler.

Wait, why is the battery just sitting in your esophagus for hours, I would assume, if you're mildly choking on it for hours, if it's stuck in there and you're trying to hack it up or something, maybe I don't know, maybe that like the little kids, like um, and then after they swall, they're like: ah, ah, ah, it's all right, mate, I'll see what happens.

Uh, uh, quote she. So they're very, very dangerous, very different from swallowing a coin or a lego head, that's. That's, that's the story. Oh, I mean we could read the the results if you really want. What are the results? Uh, let me go, I have to. That's a separate article. Oh, my god, I know. Welcome to npr. Uh, oh, my god, this is like a straight up science thing.

That's okay, you don't have to read the paper to me. Okay. Patient characteristics and data. Oh my God. Okay. So patient A is 38 years old female. Number of stools to retrieval was two. Okay. The fart score was 1.42. Patient B was 41 years old and male. The number of stools was N slash A. He didn't have any? Maybe he threw it up or something.

Oh. Oh. Uh, that's weird. Um, patient C was age 45 male. Uh, number of stools to retrieval was three. Okay. So the fart score was 3.02. Um, uh, patient D was 34 years old and male. Number of stools to retrieval was three. Uh, fart score was 1.42. Okay. Uh, patient E was age 27 female. Number of stools to retrieval one. Wow. And the other final one, patient F, was a 32-year-old female.

Number of stools was one. Wow, that goes through fast. Women pass them way faster than men, especially when they're younger. And honestly, I don't... Let's just read the conclusion. Okay. Okay, well, okay, here we go. So, in this novel study, it was determined that a predefined toy object passed through adult subjects on average in one to three days with no complications. It is possible that childhood bowel transit time is fundamentally different from adult, but there is little evidence to support this.

And if anything, it is likely that objects would pass faster in a more immature gut. Yes. There are only seven people in this study, though. I feel like they need to do a minimum of 10,000. They need to start sending letters out to adults all over Australia. Hey, mate, want to swallow a lego head for six dollars? Well, they are pediatricians, right?

Yes, so they could just talk to their, their client's parents and say, like listen, we need you to do something. Or, even better, just give children lego heads. Yeah, looking, yeah, um, this will be, let's see. Uh, this will be of use to anxious parents who may worry that transit times may be prolonged and potentially painful for their children. So are you, so they did all of this because parents just wouldn't believe them.

They'd say, Oh, they'll pass it. But now they can be like, listen, seven of us pediatricians swallowed them and pooped them right out. If I heard that, I'd be like, I'm going to go to a different pediatrician. Now I don't need to know these things about you. Like you're a doctor. You should be able to just give me your advice and I believe you.

But the fact that you swallowed a lego head and pooed it out and then wrote that down. Not a fan gonna, just good gonna. So that's the. That's a pediatrician you'd go to. Yeah, like I care so much about kids that I put my own safety in danger by swallowing a lego head to see if I could poop it out. I care about kids so much I risk dying and thereby reducing the number of medical professionals who can save children's lives.

Hey, sometimes you just gotta do it. Sometimes you know that needs to become a saying in our lexicon now, sometimes you just gotta swallow the lego head. That needs to become a saying. I'm on board for that. Um, our in vivo study has also provided some interesting insights for further research. First, females in this study were more likely to retrieve the foreign body earlier, or indeed at all, compared to males.

Oh so I guess the one that had nothing- he never, it never came out it. I assume that means that he just didn't check his poop or he digested it. That would be impressive. I, I could digest a lego head. I really wanted to. I do you want me to get you a lego head and you can try if we have to both do it.

I don't want to, all right, fine, you never want to do anything. I want to do, like swallow lego heads and check our poos, uh, um. Sadly, this study was not powered to confirm whether this is a true difference. If an experienced clinician with a phd is unable to adequately find objects in their own stool, it seems clear that we should not be expecting parents to do so.

The authors feel that national guidance could include this. Advice. Conclusions: this international multi-center trial identified that small objects, such as those swallowed by children, are likely to pass in one to three days without complication. This should offer reassurance for parents. That's, that's lovely, sure I, I, I. The reason I did that one was when I read that headline. That's how these work for me.

I saw the headline. I was like, well, I can't skip that. I'm not allowed to. So are you, does this make you feel more comfortable and confident if you were to swallow a Lego head? No, no. Would you still go to urgent care or something? If you did? No, I wouldn't go to urgent care. If I swallow Lego head, I just wait.

Like it's, it's, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. At what point? Okay. So like, I'm going to start naming things. Okay. And you tell me when you would, you would go to the hospital. Okay. Okay. All right. So Lego head, we've already covered. Yeah. And those are very small. So Lego head, nah. Penny. No. Nickel. No. Quarter. No.

Wow. Okay. That big. Jeez. Okay. I was not expecting you to answer so quickly and without thought. So now I got to think of more. I got to think of more things. Okay, so penny nickel quarter? Um, I'm not gonna go with like a battery or something, because obviously that's dangerous. Um, let's see. Um, what about like a clothespin? No, I'm not too worried really.

Yeah, okay, well, uh, okay, maybe a like a, oh, a clothespin? Oh wait, no, let's go with one without the metal thingy, so like one of those classic ones that just push you, just push it down onto the you know I'm talking about. It would be very hard for me to swallow that, though, so you'd probably want to go to the doctor.

I probably would end up choking on it. Yeah, well, this, this, this thought experiment is that you successfully swallow it somehow. Then I guess it's fine. Oh, then you just let it be. Yeah, I don't want to go to the doctor, because what if they have to, like, pump my stomach or open me up. I don't want that. So you'd rather just like get horribly, horribly sick?

Well, if I do, then I'll go to the doctor. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So let's see. What's bigger than a clothes spoon? What about like a quarter of a cup measuring spoon? Like a measuring cup? Quarter of a cup. If I swallowed that somehow, which I don't think is possible- I would- yeah, I'd immediately go to the doctor. Okay, that's too big.

So that's where, that's where. Okay, so see, now we've got a baseline, now we understand each other and I appreciate that very much. Um and uh, and yet you've never accidentally swallowed something you really shouldn't have. No, I only stuck things up my nose. Was that a thing? Yeah, why? Okay, you gotta spill some details. It was just one time, and it was an elbow noodle macaroni.

It was an elbow, a human elbow. Um, I just wanted to see what would happen. You put an elbow macaroni up your nose. Yeah, how old were you? I don't know. 15, are you serious? No, I, It was like, probably like four or something. I was about to say you were like, how old was I last week? Did you shoot it out of your nose to get it out?

No, it got stuck. I think we had to do like pliers. You had to go to your mom and dad? Yeah. And go, mom, dad, I have a macaroni stuck in my nose. Yeah. Were you just like making macaroni art or something? I don't really. I ate a lot of macaroni. So I don't know. Maybe like we were about to cook some and I was like, huh.

Okay, so it was uncooked. Yeah. Okay. Did you ever think to just snort it down to get it out instead of pulling it out? No, I didn't. I'm learning so much about you. That's one of the reasons I love doing this show with you. Is it's really important that I learn these things and then others do too. Oh. I think my favorite is when we do a show and then I'll text you when we've broken like a really high listenership.

Just so you can go, oh God. Yeah. Why are these people listening to my life? So I've got another story. This one's from the Huffington Post. And we haven't covered this type of spooky news, I don't think, yet. The headline is, Pentagon has received several hundreds of new UFO reports. Oh, okay. We don't generally talk about UFOs. No. Yeah. Well, you know, I like ghost stories, obviously.

and then things about swallowing things. Those are my two things. I'm sorry. So a new Pentagon office set up to track reports of unidentified flying objects has received several hundreds of new reports, but no evidence so far of human life. The agency's leadership told reporters Friday. Oh, that's convenient. Yeah. Hundreds of them, but no evidence. Good headline, Huffington Post. Yeah. Thanks guys.

The lead researcher, Beepbop Gleepglorp, said in a... Oh, sorry. The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, was set up in July and is responsible for not only tracking unidentified objects in the sky, but also underwater or in space. Cool. Or potentially an object that has the ability to move from one domain to the next. Oh. Whoa. Whoa. The office was established following more than a year of attention on unidentified flying objects that military pilots have observed, but have sometimes been reluctant to report due to fear of stigma.

Hmm. So, Michelle, what do you think about UFOs? I don't think you and I have ever talked about UFOs in our friendship. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I don't really know. I mean, I think it's likely that most of them are something that someone has misinterpreted obviously, because we're just not that smart as people. Um, but I don't know. So so you think like cause I, I, I've always thought it was interesting that the height of like UFO mania and stuff was in the height of the cold war, when there would be spy satellites, It's spy aircraft, experimental aircraft, on both sides, whether it's Russian or American.

So I'm going to tell you something that is going to make you laugh. When I was in elementary school, I read every book on UFOs they had in the library. Wow. There were three. Oh. It's an elementary school library. I don't know. But you know how library books have cards in them, you know, with like who's checked it out? Yeah. I was the only name in all three.

Wow. No one had ever checked them out. And they were from the early 90s, from like 1990, 1991. I learned all about Project Blue Book, which was the official name of the research they did. The federal government did about UFOs and stuff like that. I don't know if I would say I was a believer, but I was super curious. The big thing that they kept mentioning over and over was flying saucers aren't real.

UFOs are shaped like cigars, which now makes me happy. But back then I was like, what? So, yeah, unexplained, unexplained cigar shaped objects flying through the sky. And I will say, I mean, the sky is a weird place. You know, if you look up at night there, sometimes you can see satellites moving. Sometimes you can see aircraft that are really high up.

sometimes you're seeing asteroids or not asteroids, but, uh, you know, meteors flying through and stuff like that. So it is hard to really attribute what you're seeing in the sky all the time. Yeah. I also live near an air force base, like one of the biggest air force bases in America. So we get all kinds of weird stuff flying over us. That's what they tell you, huh?

Yep. Well, hangar 18 is that is supposedly where they, so if you listen to the famous radio broadcast where they said that there were, that the Roswell crash was alien spacecraft, there was a one radio report where they said that. And they actually say it has been taken to Wright Patterson, uh, uh, air force base in Ohio for further study. It literally says that it literally says that.

So, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Right. Patterson. Um, so, Anyway, so I guess my point is I don't really believe that UFOs are aliens. I think that the likelihood of aliens visiting us is low. I do think that there's got to be probably life out there just due to probability. Yeah. But who knows what level of technology they're at and yada, yada, yada. I think it'd be really cool if there was silicone based life out there.

Yeah. That'd be dope. Yeah, why not? It takes a lot longer for silicone to develop like that than carbon because we're carbon based. But I've always heard that silicone would be would be interesting. But their evolution would be like 10 times slower, maybe 100 times slower. Yeah. I always thought that was interesting. So in June of 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that between 2004 and 2021, there were 144 such encounters, 80 of which were captured on multiple sensors.

Since then, quote, we've had lots more reporting, said Anomaly Office Director Sean Kirkpatrick. When asked to qualify the amount, Kirkpatrick said, quote, several hundreds. Okay. An updated report from the Director of National Intelligence that will provide specific figures on new reports received since 2021 is expected by the end of the year, the official said. The office was set up not only to examine the question of whether there's extraterrestrial life, but also because of the security risk posed by so many encounters with unknown flying objects by military installations or military aircraft.

Well, that makes, and that makes sense. Like, yeah, if you're in a place where they fly military aircraft all the time and there's something else flying around there, that's a red flag. Yeah, yeah, that's a little weird. Um, this may- and this is from 2022- this may- congress held its first hearing in more than half a century on the topic, with multiple members expressing concern that, whether or not the objects are alien or potentially new unknown technology being flown by china, russia or another potential adversary, the unknown creates a security risk.

Okay, that's true. Yeah, I mean, like it'd be easy to tell if the unknown flying object was from china. It would have, like the wish logo on the side. Oh, you know, and it wouldn't be very good. You'd be like: ah, the russian ones are way better than this one. They must have broke the patent, damn, uh. The office office is also working on ways to improve its ability to identify unknown objects, such as by recalibrating sensors that may be focused just on known adversary aircraft or drone signatures.

One reason for the hundreds of additional reports coming in May may be the outreach the department has done to destigmatize reporting potential encounters. Each service has also established its own reporting processes, Kirkpatrick said. That makes a lot of sense, too. If you say, hey, guys, it's cool to report alien spacecraft if you think you see one. Everybody's like, oh, I saw one the other day, boss.

Yeah, exactly. They all sound like that, too. Beyond unidentifiable objects, there's a lot of new technology, such as future stealth bombers and stealth fighters, drones and hypersonic missiles being fielded by both the U.S. and China that could be mistaken for a UFO. Kirkpatrick said the new office has been coordinating with the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community to get signatures of U.S.

technology in order to rule out those aircraft and drones. Yeah, the U.S. intelligence community, they're going to gladly hand you any information. I find intelligence agencies fascinating. They are not going to give you anything. They will not even acknowledge that they have aircraft they test. Yeah. Good luck with that one. Hey, CIA, would you mind giving us a way to identify if something you're testing is out there?

They'd be like we don't test aircraft, we don't even have a budget, like our budget's, like eight grand a year, like we just um, we just um, um. And then the military guy's like uh, sir, you're not walking downstairs, you're just pretending to I can see it like sand, and they just throw sand in your face and run. Yeah, I was ever here.

Quote, we are setting up very clear mechanisms with our blue programs, both our DOD and IC programs to de-conflict any observations that come in with blue activities and ensure that we weed out those, those out and identify those fairly early on. Kirkpatrick said, referring to the blue us aircraft programs in operation by the Pentagon or intelligence agencies. Okay. Yeah, good luck with the intelligence agencies.

Telling you anything, I'm just gonna say: yeah, now have you ever watched like documentaries about, like when they declassified stuff from the cold war, about intelligence agencies? It's fascinating like they they had a car for, uh, for foreign embassies. They had a car that would literally it had a special seat back and if you pulled a lever the seat back would pop up and there would be a dummy in the clothes of the person that you were hiding.

Cool. So they would literally like pull, drive under a bridge and then the person would jump out and change their clothes as they were walking away. And then the seat would lift up so that when they kept driving, anybody who was watching the car would be like, Oh, they're still sitting in the passenger seat. Yeah. That's awesome. They had all kinds of crazy stuff like that.

I want one of those. Is that just so you can like pull a thing and then people like, Hey, Michelle has a friend. Well, I mean, I mean, yeah, but yeah, Thanks for making me feel weird about it. Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back after these commercials with more spooky news. Welcome back to Monthly Spooky.

We have one more piece of spooky news. And I saved the best for last. so this one Michelle this there are sometimes there are headlines that you read and you're just you just take a deep breath you know just go yeah so this one is from fox7austin.com okay homeless man with chainsaw has been charged for trespassing multiple times, police say. Austin, Texas.

Two weeks ago, Fox 7 told you about neighbors in the Williamson Creek Greenbelt who were concerned about a homeless man. They say he was cutting down trees, sometimes with a chainsaw. I want to point out that for weeks and weeks, people were saying, there's this homeless guy with a chainsaw and he's cutting down trees. and the police were like, ah, but meanwhile, it's like, okay, I'm going to cut a tree down in my front yard.

It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, here's a fine. You can't just do that. I don't think it works like that. Uh, it does in some areas. You can get in trouble for cutting down your own trees in some areas. Really? Yes. It's because a tree has some sort of protected status. Uh, it can be because changing certain elements of your property is, you know, is a violation of zoning or something.

Because you have you're in like an HOA or something, something like that. It can be that, but my point is that like you would get more trouble cutting down your own trees from authorities if your neighbor complained or something. Yeah, I don't know, you wouldn't know anything about being mad about trees getting cut down. So whatever, you'll have an opinion on it.

Michelle is very mad at her neighbors cutting down trees and there's no way for me to get them in trouble because it's They're trees on their property. It's our trees, comrade. So last week, neighbors said they haven't seen signs of the man. That's what you want. A menacing guy with a chainsaw. And then he's just gone. Maybe he went somewhere else to cut down trees.

Geez, I don't know. His structures are cleared out. The city says there's a second cleanup scheduled in the area of Stastny and Jones. Quote, It's been enough times that we know his name, Austin Police Sergeant William Beck said, referring to the times police have been called out because of Rami Zawadeh. Rami Zawadeh, that's his name. Neighbors say they were worried about their safety.

Why would you be worried about your safety? It's just a homeless guy with a chainsaw. What's your problem? Yeah. Quote, if you feel like you're in immediate physical danger, call 911, Beck said. quote, if he's in this case where he's swinging or carrying a machete. So he was also walking around swinging a machete. Well, remember the people said sometimes with a chainsaw.

So sometimes not with a chainsaw. In this case where he's swinging or carrying a machete and he's swinging it, but he's not swinging it towards anyone or doing anything in particular that's dangerous. It's not illegal to carry a machete. Okay. Zawalde has been charged with trespassing five times. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that. The county attorney rejected prosecuting him three times.

One case is pending and another is active. Court records show Zawalde has a pretrial hearing on November 29th. This is for a trespassing charge that was filed in September. Police say on November 10th they gave him a criminal trespassing notice. They're not aware of any complaints against him since that day. As for the trees that were allegedly cut down, Beck says, quote, we have not had any anybody that's filed or followed up with any type of estimate as far as how much damage the tree cutting has caused.

He adds, there's only so much we can do. We can arrest them. We can file the charges. After that, it's up to the court. This is weird. The Travis County Attorney's Office sent the following statement earlier, quote, We are not able to comment on matters that are pending before our courts. We are, however, aware of the challenges that have long existed at the intersections of public safety, housing and homelessness and mental illness.

Our office will continue working with our neighbors and stakeholders to find long term solutions that keep our community safe with all while also helping individuals get the services they need. I mean, that makes sense. This guy is clearly not doing great. I mean, we don't know that he's cutting down trees. and then probably, I assume, selling them. From what I understand, he's just leaving them.

Oh, really? Yeah. So it gets crazier. Let me see if I can find another news story about this because it gets crazier. Because he started destroying rocks with a sledgehammer, too, like boulders that were put there to keep cars from falling into ravines. Maybe because he didn't like them. That's fine. I want to find this because I just learned about this right before we recorded and I was like, oh, I've got to add this to it.

Oh, here's the newest story from Fox 7 Austin. This is the most recent updated story. Okay. Okay. A homeless man blamed for wreaking havoc in South Austin's neighborhood explained his actions. Residents said he uses a chainsaw and a machete to cut down trees in the middle of the night. And now he's taking a sledgehammer to city property. So this is just two months later.

Residents of the Westgate neighborhood said the chainsaw slinging tree chopper is back. Quote, I love America. Quote, it just migrated to another part of the neighborhood, Westgate resident J.J. Pepper said. Now he's near Cherry Creek Drive and Westgate Boulevard. Residents said Rami Zawadeh has taken a sledgehammer to city property. The Watershed Protection Department placed the boulders there a few months ago to avoid people from driving into a riparian zone.

This level of escalation with the boulders is just really worrisome. This is our community. We have a walking trail 10 feet away from us here. We really can't have this happen, Cherry Creek resident Frankie Heffley said. Hefley said a neighbor jogging saw Zawade Breaking the boulders and asked him to stop- Oh god, you're gonna love this Michelle- And asked him to stop.

Now a message is written on the sidewalk saying Hey, tough guy jogger, I'll be back tonight or the night after, FYI. Wow, Do you see why I had to talk about this? Wow, this isn't good. No, it's not. Mental health is obviously an issue and we just don't know when he's going to snap and take it to another level. Hefley said- quote: we've tried to make it a place where families can come and we've succeeded at that.

It's been that way for several years now and and to have that threatened- threatened- is really disturbing. Cherry creek community garden site director terry southwell said: what would you do if you were like walking down a sidewalk, your sidewalk in front of your home, and you saw a dude like bashing boulders with a sledgehammer and you went, hey, could you stop doing that?

And then the next day it was like: hey, girl with dreads, I'll be out tonight, was written on the sidewalk. What would you do? I guess I probably have to call police. Um, you sound so defeated. Yeah, I might write a message because I have some chalk. I might write a message back and that just says: please don't come back and hurt my stuff.

So that he knows that I don't want him to. And also I'm not tough. And just so you know, he carved it into the sidewalk. He carved it? Oh, it's carved in. Oh. It's permanent. Then I will, I'm going to take, oh, I know. I'm going to one-up him. I'm going to take a sledgehammer to the sidewalk over there. And then under it, I'm going to write, fuck you.

Stay off my property. Oh. Yeah. Michelle is my favorite person and you've all learned why just now. So it's now it's, it's going to get even weirder. Michelle. Zawade is known for doing other things like throwing a machete up on a post outside the Cherry Creek Creek community garden. Okay. I saw a photo. That's the post that like you go through to enter the garden.

Just had a machete stuck in it. Just sitting there. Yeah. That's not threatening. Spray painting boulders, building sculptures. Apparently he's used the trees to build sculptures, like weird, like tree sculptures. Oh, um, he's also taken boulders and made giant crosses out of them on the ground. Oh yeah, it's about to get crazy. And yelling early in the morning, quote. Oh, what were you gonna say?

Sorry? No, nothing. Quote- screaming, cussing, and if it's not directly under the bridge, it's somewhere down in the creek, so it's like where it is coming from, which is kind of just unsettling. Pepper said: residents said they'd been dealing with it for about six months and want something to be done. Wow, quote, there's got to be something that a professional can do in regard to helping.

But this person needs to be removed and rehabilitated so they can be put back into society because they're just unwell. Pepper said: yeah, that's a very nice. Oh, my god. Yep, there's another picture of the carving of the words into the sidewalk. Um, they're being very kind. I, I mean it like I don't know if I would be that kind if it had been going on for six months in my neighborhood, like my neighbors like fill up the whole street too often with cars and I'm like people are awful.

You know, I'm not, although I guess that's not a mental health thing, that's just: you're a jerk, you're, you don't think about other people. Quote: when he is arrested and it gets to the court level, something needs to be done there because basically it's dropping at the court level, charges are being dropped. So um, oh god, uh, yeah, what were you gonna say?

I just think maybe something else is going on here. Like he's building big crosses, he's making all these things. He's about to talk to Fox 7's reporter. After talking with residents, Zawade rode up on his bicycle. He didn't want to be filmed, but he agreed to talk with Fox 7 to explain why he does what he does. Zawade said he's been working on those boulders for the last three nights and he's taking out Satanism.

Okay. Okay. I know what you're thinking. You're like, oh, thank goodness. I thought it was going to be something crazy. Yeah. He's just taking out satanism. Guys, everybody, it's all good, relax, enjoy yourself. He's taking out satanism. So if, like, everybody just starts spray painting like crosses on their trees, is that? And boulders is, are we good? It's about to get a little scarier.

Oh, so you notice how he has been escalating, right? Yes, he said the reason he made the sculptures about two months ago was because the homeowner across the street is a satanist, okay, and he wanted to present his work in front of the neighbor's house. To me, that is now. It's not safe. Like that is a threat to me, like that he's walking around with chainsaws and sledgehammers and machetes and saying that someone in that neighborhood is bad.

That scares the crap out of me. Yeah, it's, oh my gosh. So the watershed protection department said they're aware of the situation and are assessing the damage. They said they're working with the austin police department to file a criminal mischief report. Uh, apd said they're monitoring the area. Court records show zawade has two active misdemeanor cases for criminal trespassing and prosecutors declined to pursue three other misdemeanors.

I mean, it's possible that the reason this keeps getting dropped on the core level is because they know something that we don't know. Like this is all a lie and he's actually hunting vampires and he has to do all of this stuff to keep this neighborhood safe. And everyone thinks he's crazy. Oh man. Okay. Okay. I like where you're going with this.

I like where you're going with this. I like that. It didn't start really getting serious until he started destroying the boulders the city put. Yeah, and now they're like: whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy, that's, you may be allowed to terrorize all of these people who are moderately wealthy, but the second you start messing with the watershed council we're gonna have to talk with about this.

Yeah, like I, I don't know. I I mean, there are lots of elements to this and I do think that the poor guy needs help. He's clearly nuts and I and I- and I say that with a degree of like I'm sorry that he is so mentally unwell, but like he's out of his mind. He needs, he needs counseling, um, forced counseling.

Yeah, like he needs to be put a place where he can talk about his theories and his sculptures with a trained professional. Or at least take the chainsaw away. No, he has a right to personal property. I'm sorry. That's where I draw the line. Okay. I mean, I just think that he would be fine if he wasn't using it to harm things.

What I want to know is how he can afford the gasoline for the chainsaw. Um, yeah, I was kind of wondering that too, but maybe he has a job. I I mean maybe, because we're talking about a lot of this happening at night and in the early morning, right? Oh, so you? So you think he's like, he's out working at, like, sax fifth avenue, selling suits, and then he's like: and then he comes home, comes home and he and he kicks off his, uh, his nice boots and puts on his work boots- yeah, puts away his selling, uh, selling expensive suits, chainsaw, and gets out his fighting Satan Chainsaw.

Yeah. This is starting to sound like an anime very quickly. Yeah. Let's do it. Do you think that Chainsaw Man could have influenced him? Um, probably not. But who knows? You never want to point the finger at anime. No, I don't. That's fair. That's fair. Well, I hope that he gets the help he needs and I appreciate him creating news headlines that literally make me think you're in a horror movie.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that this will be maybe a movie on lifetime, not even being funny. Like, I think this will be like a movie on, like a movie on lifetime based on this will be out in eight, nine months tops. Okay. Um, especially if they could set it at Christmas. Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen that lifetime is, uh, has started doing on the lifetime movie network.

They, they're, they're doing, uh, they do slaves of slaves of Christmas, which are, uh, scary thrillers, but they're also set at Christmas. Now they're doing like a high school. hybrid of the two most popular lifetime movies. It's pretty good idea. I watched, I watched one. Oh gosh, I forget what it was called now, but I watched one and it was really good.

It was just like a scary thriller, but it was also Christmas time. Oh, so good. I unashamedly love those, those movies. I can't help myself. Yeah. So, well, so I guess we know now if somebody did this to Michelle, Michelle would just be ready to kick their butt. you're not coming on my property and hurting my trees. Man, Michelle's so tough. I want to be you when I grow up.

No, but I do. No, it's not true. You're so you're tougher than me and cooler. How, how does that work? All the ways. Could you name one? You have a successful podcast. That's pretty cool. You're on my successful podcast. Yeah, I guess. That's fair. Well, Michelle, it's about time that we talk about love. Oh. Did you know that one of my favorite Valentine's Days ever was having dinner with you?

Oh, yeah. Do you remember that? I do. Of course. Yeah. We went and got, well, I mean, you know, it's just, it was in 2012. 2012. Yeah, 2012. Because I was in town for the George Robb concert. And then afterward, it was like two days before Valentine's Day was the concert. So I came and hung out with you and we went out and we got Laotian Thai food.

Yeah, we did. That food was excellent, by the way. I wish I do. You know the name of that place? I do not remember the name of that place. No, but I know where it is. Yeah, because we were in West Philadelphia. Born and raised on the playground is where I spent most of my days. And I got one little bowl of pad thai and my mom got scared.

No, it was Laotian pad thai. It was very, very good. We literally picked that place just walking along the street. So that was one of my favorite Valentine's days ever. So thank you, Michelle. You're welcome. So what was your favorite Valentine's day ever? It's kind of so awkward if you don't say the one I said. Yeah, I mean, I guess that one.

I don't really do things on Valentine's day usually. You don't? I don't believe you. Yeah. What? No. This year I have to decide if I'm going to go see that there's a new Kage-sama movie. And they're releasing it on Valentine's Day. You should go see it. I don't know if I want to. Why not? It feels really weird. You should. You should treat yourself.

Go see an anime rom-com on Valentine's Day. Yeah. I'm gonna go see Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey on Valentine's Day, Okay, Which I'm really excited about. It actually looks great, And full disclosure. I do business with the company That's distributing it, But they have not asked me to in any way Promote it. I just want to go see it Because it looks friggin awesome.

It's a Winnie the Pooh slasher movie. I just want to go see it. Wow, I've never had to do a full disclosure before. That felt weird. Yeah, from now on, I'm just lying. Yeah, why not? So, but we're gonna take a break. But when we get back, we're gonna go through some of the some terrifying true stories about love gone wrong. Oh, and Michelle will give her highly, highly experienced insight on the matter right after this.

All right, we are back with Monthly Spooky and Michelle. Third time's a charm. Love is in the air. Okay, this time I won't do anything embarrassing. So I like being fully transparent. This is the third time we've started this segment because I've been a little overwhelmed this last week or two. And the original topic we were going to discuss turned out to be so insanely depressing and dark and not at all entertaining to me.

Yeah, made Michelle laugh, though she seemed to really enjoy stories about, like, dead parents and stuff like that. I, I'm, I'm wondering a little bit about you. I'm not gonna pretend I'm not, they don't, they can't hear it. So it didn't happen. I should just include those at the end is like how it takes. Want to hear, want to hear you. Want to hear enrique feel really, really uneasy.

Want to hear him go. Uh, let's not do this one. That was literally how it went. So, uh, yeah, but now we've got something to talk about that I feel is very in line with our Monthly Spooky good times and it's from listverse. Com, it's 10 love stories that ended in murder. Yay, do you know any love stories that ended in murder?

No, wow, okay, I mean. Well, I mean true stories, these are true. Um, I mean, I guess romeo and juliet is like the one you know. I don't really think that that was murder, that's fair. It's mostly suicide, yeah, all right. Well, number 10 is the murder of gaston calmette. Paris is the city of love, but wherever you find amore, you're bound to find murder.

That doesn't rhyme. Um, no, no. Take the story of henrietta renaud, for example. In 1911, the french socialite married joseph cadu, a career politician. Well, there you go. A career politician, I mean, yeah. And notorious Casanova, who dumped his first wife for the lovely Henrietta after being, uh, after he became prime minister. What wait, this guy's the prime minister of France. Yeah, holy moly, I'm sorry, that's just like, really like, when it says like a career politician, like, oh, he's just some like parliament guy who's just collecting a check and being corrupt.

No, he's the prime minister. As a member of the center-left radical party, Joseph made quite a few enemies thanks to his pro-German policies. Now, this is in World War I. Okay. This is in World War I, the one where maybe they were the good guys. Okay. Unlike World War II, where they were definitely the good guys. Sorry. I couldn't even get it out.

No, no. No, yeah. Are we the baddies? But even after he left office in 1912, he remained an influential figure. That didn't sit well with gaston calmette, the editor of le figaro and one of calo's- calo's biggest critics. Convinced joseph was a threat to france, calo calmet planned to destroy his reputation. Oh, in 1914 calmette shocked paris by publishing a love letter between joseph and his first mistress, bertha guyden.

Uh, with callow's private life on display, henrietta began getting nervous. During their adulterous affair, she and joseph had exchanged numerous letters and gossip around town, said calmette planned on publishing those too. Oh, how did he? I wonder how he got them. Yeah, I'm guessing from the lady. I guess, I don't know. I guess The internet. Did you say the internet? Yeah, You know, that really is the only solution that makes sense.

Yeah, I'll give you that. So, Oh boy, Excuse me, Sorry, I was trying. I actually tried to hit my mute button while I coughed And instead I hit a louder button. Oh no, I'm not even joking, That's really what happened. I hit like a boost button instead. Enjoy that cough, everybody. Let's see. Partly to protect her husband and partly to safeguard her secrets, Henrietta decided to pay the newspaper editor a visit.

On March 16th, 1914, Henrietta entered Calumet's office with a scarf concealing both hands. As she walked inside, she challenged the journalist with, You know why I have come? That was a question. Clueless Calmet responded with not at all, madam. That's when Henrietta whipped a Browning automatic out of her hand warmer and shot Calmet six times in the stomach. But didn't even answer why she came.

Well, actions speak louder than words. I guess. Also, I would be a bad horror fan if I didn't say six times, six times. I shot him six times. It's from Halloween. As police officers surrounded her, Henrietta boldly declared: do not touch me, I am a lady. That is what I am going to say if I commit a crime from now on. Yeah, bar none, that's my plan.

Do not touch me, I am a lady. Yeah, during the sensational trial, Henrietta played up the stereotype that women are governed by emotions. I'm just a woman. I had the hysteria. I mean, you know what? If, if, if they're going to be sexist, you may as well try and get something out of it. Right. I mean, how do you feel about that?

Or do you think that's no good? Um, I mean, yeah, you gotta do what you gotta do to in a trial to not go to jail, I guess. Yeah. Um, so I mean, whatever. She sprinkled her testimony with references to the unconscious and the nervous system. Swayed by her argument, the all-male jury took less than an hour to reach a verdict of not guilty.

Oh my God. See, they knew what they were doing. I'm sorry. I just. Wow. Wow. Vindicated, Henrietta went on to study art and write a book before her death in 1943. Yay. So it was a happy ending. Yeah, everything's fine. Yeah. Calmet comedy deserved. That's what you... You know, this is going to be tasteless to say, but France, it doesn't seem like being a publisher or journalist is a good idea in France.

I feel like they get killed a lot. Maybe. This next one is about the king of the bootleggers. George Remus was a jack of all trades. First a pharmacist and later a lawyer. Remus decided it was time for another career change when Congress enacted the Volstead Act of 1919. Ooh, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Hey. And using his pharmacist license to order whiskey for medicinal purposes, started a multimillion dollar bootlegging enterprise.

Yay. Good for him. Yeah. Remus was a big spender and built himself a mansion complete with swimming pool, horse stable and baseball field. He threw lavish parties where he handed out diamond studded watches and automobiles. What is he? He was Oprah before Oprah. And you get an automobile because they don't say cars yet. And you get an automobile and you get an automobile.

I don't like you as much. You get one of those bicycles with one big wheel and one small wheel. Oh my God. What would you do if you were at a party and somebody was like, oh, Michelle, it's so great to have you here. So thank you so much for coming. Here's the keys to an automobile just for you. I would ask them if it was going to explode when I got inside.

Assume this is a friend. Is it gonna explode when I get inside? I guess that's a fair question. In fact, some suspect this king of the bootleggers inspired f? Scott fitzgerald's jay gatsby from the great gatsby and just like gatsby, remus had his eye on a special lady, a woman named Emogen Holmes. I like how I read that Emogen and immediately was like, oh, I know that name.

And then totally flubbed saying it anyway, even though I've heard the name Emogen. Infatuated Remus divorced his first wife soon. He and his new bride were running one of the biggest alcohol empires in the United States. For those who don't know, I just realized you know, some people aren't in the United States- the Volsteed Act made was called prohibition. It made alcohol illegal, in case somebody didn't know that.

So, um yeah, when remus was finally arrested in 1924, he gave emojan power of attorney over his illegal enterprise. How does that work? So? So you're gonna run his illegal enterprise and if anybody says anything you're like, well, I have his power of attorney, so it's legal for me to operate his illegal enterprise. I don't think that works that way. I don't think that works like that.

Like what? Uh, this, oh this was his first mistake. Oh, his second was telling inmate frank dodge- that emoji was charred in charge of all his money. Dodge was actually an undercover fbi agent and when he got out of jail he hooked up with mrs remus. The two sold everything the bootlegger owned and took off with all of his money. Oh my god, that is not where I thought this was going.

No, me neither. That is amazing. So so the reason it was a bad move because he was an undercover fbi agent was because he was able to then just leave prison and go wine and dine this millionaire woman. Yeah, oh my god, that is not where I thought this was going at all. Where'd you think this was going? Um, I guess he would get killed.

Yeah, that does seem like that's. It's. We're not done yet, So maybe somebody dies. Obviously, Remus was not too happy when he got out of prison. He got even angrier when Imogen filed for divorce, tried to have him deported, and attempted to have him whacked. Wow. I like how the article says whacked. That means killed. Yeah. It's interesting to throw in period accurate words.

But then just like one. And then the rest of the one. Yeah, things finally exploded on october 6th 1927, the day the divorce papers were final, were to be finalized as emojin left the courthouse. Uh, the gangster ordered his driver to force emojin's taxi off the road. Her car went careening into eden park. As she climbed out of the wreckage, remus stuck a gun in her gut and fired everybody's, shooting people in the stomach.

Yeah well, back then you couldn't recover from it very well. Oh, you know the term gut shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the good stuff. During the ensuing trial, remus acted as his own attorney, claiming he had been temporarily insane. Temporarily insane, so it's literally the same thing, as the other lady said. Surprisingly, the jury bought it and found him not guilty. Oh,.

Okay. However, he was shipped off to a mental institution for six months. Okay. He needed to go because he was temporarily insane. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, six months is temporary. I mean, you know. When he got out, he spent the rest of his life trying to regain his fortune, but died a poor man in 1952, still believing he'd done right by killing his wife.

I mean, she did. Steal his entire everything. Exactly. So I get it. Would you consider that? I mean, not like, obviously there's a difference between like self-defense, like somebody pulls a gun on you and you pull a gun on them and shoot them first. But would you consider it like he was defending his life's work? He was defending everything he had because she was trying to steal everything.

She wasn't trying to take half of everything in a divorce. She was trying to literally collude with some guy and take his entire his entire fortune while he was incarcerated. Yeah, I mean, I don't really know. It's it's so tricky because since the whole thing is, you know, money and stuff made off of things that are illegal. You can't say like, well, he should have gone through the system to get her to not steal from him.

And they are ill gotten gains. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. That these are ill-gotten gains, but it is still technically legally his money until it's determined to be ill-gotten gains and the government takes it from it. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm pretty sure. I don't know. I am not a lawyer. In case anyone was wondering. Okay, so now we're going to head into the new millennium.

Oh. This one is called the Internet Chatroom Murder. Okay. Thomas Montgomery was a 47 year old married New Hampshire man with two kids. He told none of that to tall, hot blonde, the 18 year old he met in a pogo chat room. He instead said he was a teenage Iraqi war vet named Tommy. How do you be a teenage? I guess, I guess you were injured and sent home.

That would have to be delayed. You're either 18 or 19. Yeah. Catfishes often say that they're in the military. Yeah. Yeah. It's very popular. Yeah. It makes sense. So he said he was a teenage Iraq war veteran named Tommy and the two hit it off. Tall hot blonde, also known as Jesse, started sending gifts of erotic photos of herself. Okay. I, and it's gifts, not gifts.

So it wasn't animated images. It was, they were gifts, but not gifts. Sadly. Thriving. This article. I love the writing in this. Thriving on the attention and cyber sex, Montgomery bragged about his exploits to friends, but everything fell apart when his wife found out. You feel bad for him? No. She sent Jesse a letter explaining that Montgomery was a middle-aged married man, one old enough to be her dad.

Horrified, jesse broke off the relationship, shifting her attention to montgomery's co-worker, 22 year old brian barrett. Wow, the switch didn't sit well with thomas. The older man became violent, sending jesse disturbing messages. Like brian will pay in blood, I mean. At least he didn't carve it into a sidewalk. Yeah, and when montgomery learned that barrett planned on visiting jesse at her West Virginia home- a meeting Jesse canceled at the last minute, he decided Brian needed to die.

On September 15th, 2006, as Barrett sat in his car, Montgomery shot him sniper style with a 30 caliber rifle. Wow. So when you say sniper style, does that just mean you used a rifle? I think it means he did it without him seeing him kind of. I still think that's, I think that's just how a rifle usually works is you're a little far away and you aim it and shoot people.

Yeah, but you know, but it wasn't like, he wasn't like, hey, and then he shot him. He was like quiet and stalking him and then he shot him. Which by the way is the ideal way to murder somebody. Hey you! Bang! It's funnier. It's funnier? When police learned about the love triangle, they decided to warn Jessie that she might be next. However, when authorities arrived at tall, hot blonde's home, they found mary sheeler, a middle-aged woman.

Sheeler had a daughter named jesse, but this jesse had never heard of montgomery or barrett. It turned out the mom was leading a double life. I, I was waiting for that. Yeah, I was assuming that they were all fbi agents. But that's romancing both men while posing as her teenage daughter. Well then, where did the erotic pictures come from? Her daughter? Ah!

Yeah. I don't like this anymore. Police had no grounds for arresting Sheeler, but they caught Montgomery, who was eventually sentenced to 20 years after a guilty plea. However, during an appeal, he pled temporary insanity and was found not guilty. No, I'm just kidding. But Sheila did not escape unscathed. Both her husband and daughter abandoned her, leaving a lonely catfish in a very bloody pond.

Wow. What if the writing is just excellent? High quality. What do you think of this? That whole thing, Michelle? I mean, I'm just glad that they are both catfishing each other. Yeah. You know, that's what I was waiting for. And I felt really bad for that other guy who didn't know he was being catfished. For sure. Just some guy. He was just some guy.

Yeah. I like that she was like, I'll just catfish this war veteran. Like, this guy. But also, like, she was, you know, when she found out that he wasn't, you know, she was like, oh my God, I can't be with this person. What a horrible person. You lied to me. Yeah. Do you. How often do you find yourself being catfished in a day?

I don't know. 10, 20. Seven times. Yeah, I know you get a lot of like uh messages from people saying that they're in love with you and stuff. Yeah, actually it comes and goes. I haven't had very many in a while now. It's just like people on facebook who want to scam me- oh that's nice. But are like, hey, did you hear about this government program?

Or like, hey, can you give me your phone number so I can log back into facebook? Oh, that's my favorite one. Even though we've never talked before. That's my favorite one. Yeah. I always give them 8, 6, 7, 5, 3, 0, 9. That's a good idea. I just said no. That works too. Okay. Let's get back to some sick love. Excuse me.

The Mercedes Benz murderess. Clara Harris and her husband, David, were Houston dentists. Whoa. Two dentists married each other. Wow. I don't know how I feel about that I think it's fine I hear it's becoming more common For dentists to marry each other? Did you actually hear that somewhere? No, but I did hear recently that people in the same professions Are marrying each other much more frequently than they used to Huh Yeah Interesting Well, I don't want to pick apart their marriage Huh?

That was the best I could come up with I am so sorry. It was okay. They're both dentists who seemed happily married. They had three kids, a nice house, and a couple of expensive cars, like Clara's Mercedes. Oh. Yeah. Their life seemed great right until David admitted he was having an affair with his former receptionist. Okay. Man, you couldn't even keep her on the payroll.

Yeah. That's kind of harsh. Yeah. Although, I mean, he admitted to it. So that's like, would you call that points in his favor, though, that he confessed to it? Well, when did he confess? Did he just come out of the blue or was he called out on it? And then he was like, OK. Oh, goodness. This gets crazy. Yeah. It looks like he told her about it because he wanted to leave her for the former receptionist.

I mean, yeah, I mean. Desperate to keep her husband, Clara tried everything to win him back. She quit her job and began working out. She dyed her hair, worked on her tan, and scheduled breast enhancement surgery. Wow. But when her plans failed, she decided to get more aggressive. Clara hired a private detective to tail the two lovebirds, and on July 24, 2002, she got a call.

The investigator had followed the couple to the Nassau Bay Hilton in Houston Texas, the same hotel where clara and david had gotten married. Come on, that's the only hotel there. It must be the only one. Infuriated, clara grabbed her keys and her 16 year old stepdaughter and sped off in her mercedes. Wait, so it was her 16 year old stepdaughter. That means that the guys- that's his daughter with his well, I mean, you know whatever.

When she reached the hilton, clara stormed inside the lobby and attacked her rival, tearing, tearing at her until they were escorted outside by hotel security. Yeah, they gotta do that outside. Yeah, take it outside, ladies. Yeah, furious clara rushed back to her car and as the adulterers walked away, she hit the gas. The car slammed into david, sending him soaring, and before he even touched the ground, Clara hit him again.

Oh, shit. This time she waited for David to land before running him over three times. Wow. That's. So do you consider it adultery if he's confessed to it and is like clearly planning to leave her? I don't know. Is it adultery anymore? I mean, like it is legally, but I mean, like, is it? I mean, yeah. Like at that point you're separated, right?

I mean, are they separated? That's. I mean that they don't say in this article because they're too busy using words like whacked um, but it's just like it says. As the adulterers walked away, I'm like, well, they're. I mean, if it's out in the open, I don't know, yeah, but I guess they aren't, but they did probably commit adultery in the past, so we can still call them adulterers, okay, okay, I could agree with that.

In a twist of fate, the detective clara had hired to catch her husband had recorded his murder. Oh, coupled with her stepdaughter's testimony, the pi's video sealed clara's fate. The mercedes-benz murderess was sentenced to 20 years behind bars, the maximum penalty for someone acting with- quote- sudden passion. Oh, clara was denied parole in 2013, but she'll get another crack at freedom in 2014.

So this is an old one. It's an old one, but. But so there you go, like that's how this, how the justice system has shifted. They were like, well, it's not, you didn't plan this in advance. So 20 years. It's a pretty brutal murder. Yeah. Yeah. And in front of his own daughter. Yeah. Which she brought there for some weird reason. I, I, if I had to guess, she brought her there to be like, you know, we're your family.

Look what you're doing to us. Or to be like, watch me kill your father. Yeah. Either, either one's a good answer. I mean. Yeah. I would expect nothing less from our Thanksgiving. Wow. Our Valentine's day themed show, but we're going to go to a commercial break real quick and we'll be back with even more very sad stories of love. And we are back here at Monthly Spooky with even more stories of love.

And generally murder. So, and unfortunately no stories of people's parents dying yet for Michelle to laugh at. They're so weird, Michelle. So, so this next one is the sad story of Celeste Beard and Tracy Tarleton. Stephen Beard was a 69 nice year old millionaire from Austin, Texas. He was also a lonely widower who had the misfortune of meeting Celeste Johnson, a waitress at Beard's Country Club.

The 32-year-old Celeste was attractive but had a troublesome history filled with depression and suicide attempts and even criminal acts. Despite her instability and the prominent age gap, the couple got married in 1995. Things then quickly spiraled out of control. I want to point out, I have never heard of a very attractive 30-year-old woman who's single being a problem. Never, never, never heard of such a thing.

Okay. That is not a stereotype. Yeah. Not even a little bit. Okay. So not only was their marriage sexually cold, but Celeste regularly drugged beards food so she could sneak off with one of her ex-husbands. What? Why? Okay. This, that escalated very quickly. Yeah. It went from like, you know, she's has a history of being unstable and depressed too. She would just drug her husband and went and would sleep with her ex husband.

Wow. Okay. We got here very quickly, but okay. She could just ask him if that's okay. First. I know. Right. And then when he says no murder him, which might be where we're headed. So we'll see. We'll see where this is going. Uh, uh, she frequently insulted Steven's weight and reportedly said, why doesn't he die already? Celeste also went wild with beard's cash, leading the old man to cancel her credit cards.

Oh, the ensuing spat ended with celeste threatening suicide and beard putting her in a hospital. That's where she met tracy tarleton. Oh, oh boy, there's more people in this. Oh boy, yeah, that's the one mistake she made. By marrying him he could commit her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh. Tarleton, 35, was struggling with drugs and alcohol. I guess she couldn't lift the cup up to her mouth, so she was struggling with...

Yeah, it's hard. Bad joke, I'm sorry. She was also smitten with Celeste. Just a few days after they met, Tarleton started sending Celeste long love letters, and the two started a relationship. What I want to know, you say long love letters, are we talking like a thousand words? We talk in 500 words, we talk in 2 000 words. So which we said?

This was like 95 ish. I think it was 94. Okay, so it's paper letters probably. Yes, so I wouldn't be thinking in words so much as pages. One page, I mean, if it says long, it's got to be over two pages in my opinion. I mean single, single sided. I would say, oh, I'm thinking back in front. Okay, how many? So I'm saying five, five pages, five pages back.

Okay, yeah, and they're probably not like legal pad pages, they're probably a little on the smaller side from like a spiral notebook or something. I mean I was thinking like computer size paper, but yeah, no, you're probably right, probably like spiral notebook kind of paper with lines on it and he doesn't write in the lines: she, she, sorry, gosh, did you just get heteronormative?

Yeah, wow, wow, sorry, I wasn't sure about the name. So I mean it said tarleton 35 was struggling with drugs and alcohol. She was also smitten with celeste. Oh, I missed that. Wow, or I didn't want to assume. Wow, I apologize for Michelle, everybody, sorry. So, uh, let's see. The affair continued long after their hospital stay and celeste's daughters caught them having sex and beards home on several occasions, several, several.

But while tracy was really in love, celeste was playing a deadly game, one that would involve tarleton beard and a shotgun. Oh, on october 2nd 1999, celeste left her doors unlocked and retreated to her bedroom. Not long after, tracy crept inside armed with a 20 gauge. When she found beard asleep in bed, tracy took aim and blasted a hole in his stomach.

What is it with the stomachs? I guess? That's like where you shoot people when it's a crime of passion. Okay, it's just stomach is the way to go. Also, I mean, celeste kept calling him fat, so maybe that was like the easiest spot to get. Yeah, I guess. Um, the old man managed. I like that, that's, he's just become a victim. And then the writer calls him the old man.

Yeah, the old, they should, But like the old fat, ugly, doddering fool managed to go like. This is harsh. The old man managed to call 911 telling the operator, quote, my guts are in my hands. That's that's something. Investigators linked a shotgun shell to Tracy's weapon and charged her with murder when Beard eventually died. However, prosecutors were quite suspicious of Celeste, especially after she spent $550,000 in the two months after Beard's death.

And remember, that's in 1999-ish money. So by today's standards, that's $4.8 billion. Yeah, I know. But Tarleton refused to indict her lover until she learned Celeste had quickly remarried. remarried scorned Tracy told prosecutors how Celeste had planned the whole thing. And with the additional testimony of her own children, Celeste was thrown in the slammer. Why do they, why the slammer? I don't know this writer.

She won't even be eligible for parole until 2043. Oh, wow. As for Tracy, the woman who pulled the trigger, she was released in August of 2011. and will hopefully avoid shooting any more millionaires. That's literally what it says. What is I? Okay. So I'm impressed by that, though. That was some serious justices served because the woman who pulled the trigger was clearly manipulated and clearly mentally unwell, had a history of being mentally unwell.

It's very, very common, you know, if you're a drug addict or an alcoholic, to replace your, your addiction, with being addicted to a person. That's why they recommend you don't date for a while after you become clean. So basically, like her drug addiction was like: now, kill this person. And she was like, okay, yeah, totally messed up. So I'm glad that they threw the book at her.

Yeah, so darn it, welcome to to to my judge show all right. Number five: the murder of greg smart. Pamela smart wasn't happy when her husband, greg, chopped off his wild hair, gave up his bad boy image and became an insurance salesman. Okay, oh, that's my backup plan. Uh. She was even less thrilled when, weeks before their first anniversary, Greg admitted he'd cheated on her.

With another insurance salesman? God, I hope so. Excuse me. Sorry, I'm very coughing today. That's okay. Greg admitted he'd cheated on her. Angry, Pamela did what any reasonable 22-year-old teacher would do. She manipulated her 15-year-old lover into murdering her husband. What? Do you need me to repeat that? No. Okay. I felt like it was pretty cut and dry. Yeah. The teenager was Billy Flynn, a student at Winnicunit High School in Hampton, New Hampshire.

Smart was the school's media services director. And oh, well, so she wasn't even a teacher. That means you had to like, I'm sorry, like that means you got to like really be like looking. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I like how it's like this. She's a worse pedophile than I imagined. and Flynn spent his free time helping her create educational videos. I bet.

Yeah. Flynn learned quite a bit from his teacher. Oh, well, I guess she is a teacher. It says media services director. And after an evening watching the erotic drama, nine and a half weeks, the two had sex in Pamela's condo. From then on. I know, right? Why? I love that. They knew that they watched nine and a half weeks. Yeah. From then on, smart head flynn wrapped around her finger and several rendezvous later, she laid down an ultimatum: get rid of greg or their relationship is over.

Yeah, I feel like I know this story. This sounds familiar, although I hate to say it, but like sometimes I worry because I'll say like, oh, I've heard this one. And then I'm like, oh, no, it's just that like murderers aren't that clever? Yeah, no, I mean, I've just, I haven't heard this story, but I've definitely seen this done in, like tv shows and stuff like this exact thing.

So lifetime's bread and honey, you know that. Um can, oh- and this is oh. Here's where it gets even worse- convinced greg was abusing pamela, so pamela was playing up the like he's beaten me and stuff. Oh my god, flynn agreed to do the dirty deed, asking two buddies to help out. Oh my god. Well, that fills into that thing. You know, a good friend will help you move.

A great friend will help you move a body. Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I don't do that for my friends. You wouldn't help me move. Well, we've talked about how we, how we, you have more dreams than I do about, like you just committed murder. Yeah, and now you gotta try to get away with it. Yeah, but I don't ever ask people to help me.

Jeez, that's sad. You never asked me in your dream to help you hide a body. No, because I'm too scared, so I won't tell anybody. I wouldn't turn you in. That's nice, I mean, Unless it turns out I was always a cop, and this is one long ruse. Oh. Okay. I won't tell you any more things about. With Smart's coaching, the trio decided to make the execution look like a burglary gone wrong.

Okay. Oh, wow. This is from 1990. Okay. On May 1st, 1990, Smart left the back door of her condo unlocked, and Flynn and his friend Randall sneaked inside while a third accomplice waited with a getaway car. When Greg came home from work, the teens wrestled him to the ground and put a bullet in his skull. Oh, my God. In his head. Right in his head.

See, this is where these kinds... Like, I'm not saying anything brilliant by saying that criminals are often very stupid. Mm-hmm. But why would you leave the door unlocked? That's what I was thinking. Like, lock the door. Yeah, they got to break the lock. That way it's a breaking and entering. Yeah. Exactly, because otherwise it'll show that there's no sign of forced entry.

Yes, and then they'll assume that you're familiar with the victim. Yeah. Just ridiculous, leave the back door unlocked. I mean, it's like, well, maybe it's like, well, we don't want to get a breaking and entering charge, too, if we get caught. Yeah, because that'll be rough on you when they're getting you for the murder for hire. I don't know if it's murder for hire when it's a favor.

I'd have to talk to my IRS agent. No, that counts as income. However, Smart's scheme crumbled pretty quickly. Detectives felt Smart was too apathetic about her husband's death and noticed that she casually tromped back and forth over the bloodstains in her living room. when I'm nervous, I pace. Their suspicions were confirmed when they wired smarts, best friend, Cecilia price, age 15. Her best friend was also a 15 year old.

Wait, wait. Yeah. I think that's the kid. No, no smarts, best friend. Smart is the name of the woman. Oh God. What the fuck? Yeah. Her best friend was a 15 year old girl. There's so many reasons. This woman belongs in prison. Um, but they uh, yeah. So they wired her friend, cecilia price, who was 15 years old, with a microphone mike.

The microphone caught pamela implicating herself, and the high school teacher was charged with murder. Thanks to the tapes and flynn's testimony, pamela smart got life without parole. As for the teenagers, they were sentenced to 28 years to life. Wow, wow, they threw the book at them, man. I mean, it's not okay to kill people, even if they're bad people, you know? So I get it.

That should be the next official Michelle t-shirt. It's just, it's not okay to kill people even if they're bad people. All right, this one is the Evelyn Nesbitt Love Triangle. Okay. Evelyn Nesbitt was the Marilyn Monroe of the first decade of the 20th century. Thanks to her unearthly beauty she became a popular artist model and was eventually known as the most photographed woman of her day.

But her real break came when she was cast as a chorus girl in the popular blood blodway broadway show, floridora. The 16 year old attracted hordes of admirers, but none more powerful than stanford white, a 52 year old architect. White was the brains behind the Washington Square Arch, Tiffany's and the second Madison Square Garden. He also loved the ladies, especially Evelyn. After watching her perform, he showered her with gifts and even designed a special apartment for her and her mother.

In addition to the presents, he regularly invited Evelyn to his apartment where he'd push her in a specially made swing, earning Evelyn her infamous nickname, the girl in the red velvet swing. What? What you should unpack that, Michelle. You unpack that. Unpack that for me, please. I don't know. Like, why did so? He pushed her in some swing. Like how did everybody know about this?

I have no idea. It's very strange. Well, it's about to get dark. One night he got evelyn drunk and raped her, which, oddly enough, kicked off a year-long relationship. Oh man, eventually evelyn broke up with the architect and started hunting for a suitable husband. Enter harry kendall thaw, the heir to a 40 million dollar railroad fortune. Oh, she's good at this. Uh, obsessed with evelyn, he pursued her for two years, sending her everything from pianos to roses wrapped in 50 dollar bills.

Wow, now remember, this is 1905, so adjusted for inflation, that's 7. 8 trillion dollars. That's insane each one each think about. She doesn't really need to marry him now though. No, she doesn't. No, she, she's actually single-handedly financing the. The defense department, yeah, um. Eventually, evelyn accepted his proposal that this was too bad, since thaw was a woman beating coke addict. What, what?

The way these articles are written is almost better than the articles plus. He hated stanford. White the architect had barred thaw from several important clubs, and the future railroad tycoon wasn't the type to forgive and forget. When, when thaw finally learned what white had done to evelyn, he decided to take revenge. On june 25th 1906, thaw approached white in Madison Square Garden.

He pulled out a pistol and shot his rival three times, killing him on the spot. I'm sorry it doesn't say if they shot him in the stomach or not. Oh, man! The subsequent trial became a national sensation. Thanks to a strong PR campaign led by his mother, Thaw was seen as a hero and a protector of womanhood. After an initial hung jury, Thaw was finally found not guilty by reason of insanity.

What? They just throw that out all the time. Do you think that that's why? You know, like when you watch like old cartoons or you watch old movies, you always hear the like: uh, not guilty, your honor by reason of insanity. You always hear that insanity plea. Or you hear people say, like, are you trying for an insanity defense? I think that must be because the people who are writing those movies in like the 80s and 90s heard these stories from like the 30s and 40s and probably in lots and stuff, and we're like: oh, it's very common to get away with something you're obviously guilty for by reason of insanity.

Yeah, I, yeah, yeah, uh, thaw spent the next eight years in a mental asylum. Okay, so he didn't get nothing, though eight years is pretty. Uh, that's pretty. Yeah, it didn't say temporarily insane, it said reason of insanity, uh, and divorced evelyn. Upon his release, the young woman was forced to work as a vaudeville dancer and struggled with the depression. She eventually ended up in California and died in 1967.

However, some say you can still see her ghost wandering up and down the halls of a Pennsylvania hotel that used to be the Thaw family home. Interesting. These are pretty interesting. This next one is called The Diabolical Lovers. Denise Lab, LeBay. Denise LeBay was willing to sacrifice everything for Jacques Algaron. It was 1954 and LeBay was working as a secretary at the National Institute of Statistics in Rene, France.

It's a pretty sexy job. Yeah. Working at the National Institute of Statistics. Yeah. That's where she met Algaron, a dashing young soldier who was secretly a monster. Obsessed with the Nietzschean concept of the Ubermensch, Algaron believed it was his right to humiliate women. Wow. Do you know, are you familiar with the Ubermensch? I don't know. I feel like I have to look that up.

Okay. Because I'm not sure that I am familiar. Not Iberia. Not Iberia. Ubermensch. The ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values. Originally described by Nietzsche. Okay. That's my response to okay, yeah, so. So he had delusions of grandeur. He thought he was the uber mensch. Okay, algeron believed it was his right to humiliate women.

He ordered labe to sleep with other men so she could crawl back to him and apologize. Wow, yeah that, wow you. You show her what the heck is wrong with humans. Initial degradation accomplished, algeron decided to take his twisted game even further. One evening at dinner, jacques told denise the only way she could prove her love was by murdering kathy, her two-year-old daughter.

This is getting biblical. Seriously, though labe initially refused, algoron eventually broke down her resistance. But labe lacked a killer instinct and her first three attempts failed miserably. She tried, she tried more than one time, three times after no. Twice she tried to drown kathy and once she tried to drop her from a window. Oh my god, each time someone saved the child or la bae bulked, it's like it's like a, that's like a, like an old looney tunes, like you're just walking down the street and you catch a baby.

Yeah, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, yes. So she did at least once in that time say: oh, I can't actually do this, but there was at least another time where somebody saved the kid from her how come she still had this kid. Well, I mean, this is france. So they were probably like: whoa, what are you doing? Give that kid some wine.

Yeah, I mean, this is 1950s france, so I don't know. Let's see. But on November 8th, Denise finally went through with her plan: holding Kathy's head in a wash tub until the child was dead. What? When the police investigated, Labay quickly caved under pressure. I am a monster, she confessed, but then she admitted that Algaron was the devil incarnate. In 1955, both lovers stood in the and the blois blois blois courtroom hurling accusations at each other.

Labay claimed Algaron was the mastermind and the superman claimed Denise was crazy. However, the jury didn't quite agree with Algaron, and the soldier was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor. As for Labay, she was spared a date with the guillotine, but she received a life behind bars and an eternity of guilt. Okay, at least that had a happy ending, right? Yeah, that sounds about right.

Oh, this one sounds interesting. This is called the parachute murderer. Oh uh. Els klotzmans and els van doran shared more than the same first name. These belgian women also shared a lover, their skydiving instructor, marcel sorners. I have a feeling I know where this is going. They're going to get shot. I know. They're going to get attacked by a bear. Yeah. The relationship was a tad awkward.

Clotmans spent Fridays with Somers and Saturdays belonged to Van Doren. There was a lot of friction between these ladies and the Clotmans took things especially hard. Quote, I always knew I was number two for Marcel. She once wrote and their bizarre love triangle took a serious toll on her self-esteem. Clotman's wasn't exactly a healthy person, mentally speaking, and not just because her last name is plural and making it really hard for me to read this.

Not only had she attempted suicide as a teenager, but a psychiatrist would eventually describe her as a psychopathic, narcissistic, psychopathic and narcissistic, rather unattractive traits- and a girlfriend. Well, thank you for your commentary. Article writer. Yeah, things finally boiled over in november of 2006 when van duran doran showed up one friday. Instead of sticking to the schedule, somers took van doran to his bedroom while clotman slept in the living room.

Oh man, I mean, it's not. They didn't know. But wow, wow. That night she listened to the couple upstairs. Clotman's decided to act. On november 18th 2006, somers, clotmans, clotmans and vandoren took off from an airport in eastern belgium for a day of skydiving fun. The plan was to jump simultaneously, everyone holding hands, as they fell. Oh, only clotmans didn't jump in time.

She hesitated, almost as if she wanted a view of the parachutists below, and when the three were about 1 000 meters from the ground, vandoren tugged on her chute and nothing happened. Panicking, she pulled the emergency chute and was horrified when it failed to, plummeting at around 200 kilometers per hour, which is 120 miles in real words, van doran. Van doran smashed into someone's garden, ending up as a big heap of broken bones.

Oh, that's too bad. Sometimes that doesn't happen. Yeah, detectives suspected foul play when they found someone had cut the straps to van doran's parachute. Uh, you think this was an accident like maybe somebody was cutting something else. When they decided to question clotman's, uh, the mentally disturbed skydiver tried to kill herself. Convinced she was their culprit, the police charged her with van doran's murder, despite their lack of solid evidence.

There weren't any fingerprints or witnesses. But clotman's had the motive, the know-how and a psychopathic mind. She'd also sent van doran anonymous letters and had barraged her with mysterious phone calls. Finally, in october of 2010, clotman's was found guilty and received 30 years in prison. Unsurprisingly, she maintains her innocence, but she didn't cut the court. But if she didn't cut the chords, who did?

That makes a fair point. So we got one more left. Okay, I know this has been a long episode, or maybe it just feels that way because I'm exhausted. Um, this is the borgia of america. Okay, lucretia borgia has has a pretty nasty reputation. Legend says this renaissance villainess was fond of spiking her enemies drinks with arsenic. Well, that makes I mean it'd be weird if she spiked her.

Friends drinks with arsenic, yeah. Or enemies drinks with like sugar, sugar or like grenadine, yeah. Enemies like ha ha ha. That's good with that kind of notoriety. Most folks wouldn't want a nickname like the borgia of america, however. However, martha wise wasn't most folks. The 40 year old widow lived in an appropriately named oh dear and the appropriately named hard Scrabble, Ohio.

I love that name. Hard Scrabble Ohio. So it's one of ours or one of mine. There wasn't much to do in Hard Scrabble so Martha spent a lot of time attending funerals. What? That's what it says! Spent a lot of time attending funerals. Without a doubt she was an odd bird but she was also lonely. No. She should have moved into that apartment.

She would have been set. Lived in that apartment in England. You know, work at the funeral home, low rent, ish. I mean I don't know if she could get. I mean I don't know what her finances are like. So that's a fair point. Yeah, I'm sure that. Uh, it's. It's cheap to live in hardscrabble Ohio. Yeah, yeah, Martha's first husband treated her like a slave and after his death in 1923 she decided to get hitched again hitched.

Why are you doing this? Writer, the writer's, just like I will. I have personality. Yeah, um, but uh, it's not a bad article. Uh, martha set her sights on a local fellow named walter johns. However, martha's family disapproved of the marriage and martha's mother even threatened to disown her if she didn't break up with walter. Oh, I guess he was just like uh tall or too tall or something, did you say?

His last name was Johns. Johns. Yeah, I think that's too weird of a last name. No plural last names. And also like no two first name people. We're not doing that. That's a fair point. I don't generally trust people with two first names. Seemingly defeated, Martha called off the relationship. And that is when people started dying. On Thanksgiving Day, 1924, Martha's mom drank a glass of water and quickly died of, quote, stomach inflammation.

Wow. A few weeks later on New Year's Day, 1925, Martha's aunt, her uncle, and their six kids came down with the same illness. Oh. Though the children survived, the parents succumbed to the sickness and the local sheriff grew suspicious. Mm-hmm. Hmm. I like that it's festive, though. It's on holidays. It's nice. Yeah. The law officer grew even more concerned when someone lit the local church on fire, the same church that had refused to marry martha and walter.

Why did the church refuse to? Was he? Was it like a race thing, I mean maybe, or like a religion thing? Oh, yeah, that's a good point, because it's not saying much about him. Yeah, this is weird. Yeah, maybe he was just like a horrible person. Who's like a well-known murderer and everyone's like: no, no, no, you gotta only marry the, the dl murderers.

Yeah, one's on the dl. Um, when the sheriff discovered that martha had bought large amounts of arsenic from the local drugstore, he ordered an autopsy on wise's aunt and discovered her system was loaded with the poison. When martha was arrested, she used the oldest defense in the book: It was the devil who told me to do it. Oh, okay. Supernatural conspiracy or not, Martha was found guilty and received life in prison.

She should have just said she went insane. I know. She did not have a good lawyer. No. Martha supposedly enjoyed her time behind bars, and when she was paroled in 1962, she couldn't cope in the real world. Institutionalized, Martha returned three days after her release and finally died in prison in 1971. Wow. The last line of this article, she probably would have loved her funeral.

I'm going to give a shout out to Nolan Moore for writing a very weird listicle. Yeah. So, oh, wow. So that is your Valentine's Day taste. We're going to go to a quick break and come back to wrap things up. And maybe Michelle has some reddits for us. All right, we are back and we're going to talk a little bit about horror media because that's usually what we do.

I mentioned earlier that Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey is coming out in February. Michelle, are you going to try and see that? Probably not. Well, fine. I mean, if it's really good, it's not going to be really good. You don't know that? I pretty much do. Sorry, guys. Well, oh, oh, bother. Well, I also saw Megan or M3gan, the killer M3gan, the movie about the killer child sized toy.

Really good. Oh, OK, good. Really good. Really fun. Really scary. There's a moment. I don't think it spoils much. There's a moment that scared the ever loving crap out of me. where the Megan doll is killing somebody. And as the woman is like, is all terrified and looking at her, she just goes, what are you? To the doll. And the doll looks at her and goes, I've been trying to figure that out.

And I, and I like, I got chills repeating it. I was like, ah, that's terrifying. Yeah. Cause that is what an AI would think if it was completely like, it would be like, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Anyway, death. So. I saw Megan. Megan was super good. I haven't had a chance. I've been just so busy with everything. I haven't had a chance to see Skinnamarink yet, which everybody's talking about.

It's this weird indie flick. I haven't had a chance to watch Skinnamarink yet. I haven't had a chance to see what is that other movie that just came out? I have to look at my phone because it has the list. It has a list of new movies. There's another horror movie that just came out that I really want to see and I'm just drawing a blank.

Infinity Pool and Missing. Those are the ones. Okay. So those both look really good and I want to go out and see them. I'm probably going to go out next week because guess what I did, Michelle? I don't know. I signed up for the new MoviePass. Oh, it came back. It's back. Well, kind of. It's back. They said that I should have a card in it'll be like five more days.

Okay. That's a while. They're running it differently this time. Hopefully. This time, instead of it being unlimited, it is limited, but in a different way. So you get points every month. You get 34 points, okay, and those 34 points can be used to buy movie tickets. But if you were to see a movie like in the middle of the day, it might only cost 11 points, and if you go to see a movie like on a friday night, it might be the whole 34 points.

Oh, so you know, it's not, it's not great, but it but it's 9. 99, so it's the cost of less than one movie ticket, right? So as long as you're seeing one movie a month, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, so so I am going to uh, use the hell out of my new movie pass going to daytime shows, yeah, which have always been my favorite anyway, and I'm very excited about that.

I used movie pass, man. I remember when movie pass happened I was mad because, you know, everybody was like it's only ten dollars, like how does that work? And I was like, dude, I would have paid 30 bucks for the unlimited movies and it would have been worth it. I was seeing like three movies a week. Yeah. Like I would have paid 40 bucks.

Not more than that though. Yeah. Because then I would have felt pressured to see enough movies to make it worth it. And this is of course pre COVID when, you know, the movie theaters are kind of now getting back to where they were before COVID with just lots of new movies. So is there anything in the horror world you're looking forward to seeing?

No. That's fair. Oh, I mean, I can say that Netflix has a new Jinji Ito collection anime thing on it that I kind of want to watch. But I've been having trouble getting on Netflix. So that's stopped that. But yeah, I'm sure it's terrible. But I did want to see a little bit of it. That's fair. Yeah to, to be, to be um, so people understand.

Jinji ito, I mean, is a mangaka, is like a manga artist who is great, amazing, but every time they try to make an anime of his work it's terrible. So, okay, yeah, just it's kind of like um, I can't think of an example, actually, never mind, yeah, it just doesn't translate well- um, because he's, you know, black and white artist and he, he does highly detailed, kind of horrific illustrations.

And whenever they try to do anime, it's, you know, a little bit more cartoony. It's in color. It just looks not scary. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. Some things just don't translate. Oh, I was thinking of you last night because I was watching Sven Gulli and they were showing the original Godzilla, King of the Monsters, which I love Godzilla, King of the Monsters because it's really sad.

Even the American version is super sad. The American version does end on a happier note than the original Japanese version of Gojira. Because in the original Japanese version, it's like, if we keep doing all this, these atomic tests and stuff, we'll have another Godzilla before we know it. Because in the American one, it's like, we've defeated him. Thank goodness. You know, and it's like, we've defeated him.

We need to learn from this. But in the Japanese one, it's like going to happen again. I do like that, though, because I told a friend I was watching Godzilla. I told Rachel I was watching Godzilla and she texted me like a shot of Godzilla doing like a silly dance. I love the silly Godzilla movies from the 70s. Those are my absolute favorite.

But she sent me that one and I was like, actually, it's Godzilla King of the Monsters. So it's less he's dancing around and more man will destroy itself. It's simply inevitable. Because that's the whole Godzilla King of the Monsters thing. So have you ever seen a Godzilla movie all the way through? No. Oh, man. See, we need to work on this because I have really enjoyed you teaching me about anime and showing me really great animes.

But I need to show you Japanese cinema, you know, like poignant Japanese cinema. I think that all it would do is make you appreciate your anime more. Probably. Because you'd probably see a lot of their inspiration. Yeah. So, plus Godzilla is just really awesome. So, did you know how they make that roar sound of his? No. It's upright bass. and they take the bow and they play the strings under the bridge.

Okay. That's why it goes up and down because they're just going across the two strings. My buddy James when I was in orchestra in school he used to do that all the time because I found that out and I was like dude Godzilla and he would just start doing it in class. Neither of us had girlfriends. There's no doubt about that. So, Michelle, before we get out of here, do you have any reddits you wanted to share with us?

Only like, do you want me to? Yeah, please, just, uh, just a couple, you know, before we get out of here, I'll just give you one um, because the other one is not very good. Okay, but unfortunately it has to do with cats again, because that's all the people post on reddit. I mean, it's the internet. Yeah, that makes sense. That checks out, um, I basically I don't even think I have to pull it up because I was thinking about it, so, so it just manifested, it's just in there.

Um, yeah, exactly, that's um. So okay, so there's this kid, and he is some kid, he's like a teenager and one time, I guess, coming home from wherever he was, I assume, school, he gets off the bus and he kind of looks in the opposite direction to where he's going and he sees something down the street and he's pretty sure it's a cat.

But it's weird that he's not sure. Yeah, it's weird. So it's like this tabby cat, but it has kind of an elongated neck and a head that's a little too small, oh no, and it sees him. Oh no, and he's like he. He has like a wave of fear come over him and he's afraid to turn around. So he's walking backwards home and the cat has started to follow him and is keeping pace and eventually he gets home.

And I mean, the cat gets all the way there. He gets home, he like goes inside. He's like, okay, I got away from the cat, but then for some period of time after that he will just be like inside. Well, he'd see the cat again outside and stuff and be kind of the same thing would happen. But also he'd be in his bedroom doing stuff that people do, apparently and, uh, he would get like a overwhelming feeling of dread and he'd look out the window and the cat would be staring at him from the ground below, because it's the second floor, um, but that's really interesting because he's like staring up and he's all the way.

So, and this happened lots of times. And then one time when his parents weren't home, he was, I don't know he- he felt that feeling again. He looked out the window and he saw the cat monster and then he was like, okay, that's enough. And he went downstairs and then the cat was at the front window and then he was like okay, and he like went to the back of his house and I guess they had like sliding doors and the cat was already there waiting for him and he was like I have to get a fence.

Like how did it get there so fast? And I think he just like hit from it after that and eventually he stopped seeing it, but he kind of wondered if it was a cat at all. Um the end, I fear that this is long furby coming for revenge. It's possible you've seen long furby, right? Yeah, very upsetting. Not okay, not okay at all.

Yeah, see, I like cats, but the idea of a cat-like creature makes me very uncomfortable. Well, I mean, it was probably a cat. It's just weird in the thing that he had said: like I saw, I saw what I thought was a cat. Now I'm not sure and it's like huh, I just recently installed a ring camera outside my house and I'm just waiting for the terrifying thing.

Yeah, hasn't happened yet, but I'm waiting for it. I hope that you get to see it soon. Oh god. Best part, by the way, about having so I don't have a ring doorbell, I have a ring floodlight. Best thing about it is when somebody walks up to your house, you can on your phone, you can just turn on the speaker and and every time somebody comes to the house for the first time since I've installed it, I just turn on the speaker and go, I want to play a game.

And they always look up like what the what the hell. So that's why I spent hours and hours installing that all by myself and risking electrocution. Yeah so, but uh, we're gonna get out of here. Um, I'm very tired. I'm happy I did the show with Michelle, but I've had a really hard week. So I'm going to go do some stuff that isn't stuff.

But Michelle, again, her podcast all about anime is called Michelle Explains Anime Poorly. If you like anime or just are curious about it, or you just think Michelle is funny, you should check out the show because she's very funny. And I'm very proud of Michelle for having her very own podcast. You shouldn't be. Thank you. So we're going to head out, but we'll see you guys at the end of next month.

Man. I mean, we've talked about love. What are we going to talk about for March? I don't know. Something that's not love. I hope. I wonder if I can find a list verse of 10, 10, 10 stories of March madness that ended in murder. All right. Take care of the buddy. Bye.