MFM - Minisode 319

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] It's in my favorite murder.

[2] The minisode.

[3] That's right.

[4] Here we go.

[5] Your stories read to you by us.

[6] Via email.

[7] That's right.

[8] Do you want to go first?

[9] Sure.

[10] Okay.

[11] This one is called I lived in Dolly O 'Strike's house.

[12] And then I got a special note from Alejandra that says, Georgia note, you cover Dolly O Strike in an MFM special bonus episode in 2019.

[13] Also, Dolly Ostrich is the one that the dollop did her when we were on the dollup the first time.

[14] That's right.

[15] She's the lady with the super low boobs.

[16] Okay, well, here's a little info about it.

[17] Hello, friends.

[18] A while back, I was listening to some older episodes, including the story of Dolly O 'Strike.

[19] You know it well.

[20] Rich housewives seduced a 17 -year -old employee who takes up secret residence in their tiny attic for years as a self -proclaimed sex slave, writing pulp fiction novels and only emerging, quote, pale and sweaty from the attic door to murder the gaslit husband with a pistol that would eventually be thrown into the La Brea Tar Pits by the wife's future ex -lover.

[21] Yes, that one.

[22] I paused mid -episode because I had to see what these eccentric characters looked like.

[23] After scrolling through the usual old -timey stuff, one image jumped out at me. It was sharring.

[24] It was a photo of my old front door.

[25] Ooh.

[26] What the fuck?

[27] Yes.

[28] Is that creepy?

[29] Yeah.

[30] And then another one.

[31] another, I let out a gasp as I learned that I had lived in the house where the murder took place.

[32] Holy shit.

[33] This house, the one that Dolly carefully handpicked for its rare Los Angeles attic space.

[34] That's right.

[35] She was like looking for a space where her lover could live.

[36] Because he already lived in her attic in Wisconsin or wherever they lived before.

[37] Like it was, that is the crazy.

[38] It's the craziest story.

[39] It is.

[40] The Los Angeles house had been converted into several quirky studio apartments, one of which I rented for a few years.

[41] The place, albeit charming, always had an off vibe about it.

[42] Who knew such a piece of history was sitting right there in the glowing light of the foot clinic sign down the street?

[43] And then it says, RIP, happy foot, sad foot, which if you are from L .A., you know what we're talking about.

[44] Just legendary.

[45] Now, I know what you're thinking, was the apartment haunted?

[46] Well, there was that one time I jumped up in bed in the middle of the night because music started blasting inside my room.

[47] Creepy, right?

[48] Truth be told, I had dozed off to a three -hour -long ocean waves track that was so quiet, it required the speakers to be at maximum volume.

[49] Cue me, disoriented and nearly peeing myself, being jolted awake at 3 a .m. by the next random song from the music library, Tracy Chapman's Fast Car.

[50] It's an important detail.

[51] All right.

[52] If that wasn't a ghost, surely the figures that appeared in my room in the middle of the night were, right?

[53] Fred, Dolly, is that you?

[54] Nope.

[55] Just your average case of hypnagogic hallucinations.

[56] Have you heard that before with that?

[57] No. One of the many brands of night terrors I've suffered since childhood.

[58] Oh, shit, yeah.

[59] Uh -huh.

[60] This official diagnosis came during the sleep study where the technician who was attaching tiny multicolored wires to my head, Frankenstein style, said that she believes I just have a gift.

[61] and I can see dead people.

[62] Not cool.

[63] So it's not the apartment.

[64] It's me. After I excitedly told my husband about my brush with true crime history, he just looked at me and said, you're so weird.

[65] Luckily, I had several Mordorino friends for backup to confirm that, yes, I am weird.

[66] But also, how fucking cool is it that I lived in a creepy home of good old Walburga and the Batman?

[67] Even if I have nothing to show for it.

[68] Stay sexy, and always check to see if your apartment has a sex addict.

[69] And then it says, Georgia, sorry, I couldn't resist.

[70] But I say addict now, don't I?

[71] No, you just did it wrong.

[72] I did.

[73] Sex attic.

[74] Attic.

[75] Right.

[76] It ends at sea.

[77] I get it.

[78] But he probably was a sex addict that lived in that attic.

[79] That's right.

[80] It's true on so many levels.

[81] Love and Angelina Martyrino, she, her.

[82] I mean, sorry.

[83] Would your husband be stoked if, he found out that he was living in Babe Ruth's house.

[84] Like, it's not fucking, it's not weird.

[85] It is a famous story, and it is, it's more interesting than being able to hit a bunch of home runs in a row in the 30s or whenever he did that, because it's the weirdest element of human behavior.

[86] This woman who was all charisma and whatever else, sex appeal.

[87] Manipulation, yeah.

[88] Confidence, maybe.

[89] but she got a very young man to secretly live in her house for years and years it's wild it's so wild and then you live in the same house what are the chances you could go up into that attic and stand there if you want i mean that's incredible yeah that's sex addict in the in the sex attic great one thank you for writing that in i i'm excited and you don't even live there anymore i'm not going to read you the subject line of this one.

[90] It just starts.

[91] I've got another theme park story for you.

[92] One summer in college, I was a ride operator at the Southern California Amusement Park, specifically in the little kid family -friendly area.

[93] There were about 15 small rides in that section, including a mini roller coaster that we literally had to stop by pulling a lever to engage the break.

[94] Stop it too late, and there was no choice but to send them around the truck again.

[95] Oh, God.

[96] That was parenthetical, and I was trained on all of them.

[97] So, One day I'm working at the Ferris wheel in the position that's at the control panel.

[98] The ride is full and currently moving at full speed.

[99] Suddenly I noticed a kid, maybe 10 or so, has somehow entered through the exit gate that was supposed to be locked and is coming up the path towards the moving ride.

[100] Oh, no. Yeah.

[101] I, of course, panic.

[102] My first thought is that I need to stop the ride before the kid can get any closer.

[103] So I hit the emergency stop button because that makes sense, right?

[104] But for whatever stupid reason, emergency stop wasn't set up to actually stop the ride.

[105] Oh, my God.

[106] It's like an elevator door close button where it's just like just makes you feel a little safer.

[107] What the fuck?

[108] It's completely a placebo, but on a roller coaster.

[109] Yeah.

[110] Instead, I lost all control of the ride.

[111] And it went into a free spin instead.

[112] Oh.

[113] What the fuck.

[114] I was going to ask, why didn't you name the theme park?

[115] And it's like, oh, I see.

[116] Liable.

[117] My small joystick that was supposed to send the wheel forwards or backwards is absolutely useless.

[118] So now, instead of stopping, as I'd intended, it is now picked up speed and is going even faster.

[119] Oh, God.

[120] I'm sweating.

[121] I just skimmed this one that I didn't realize.

[122] At absolutely no time in my training was I warned that this would happen.

[123] I bet not.

[124] In the literal seconds between me hitting the button and realizing the ride was now accelerating, the kid inside the exit gate disappeared, gone to who knows where.

[125] Great.

[126] My co -worker soon realizes something is wrong, but seeing as we have a ferris wheel standing between us that is spinning faster and faster, this is a fucking nightmare.

[127] Oh, Jesus.

[128] It's hard for me to yell over to her to try to explain.

[129] Whatever happened next is a blur.

[130] Eventually, the ride lost momentum and came to a stop on its own, but I still had no control over it.

[131] We had to wait for maintenance to come out and reset the system.

[132] And during all of this, I'm stuck at the control panel right next to the guests who are justifiably upset and demanding to be let off, and kids who are crying.

[133] Oh, they.

[134] Once I finally regain control, there's a specific way to unload a ferris wheel so it remains balanced.

[135] But some guests were so angry that my supervisor told me to let them get off early before it was their basket's turn.

[136] Oh, no. This threw off the balance, making up more difficult for me to control, and a jerkier ride for the poor guests that were still waiting.

[137] That's right, because you have to get off.

[138] Yeah.

[139] A Ferris wheel still has to go around for people to get off person by person.

[140] You don't let one side of the wheel off entirely.

[141] Otherwise, it's not balanced.

[142] I didn't even think about that.

[143] Yes, yeah.

[144] You can't.

[145] It's like every other car or something.

[146] Oh, my God.

[147] It's suddenly there's geometry involved and it's horrifying.

[148] I know.

[149] I don't know what, if anything, the park offered these guests as an attempt at compensation, but I was told by multiple parents that their kids were traumatized.

[150] Yeah, yeah.

[151] I had to explain to some administrative manager what happened, and thankfully they didn't find me at fault for anything, but I did make sure to avoid the Ferris wheel for the rest of the summer.

[152] Stay sexy, and don't hit the emergency stop button.

[153] Are she, her?

[154] Oh, that's awful.

[155] It's so bad.

[156] It's so scary.

[157] I don't know why I love an amusement part, like horror stories so much.

[158] Don't you think part of the fear and the excitement of writing a roller coaster is the idea that these are just things made by people and run by people?

[159] Teenagers.

[160] Yeah.

[161] There's true risk involved.

[162] Yeah.

[163] It like justifies my fear of them.

[164] So I feel good about that.

[165] Yeah.

[166] You're right.

[167] This one's called Ghost Cap.

[168] Hello, humans, cats, and puppers.

[169] I have a story I wanted to send in for a while now and finally have.

[170] Not a murder story, but it may still be creepy.

[171] When I was very young, my family and I had a cat named Scratchy.

[172] I was about four or five when we had to put her down and didn't quite understand it.

[173] We also had another cat, but I'll get to that later.

[174] After Scratchy was put down, I started seeing a small cat -shaped shadow sliding under my bed.

[175] Now, since both our cats were black, I of course thought it was Raven.

[176] who was our other cat.

[177] I would pat the bed and make my normal sounds, cat people will know what I mean, and would whisper her name since it was always at night.

[178] After about three seconds, I would peek under my bed only to find nothing there.

[179] I would embark on a small journey to my parents' room only to find Raven curled up asleep snoring on my mother's pillow.

[180] I would also feel something jump onto and walk across my bed with small, light...

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[182] Absolutely.

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[200] Goodbye.

[201] Pause.

[202] This still happens today.

[203] A couple years go by, and I'm 13.

[204] My cat Raven has fallen seriously ill due to kidney failure and sadly had to be put down.

[205] The night after, I and my mother heard an all -too -familiar meow.

[206] It came from the closet Raven would always sleep in.

[207] Then, two nights after, I heard it in the hall.

[208] I would feel something jump onto my bed around 10 p .m., which was when she'd lay with me. Then, feel it leave.

[209] I've never been scared, only comforted with the fact that they still watch over me. And then this part, I'm 14 now.

[210] And even though it's been so long, both of them still show up to say hi every so often.

[211] That's a 14 -year -old murdering now.

[212] Telling us ghost stories.

[213] I know.

[214] We will both be 15 on March 8th.

[215] No matter what, they will be remembered as long as I'm still breathing.

[216] Thanks for reading.

[217] Stay sexy.

[218] And watch out for Ghost Cats.

[219] KK.

[220] Hey, KK.

[221] KK.

[222] KK.

[223] That's like you.

[224] KK.

[225] I'm going to say to KK what Kevin Kline said to me when I met him, pointing at me. KK.

[226] Pointing at himself.

[227] KK.

[228] The most exciting celebrity interaction I've ever had.

[229] I love it.

[230] I think those things that we absorb when we have pets, especially precious pets like Raven, where when they jump on your bed and then you know they're there, or they brush under your hand or all those things.

[231] Like, that ghost cat letting you know that they're there by doing those things that you love.

[232] It's like, how much do you love when your cat jumps on your bed and you're like, oh, they're going to curl up behind my knees and then we're going to cuddle up.

[233] Like, I love that idea that KK still gets to experience that.

[234] I love that.

[235] Also, sorry for all the swearing, KK, tell your mom.

[236] Okay, this is also a thing.

[237] feel -good one.

[238] Hello, everyone, including all of the animals.

[239] I always think of writing to you, but I don't speak English, and translating long stories about my hometown murders is too difficult for my level of English.

[240] Wow, it's perfect so far.

[241] I know.

[242] So instead, I'll just tell you about a weird social phenomenon that happens in my country and how little me took advantage of it.

[243] Oh, and by the way, in the title of this email, this person is from Argentina.

[244] So they indicate that.

[245] I just realized that's crucial.

[246] Last week, I found out that the beach clapping is not something that happens everywhere.

[247] So let me tell you what it is with an anecdote.

[248] What?

[249] Okay.

[250] The beach clapping.

[251] When I was four years old, we went to the beach and everyone was looking at my baby brother, eat sand, touch the sea for the first time, and do all the baby things.

[252] Middle child me was just vibing and trying to get every bit of attention I could.

[253] One day I go to the shore alone to play, I think they mean so I go.

[254] I don't think it's one day, right?

[255] Same day, I would imagine.

[256] And then in parentheses it says, I know the 90s, and the beach was super crowded.

[257] I stayed there long enough that when I wanted to go back to where my parents were, I got disoriented and walked by the water in the opposite direction.

[258] Oh, after a while I started panicking and crying.

[259] A group of 20 -something guys got near me and asked me if I was lost.

[260] I told them yes.

[261] And one of them immediately, grabbed me, put me on his shoulders, and started clapping.

[262] At first I was confused and scared, but soon enough, all the guys started making jokes to me and saying nice things and told me everything would be fine, and then they would buy me an ice cream.

[263] Oh my God.

[264] They were walking while clapping, and then the people around us started clapping to, and those people started walking with us.

[265] Everyone clapping, everyone looking at me. I love it.

[266] Right?

[267] After like 15 minutes of walking.

[268] We found my parents.

[269] My mom was crying and hugged me. The guys that helped me stayed there and played with me all afternoon and they kept their promise of buying me an ice cream.

[270] It was the best day ever.

[271] Yeah.

[272] The Argentinian beach clapping is to inform people that a child is missing and so the parents can find them more easily.

[273] It is a communal effort that is simply accepted by every Argentinian.

[274] If a kid is missing at the beach, everyone just stops what we're doing, and we clap to find their parents, and I think it is beautiful.

[275] I do, too.

[276] Oh, my God.

[277] This next sentence is so perfect.

[278] Guess who, quote, unquote, got lost two times more that summer.

[279] Oh, fuck yeah, you did.

[280] Well, I love you, girls, and thank you for all that you do for minorities.

[281] While we were fighting for the right to abortion in my country, we took statistics of the E -E -U -U -U -E -U as an example, it is crazy to me how after we won that fight, that right was taken away from you.

[282] Yeah, crazy to me too.

[283] All I can say is please do what you can to help those who will need your help.

[284] Okay, Maggie.

[285] Love it.

[286] Stay sexy and don't let saggy balls make decisions that mostly affect women.

[287] Well put.

[288] Goodbye, exclamation point, Maggie.

[289] Oh my God, I didn't see that Look at me. Oh, my God.

[290] I was like, huh?

[291] Oh, I love that.

[292] Maggie, that was a perfect, first of all, separate from, don't worry about English as a second language, you've got it.

[293] Yeah.

[294] And secondly, that was a perfect minisote email.

[295] It had everything we love.

[296] Totally.

[297] Oh, that's so smart and sweet.

[298] I love that.

[299] Beach clapping.

[300] Argentinian beach clapping.

[301] Fuck, yeah.

[302] Let's adopt that here.

[303] Now, if it was in America, and there was like guys circling up around you, saying, I'll buy you ice cream as a child.

[304] It's like run, run, run.

[305] But Argentina's got a different situation going on.

[306] Yeah.

[307] Thank God.

[308] Oh, I love that.

[309] And everyone around picked up on it, so they joined in.

[310] Yeah.

[311] Then the kids kind of distracted and, like, you know, having a good time and it's not super traumatic.

[312] It's like a parade all of a sudden.

[313] Guess who got lost two more times that's over.

[314] It's so good.

[315] All right, here's my last one.

[316] The title is, I am an unusual.

[317] I am deaf.

[318] Hi, folks, that exactly right?

[319] At some point during a recent minisode, you raised the challenge of people emailing in who think they're fairly unusual in terms of demographics.

[320] Or at least, I think that happened.

[321] So, I have picked up the gauntlet to email in.

[322] I have been a listener of this podcast for almost three years now, and I am deaf.

[323] Hell yeah.

[324] To explain, deafness is a spectrum.

[325] I don't have total hearing loss called profound deafness.

[326] I'm in the category above that severe hearing loss.

[327] This means that without help, I can only hear sounds if they're about the same volume as a vacuum cleaner.

[328] To counter this, I have hearing aids, and my hearing aids have Bluetooth, so essentially they can double as an extremely expensive set of AirPods.

[329] It's not unusual for deaf folks with some residual hearing to listen to podcasts, so I'm probably not as unusual as I initially claimed.

[330] And you two ladies have some of the clearest voices out of all the podcasts I have tried to listen to.

[331] Oh my God.

[332] Very deaf friendly.

[333] Yes.

[334] Isn't that feel good?

[335] I love it.

[336] I wasn't born deaf.

[337] I started to lose my hearing during the pandemic.

[338] And then it says unrelated to COVID.

[339] When telling a tattoo artist, she got really worried because she thought deafness was a side effect of the disease.

[340] It's not just a coincidence.

[341] But I didn't realize how bad my hearing loss was until I got to university.

[342] Somehow I had just convinced myself my hearing wasn't going.

[343] People were just being boring.

[344] Smiley emoji.

[345] Losing my hearing during the pandemic means some of the last things I heard well was my neighbor practicing the same song on ukulele over and over again during lockdown.

[346] Oh my, no. And my other neighbor shouting over the fence for them to shut the fuck up.

[347] Good times.

[348] Yes.

[349] Being deaf isn't a bad thing.

[350] A lot of hearing people feel bad for deaf folk.

[351] And I wanted to say that actually, we're doing fine.

[352] Deafness has a strong culture and our own languages.

[353] The communities formed around deafness are very close.

[354] For a lot of us, being able to choose what we can hear and what we don't want to hear is superior to regular old hearing.

[355] Yes, I bet it is.

[356] It says, I will frequently take my hearing aids out if a really boring conversation is happening, and I don't have to listen to baby screaming in public.

[357] Oh, my God.

[358] There's a saying within the deaf community, deaf people can do everything you can do except here.

[359] Also, a side fact for Georgia and Stephen, cats will respond to deaf people differently.

[360] Cats of deaf people learn that meowing doesn't get them what they want, so they will find other ways to communicate, either by coming up to you or hitting you with a paw so you pay attention to them.

[361] Very cute.

[362] My cats are starting to learn this with me, which means I get stared at very intensely whenever I don't feed them on time.

[363] Anyway, I just wanted to email in.

[364] I'm sure I'll find other reasons to email if this doesn't get read.

[365] Have a good day.

[366] Bunny, they, them.

[367] Bunny?

[368] Yeah.

[369] I think that's the first bunny we've ever had, send it an email.

[370] I think you're right.

[371] Yeah.

[372] I love that.

[373] Bunny, thank you for that highly informative, very, like, I love learning that information.

[374] I love people being able to say, like, don't worry about us.

[375] That's such a great watch your attitude about other people and their abilities.

[376] I mean, that was great.

[377] Yeah.

[378] Very informative.

[379] I think we all learned something.

[380] Yeah.

[381] Yeah.

[382] Here's my last one.

[383] It just starts.

[384] Your last minisote about the roommate's boyfriend and his USPS marijuana trade triggered too many memories from my early to late -ish in 20s.

[385] While I have a couple of those to share, another story came to mind.

[386] This is probably around 2010 and my boyfriend at the time was living in one of those large historical apartment houses that young postgraduates lived in for cheap directly next to the quote unquote bar scene.

[387] At one point, the more serious tenant, we'll call him Bill, had his car stolen.

[388] This was upsetting for all of us to hear since we were pretty reckless and didn't deal with much crime.

[389] A day or so later, Bill randomly busts into a party yelling at my boyfriend and the other guys saying, it's not funny.

[390] This is BS, FU, FU and where you came from, etc. It's funny that a person would, like, give that shorthand, like, we don't swear on this podcast every other fucking word.

[391] But it's like, too, they can't actually write it.

[392] It's like you're not allowed to write God.

[393] You can only.

[394] Can't write back.

[395] And also a super angry, like, young 20s dude that walks in, like, hey, this is BS, F you.

[396] Like, okay, Bill.

[397] Apparently, a day or two after Bill reported his car stolen, it appeared back across the street.

[398] When the car was returned, it was with a note that said, got out of work super late, could not get a cab, I borrowed your car to the bus station.

[399] Sorry for the inconvenience.

[400] You really shouldn't leave your keys in your car.

[401] Oh, my God.

[402] Bill was in such denial that a stranger would do this that he assumed it was the other guys in the house playing a joke on him.

[403] This was a huge argument for a while until the cops were called again and informed everyone that this actually happened more than you think.

[404] And with bars closing at 4 a .m. And the lack of public transportation, and then in parentheses it says this was pre -ride share, people got desperate.

[405] I guess that's why they call Buffalo the, quote, city of good neighbors.

[406] Anyways, I'm in New Orleans now.

[407] Cheers to the good times when your car could get stolen and returned.

[408] Instead of being found, burned out under a bridge.

[409] Catherine.

[410] Wow.

[411] How hilarious.

[412] What a friendly car thief.

[413] Yeah, and just like, hey, sorry, I had to.

[414] It was important.

[415] I had to.

[416] Okay.

[417] I was so polite.

[418] I love that.

[419] Yeah.

[420] Good job, everyone.

[421] Please send us your hometowns, whatever they, that means to you, whatever they may be, at my favorite murder at Gmail.

[422] I mean, you could really base what you're going to send us on all of the emails we got on this episode, because they were all A plus five stars, I would say.

[423] Totally.

[424] Great writing.

[425] Great job.

[426] Great writing, great attitudes, good information, a little bit of fear, a lot of love, stay sexy.

[427] And don't get murdered.

[428] Goodbye.

[429] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[430] This has been an exactly right production.

[431] Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.

[432] Our producer is Alejandra Keck.

[433] This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.

[434] Our researchers are Marin McClashen and Sarah Blair Jenkins.

[435] Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to My Favorite Murder at gmail .com.

[436] Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at MyFave Murder.

[437] Goodbye.

[438] Follow my favorite murder on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen so you don't miss an episode.

[439] If you like what you hear, rate and review the show.

[440] Visit exactly right store .com to purchase my favorite murder merch.