MFM Minisode 348

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] And welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] The minisode.

[3] We read you stories.

[4] They're your emails.

[5] Yeah, that's it.

[6] That's not easy.

[7] Why don't you go first this time?

[8] All right.

[9] Let's see.

[10] The subject line of this email is 100 -year -old funeral home treasure.

[11] And it starts, hi, all.

[12] I hope you read this so I can tell my best friend, Hallie.

[13] We love you, ladies.

[14] And then there's little typing smiley face, which is still my favorite emoji, the OG sideways smiley face.

[15] Simple.

[16] Simple, sincere.

[17] My father was a fourth generation funeral director who inherited the family's 100 -year -old funeral home, which is a beautiful old brick building with white pillars out front.

[18] My brother, who's taking over the family business, did not want to run it out of that location, so when my father passed away, we put it up for sale.

[19] That means we had to get rid of over 100 years' worth of stuff that my family had, crammed into every nook and cranny for generations.

[20] Amazing.

[21] Georgia would have a field day with the antiques.

[22] Yeah?

[23] Thank you.

[24] This very old funeral home had an appropriately creepy, unfurnished basement.

[25] I don't know if it's true, but I was told that one of the small rooms housed the ashes of people who paid for their own cremations but didn't have any family to claim their remains.

[26] I'll take them.

[27] Oh.

[28] No, you.

[29] No. No. No, it's fine.

[30] It's like, it's not, you're not thrifting.

[31] Those are people.

[32] I'll take them, though.

[33] I'll put them up on my shelf, on my earned shelf.

[34] So in this dark, dark, dark water dripping somewhere, raw brick -walled basement that was possibly full of ghosts, we found a small hidden door under the stairs.

[35] It was packed full of stuff, old photo albums of people we don't even know, paperwork for funerals long past stacks of newspapers and tucked away in the back a safe this was very exciting except no one had the key and after living in the building for years my mom couldn't even imagine where such a key would be later that day when my mom opened the ironing board cabinet that vintage kind where the board folds out of the wall a solitary key hung obvious and proud off of the inside of that door and she immediately knew it was for the safe she swears she never saw the key before so maybe it was a relative helping her out she also swears ghosts made the lights burn out all the time but I think she didn't realize how often my dad was changing them when he was around anyway she opened the safe and inside were old coin collections which were all dated from the 1950s and earlier so it's likely no one had been in that safe since then.

[36] I don't think any of it was worth a lot, but a hidden safe full of old coins is a proper treasure in my book.

[37] I agree.

[38] Stay sexy and keep every key you ever find V. Oh, the dream.

[39] There is in my office of our new house, a fucking locked old cabinet.

[40] This house is like from the 40s.

[41] There's no key.

[42] It's totally locked.

[43] I don't know what's in there.

[44] I don't know how to open it.

[45] Ooh.

[46] Yeah.

[47] Get a crowbar.

[48] I don't want to break it.

[49] Just break it.

[50] Okay.

[51] I'll do it.

[52] I'll do it on camera.

[53] Yeah, that's right.

[54] There you go.

[55] There's your viral video that you've been looking for.

[56] That's all I've ever wanted is a viral video.

[57] Did you see the video of someone, they moved in and they were like, they tore off the wall and there were like hundreds of empty plastic Captain Morgan Fifth bottles.

[58] It's like the bummerous bummer.

[59] Like, And it in the wall?

[60] Yeah.

[61] Just like the plastic shitty ones, you know.

[62] Dang.

[63] Yeah, it's not good.

[64] Okay.

[65] Lachke kid story.

[66] Almost burnt down the house story.

[67] Oh.

[68] Just starts, ladies.

[69] It was the mid, late 90s, and I was in about seventh or eighth grade.

[70] I had been listening to the hype on the radio for the jingle ball concert coming to Philly for weeks, and I had to have tickets.

[71] To my dismay, the show was sold out.

[72] But if I was the 100 second -second caller, I would get free tickets to the show as well as backstage passes from me and my friends.

[73] Remember those?

[74] I had to win.

[75] It was a weekend day.

[76] My mom was out and I was hanging out in my room listening to the radio on my sweet stereo waiting for when they made the announcement to call in.

[77] I had this tall wicker bookshelf with one of those cool 90s blow -up chairs next to it where I was lounging and listening.

[78] I decided to get the vibe right.

[79] So I lit a candle and enjoyed the sweet smells of summer while I waited.

[80] Of course, we fucking had candles in our rooms as 12 -year -olds in the 90s, right?

[81] Sure, yeah.

[82] It's fine.

[83] Then it happened.

[84] They made the announcement that caller 102 would get those tickets.

[85] I booked it to my parents' room where I dialed over and over again, getting only busy signals, praying that I'd get through and be the right caller.

[86] That's when my older sister Jess walked in and asked, what's that smell?

[87] to which I replied that I didn't smell anything and I didn't have time to help her because I was about to be caller 102.

[88] She walked out of the room and then I heard her screaming, Dana, what the fuck?

[89] Your room is on fire.

[90] I dropped the phone and ran to my room where I stood absolutely frozen staring at my wicker cabinet engulfed in flames.

[91] I didn't know what to do and I literally just stood there.

[92] Just sprung into action and grabbed a bucket from under the bathroom sink and started running back and forth from the bathroom, putting out the flames.

[93] She did it.

[94] She was a fucking badass, firefighting sister and probably saved our entire house.

[95] Oh my God.

[96] I know.

[97] This is where the panic really started to set in.

[98] Mom was going to fucking kill me. What do I do?

[99] How do I hide this?

[100] Jess and I started plotting.

[101] There was a whole burn through one of the wicker shelves, so we set up a few books across it and put picture frames on top of it so it looked like the shelf was still there.

[102] We scrubbed ash, such from the shelves, Rearranged things to cover every singed part.

[103] Some burning embers had fallen off the bookshelf and burned a large hole in my carpet.

[104] We found a weird flower -shaped area rug and moved it over there, placing it perfectly on top.

[105] We made a pact, never to tell mom.

[106] To my relief, she didn't notice it, and it seemed like I got away with it.

[107] These are the, like, sister moments where they're, like, actually cool, and they know that you'll be in so much trouble that it's not even going to be entertaining for them anymore.

[108] Right.

[109] And they, like, bond with you and, like, help you.

[110] Yeah.

[111] My sister absolutely would have laughed and been, like, good luck.

[112] My sister would come through on certain things where she's like, you owe me, but, like, this isn't worth me watching you get spanked.

[113] So let's fucking.

[114] It's going to be so bad that I actually feel mercy for you right now.

[115] Exactly.

[116] Cut to, like, five years later.

[117] I was a freshman in college and no longer living at home.

[118] I got a call from my mom in which she was freaking out at me about why there is a giant burn mark in my bedroom carpet i came clean with the whole story she couldn't punish me now right apparently our cleaning lady was cleaning my room and move the rug and found my burn carpet and ratted me out jess and i thought it was absolutely hilarious at this point my mom was pissed but again what could she do about it now to this day jess and i still rock out to that eve six song inside out when the lyrics go burn burn like a wicker cabinet and don't burn the house down to win concert tickets off the radio, Dana.

[119] Truly, if you want your room to smell good, use potpourri.

[120] There's a million things you can use that aren't candles.

[121] We say this a lot.

[122] It might not be Dana's fault that her mom or her parents let the seven or eighth grader have a candle in her room.

[123] You know what I mean?

[124] Without kind of going through and being like, so this candle can't be near these curtains.

[125] It can't be near this dried plant.

[126] it certainly can't be near a wicker cabinet like what no what are you doing i don't blame her at all karen you know i'm all about vintage shopping absolutely and when you say vintage you mean when you physically drive to a store and actually purchase something with cash exactly and if you're a small business owner you might know shopify is great for online sales but did you know that they also power in -person sales that's right shopify is the sound of selling everywhere online, in store, on social media, and beyond.

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[137] That's Shopify .com slash murder.

[138] Goodbye.

[139] Okay.

[140] The subject line of this is parenting Florida style.

[141] Hi, ladies.

[142] My husband and I are both Midwesterners who, for reasons outside of our control, found ourselves living and raising our children in central Florida.

[143] When our kids were young, we lived across the street from a field where we would walk our dog, play frisbury, etc. At the back of the field was a creek in a small wooded area where we would see turtles, owls, and osprey.

[144] When my daughter was about eight, she and her friend came back from the creek, excitedly talking about the big lizards that they'd been playing with.

[145] As we have millions of lizards in Florida, I was vaguely perplexed by their excitement, but I figured they'd just have a fun time, and I said, oh, that's nice girls.

[146] A few days later, my daughter had a different friend over and asked if they could go over to the creek to play with the lizards.

[147] Sure, have fun, I said.

[148] And when they came back, they were again pink -faced and so excited.

[149] But that time, my daughter had come home without one shoe as it had gotten stuck in the mud where they were playing with the big lizards, and she couldn't find it in the water.

[150] Ew, that's yucky, dear.

[151] Don't worry about the shoe, I said.

[152] I considered myself an exceptionally astute and protective mother, so I was concerned about the possible bacteria or parasites in the creek.

[153] A few days later, my daughter was again talking about the big lizards, and she wanted to go back and play with them some more.

[154] Finally, my distracted brain caught up, and I decided to inquire about the word big, as our lizards in Florida are quite small, but really how big could they possibly be?

[155] which is what I asked her, finally.

[156] How big are those lizards, dear?

[157] In response, my daughter thought for a moment, and then to my horror, stuck out her little arm and said, a little longer than my arm probably?

[158] What?

[159] Oh, God.

[160] I immediately jumped up, got my laptop, Googled some images, and then said, honey, do the lizards look like this?

[161] To which she replied, yes, just like that, stripy.

[162] Oh, no. And that's when I realized that all this time, my daughter and her various friends, had been playing with a nest of baby fucking alligators in the creek across from in a nest in a nest in a nest like the thing about that word makes it so much like oh it's so dangerous okay of course i told her they were very dangerous and that she should not play with them anymore which she protested she said they were very nice yeah she she did listen to me but it haunts me to this day to think of the girls playing with baby alligators who are fiercely protected by their mothers until they are at least a year old.

[163] Yeah, that's the problem.

[164] That's the problem.

[165] Where was the enormous child chomping mama all those times the girls had been over there?

[166] We definitely dodged a bullet and I was glad I never had to explain to the other PTO moms what had happened to their daughters.

[167] Yeah.

[168] And the sign off is just fucking Florida, Julia.

[169] What a, like, mind trips to go from the Midwest to Florida?

[170] Like, you just don't think about stuff like lizard size.

[171] No, but I think you would have to focus, I mean, and I'm sure that Julia did every single time after that.

[172] But that idea where it's like, I wonder if their cheeks were all pink and they were all excited because they, like, they would snap at them and they would, like, get away and then pet them some more.

[173] Like, oh, it's so hilarious.

[174] So good.

[175] A nest of anything.

[176] Leave me alone.

[177] For real.

[178] Okay, I'm not going to read you the title of this one.

[179] It's just called Designated Driver, let's say.

[180] Hello, hello.

[181] My name's Riley, and I'm writing to you from the GTA, Greater Toronto Area.

[182] Oh.

[183] Let's jump into it.

[184] This story was told to me by my parents' neighbor, Rick.

[185] Picture a seven -foot -tall Lithuanian man in his 60s in overalls with a beer in his hand.

[186] Yeah.

[187] That's who you want.

[188] fucking neighbor right yeah him and his wife own two goats one horse and one mini horse they are very close family friends so i don't think they will be mad at me for telling the world about this the story starts off in the mid 80s rick and his friends were partying at a friend's farm there was a bunch of guys including his one friend that's blind and doesn't drink this friend would come hang out at parties despite the fact that he was sober and it says remember kids you don't have to be drunk to have fun All of the guys lived quite far away.

[189] It's the country.

[190] So when it came time to drive home, they decided it was best to all pile into one car instead of driving separately in their own cars.

[191] Shit hit the fan when they got pulled over by a cop.

[192] I guess they were swirping all over the road and it was super late.

[193] When the cop asked the driver for his license, the guy said that he didn't have one.

[194] I'm blind, sir, said the driver.

[195] Apparently, Rick and his friends were operating the gas and telling the blind friend when to break.

[196] and where to steer.

[197] The cop couldn't charge him for drunk driving because he was sober.

[198] I don't even think he got in trouble for driving without a license.

[199] I'm guessing the officer didn't know what to do and probably couldn't help but laugh at the situation.

[200] No one got in trouble and the story was in the paper on Monday.

[201] I love everything you girls do.

[202] Stay sexy.

[203] Cheers, Rye from Canada.

[204] I kind of love that story because they perfectly gamed the system.

[205] It was like, we're not breaking a law and we're we're not driving drunk you know we're actually being safe we should be awarded for this I mean yeah they should definitely be rewarded for sure well the friend should be rewarded who was actually doing the driving but that is hilarious this last one is first and last ambient experience from mom hello last week someone submitted their sleepwalking story and it reminded me of my sleepwalking adjacent story about my mom's first time taking Ambien that makes me laugh every time I think about it.

[206] A few years ago, my mom was having a really hard time staying asleep, so as last resort, her doctor prescribed her Ambien.

[207] For anyone unaware, Ambien makes you fall asleep, but it can also make you completely black out and sleepwalk.

[208] Because of this, we had very clear instructions that she was supposed to be supervised, especially since this was her first time taking it.

[209] Okay, so here's how it went.

[210] At 6 p .m., my mom took the dosage of Ambien.

[211] About 30 minutes later, I could tell that she was feeling the effect of the Ambien because she did something that she'd never done before.

[212] She demanded a salad.

[213] We aren't really a salad family, so we were not prepared for this demand.

[214] Well, when my dad said that we didn't have salad, my mom started crying.

[215] Between sobs, she begged him for a salad.

[216] Confused and panicked, my dad ran to the kitchen to prep a makeshift salad.

[217] By now it's about 7 p .m. and my dad is my mom sitting on the couch with a bowl of salad.

[218] She seems normal now and is just eating her salad and watching TV.

[219] So now my dad apparently did not understand what supervised meant.

[220] He thought he could leave quickly to walk my sisters and I to school for an event.

[221] We lived across the street from the school, so this takes about five to ten minutes.

[222] He figured nothing could happen in ten minutes and then my mom seemed content, so he left her unsupervised to walk us over.

[223] When he got back ten minutes later, he arrived to what can only be described as a salad crime scene.

[224] Salad on the couch, on the floor, on the dogs, on every piece of furniture.

[225] The salad bowl was gone and my mom was not on the couch.

[226] He called out for her, but he got no response.

[227] My mom was gone too.

[228] So my dad followed the trail of lettuce and eventually it led to the master bedroom.

[229] When he walked in, he saw salad all over the bed sheets and in the middle was my mom, completely knocked out, gripping a fork with an empty and upside down salad bowl on her lap.

[230] my mom slept for 16 hours that night when she woke up the next day still gripping the fork she did not remember a thing she didn't even remember asking for the salad and it took us a while to convince her that she had actually cried and baked us for a salad we will never know how my mom managed to create that much of a mess in less than 10 minutes but I like to imagine that in her sleepwalking state she thought she was a flower girl and that the salad bowl was her basket of flour Oh, that's beautiful.

[231] I hope you find the story as funny as I do.

[232] If you knew my mom, it would be even funnier.

[233] Let me know if I should write in about the time that I got lost in the woods for two days on a Tinder date.

[234] And the police told my parents that he murdered me. Spoiler alert, we were actually just lost.

[235] Please write that in.

[236] Yes.

[237] Please write it in.

[238] Yeah.

[239] Stay sexy and don't let dad be in charge of Ambient supervision, Isabel.

[240] Oh, my.

[241] Like the first thing that comes to mind, because I used to take Ambien.

[242] It's like you take it in bed with your head already on the pillow because within 10 minutes, you're fucking gone.

[243] Yeah.

[244] 6 p .m. in front of the TV.

[245] Oh, messy.

[246] Yeah.

[247] You're kind of like opening it up to like, hey, let's see what weird shit I'm about to do for three hours before I make it to sleep.

[248] I love salad flower girl.

[249] That's like the best.

[250] I love asking for salad and then when someone says we don't have any salad, just sobbing.

[251] Crying.

[252] Just like, yeah.

[253] Yeah.

[254] She must have needed some, like, roughage.

[255] Yeah.

[256] Yeah.

[257] My last one is about a heroic cat.

[258] I'm not going to read you.

[259] But there are photos involved, and we can put them on our socials.

[260] Okay.

[261] It just starts, esteemed associates.

[262] Allow me to welcome you to my email.

[263] Welcome to the story.

[264] Our Siamese, Vincent, once saved his family from a house fire.

[265] This is before we adopted him.

[266] More on that later.

[267] from what we were told, the building caught on fire one night while everyone was asleep.

[268] The smoke alarms didn't go off because the shitbag landlord hung empty plastic shells.

[269] Oh.

[270] Then it says, check your detectors, everyone.

[271] Can you fucking believe that?

[272] I mean, that guy could go to jail for that.

[273] Yeah.

[274] Vincent, the cat, who was named Wyatt Earp at the time, went to each member of the family and began yelling at the top of his lungs, jumping on their chest, and nibbling their fingers.

[275] to wake them up, which knowing Elvis would wake me up for any fucking reason.

[276] So I can imagine him waking me up for a fire, too, you know.

[277] Thanks to Vincent's quick thinking, everyone got out alive and unharmed.

[278] Unfortunately, due to what was found in the downstairs unit during the fire investigation, think cocaine -bear levels of drugs plus some unregistered weapons.

[279] Vincent's family ended up having to relocate and couldn't take him to their new residence.

[280] So sad.

[281] Vincent ended up at the last.

[282] local humane society where my husband works.

[283] We had recently lost our previous Siamese boy and weren't looking to add another kid to the family, or so I thought.

[284] I was finishing up at work when my husband texted me simply, all caps, he saved his family from a fire.

[285] Followed by picture number one, baby Vincent, I texted back, I'm on my way.

[286] Later that month, Vincent, again, previously called Wyatt Earp, was honored in a ceremony where he was given the Humane Society's Animal Hero Award, see Second Picture.

[287] Today, Vincent is our elder statesman at 17 and shows no signs of slowing down.

[288] He loves to play and is not above using his heroic past as leverage to steal entire pieces of pizza straight off of your plate.

[289] He also keeps us on alert by conducting frequent calm checks, meaning he yells his head off in another room until someone answers.

[290] We couldn't be more proud of our tiny, loud hero.

[291] Stay sexy and don't hesitate to adopt a cat that will save you from a fire.

[292] Hugs Kelsey.

[293] That cat is so cute, by the way.

[294] He doesn't look like a classic Siamese, though.

[295] He kind of looks like a combo.

[296] Yeah, he's got Siamese coloring for sure and the big blue eyes and the loudness.

[297] I'm sorry, I guess I'm just a little bit furious because this cat saves the family.

[298] Yeah.

[299] I mean, I understand they're in a tight spot.

[300] It's their circumstances for sure where it's like maybe they had to move back home because, you know, they didn't have first and last.

[301] And it's just sad and hopefully found a humane society that is, you know, a no -kill shelter and all this stuff.

[302] Well, and obviously he, Vincent ended up a family he was supposed to end up at where it's like they now have a parent that loves them enough to write emails to podcasts about him.

[303] So I guess it did all turn out good.

[304] That was beautiful.

[305] that's amazing look at he's leaning there against his little he's got a plaque there's a picture with him and a plaque that's amazing one night when we like first got mo i was woken up to him like tapping on me and i woke up because it was weird and he had like swallowed like a piece of string and was like basically like low level choking on it and like woke me up to be like could you grab this out of my mouth for me so he saved his own life so it's not very heroic but it was very like nice to know that he knows like come to me if like things are going poorly for you or us right I'll wake up and take care of it also so polite of him to be like excuse me pardon me this is my fault and I'm real stupid for doing having choked on this like belt but could you but tap tap tap tap tap tap could you pull this string please oh oh send us your heroic animal stories you know we like love them.

[306] Especially if your animal got a plaque.

[307] I mean, like, can you beat Vincent and his saved a family got a plaque?

[308] That's pretty major.

[309] Good old Wyatt Earp.

[310] And then also stay sexy.

[311] And don't get murdered.

[312] Goodbye.

[313] Goodbye.

[314] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[315] This has been an exactly right production.

[316] Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

[317] Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

[318] This episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi.

[319] familiar hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail .com.

[320] And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and on Twitter at My Fave Murder.

[321] Goodbye.

[322] Follow My Favorite Murder on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen so you don't miss an episode.

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

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