September 4, 2023 • 23 mins
This week’s hometowns include kids playing with big lizards and a heroic cat named Vincent.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to my favorite Murder the minisode.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We reach your stories.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
They're your emails.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, that's it, that's not easy. Why don't you go
first system? All right, let's see. The subject line of
this email is one hundred year old funeral home treasure
and it starts high all, I hope you read this
so I can tell my best friend Hallie, we love you, ladies.
And then there's a little typing smiley face, which is
still my favorite emoji, the og sideways smiley face. Simple, simple, sincere.
(00:51):
My father was a fourth generation funeral director who inherited
the family's one hundred year old funeral home, which is
a beautiful, full old brick building with white pillars out front.
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.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
That means we had to.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Get rid of over one hundred years worth of stuff
that my family had crammed into every nook and cranny
for generations. Amazing Georgia would have a field day with
the antiques.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, thank Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
This very old funeral home had an appropriately creepy, unfurnished
basement 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.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'll take them.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Oh no, no, no, no, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's it's you're not thrifting. Those are people.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'll put them up on my shelf, on my own shelf.
So in this is dark, dark water dripping somewhere raw
brick walled basement that was possibly full of ghosts. We
found a small.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Hidden door under the stairs.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
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.
Oh this was very exciting, except no one had the key,
and after living in the building for years, my mom
couldn't even imagine.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Where such a key would be.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
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
(02:52):
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. Oh yeah, Anyway,
she opened the safe and inside were old coin collections,
which were all dated from the nineteen fifties and earlier,
so it's likely no one had been in that safe
(03:12):
since then. 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, I agree, stay
sexy and keep every key you ever find.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
V oh the dream. There is in my office of
our new house a fucking locked old cabinet. This house
is like from the forties. There's no key, it's totally locked.
I don't know what's in there. I don't know how
to open it. Ooh yeah, gay crowbar, I don't want
to break it.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Just break it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I'll do it on camera.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, that's right. There you go. Here's your viral video
that you've been looking for.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's all I've ever wanted is a viral video. 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.
It's like the Bummer's bomber.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Like in the wall.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, just like the plastic shitty ones. You know, dang,
you know it's not good. Okay, latchkey kid. Story almost
burnt down the house? Story, Oh, just starts, ladies. It
was the mid late nineties and I was in about
seventh or eighth grade. I had been listening to the
hype on the radio for the jingle Ball concert coming
(04:32):
to Philly for weeks and I had to have tickets.
To my dismay, the show was sold out, but if
I was the one hundred and second caller, I would
get free tickets to the show, as well as backstage
passes for me and my friends. Remember those I had
to win. It was a weekend day, my mom was
out and I was hanging out in my room listening
to the radio on my sweet stereo, waiting for when
(04:55):
they made the announcement to call in. I had this
tall wicker bookshelf with one of those cool nineties blow
up chairs next wood where I was lounging and listening.
I decided to get the vibe right, so I lit
a candle and enjoyed the sweet smells of summer while
I waited. Of course, we fucking had candles in our
rooms as twelve year olds in the nineties, right, sure, yeah,
(05:17):
it's fine. Then it happened they made the announcement that
call her one oh two would get those tickets. 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 collar. That's when my
older sister, Jess walked in and asked, what's that smell,
to which I replied that I didn't smell anything, and
(05:39):
I didn't have time to help her because I was
about to be caller one o two. She walked out
of the room, and then I heard her screaming, Dana,
what the fuck your room is on fire. I dropped
the phone and ran to my room, where I stood
absolutely frozen, staring at my wicker cabinet engulfed in flames.
I didn't know what to do, and I literally just
stood there. Jess sprung into action and grabbed a bucket
(06:02):
from under the bathroom sink and started running back and
forth from the bathroom putting out the flames.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
She did it.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
She was a.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Fucking badass firefighting sister and probably saved our entire house.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Oh my god, I know.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
This is where the panic really started to set in.
Mom was going to fucking kill me. What do I do?
How do I hide this? Jess and I started plotting.
There was a hole burned 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. We scrubbed ash soot
from the shelves and rearranged things to cover every singed part.
(06:39):
Some burning embers had fallen off the bookshelf and burned
a large hole in my carpet. We found a weird
flower shaped area rug and moved it over there, placing
it perfectly on top. We made a pact never to
tell Mom. To my relief, she didn't notice it, and
it seemed like I got away with it. These are
the sister moments where they're like, actually cool, and they
(06:59):
know that you'll be in so much trouble that it's
not even going to be entertaining for them anymore, and
they like bond with you and like help you.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
You know, yeah, my sister absolutely would have laughed and
been like good luck.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
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, so let's suck.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
It's gonna be so bad that I actually feel mercy
for you right now exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Cut to like five years later, I was a freshman
in college and no longer living at home. I got
a call from my mom and which she was freaking
out at me about why there is a giant burnmark
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 moved the rug and found
my burn carpet and ratted me out. Jess and I
(07:46):
thought it was absolutely hilarious. At this point, my mom
was pissed, but again, what could you 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, stay sexy, and
don't burn the house down to win concert tickets off
the radio.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Dana truly if you want your room to smell good,
use Pope Perie. There's a million things you can use
that aren't candles.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
We say this a lot. 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, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Without kind of going through and being like, so, this
candle can't be near these curtains, It can't be near
this dried plant. It certainly can't be near a wicker cabinet. Yeah, like, what, no,
what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I don't blame her at all.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
The subject line of this is parenting Florida style. Hi, ladies.
My husband and I are both Midwesterners who, for reasons
outside of our control, found ourselves living and raising our
children in central Florida. When our kids were young, we
lived across the street from a field where we would
walk our dog, play frisbee, etc. At the back of
(09:07):
the field was a creek and a small wooded area
where we would see turtles, owls, and osprey. 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 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,
(09:28):
that's nice girls. A few days later, my daughter had
a different friend over and asked if they could go
over to the.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Creek to play with the lizards.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Sure, have fun, I said, And when they came back,
they were again pink faced and so excited. 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. Ew, that's yucky, dear, don't worry about
the shoe, I said. I considered myself an exceptionally astute
(09:58):
and protective mother. I was concerned about the possible bacteria
or parasites in the creek. 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. 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?
(10:21):
Which is what I asked her finally, how big are
those lizards? Dear? 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 what
Oh god. I immediately jumped up, got my laptop, googled
some images, and then said, honey, do the lizards look
(10:44):
like this.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
To which she replied, yes, just like that stripey.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Fuck in a nest in a nest like?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Looking about that word makes it so much.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Like, oh, it's so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Okay, of course I told her they were very dangerous
and that she should not play with them anymore, which
she protested.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
She said they were very nice. Yeah, she did listen
to me.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
But it haunts me to this day to think of
the girls playing with baby alligators who are fiercely protected
by their mothers.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Until they are at least a year old.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
That's the problem.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Where was the enormous child chopping mama all those times
the girls had been over there? We definitely dodged a bullet,
and I was glad I never had to explain to
the other PTO moms what had.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Happened to their daughters.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, and the sign off is just fucking Florida, Julia.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
What I had, like mind trips ago from the Midwest
to Florida, Like you just don't think about stuff like
lizard size.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
No, but I think you would have to focus. I mean,
and I'm sure that Julia did every single time after that.
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, like Oh,
it's so hilarious.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So good ness, a nest of anything, leave me alone
for real. Okay, I'm not going to read you the
title of this one. It's just called designated Driver. Let's
say hello, Hello, my name's Riley, and I'm writing to
you from the GTA Greater Toronto area. Oh, let's jump
into it. This story was told to me by my parents'
(12:42):
neighbor Rick. Picture a seven foot tall Lithuanian man in
his sixties in overalls with a beer in his hand. Yeah,
that's what you want as your fucking neighbor, right.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
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 eighties. 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
(13:13):
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, it's the country, 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. Shit hit the fan when
they got pulled over by a cop. I guess they
(13:35):
were swerving all over the road and it was super late.
When the cop asked the driver for his license, the
guy said that he didn't have one. I'm blind, sir,
said the driver.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Apparently, Rick and his friends were operating the gas and
telling the blind friend when to break and where to steer. Wow,
the cop couldn't charge him for drunk driving because he
was sober. I don't even think he got in trouble
for driving without a license and guessing the officer didn't
know what to do and probably couldn't help but laugh
at the situation. No one got in trouble and the
story was in the paper on Monday. I love everything
(14:11):
you girls do. Stay sexy. Cheers Rye from Canada.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I kind of love that story because they perfectly gamed
the system. It was like, we're not breaking a law
and we're we're.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Not driving drunk. You know, we're actually being safe. We
should be awarded for this.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I mean yeah, they should definitely be rewarded for sure.
Well the friends should be rewarded who was actually doing
the driving. But that is hilarious. This last one is
first and last ambient experience from mom.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Last week someone submitted their sleepwalking story and it reminded
me of my sleepwalking adjacent story about my mom's first
time taking ambient That makes me laugh every time I
think about it. A few years ago, my mom was
having a really hard time staying the sleep so as
last resort, her doctor prescribed her ambition for anyone unaware.
Ambien makes you fall asleep, but it can also make
(15:07):
you completely black out and sleepwalk.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Because of this, we had.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Very clear instructions that she was supposed to be supervised,
especially since this was our first time taking it. Okay,
so here's how it went. At six pm, my mom
took the dosage of ambien. About thirty minutes later, I
could tell that she was feeling the effect of the
ambien because she did something that she'd never done before.
She demanded a salad. We aren't really a salad family,
(15:33):
so we were not prepared for this demand. Well, when
my dad said that we didn't have salad, my mom
started crying between sobs, she begged him for a salad.
Confused and panicked, my dad ran to the kitchen to
prep a makeshift salad. By now it's about seven pm
and my dad is my mom sitting on the couch
with a bowl of salad. She seems normal now and
(15:55):
is just eating her salad and watching TV. So now,
my dad apparently did not understand what supervise meant. He
thought he could leave quickly to walk my sisters and
I to school for an event. We lived across the
street from the school, so this takes about five to
ten minutes. He figured nothing could happen in ten minutes,
and then my mom seemed content, so he left her
unsupervised to walk us over. When he got back ten
(16:17):
minutes later, he arrived to what can only be described
as a salad crime scene. Salad on the couch, on
the floor, on the dogs, on every piece of furniture.
The salad bowl was gone, and my mom was not
on the couch. He called out for her, but he
got no response. My mom was gone too, so my
dad followed the trail of lettuce and eventually it led
(16:38):
to the master bedroom.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
When he walked in, he.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Saw salad all over the bed sheets, and in the
middle was my mom, completely knocked out, gripping a fork
with an empty upside down salad bowl on her lap.
My mom slept for sixteen 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
(17:02):
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 ten minutes. But I like to imagine that innurse
sleepwalking state. She thought she was a flower girl and
that the salad bowl was her basket of flowers.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Oh that's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I hope you find a story as funny as I do.
If you knew my mom, it would be even funnier.
Let me know if I should write in about the
time that I got lost in the woods for two
days on a tender date and the police told my
parents that he murdered me.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Spoiler alert, we were actually just lost. Please write that, Yes,
please write it in.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yes, stay sexy, and don't let dad be in charge
of ambient supervision?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Is a belle?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Oh, Mike, Like the first thing that comes to mind,
because I used to take ambient is like you take
it in bed with your head already on the pillow,
because within ten minutes you're fucking gone. Yeah, six pm
in front of the TV. Oh messy.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, 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.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I love salad, flower girl. That's like the best.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I love asking for a salad and then when someone
says we don't have any salad, just sobbing crying, just
like yeah, she must.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Have needed some like roughage.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah. Yeah. My last one is about a heroic cat.
I'm not going to read you, but there are photos
involved and we can put them on our socials. Okay,
it just starts Esteemed Associates. Allow me to welcome you
to my email. Welcome to the story. Our Siamese Vincent
(18:42):
once saved his family from a house fire. This is
before we adopted him. More on that later.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
From what we.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Were told, the building caught on fire one night. Well,
everyone was asleep. The smoke alarms didn't go off because
the ship bag landlord hung empty plastic shells. Oh then
it says, check your detectors, everyone, Can you fucking milime on?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
I mean that guy could go to jail for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Vincent the cat, who was named wyat Arp at the time,
went to each member of the family and began yelling
at the top of his lungs, jumping on their chests,
and nibbling their fingers to wake them up. Which, knowing
Elvis would wake me up for any fucking reason, so
I can imagine him waking me up for a fire too.
You know. Thanks to Vincent's quick thinking, everyone got out
(19:29):
alive and unharmed. Unfortunately, due to what was found in
the downstairs unit during the fire investigation think cocaine bear
levels of drugs plus some unregistered weapons. Oh, Vincent's family
ended up having to relocate and couldn't take him to
their new residence, So Vincent ended up at the local
Humane Society where my husband works. We had recently lost
(19:52):
our previous Siamese boy and weren't looking to add another
kid to the family, or so I thought. I was
finishing up at work when my husband texted me simply
all caps he saved his family from a fire, followed
by picture number one Baby Vincent, I texted back, I'm
(20:12):
on my way. Later that month, Vincent, again previously called
wyatt Erp, was honored in a ceremony where he was
given the Humane Society's Animal Hero Award see second picture. Today,
Vincent is our elder statesman at seventeen, and shows no
signs of slowing down. He loves to play and is
(20:32):
not above using his heroic past as leverage to steal
entire pieces of pizza straight off of your plate. He
also keeps us on alert by conducting frequent calm checks,
meaning he yells his head off in another room until
someone answers. We couldn't be more proud of our tiny,
loud hero. Stay sexy and don't hesitate to adopt a
(20:54):
cat that will save you from a fire. Hugs Kelsey.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
That cat is so cute, by the way, he doesn't
look like a classic Siamese though, he kind of looks
like a combo.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, he's got Siamese coloring for sure, and the big
blue eyes and the loudness.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I'm sorry, I guess I'm just a little bit furious
because this cat saves the family. Yeah, I mean I
understand that they're in a tight spot.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It's theirs circumstances for sure, where it's like maybe they
had to move back home because you know, they didn't
have first and last and it's just sad and hopefully
found a humane society that is, you know, a no
kill shelter.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
And well and obviously he Vincent ended up with a
family he was supposed to end up at. We're like,
they know of a parent that loves them enough to
write emails to podcasts about him, So I guess it did.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
All turn out good.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That was beautiful.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
That's amazing. Look at it. He's leaning there against his
little He's gonna plaque. There's a picture with him in
a black that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
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.
(22:15):
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 that's right,
I'll wake up and take care.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Also so polite of him to be like, excuse me,
pardon me.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
This is my fault and I'm real stupid for doing
having choked on this like belt, but could you.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
But taptop tap tap tap tap, could you pull this string? Please?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Oh oh, send us your heroic animal stories, you know
we love.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Them, especially if your animal got a plaque. I mean, like,
can you beat Vincent and his safe to family got
a plaque?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It's that's right, major good old Wyatt.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And then also stay sexy.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And don't get murdered. Get bed, Elvis, do you want
a cookie?
Speaker 3 (23:09):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Our editor is Aristotle Oscevedo.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Emailing your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my
Favorite Murder and on Twitter at my Fave Murder. Goodbye,
Hello, and welcome to my favorite Murder the minisode.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We reach your stories.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
They're your emails.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, that's it, that's not easy. Why don't you go
first system? All right, let's see. The subject line of
this email is one hundred year old funeral home treasure
and it starts high all, I hope you read this
so I can tell my best friend Hallie, we love you, ladies.
And then there's a little typing smiley face, which is
still my favorite emoji, the og sideways smiley face. Simple, simple, sincere.
(00:51):
My father was a fourth generation funeral director who inherited
the family's one hundred year old funeral home, which is
a beautiful, full old brick building with white pillars out front.
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.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
That means we had to.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Get rid of over one hundred years worth of stuff
that my family had crammed into every nook and cranny
for generations. Amazing Georgia would have a field day with
the antiques.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, thank Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
This very old funeral home had an appropriately creepy, unfurnished
basement 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.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'll take them.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Oh no, no, no, no, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's it's you're not thrifting. Those are people.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'll put them up on my shelf, on my own shelf.
So in this is dark, dark water dripping somewhere raw
brick walled basement that was possibly full of ghosts. We
found a small.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Hidden door under the stairs.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
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.
Oh this was very exciting, except no one had the key,
and after living in the building for years, my mom
couldn't even imagine.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Where such a key would be.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
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
(02:52):
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. Oh yeah, Anyway,
she opened the safe and inside were old coin collections,
which were all dated from the nineteen fifties and earlier,
so it's likely no one had been in that safe
(03:12):
since then. 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, I agree, stay
sexy and keep every key you ever find.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
V oh the dream. There is in my office of
our new house a fucking locked old cabinet. This house
is like from the forties. There's no key, it's totally locked.
I don't know what's in there. I don't know how
to open it. Ooh yeah, gay crowbar, I don't want
to break it.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Just break it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I'll do it on camera.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, that's right. There you go. Here's your viral video
that you've been looking for.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's all I've ever wanted is a viral video. 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.
It's like the Bummer's bomber.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Like in the wall.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, just like the plastic shitty ones. You know, dang,
you know it's not good. Okay, latchkey kid. Story almost
burnt down the house? Story, Oh, just starts, ladies. It
was the mid late nineties and I was in about
seventh or eighth grade. I had been listening to the
hype on the radio for the jingle Ball concert coming
(04:32):
to Philly for weeks and I had to have tickets.
To my dismay, the show was sold out, but if
I was the one hundred and second caller, I would
get free tickets to the show, as well as backstage
passes for me and my friends. Remember those I had
to win. It was a weekend day, my mom was
out and I was hanging out in my room listening
to the radio on my sweet stereo, waiting for when
(04:55):
they made the announcement to call in. I had this
tall wicker bookshelf with one of those cool nineties blow
up chairs next wood where I was lounging and listening.
I decided to get the vibe right, so I lit
a candle and enjoyed the sweet smells of summer while
I waited. Of course, we fucking had candles in our
rooms as twelve year olds in the nineties, right, sure, yeah,
(05:17):
it's fine. Then it happened they made the announcement that
call her one oh two would get those tickets. 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 collar. That's when my
older sister, Jess walked in and asked, what's that smell,
to which I replied that I didn't smell anything, and
(05:39):
I didn't have time to help her because I was
about to be caller one o two. She walked out
of the room, and then I heard her screaming, Dana,
what the fuck your room is on fire. I dropped
the phone and ran to my room, where I stood
absolutely frozen, staring at my wicker cabinet engulfed in flames.
I didn't know what to do, and I literally just
stood there. Jess sprung into action and grabbed a bucket
(06:02):
from under the bathroom sink and started running back and
forth from the bathroom putting out the flames.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
She did it.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
She was a.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Fucking badass firefighting sister and probably saved our entire house.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Oh my god, I know.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
This is where the panic really started to set in.
Mom was going to fucking kill me. What do I do?
How do I hide this? Jess and I started plotting.
There was a hole burned 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. We scrubbed ash soot
from the shelves and rearranged things to cover every singed part.
(06:39):
Some burning embers had fallen off the bookshelf and burned
a large hole in my carpet. We found a weird
flower shaped area rug and moved it over there, placing
it perfectly on top. We made a pact never to
tell Mom. To my relief, she didn't notice it, and
it seemed like I got away with it. These are
the sister moments where they're like, actually cool, and they
(06:59):
know that you'll be in so much trouble that it's
not even going to be entertaining for them anymore, and
they like bond with you and like help you.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
You know, yeah, my sister absolutely would have laughed and
been like good luck.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
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, so let's suck.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
It's gonna be so bad that I actually feel mercy
for you right now exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Cut to like five years later, I was a freshman
in college and no longer living at home. I got
a call from my mom and which she was freaking
out at me about why there is a giant burnmark
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 moved the rug and found
my burn carpet and ratted me out. Jess and I
(07:46):
thought it was absolutely hilarious. At this point, my mom
was pissed, but again, what could you 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, stay sexy, and
don't burn the house down to win concert tickets off
the radio.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Dana truly if you want your room to smell good,
use Pope Perie. There's a million things you can use
that aren't candles.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
We say this a lot. 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, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Without kind of going through and being like, so, this
candle can't be near these curtains, It can't be near
this dried plant. It certainly can't be near a wicker cabinet. Yeah, like, what, no,
what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I don't blame her at all.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
The subject line of this is parenting Florida style. Hi, ladies.
My husband and I are both Midwesterners who, for reasons
outside of our control, found ourselves living and raising our
children in central Florida. When our kids were young, we
lived across the street from a field where we would
walk our dog, play frisbee, etc. At the back of
(09:07):
the field was a creek and a small wooded area
where we would see turtles, owls, and osprey. 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 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,
(09:28):
that's nice girls. A few days later, my daughter had
a different friend over and asked if they could go
over to the.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Creek to play with the lizards.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Sure, have fun, I said, And when they came back,
they were again pink faced and so excited. 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. Ew, that's yucky, dear, don't worry about
the shoe, I said. I considered myself an exceptionally astute
(09:58):
and protective mother. I was concerned about the possible bacteria
or parasites in the creek. 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. 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?
(10:21):
Which is what I asked her finally, how big are
those lizards? Dear? 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 what
Oh god. I immediately jumped up, got my laptop, googled
some images, and then said, honey, do the lizards look
(10:44):
like this.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
To which she replied, yes, just like that stripey.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Fuck in a nest in a nest like?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Looking about that word makes it so much.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Like, oh, it's so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Okay, of course I told her they were very dangerous
and that she should not play with them anymore, which
she protested.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
She said they were very nice. Yeah, she did listen
to me.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
But it haunts me to this day to think of
the girls playing with baby alligators who are fiercely protected
by their mothers.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Until they are at least a year old.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
That's the problem.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Where was the enormous child chopping mama all those times
the girls had been over there? We definitely dodged a bullet,
and I was glad I never had to explain to
the other PTO moms what had.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Happened to their daughters.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, and the sign off is just fucking Florida, Julia.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
What I had, like mind trips ago from the Midwest
to Florida, Like you just don't think about stuff like
lizard size.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
No, but I think you would have to focus. I mean,
and I'm sure that Julia did every single time after that.
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, like Oh,
it's so hilarious.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So good ness, a nest of anything, leave me alone
for real. Okay, I'm not going to read you the
title of this one. It's just called designated Driver. Let's
say hello, Hello, my name's Riley, and I'm writing to
you from the GTA Greater Toronto area. Oh, let's jump
into it. This story was told to me by my parents'
(12:42):
neighbor Rick. Picture a seven foot tall Lithuanian man in
his sixties in overalls with a beer in his hand. Yeah,
that's what you want as your fucking neighbor, right.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
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 eighties. 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
(13:13):
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, it's the country, 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. Shit hit the fan when
they got pulled over by a cop. I guess they
(13:35):
were swerving all over the road and it was super late.
When the cop asked the driver for his license, the
guy said that he didn't have one. I'm blind, sir,
said the driver.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Apparently, Rick and his friends were operating the gas and
telling the blind friend when to break and where to steer. Wow,
the cop couldn't charge him for drunk driving because he
was sober. I don't even think he got in trouble
for driving without a license and guessing the officer didn't
know what to do and probably couldn't help but laugh
at the situation. No one got in trouble and the
story was in the paper on Monday. I love everything
(14:11):
you girls do. Stay sexy. Cheers Rye from Canada.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I kind of love that story because they perfectly gamed
the system. It was like, we're not breaking a law
and we're we're.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Not driving drunk. You know, we're actually being safe. We
should be awarded for this.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I mean yeah, they should definitely be rewarded for sure.
Well the friends should be rewarded who was actually doing
the driving. But that is hilarious. This last one is
first and last ambient experience from mom.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Last week someone submitted their sleepwalking story and it reminded
me of my sleepwalking adjacent story about my mom's first
time taking ambient That makes me laugh every time I
think about it. A few years ago, my mom was
having a really hard time staying the sleep so as
last resort, her doctor prescribed her ambition for anyone unaware.
Ambien makes you fall asleep, but it can also make
(15:07):
you completely black out and sleepwalk.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Because of this, we had.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Very clear instructions that she was supposed to be supervised,
especially since this was our first time taking it. Okay,
so here's how it went. At six pm, my mom
took the dosage of ambien. About thirty minutes later, I
could tell that she was feeling the effect of the
ambien because she did something that she'd never done before.
She demanded a salad. We aren't really a salad family,
(15:33):
so we were not prepared for this demand. Well, when
my dad said that we didn't have salad, my mom
started crying between sobs, she begged him for a salad.
Confused and panicked, my dad ran to the kitchen to
prep a makeshift salad. By now it's about seven pm
and my dad is my mom sitting on the couch
with a bowl of salad. She seems normal now and
(15:55):
is just eating her salad and watching TV. So now,
my dad apparently did not understand what supervise meant. He
thought he could leave quickly to walk my sisters and
I to school for an event. We lived across the
street from the school, so this takes about five to
ten minutes. He figured nothing could happen in ten minutes,
and then my mom seemed content, so he left her
unsupervised to walk us over. When he got back ten
(16:17):
minutes later, he arrived to what can only be described
as a salad crime scene. Salad on the couch, on
the floor, on the dogs, on every piece of furniture.
The salad bowl was gone, and my mom was not
on the couch. He called out for her, but he
got no response. My mom was gone too, so my
dad followed the trail of lettuce and eventually it led
(16:38):
to the master bedroom.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
When he walked in, he.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Saw salad all over the bed sheets, and in the
middle was my mom, completely knocked out, gripping a fork
with an empty upside down salad bowl on her lap.
My mom slept for sixteen 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
(17:02):
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 ten minutes. But I like to imagine that innurse
sleepwalking state. She thought she was a flower girl and
that the salad bowl was her basket of flowers.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Oh that's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I hope you find a story as funny as I do.
If you knew my mom, it would be even funnier.
Let me know if I should write in about the
time that I got lost in the woods for two
days on a tender date and the police told my
parents that he murdered me.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Spoiler alert, we were actually just lost. Please write that, Yes,
please write it in.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yes, stay sexy, and don't let dad be in charge
of ambient supervision?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Is a belle?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Oh, Mike, Like the first thing that comes to mind,
because I used to take ambient is like you take
it in bed with your head already on the pillow,
because within ten minutes you're fucking gone. Yeah, six pm
in front of the TV. Oh messy.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, 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.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I love salad, flower girl. That's like the best.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I love asking for a salad and then when someone
says we don't have any salad, just sobbing crying, just
like yeah, she must.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Have needed some like roughage.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah. Yeah. My last one is about a heroic cat.
I'm not going to read you, but there are photos
involved and we can put them on our socials. Okay,
it just starts Esteemed Associates. Allow me to welcome you
to my email. Welcome to the story. Our Siamese Vincent
(18:42):
once saved his family from a house fire. This is
before we adopted him. More on that later.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
From what we.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Were told, the building caught on fire one night. Well,
everyone was asleep. The smoke alarms didn't go off because
the ship bag landlord hung empty plastic shells. Oh then
it says, check your detectors, everyone, Can you fucking milime on?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
I mean that guy could go to jail for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Vincent the cat, who was named wyat Arp at the time,
went to each member of the family and began yelling
at the top of his lungs, jumping on their chests,
and nibbling their fingers to wake them up. Which, knowing
Elvis would wake me up for any fucking reason, so
I can imagine him waking me up for a fire too.
You know. Thanks to Vincent's quick thinking, everyone got out
(19:29):
alive and unharmed. Unfortunately, due to what was found in
the downstairs unit during the fire investigation think cocaine bear
levels of drugs plus some unregistered weapons. Oh, Vincent's family
ended up having to relocate and couldn't take him to
their new residence, So Vincent ended up at the local
Humane Society where my husband works. We had recently lost
(19:52):
our previous Siamese boy and weren't looking to add another
kid to the family, or so I thought. I was
finishing up at work when my husband texted me simply
all caps he saved his family from a fire, followed
by picture number one Baby Vincent, I texted back, I'm
(20:12):
on my way. Later that month, Vincent, again previously called
wyatt Erp, was honored in a ceremony where he was
given the Humane Society's Animal Hero Award see second picture. Today,
Vincent is our elder statesman at seventeen, and shows no
signs of slowing down. He loves to play and is
(20:32):
not above using his heroic past as leverage to steal
entire pieces of pizza straight off of your plate. He
also keeps us on alert by conducting frequent calm checks,
meaning he yells his head off in another room until
someone answers. We couldn't be more proud of our tiny,
loud hero. Stay sexy and don't hesitate to adopt a
(20:54):
cat that will save you from a fire. Hugs Kelsey.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
That cat is so cute, by the way, he doesn't
look like a classic Siamese though, he kind of looks
like a combo.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, he's got Siamese coloring for sure, and the big
blue eyes and the loudness.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I'm sorry, I guess I'm just a little bit furious
because this cat saves the family. Yeah, I mean I
understand that they're in a tight spot.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It's theirs circumstances for sure, where it's like maybe they
had to move back home because you know, they didn't
have first and last and it's just sad and hopefully
found a humane society that is, you know, a no
kill shelter.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
And well and obviously he Vincent ended up with a
family he was supposed to end up at. We're like,
they know of a parent that loves them enough to
write emails to podcasts about him, So I guess it did.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
All turn out good.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That was beautiful.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
That's amazing. Look at it. He's leaning there against his
little He's gonna plaque. There's a picture with him in
a black that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
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.
(22:15):
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 that's right,
I'll wake up and take care.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Also so polite of him to be like, excuse me,
pardon me.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
This is my fault and I'm real stupid for doing
having choked on this like belt, but could you.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
But taptop tap tap tap tap, could you pull this string? Please?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Oh oh, send us your heroic animal stories, you know
we love.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Them, especially if your animal got a plaque. I mean, like,
can you beat Vincent and his safe to family got
a plaque?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It's that's right, major good old Wyatt.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And then also stay sexy.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And don't get murdered. Get bed, Elvis, do you want
a cookie?
Speaker 3 (23:09):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Our editor is Aristotle Oscevedo.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Emailing your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my
Favorite Murder and on Twitter at my Fave Murder. Goodbye,
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.