November 24, 2025 • 27 mins
This week’s hometowns are Thanksgiving-themed! Stories feature a celebrity stopping by dinner and Grandma’s kitchen.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hello and welcome my favorite Murder the minisode for Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving episode You Love Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You love It Special Thanksgiving episode. This is like Charlie
Brown kind of.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What's the one dish that you have to have at
Thanksgiving that like it has to be made your favorite?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh, my sister's mashed potatoes, which used to be my
mom's mashed potatoes, which are the most calorically den just
half butter, yeah, half butter. She does a little bit
of Manni's a bunch of butter cream sour cream. They're
just insane, you know.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
My aunt does this, puts paprika on top of them
and puts it in the oven for a minute to
get a crispy paprika crest on top.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yes, okay, first I'm so hungry. Okay, I love this.
God damn story Surprise Thanksgiving Guest Celebrity Edition what and
I feel like we could do this for any holiday? Yes,
even for no holiday. What celebrity came, Dear, it came
to your house for some weird yes. Blank Patch, one
of my favorite stand up comments, who I've known my
(01:17):
whole life basically had an amazing story where he went
to Thanksgiving with his wife and at her family's and
Neil Diamond was one of the guests. He does a
whole chunk about it, but yeah, it was like he
was dating a person that was crazy. Okay, okay, and
this starts Hello, MFM fam, thank you for the countless
hours of entertainment, And then in parentheses it says I
(01:40):
discovered you in early twenty twenty one and spent most
of the pandemic trying to get through the backlog. Let's
call it the back catalog. Since it's different than the backlog.
You're not mriska hargitat. Come on, that's right. Your advocacy
and the community you have built. We didn't build it.
You guys built it. We didn't do itppreciate it though.
(02:01):
Your voices took me through a cross country move Edmonton
to Ottawa and now a major career change, And for
that I am grateful. Now let's get after it. When
I was in elementary school, my family became good friends
with another family who'd moved to Toronto for the dad's work.
My younger sister quickly became close friends with the twin
girls who were her age, and I had not a
(02:21):
moment's piece, had any family gathering from then on, and
then in parentheses it says all I wanted to do
was read Hi, this is not about that. Every year,
my family hosts Thanksgiving dinner, and because we had no
family in town, we always dubbed it that this is
for the family we choose the best. So naturally my
parents invited this family, along with a few others in
(02:43):
our friend group. The response back from the mum was
that they could not make it, as her childhood from
from Australia was in town and they were spending the
holiday with him and his wife. My parents have always
been the throw more potatoes and the pot types, and
of course insisted that they still come and bring their friends.
No more thought it. The day comes, the turkey is
roasting in the oven, stuffing is made, the table is set,
(03:05):
and my mother has made a soup for the starter.
Guests start arriving, and eventually everyone is there except for
our assi's childhood friend. The doorbell suddenly rings. My mom
goes over to answer it, and who is at the
door other than motherfucking guy Pierce what he apparently looked
up his old pal while he was in town filming.
(03:26):
And then it says in parentheses likely trader with Don
Cheedle based on my Wikipedia sleuthing.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
By all accounts, my parents played it cool until my
dad was well in his cups and made Guy unbutton
his shirt to quote show them what he was working with. Yes, yes,
show us, And the answer was washboard apps. Sure, and
Guy was absolutely lovely, even participating in an after dinner
what they called turkey fondu, which is when you take
(03:55):
the leftover turkey and dip it in the gravy left
in the pan. So basically, just as people probably washing
the dishes and stuff, they call it turkey fondo just
dip the turkey and the grave in. And it says unfortunately,
no one had given us a heads up that his
wife was vegan, so my mom may have had to
stretch the truth on the broth used in the soup.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
You've got to get people aheadsop.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I know that's a little specific. In parenthes, it says,
is this vegetable based, Oh my god, asked missus pears. Yes,
said my mom, cringing internally. Noah, it was chicken bro.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Oh shit, you can't do that.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well she did it. I do not remember this, as
I was nine and I did not care for any
celebrity that wasn't a Jonas brother. It became a lot
more exciting when Bedtime Stories came out a year later
and I could tell my friends that the mean hotel
manager had been to my house for dinner. Sadly, our
friends moved back to Australia after only five years in Canada,
(04:48):
but I'll always look back at our time as kids fondly,
and those twins and their sisters have grown up to
be bad asses in their own right. My sister has
also grown into a young woman I'm so proud of
and the coolest person I know. And then in parentheses
it says I keep trying to get her into the.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Pod, don't do it, doesn't want to.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Don't don't force anybody. It ends by saying, remember, family
isn't always about blood. It's who you choose. And always
throw another potato into the pot. You never know who
will come for dinner. SSDGM Emma, I love it so
good guy peers. They just how nice like that idea
that they could just go to a family Thanksgiving. I mean,
(05:30):
because they probably don't have things in Australia.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
So last year we had these friends Carlos Emilis and
Melisa is like super French, and her parents came into
town that weekend. Just happened from France, and Vince was like,
I'm giving them their first Thanksgiving and made the whole
Thanksgiving thing, made them try it. They were really sweet
and pretended to be blown away. I think they were,
but it was like so excited to be like this
is what Thanksgiving's like.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
No, I think that's so sweet. I think it's also
that thing makes me think of when we got to
go to Italy. We were in Lake Como and Janet's
husband's family lived there, so they had us come and
have like a traditional Italian lunch with them, which I
think dinner. We literally were at one point, we're just
all crying because like the grandma made us this incredible
(06:15):
lasagna that seemed like it had twenty five layers to it. Food,
everything was homemade. They had all this food, and it
was like they were like, we're here to treat you.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Like that idea is so generous and lovely.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I love it. Send us your stories whatever, yes, whatever
that is.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Send us your story is some sort of a dinner story.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Dinner. Yeah, the best dinner with crying okay, the Thanksgiving
where we almost died and or got arrested as a family.
Warm hearted, yes, warm hearted instead of light hearted. Okay,
Season's greetings, y'all. So my family infamously loves to prepare
way too much food for any holiday. Everyone needs to
have their favorite dishes, so this often leads to several
(06:53):
varieties of stuffing, green beans, pies, you get the picture. Unfortunately,
since my parents hit retirement age, they inevitably do too
much and end up throwing their backs out or exhausting
themselves into a stupor trying to recreate these feasts. This
usually results in me finishing half prepared meals and getting
frustrated at trying to jump into a crazy, messy kitchen
(07:13):
where I'm blankly staring at a salad spinner. It's like
that would be hard, Like you're up, get in like whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Knives down, get in there, get in there, do something.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So in November twenty nineteen, I insisted on taking care
of the entire meal myself from start to finish. It
was to take place at my great aunt Polly's house
in Port nay Chess, Texas. Thank you for the phonetic spelling.
I arrived several days early to begin brining the turkey,
starting the process of making homemade dinner rolls and prepping
as many sides as possible. I was really pleased at
(07:44):
how well everything was going. I was exhausted, but proud
that no one would be in physical pain and satisfied
with their meals this year. I stayed up late shaping
dinner rolls to rise in the pan and didn't get
to bed. And I know, like, just buy those guys.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I mean, and also everyone loves like a crescent roll
or something Hawaiian sweet. Well, people who are like homemakers,
you know you can't tell those people let anything.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I didn't get to bed until around midnight on Wednesday,
November twenty seventh, the day before Thanksgiving. About an hour
after falling asleep, I awoke to my bed shaking violently
and what sounded like someone slamming a door really hard.
I got up to investigate, and as I walked through
the house I could smell cigarette smoke. After not being
able to find anything mess, I went back to bed.
I had to get up early to finish cooking dinner.
(08:28):
The next day. I was anticipating a crowd of people
to arrive. Among them my partner that I hadn't seen
all a week. I was shocked to find out that
a butane refinery less than two miles away exploded at
one am. Oh shance, the cigarette smell exploded two miles.
I considered this for a moment, but ultimately decided that
(08:48):
show must go on and started my carefully orchestrated symphony
of cast roles that would need even time. At some point,
someone came to tell me that the police were sweeping
the neighborhoods and ordering a mandatory evacuation. Mandatory. Our area
is no stranger to evacuations, having been hit by our
fair share of hurricanes. But my father crossed his arms
and said, no, oh no. We closed all the curtains,
(09:10):
moved the cars into the garage, and began our first
stealth Thanksgiving. I have to interject that my mom was
not pleased with our decision and how they were shaping up.
She insisted that if my partner really loved me, they
would find a way to join us, and that I
should probably leave since I was the quote future of
the family. She of them die. This is christ needless
(09:30):
to say. We made it out just fine, but did
experience a second explosion halfway through our meal that had
our heavily laden dinner table shaking. I mean, that's why
you were supposed.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
To be we see evacuation.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, I swore I'd never do this again. Man plans
and God laughs. Btw. Thankfully only five people were hurt
during the explosion, but the fire and billowing smoke lasted
for over twenty four hours. The factory had been outside
of EPA safety requirements and find consecutively for over five
years prior to the ex the fine summing up to
(10:01):
less than two hundred thousand dollars. It's hard to speak
out against these companies since they provide the majority of
jobs to the area, but this type of pollution to
our air and oceans is upsetting. I know the femail
is long, but thank you ladies for being a platform
for marginalized, slash disadvantage people. Your voices used to fill
my female led bakery. Oh the roles.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oh that's why where I worked.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Prior to the pandemic, and we all enjoyed cackling to
your voices in the wee hours of the morning while
we shaped bread.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
We got to be there. I felt like a middle
of the night bakery session for all women in a bakery.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
When people tell us, like where they took us, there
was like an antarctic one recently. Yes, I'm like, we
were fucking there. That's where we've been. I love that.
Tell us the coolest places you've listened to us, please,
I mean I want.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I feel like I want to join an all female
bakery and get up at four in the morning. Don't
help make.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Get up at four one morning anyways. I know might
as well.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I'd be over there helping out.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
My first job is a bakery, and it's just so
much fun. Is it so fun?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Did you have to go that early?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
No? Because I was like behind the counter. But yeah,
it's just like you're surrounded by like presence essentially.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, and people happy because they're getting their hot cross
bumbs exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Stay sexy and don't get exploded by evil energy companies.
This Thanksgiving Cooper, she her.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
But dad's just like you know what, the but tank
can blow up.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I'm not mean she's not just blowing up, but you're
inhaling that shit too.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes, I mean there's a chemical issue outside. I won't
read you the subject line, and it says not to
be bossy, but don't read the subject line. Okay, let's
jump right in. This is that story, you know, the
infamous one that gets repeated in the family over and over.
The year was two thousand and two. I was nine
(11:46):
years old. It was Thanksgiving and my family and I
were in New Jersey visiting my aunt and uncle and cousins.
I was helping set the table for Thanksgiving dinner when
I slipped. It was a wood floor and I was
wearing socks and holding a bundle of overwere I need
to say this. Some of my worst accidents, because my
parents have wood floors too, is when you're wearing socks
(12:06):
without any grap and you think every you're like, on the.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Stairs stairs, I've fucking done that. God be so careful,
slippers on, get little grippers. Yeah, I'm picturing it because
I've fucking I've done it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, it sucks. I did it on Adrian's stairs one
time and slipped and then slammed down on my butt
on those stairs and then just had like a sore.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Oh's the worst.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
When I slipped and fell, I happened to drop the
bundle of silverware at the exact moment where I landed
on the floor, I also landed on top of a knife.
The odds here, though I'm not a mathematician and in
fact didn't pass freshman year algebra the first time, just
seem astronomical. Yeah, But anyway, I slipped and fell, and
in the I don't know one second that the knife
(12:49):
I was holding was exactly balanced. I landed on top
of it, and the knife slid into my armpit. As
I recall it, and as my mom tells me, though
she's still twenty four years later, hates talking about it
because she's a sweet baby angel, I screamed. My sister,
who was maybe seventeen at the time, ran over, pulled
my shirt up, saw the blood, and yelled, hospital now,
(13:11):
so someone grabs my uncle to drive us to the hospital.
My uncle, who for the record, is incredibly Sicilian like,
wears gold chains and white tank tops and looks like
a soprano's extra so good. And remember this was in
two thousand and two, which was obviously before iPhones, et cetera,
and my family had just moved to New Jersey, so
they weren't totally familiar with their neighborhood yet. But anyway,
(13:33):
my mom sits in the back seat with me, and
I lay down and I'm bleeding and my mom's crying,
and my sister's helping my uncle navigate in the front
seat of his blacked out Chevy suburban like I told
you incredibly sicilian so good, and he's literally driving like
driving Miss Daisy, like couldn't be going slower. Oh, and
my mom is freaking out because I'm sitting back there bleeding.
(13:55):
Eventually we make it to the hospital, but it has
this weird kind of drive through thing. Remember the old
banks where you'd stop in the drive through and be
helped that way. It was kind of like that. And
my uncle pulls up to it and he's telling the
person helping us that I've been stabbed in a parentheses
it says lol by myself and needs help. And this
person is like seeming really confused. And it goes on
(14:17):
for a minute or so until the person helping us says, sir,
this is a nursing home. Oh my god, yes, you
heard that right. He took me to a nursing home
instead of an emergency room. I swear to god, my
mom almost had a heart attack. The sweet nursing home
staff pointed us toward the hospital, and after another few
minutes of painstakingly slow driving, I would assume the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, like there's something in the trunk, maybe like a
body who.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Cannot get pulled up. We made it to the er,
where I got ten stitches. Not only did I survive
to tell the tale, but when we got home, my
brothers and boy cousins were the nicest they'd ever been
to me, and my Albanian grandmother gave me one hundred
dollars cash.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Not a bad fuck yet suddenly the best day. She
was so like, I love the Albamian grandma just kind
of sliding.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
She's just like, I can't say I love you. Yes,
that part's too hard. We're an immigrant family. Cash is
what love is. Stay sexy and don't go to a
nursing home unless you really mean to. For Tessa, she.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Her, oh my god, that's hilarious. It's stabbing yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Stabbing yourself. I actually one time was helping set the
table and I was holding steak knives and forks, and
I was kind of running into the living room and
my mom's friend Carolyn Bernardi was coming into the kitchen
and I almost stabbed her in the abdomen, like she
stopped and pulled herself back like within half an inch.
(15:39):
That's how I learned to that you hold them upright
and close to yourself.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
When I was like four something, I got up on
the table like this and hit the edge of the
plate and it's fucking I have a scar there. It
flew into my eye. Holy stitches thing.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Oh my god, was it on Thanksgiving? Now?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Okay, cut that story, shit, save over another day. Yeah, okay,
here's my second one, my favorite party story, long but
funny ending. I think long but funny ending is for Mollie.
Actually that one hundred percent is for me. She's like,
I would not have put this in. If you're upset
that your story hasn't been picked, maybe it's too long,
(16:16):
edit it and resubmitted.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Get in there and get to the facts.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, like take out. It's like two pages tops two pages? Okay,
Karen and Georgia and mfmteam including pets. I am a
diehard og Murdarino who adores you all. A few many
episodes back, you asked for party stories, So here is mine.
When I was in my early twenties, fresh out of
college and living in Baltimore, I adopted a stray orange kitten.
Oh yeah, this is funny. Jaffie rhymes with the Taffy
(16:40):
was a scrappy little street cat who hung out with
me for the next eighteen years, through all the different
apartments and relationships and jobs I had across the country.
She was still my little sidekick when I moved back
to Baltimore in the early two thousands. Needless to say,
I loved that cat. Sadly, shortly after I've moved back,
Jaffee started to slow down and it was clearly sick.
No definite diagnosis, but probably some form of cancer. My
(17:03):
poor cat got skinnier and skinnier until a sad Thanksgiving
morning when her back legs gave out and I knew
her number was up. Since it was a holiday, I
called an emergency that who said they could take her
in to be put to sleep, but that if she
went quickly at home, it wouldn't make much sense to
pay the astronomical holiday fee they had to charge me.
Oh yeah, of course, I didn't want her to suffer
and would have taken her in, but she faded fast
(17:25):
and passed within an hour. I was truly heartbroken and
cried into all the Thanksgiving pies I baked that afternoon.
I was a little unsure what to do with Jaffy's
little corpse until I could take her in the following
day to be cremated, But after consulting with friends and family,
I wrapped her in her favorite blanket, along with all
of her cat toys, of course, and carefully stowed her
(17:46):
outside on my city row house's roof deck, where it
was pleasantly chilly. Oh no, it's not what you think.
It's oh okay, maybe a little worse. Oh and I
have my heart is pounding because I think Mimi's going
to be gone soon. At thanksgetting to it's so sad.
I showed up later that day at my family's Thanksgiving
dinner in morning and made several I e too many
(18:08):
teary toast and Jaffy's honor throughout the meal. I love it,
although we never had before. My sister suggested we go
Black Friday shopping that night, and we ended up at
Michael's the craft store. Walking through the aisles, my sister
pointed at a little wooden box and jokingly said, oh,
that looks like a little coffin for Jaffee. Of course,
I tearfully snatched it up and brought it back home
(18:29):
that night, where I gently and kind of stiffly by
that point, settle Jaffee in it on the roof deck
before I went to bed. The next morning, I scheduled
Jaffie's cremation, but I felt like a little more ceremony
was needed. After all, this cat had been with me
for basically all of my adult life so far, so
I decided to make a quick stop at my favorite
bench by Baltimore's Harbor so the Jaffeine I could say
(18:49):
a final goodbye to her city together. That day after
Thanksgetting was definitely warmer than it had been the night before,
and as I put my little cat Coffin on my
car's front seat for the short ride the harbor and
then carefully carry it to my favorite bench, I could
detect the beginning of a faint smell, but I didn't care.
I sat in the sun with the box, which I
had stayed up late decorating with a sharpie the night
(19:10):
before on my lap for a couple minutes and waited
for the few tourists milling around to leave before I
could say my last goodbye I don't know if it
was my grief stricken sleep deprivation or what, but as
I got up to leave, I suddenly thought, you know,
it would be so fitting for this Baltimore cat a
burial right here in the harbor. Oh it seemed to
make perfect sense as a more meaningful alternative to anonymous cremation.
(19:34):
And before I really know what I was doing, I
walked to the edge of the pier, whispered goodbye, and
dropped Jaffy's wooden coffin into the harbor.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Oh No.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
As I watched the lovingly inscribed box bob out into
the open water, I had another realization, which was that
the box wasn't sinking because it wasn't weighed down with
anything but a very very skinny cat body and some
cat toys. Are you crying?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
No, I just it's so like it's so you're yeah,
and you yourself Totallyria. You just want to give the
cat your final Yeah, that's so sad.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I stood watching it float, and then continued watching as
around the corner of the pier a Baltimore City Harbor
Police boat slowly drifted into view. That box wasn't sinking,
but my heart shure did as I watched the police
boat suddenly changed course and head straight for my poor
cat's midnight madness coffin. I stood a few seconds more,
riveted by the sight of a large net being lowered
(20:26):
into the harbor to retrieve the box, and then I'm
ashamed to say, I turned around and took off running
from that pier. Yeah you did. There are a lot
of stories about bodies being dumped in Baltimore's harbor, but
I was pretty sure that even having to explain a
cat body it would mean some trouble and probably a fine.
I'm still sad about my cat's Postuma's fate in the
(20:47):
hands of the police, and to this day I always
whisper a little Hello Jassey every time I passed that pier.
Not in there.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
You should do as you passed the police department, because right.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
But I will say that it is possibly my greatest
party story to tell here in Baltimore, except for the
time John Waters picked up a friend of mine at
last Call, which turned into a truly surreal late night
slash early morning at his house during a massive snowstorm.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You getting stuck in his nose arm at John waters house,
I mean, oh my greatest man in your life, you
lucky bastard.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Love you all and all that you do. Stay sexy.
Don't never ask me to dump a body in Baltimore's
Harbor for you, because I'm obviously not good at it.
Rachel she her ps karen As in eighties teen, My
first big crush was on c Thomas Howell. I always
thought I was the only one.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Oh girl, it was all of us, all of us
outsiders fans. Wow, that is so hilarious and sad. I
was actually thinking of this. We had this cat, Rory,
and she was old when we adopted her, and she
didn't like us or anything, and she was like one
of those miserable old cats. We kind of brought her
around near the end than she died, and I'm pretty
(21:57):
sure we buried her on the side of the house.
And it's like, that's just there for the next people,
like if they go, oh, we want to redo this
some time or something.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I know that, Like I move so often, I know
that my house right now isn't my final house. I'm
not bearing Elvis there because I know, like in three
years I'm gonna change my mind about it and fucking
move away, yes, and leave Elvis there.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
You have to keep Elvis and whatever earn he's in. Yeah, Okay,
here's my last one and the subject line says I'm
a Kelsey too, and then it says hi friends, longtime listener,
multi time writer. Thanksgiving is always my favorite holiday growing up.
My mom always cooked for a big chunk of my family,
(22:38):
and there are a lot of us. I'm one of eight,
my mom was one of eight, and I lost count
of how many cousins I have. And when I asked
my mom, what, why the hell's she would have so
many kids, she always replied, Ugh, I don't know. I'm
a recovering Catholic. I mean my dad is one of nine. Yeah,
and that's a gigantic family. Imagine it's like eight and eight.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Okay, So one Thanksgiving, while the turkey and the other
deliciousness was cooking, my mom was running around like crazy
as always. I'm sure my constant offers to help were
more annoying than anything, as I was just a little kid.
She was the type of person that always had seventeen
thousand pairs of reader glasses, you know, those little half glasses,
yet she always managed to constantly lose them. That was
(23:21):
like in the nineties, that's all my parents did. It
was like, did you take my readers or it's like,
why would we We don't use them.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Of course, And they got them at like the grocery
store and show.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, so they're in pockets and they're in the couch
and they're on the floor.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Actually, you're wearing a pair right now.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
What the fuck? You're wearing it as a headband. So
it says during this one fateful holiday, she, to no
one's surprise, lost the pair she'd been using. We looked everywhere.
It wasn't until the pungent smell of burnt plastic and
smoke filled the air that we all realized what had happened.
My mom had her glasses on top of her head
when she last checked the turkey, and they fell off
(23:56):
her damn head into the bottom of the oven, where
they remained.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Okay, so many questions. Why didn't she see that happen?
Hear it? Fucking seel it.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I'll tell you, I didn't see it. Shouldn't have her
fucking readers on. Oh yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
But I'm like, because she started drinking, she had some
gin phizzitis, around eleven, am right, that's what Thanksgiving is for.
To her horror, it did manage to ruin a good
chunk of the food, but she was the most worried
about getting her beloved parakeet out of the smoke. Aw
us kids were on our own. It's now one of
the funniest stories we talk about around the holiday in
(24:31):
her memory. My mom raised us on our own, and
I lost her to suicide when I was a teenager.
Oh so hard. As the years go on, I struggle
to remember her laugh so telling these stories are what
keep her memory alive from me, My god, thank you
for continuing to be a voice from mental health and
all that it involves. We still have a lot of
work to do, and I am proud of everything you do.
(24:54):
Oh stay sexy and don't let mom lose her glasses.
Kelsey and ps. My horay is that being from San
Luis Obispo, Paul Flores was finally held accountable for the
death of Kristen Smart.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah, yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Oh such a mom memory. I just love that mom
like mom Thanksgiving memory where it's like you're cooking for
a million people. You're trying to get all this stuff done.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, everything has different timing. It's such a pain in
the ass. And then yeah, someone asking me what they
can do to help is almost more annoying. Sometimes yes exactly,
you're like, well, you're gonna do it wrong. Yeah, So okay,
that's beautiful. Okay. This is called Grandma's kitchen. It's short
my grandparents, Julia Ann and Willard Oliver, who had eight
children what each child married and had kids of their own,
(25:39):
me being the youngest of six. For my parents, all
of this meaning Thanksgiving would be jam packed with people
in their country farmhouse. Grandma always stayed in the kitchen,
working away to feed everyone. When food was done, she
sat and didn't eat anything. She said she ate by
tasting everything while making it Jesus. After her death, my
aunt told us that Grandma hates everyone visiting. Grandpa insisted
(26:04):
and she gave in. So my aunt would go by
a fifth of jack and it was hidden in the
flower bin. Grandma would start with a bit of it
in her coffee, and when the fifth was empty the
food was done. Yes, which is the fifth of like
the little flask looking one?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I hope so, because if Grandma was drinking, I think
different things would be happening.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Sure she would sit in her chair in the kitchen
and everyone would coop over her hard work. I now
know she was hammered. I'm happy to know I got
my introvert nature from her. I don't cook, but I
can make a stiff drink, stay sexy, and don't host
if you don't want to. Jeremy ps one rule when
she passed was that we couldn't announce it for a year.
(26:46):
If they don't care to check on you alive, they
don't deserve to know that you died.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Hell yeah, Grandma, Grandma's, Grandma's like, fuck all these kids,
I love it. That's hilarious. God, Grandma, Julia Anna are
We'll think of you this Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
We're badass.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Everybody have a fifth of something. If you want to
truly get through any kind of family holiday any way,
you need to. That's right, especially if you need to
just go stand outside and stay sexy and don't cant murder. Goodbye,
Happy Thanks.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer
is Tessa Hughes.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Follow the show on Instagram at My Favorite Murder.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Watch us on YouTube. Search for My Favorite Murder and
then like and subscribe.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Goodbye,
Hello and welcome my favorite Murder the minisode for Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving episode You Love Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You love It Special Thanksgiving episode. This is like Charlie
Brown kind of.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What's the one dish that you have to have at
Thanksgiving that like it has to be made your favorite?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh, my sister's mashed potatoes, which used to be my
mom's mashed potatoes, which are the most calorically den just
half butter, yeah, half butter. She does a little bit
of Manni's a bunch of butter cream sour cream. They're
just insane, you know.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
My aunt does this, puts paprika on top of them
and puts it in the oven for a minute to
get a crispy paprika crest on top.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yes, okay, first I'm so hungry. Okay, I love this.
God damn story Surprise Thanksgiving Guest Celebrity Edition what and
I feel like we could do this for any holiday? Yes,
even for no holiday. What celebrity came, Dear, it came
to your house for some weird yes. Blank Patch, one
of my favorite stand up comments, who I've known my
(01:17):
whole life basically had an amazing story where he went
to Thanksgiving with his wife and at her family's and
Neil Diamond was one of the guests. He does a
whole chunk about it, but yeah, it was like he
was dating a person that was crazy. Okay, okay, and
this starts Hello, MFM fam, thank you for the countless
hours of entertainment, And then in parentheses it says I
(01:40):
discovered you in early twenty twenty one and spent most
of the pandemic trying to get through the backlog. Let's
call it the back catalog. Since it's different than the backlog.
You're not mriska hargitat. Come on, that's right. Your advocacy
and the community you have built. We didn't build it.
You guys built it. We didn't do itppreciate it though.
(02:01):
Your voices took me through a cross country move Edmonton
to Ottawa and now a major career change, And for
that I am grateful. Now let's get after it. When
I was in elementary school, my family became good friends
with another family who'd moved to Toronto for the dad's work.
My younger sister quickly became close friends with the twin
girls who were her age, and I had not a
(02:21):
moment's piece, had any family gathering from then on, and
then in parentheses it says all I wanted to do
was read Hi, this is not about that. Every year,
my family hosts Thanksgiving dinner, and because we had no
family in town, we always dubbed it that this is
for the family we choose the best. So naturally my
parents invited this family, along with a few others in
(02:43):
our friend group. The response back from the mum was
that they could not make it, as her childhood from
from Australia was in town and they were spending the
holiday with him and his wife. My parents have always
been the throw more potatoes and the pot types, and
of course insisted that they still come and bring their friends.
No more thought it. The day comes, the turkey is
roasting in the oven, stuffing is made, the table is set,
(03:05):
and my mother has made a soup for the starter.
Guests start arriving, and eventually everyone is there except for
our assi's childhood friend. The doorbell suddenly rings. My mom
goes over to answer it, and who is at the
door other than motherfucking guy Pierce what he apparently looked
up his old pal while he was in town filming.
(03:26):
And then it says in parentheses likely trader with Don
Cheedle based on my Wikipedia sleuthing.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
By all accounts, my parents played it cool until my
dad was well in his cups and made Guy unbutton
his shirt to quote show them what he was working with. Yes, yes,
show us, And the answer was washboard apps. Sure, and
Guy was absolutely lovely, even participating in an after dinner
what they called turkey fondu, which is when you take
(03:55):
the leftover turkey and dip it in the gravy left
in the pan. So basically, just as people probably washing
the dishes and stuff, they call it turkey fondo just
dip the turkey and the grave in. And it says unfortunately,
no one had given us a heads up that his
wife was vegan, so my mom may have had to
stretch the truth on the broth used in the soup.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
You've got to get people aheadsop.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I know that's a little specific. In parenthes, it says,
is this vegetable based, Oh my god, asked missus pears. Yes,
said my mom, cringing internally. Noah, it was chicken bro.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Oh shit, you can't do that.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well she did it. I do not remember this, as
I was nine and I did not care for any
celebrity that wasn't a Jonas brother. It became a lot
more exciting when Bedtime Stories came out a year later
and I could tell my friends that the mean hotel
manager had been to my house for dinner. Sadly, our
friends moved back to Australia after only five years in Canada,
(04:48):
but I'll always look back at our time as kids fondly,
and those twins and their sisters have grown up to
be bad asses in their own right. My sister has
also grown into a young woman I'm so proud of
and the coolest person I know. And then in parentheses
it says I keep trying to get her into the.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Pod, don't do it, doesn't want to.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Don't don't force anybody. It ends by saying, remember, family
isn't always about blood. It's who you choose. And always
throw another potato into the pot. You never know who
will come for dinner. SSDGM Emma, I love it so
good guy peers. They just how nice like that idea
that they could just go to a family Thanksgiving. I mean,
(05:30):
because they probably don't have things in Australia.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
So last year we had these friends Carlos Emilis and
Melisa is like super French, and her parents came into
town that weekend. Just happened from France, and Vince was like,
I'm giving them their first Thanksgiving and made the whole
Thanksgiving thing, made them try it. They were really sweet
and pretended to be blown away. I think they were,
but it was like so excited to be like this
is what Thanksgiving's like.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
No, I think that's so sweet. I think it's also
that thing makes me think of when we got to
go to Italy. We were in Lake Como and Janet's
husband's family lived there, so they had us come and
have like a traditional Italian lunch with them, which I
think dinner. We literally were at one point, we're just
all crying because like the grandma made us this incredible
(06:15):
lasagna that seemed like it had twenty five layers to it. Food,
everything was homemade. They had all this food, and it
was like they were like, we're here to treat you.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Like that idea is so generous and lovely.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I love it. Send us your stories whatever, yes, whatever
that is.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Send us your story is some sort of a dinner story.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Dinner. Yeah, the best dinner with crying okay, the Thanksgiving
where we almost died and or got arrested as a family.
Warm hearted, yes, warm hearted instead of light hearted. Okay,
Season's greetings, y'all. So my family infamously loves to prepare
way too much food for any holiday. Everyone needs to
have their favorite dishes, so this often leads to several
(06:53):
varieties of stuffing, green beans, pies, you get the picture. Unfortunately,
since my parents hit retirement age, they inevitably do too
much and end up throwing their backs out or exhausting
themselves into a stupor trying to recreate these feasts. This
usually results in me finishing half prepared meals and getting
frustrated at trying to jump into a crazy, messy kitchen
(07:13):
where I'm blankly staring at a salad spinner. It's like
that would be hard, Like you're up, get in like whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Knives down, get in there, get in there, do something.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So in November twenty nineteen, I insisted on taking care
of the entire meal myself from start to finish. It
was to take place at my great aunt Polly's house
in Port nay Chess, Texas. Thank you for the phonetic spelling.
I arrived several days early to begin brining the turkey,
starting the process of making homemade dinner rolls and prepping
as many sides as possible. I was really pleased at
(07:44):
how well everything was going. I was exhausted, but proud
that no one would be in physical pain and satisfied
with their meals this year. I stayed up late shaping
dinner rolls to rise in the pan and didn't get
to bed. And I know, like, just buy those guys.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I mean, and also everyone loves like a crescent roll
or something Hawaiian sweet. Well, people who are like homemakers,
you know you can't tell those people let anything.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I didn't get to bed until around midnight on Wednesday,
November twenty seventh, the day before Thanksgiving. About an hour
after falling asleep, I awoke to my bed shaking violently
and what sounded like someone slamming a door really hard.
I got up to investigate, and as I walked through
the house I could smell cigarette smoke. After not being
able to find anything mess, I went back to bed.
I had to get up early to finish cooking dinner.
(08:28):
The next day. I was anticipating a crowd of people
to arrive. Among them my partner that I hadn't seen
all a week. I was shocked to find out that
a butane refinery less than two miles away exploded at
one am. Oh shance, the cigarette smell exploded two miles.
I considered this for a moment, but ultimately decided that
(08:48):
show must go on and started my carefully orchestrated symphony
of cast roles that would need even time. At some point,
someone came to tell me that the police were sweeping
the neighborhoods and ordering a mandatory evacuation. Mandatory. Our area
is no stranger to evacuations, having been hit by our
fair share of hurricanes. But my father crossed his arms
and said, no, oh no. We closed all the curtains,
(09:10):
moved the cars into the garage, and began our first
stealth Thanksgiving. I have to interject that my mom was
not pleased with our decision and how they were shaping up.
She insisted that if my partner really loved me, they
would find a way to join us, and that I
should probably leave since I was the quote future of
the family. She of them die. This is christ needless
(09:30):
to say. We made it out just fine, but did
experience a second explosion halfway through our meal that had
our heavily laden dinner table shaking. I mean, that's why
you were supposed.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
To be we see evacuation.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, I swore I'd never do this again. Man plans
and God laughs. Btw. Thankfully only five people were hurt
during the explosion, but the fire and billowing smoke lasted
for over twenty four hours. The factory had been outside
of EPA safety requirements and find consecutively for over five
years prior to the ex the fine summing up to
(10:01):
less than two hundred thousand dollars. It's hard to speak
out against these companies since they provide the majority of
jobs to the area, but this type of pollution to
our air and oceans is upsetting. I know the femail
is long, but thank you ladies for being a platform
for marginalized, slash disadvantage people. Your voices used to fill
my female led bakery. Oh the roles.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oh that's why where I worked.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Prior to the pandemic, and we all enjoyed cackling to
your voices in the wee hours of the morning while
we shaped bread.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
We got to be there. I felt like a middle
of the night bakery session for all women in a bakery.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
When people tell us, like where they took us, there
was like an antarctic one recently. Yes, I'm like, we
were fucking there. That's where we've been. I love that.
Tell us the coolest places you've listened to us, please,
I mean I want.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I feel like I want to join an all female
bakery and get up at four in the morning. Don't
help make.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Get up at four one morning anyways. I know might
as well.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I'd be over there helping out.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
My first job is a bakery, and it's just so
much fun. Is it so fun?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Did you have to go that early?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
No? Because I was like behind the counter. But yeah,
it's just like you're surrounded by like presence essentially.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, and people happy because they're getting their hot cross
bumbs exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Stay sexy and don't get exploded by evil energy companies.
This Thanksgiving Cooper, she her.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
But dad's just like you know what, the but tank
can blow up.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I'm not mean she's not just blowing up, but you're
inhaling that shit too.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes, I mean there's a chemical issue outside. I won't
read you the subject line, and it says not to
be bossy, but don't read the subject line. Okay, let's
jump right in. This is that story, you know, the
infamous one that gets repeated in the family over and over.
The year was two thousand and two. I was nine
(11:46):
years old. It was Thanksgiving and my family and I
were in New Jersey visiting my aunt and uncle and cousins.
I was helping set the table for Thanksgiving dinner when
I slipped. It was a wood floor and I was
wearing socks and holding a bundle of overwere I need
to say this. Some of my worst accidents, because my
parents have wood floors too, is when you're wearing socks
(12:06):
without any grap and you think every you're like, on the.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Stairs stairs, I've fucking done that. God be so careful,
slippers on, get little grippers. Yeah, I'm picturing it because
I've fucking I've done it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, it sucks. I did it on Adrian's stairs one
time and slipped and then slammed down on my butt
on those stairs and then just had like a sore.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Oh's the worst.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
When I slipped and fell, I happened to drop the
bundle of silverware at the exact moment where I landed
on the floor, I also landed on top of a knife.
The odds here, though I'm not a mathematician and in
fact didn't pass freshman year algebra the first time, just
seem astronomical. Yeah, But anyway, I slipped and fell, and
in the I don't know one second that the knife
(12:49):
I was holding was exactly balanced. I landed on top
of it, and the knife slid into my armpit. As
I recall it, and as my mom tells me, though
she's still twenty four years later, hates talking about it
because she's a sweet baby angel, I screamed. My sister,
who was maybe seventeen at the time, ran over, pulled
my shirt up, saw the blood, and yelled, hospital now,
(13:11):
so someone grabs my uncle to drive us to the hospital.
My uncle, who for the record, is incredibly Sicilian like,
wears gold chains and white tank tops and looks like
a soprano's extra so good. And remember this was in
two thousand and two, which was obviously before iPhones, et cetera,
and my family had just moved to New Jersey, so
they weren't totally familiar with their neighborhood yet. But anyway,
(13:33):
my mom sits in the back seat with me, and
I lay down and I'm bleeding and my mom's crying,
and my sister's helping my uncle navigate in the front
seat of his blacked out Chevy suburban like I told
you incredibly sicilian so good, and he's literally driving like
driving Miss Daisy, like couldn't be going slower. Oh, and
my mom is freaking out because I'm sitting back there bleeding.
(13:55):
Eventually we make it to the hospital, but it has
this weird kind of drive through thing. Remember the old
banks where you'd stop in the drive through and be
helped that way. It was kind of like that. And
my uncle pulls up to it and he's telling the
person helping us that I've been stabbed in a parentheses
it says lol by myself and needs help. And this
person is like seeming really confused. And it goes on
(14:17):
for a minute or so until the person helping us says, sir,
this is a nursing home. Oh my god, yes, you
heard that right. He took me to a nursing home
instead of an emergency room. I swear to god, my
mom almost had a heart attack. The sweet nursing home
staff pointed us toward the hospital, and after another few
minutes of painstakingly slow driving, I would assume the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, like there's something in the trunk, maybe like a
body who.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Cannot get pulled up. We made it to the er,
where I got ten stitches. Not only did I survive
to tell the tale, but when we got home, my
brothers and boy cousins were the nicest they'd ever been
to me, and my Albanian grandmother gave me one hundred
dollars cash.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Not a bad fuck yet suddenly the best day. She
was so like, I love the Albamian grandma just kind
of sliding.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
She's just like, I can't say I love you. Yes,
that part's too hard. We're an immigrant family. Cash is
what love is. Stay sexy and don't go to a
nursing home unless you really mean to. For Tessa, she.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Her, oh my god, that's hilarious. It's stabbing yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Stabbing yourself. I actually one time was helping set the
table and I was holding steak knives and forks, and
I was kind of running into the living room and
my mom's friend Carolyn Bernardi was coming into the kitchen
and I almost stabbed her in the abdomen, like she
stopped and pulled herself back like within half an inch.
(15:39):
That's how I learned to that you hold them upright
and close to yourself.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
When I was like four something, I got up on
the table like this and hit the edge of the
plate and it's fucking I have a scar there. It
flew into my eye. Holy stitches thing.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Oh my god, was it on Thanksgiving? Now?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Okay, cut that story, shit, save over another day. Yeah, okay,
here's my second one, my favorite party story, long but
funny ending. I think long but funny ending is for Mollie.
Actually that one hundred percent is for me. She's like,
I would not have put this in. If you're upset
that your story hasn't been picked, maybe it's too long,
(16:16):
edit it and resubmitted.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Get in there and get to the facts.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, like take out. It's like two pages tops two pages? Okay,
Karen and Georgia and mfmteam including pets. I am a
diehard og Murdarino who adores you all. A few many
episodes back, you asked for party stories, So here is mine.
When I was in my early twenties, fresh out of
college and living in Baltimore, I adopted a stray orange kitten.
Oh yeah, this is funny. Jaffie rhymes with the Taffy
(16:40):
was a scrappy little street cat who hung out with
me for the next eighteen years, through all the different
apartments and relationships and jobs I had across the country.
She was still my little sidekick when I moved back
to Baltimore in the early two thousands. Needless to say,
I loved that cat. Sadly, shortly after I've moved back,
Jaffee started to slow down and it was clearly sick.
No definite diagnosis, but probably some form of cancer. My
(17:03):
poor cat got skinnier and skinnier until a sad Thanksgiving
morning when her back legs gave out and I knew
her number was up. Since it was a holiday, I
called an emergency that who said they could take her
in to be put to sleep, but that if she
went quickly at home, it wouldn't make much sense to
pay the astronomical holiday fee they had to charge me.
Oh yeah, of course, I didn't want her to suffer
and would have taken her in, but she faded fast
(17:25):
and passed within an hour. I was truly heartbroken and
cried into all the Thanksgiving pies I baked that afternoon.
I was a little unsure what to do with Jaffy's
little corpse until I could take her in the following
day to be cremated, But after consulting with friends and family,
I wrapped her in her favorite blanket, along with all
of her cat toys, of course, and carefully stowed her
(17:46):
outside on my city row house's roof deck, where it
was pleasantly chilly. Oh no, it's not what you think.
It's oh okay, maybe a little worse. Oh and I
have my heart is pounding because I think Mimi's going
to be gone soon. At thanksgetting to it's so sad.
I showed up later that day at my family's Thanksgiving
dinner in morning and made several I e too many
(18:08):
teary toast and Jaffy's honor throughout the meal. I love it,
although we never had before. My sister suggested we go
Black Friday shopping that night, and we ended up at
Michael's the craft store. Walking through the aisles, my sister
pointed at a little wooden box and jokingly said, oh,
that looks like a little coffin for Jaffee. Of course,
I tearfully snatched it up and brought it back home
(18:29):
that night, where I gently and kind of stiffly by
that point, settle Jaffee in it on the roof deck
before I went to bed. The next morning, I scheduled
Jaffie's cremation, but I felt like a little more ceremony
was needed. After all, this cat had been with me
for basically all of my adult life so far, so
I decided to make a quick stop at my favorite
bench by Baltimore's Harbor so the Jaffeine I could say
(18:49):
a final goodbye to her city together. That day after
Thanksgetting was definitely warmer than it had been the night before,
and as I put my little cat Coffin on my
car's front seat for the short ride the harbor and
then carefully carry it to my favorite bench, I could
detect the beginning of a faint smell, but I didn't care.
I sat in the sun with the box, which I
had stayed up late decorating with a sharpie the night
(19:10):
before on my lap for a couple minutes and waited
for the few tourists milling around to leave before I
could say my last goodbye I don't know if it
was my grief stricken sleep deprivation or what, but as
I got up to leave, I suddenly thought, you know,
it would be so fitting for this Baltimore cat a
burial right here in the harbor. Oh it seemed to
make perfect sense as a more meaningful alternative to anonymous cremation.
(19:34):
And before I really know what I was doing, I
walked to the edge of the pier, whispered goodbye, and
dropped Jaffy's wooden coffin into the harbor.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Oh No.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
As I watched the lovingly inscribed box bob out into
the open water, I had another realization, which was that
the box wasn't sinking because it wasn't weighed down with
anything but a very very skinny cat body and some
cat toys. Are you crying?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
No, I just it's so like it's so you're yeah,
and you yourself Totallyria. You just want to give the
cat your final Yeah, that's so sad.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I stood watching it float, and then continued watching as
around the corner of the pier a Baltimore City Harbor
Police boat slowly drifted into view. That box wasn't sinking,
but my heart shure did as I watched the police
boat suddenly changed course and head straight for my poor
cat's midnight madness coffin. I stood a few seconds more,
riveted by the sight of a large net being lowered
(20:26):
into the harbor to retrieve the box, and then I'm
ashamed to say, I turned around and took off running
from that pier. Yeah you did. There are a lot
of stories about bodies being dumped in Baltimore's harbor, but
I was pretty sure that even having to explain a
cat body it would mean some trouble and probably a fine.
I'm still sad about my cat's Postuma's fate in the
(20:47):
hands of the police, and to this day I always
whisper a little Hello Jassey every time I passed that pier.
Not in there.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
You should do as you passed the police department, because right.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
But I will say that it is possibly my greatest
party story to tell here in Baltimore, except for the
time John Waters picked up a friend of mine at
last Call, which turned into a truly surreal late night
slash early morning at his house during a massive snowstorm.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You getting stuck in his nose arm at John waters house,
I mean, oh my greatest man in your life, you
lucky bastard.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Love you all and all that you do. Stay sexy.
Don't never ask me to dump a body in Baltimore's
Harbor for you, because I'm obviously not good at it.
Rachel she her ps karen As in eighties teen, My
first big crush was on c Thomas Howell. I always
thought I was the only one.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Oh girl, it was all of us, all of us
outsiders fans. Wow, that is so hilarious and sad. I
was actually thinking of this. We had this cat, Rory,
and she was old when we adopted her, and she
didn't like us or anything, and she was like one
of those miserable old cats. We kind of brought her
around near the end than she died, and I'm pretty
(21:57):
sure we buried her on the side of the house.
And it's like, that's just there for the next people,
like if they go, oh, we want to redo this
some time or something.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I know that, Like I move so often, I know
that my house right now isn't my final house. I'm
not bearing Elvis there because I know, like in three
years I'm gonna change my mind about it and fucking
move away, yes, and leave Elvis there.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
You have to keep Elvis and whatever earn he's in. Yeah, Okay,
here's my last one and the subject line says I'm
a Kelsey too, and then it says hi friends, longtime listener,
multi time writer. Thanksgiving is always my favorite holiday growing up.
My mom always cooked for a big chunk of my family,
(22:38):
and there are a lot of us. I'm one of eight,
my mom was one of eight, and I lost count
of how many cousins I have. And when I asked
my mom, what, why the hell's she would have so
many kids, she always replied, Ugh, I don't know. I'm
a recovering Catholic. I mean my dad is one of nine. Yeah,
and that's a gigantic family. Imagine it's like eight and eight.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Okay, So one Thanksgiving, while the turkey and the other
deliciousness was cooking, my mom was running around like crazy
as always. I'm sure my constant offers to help were
more annoying than anything, as I was just a little kid.
She was the type of person that always had seventeen
thousand pairs of reader glasses, you know, those little half glasses,
yet she always managed to constantly lose them. That was
(23:21):
like in the nineties, that's all my parents did. It
was like, did you take my readers or it's like,
why would we We don't use them.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Of course, And they got them at like the grocery
store and show.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, so they're in pockets and they're in the couch
and they're on the floor.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Actually, you're wearing a pair right now.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
What the fuck? You're wearing it as a headband. So
it says during this one fateful holiday, she, to no
one's surprise, lost the pair she'd been using. We looked everywhere.
It wasn't until the pungent smell of burnt plastic and
smoke filled the air that we all realized what had happened.
My mom had her glasses on top of her head
when she last checked the turkey, and they fell off
(23:56):
her damn head into the bottom of the oven, where
they remained.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Okay, so many questions. Why didn't she see that happen?
Hear it? Fucking seel it.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I'll tell you, I didn't see it. Shouldn't have her
fucking readers on. Oh yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
But I'm like, because she started drinking, she had some
gin phizzitis, around eleven, am right, that's what Thanksgiving is for.
To her horror, it did manage to ruin a good
chunk of the food, but she was the most worried
about getting her beloved parakeet out of the smoke. Aw
us kids were on our own. It's now one of
the funniest stories we talk about around the holiday in
(24:31):
her memory. My mom raised us on our own, and
I lost her to suicide when I was a teenager.
Oh so hard. As the years go on, I struggle
to remember her laugh so telling these stories are what
keep her memory alive from me, My god, thank you
for continuing to be a voice from mental health and
all that it involves. We still have a lot of
work to do, and I am proud of everything you do.
(24:54):
Oh stay sexy and don't let mom lose her glasses.
Kelsey and ps. My horay is that being from San
Luis Obispo, Paul Flores was finally held accountable for the
death of Kristen Smart.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah, yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Oh such a mom memory. I just love that mom
like mom Thanksgiving memory where it's like you're cooking for
a million people. You're trying to get all this stuff done.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, everything has different timing. It's such a pain in
the ass. And then yeah, someone asking me what they
can do to help is almost more annoying. Sometimes yes exactly,
you're like, well, you're gonna do it wrong. Yeah, So okay,
that's beautiful. Okay. This is called Grandma's kitchen. It's short
my grandparents, Julia Ann and Willard Oliver, who had eight
children what each child married and had kids of their own,
(25:39):
me being the youngest of six. For my parents, all
of this meaning Thanksgiving would be jam packed with people
in their country farmhouse. Grandma always stayed in the kitchen,
working away to feed everyone. When food was done, she
sat and didn't eat anything. She said she ate by
tasting everything while making it Jesus. After her death, my
aunt told us that Grandma hates everyone visiting. Grandpa insisted
(26:04):
and she gave in. So my aunt would go by
a fifth of jack and it was hidden in the
flower bin. Grandma would start with a bit of it
in her coffee, and when the fifth was empty the
food was done. Yes, which is the fifth of like
the little flask looking one?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I hope so, because if Grandma was drinking, I think
different things would be happening.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Sure she would sit in her chair in the kitchen
and everyone would coop over her hard work. I now
know she was hammered. I'm happy to know I got
my introvert nature from her. I don't cook, but I
can make a stiff drink, stay sexy, and don't host
if you don't want to. Jeremy ps one rule when
she passed was that we couldn't announce it for a year.
(26:46):
If they don't care to check on you alive, they
don't deserve to know that you died.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Hell yeah, Grandma, Grandma's, Grandma's like, fuck all these kids,
I love it. That's hilarious. God, Grandma, Julia Anna are
We'll think of you this Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
We're badass.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Everybody have a fifth of something. If you want to
truly get through any kind of family holiday any way,
you need to. That's right, especially if you need to
just go stand outside and stay sexy and don't cant murder. Goodbye,
Happy Thanks.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer
is Tessa Hughes.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Follow the show on Instagram at My Favorite Murder.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Watch us on YouTube. Search for My Favorite Murder and
then like and subscribe.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Goodbye,
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
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