Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to my Favorite murder. This is
a minisode. It's your fucking stories and we fucking love them. Look,
you're making us do this. We have no choice. You
will not stop filling up our email box with these
stories that we love, that we love.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Okay, the subject line of this one is marshmallow explosion. Great,
and then it just says sort of hometown and it
starts salutations, etc. So this is being written by a
spider named Charlotte. Ready, just listen to the recent Ish
episode about the Sun Valley Mall disaster, and it jogged
a memory of what I guess can be called my
(00:58):
non murder hometown, also from the eighties.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I kind of love that idea. Yeah, do you have
a story of some crazy shit that happened in your hometown? Yeah,
it's like the balloon what's it called release? Like, what
does a fucked up thing that they're like, this will
be a great idea, Yeah, in our small town. Or
you don't have to have.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Even witnessed it. You can just say this is the
crazy thing that happened in my hometown. Yes, that's exactly
what we want. Do you have the world's biggest ball
of twine, you better write in Okay. In May nineteen
eighty eight in Las Vegas, a residentially based chemical plant
called the Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada exploded
(01:36):
multiple times, killing two people and causing one hundred million
dollars in damages in today's money.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Want I guess it? One hundred million in the when
nineteen eighty eight. Oh my god, that's got to be
eight hundred million, two hundred and twenty two million. That's
a lot. Still, it's so much. I went for it. Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
There are disagreements over exactly how the fire that led
to the explosions started, as well as what exactly caused
the explosions themselves, but it seems to have been some
combination of a natural gas leak, spark welding, and a
highly volatile rocket fuel component stored.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
At the site.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Let's get that rocket fuel separate and it over that
secretary desert. The explosions also triggered an explosion at the
next door marshmallow factory, which, given I was five years
old when this took place, is pretty much the only
thing I remember. Yeah, I texted my mom Nancy about
(02:37):
the disaster, and since she didn't have a squishy child's brain.
When we lived in Vegas and eighty five, she had
a bit more to say. The rocket factory wasn't Henderson
in a neighborhood. No one knew it was there until
it exploded.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
As you gotta tell people, You gotta let them know
who their neighbor is, just as real, low key like
it said David's bridles.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
On the op outside, put inside your mattress firm, that's unfair.
And then it says, right next to it was a
marshmallow factory. We went up and looked at it the
day after, and there were puffs of marshmallow all over
the cacti and men in white suits looking for radiation.
But that smelled so good, smelled so good. But Nancy's
(03:20):
pulling her child right up to right up to the curb,
being like, let's get in here and see marshmallows and radiations.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Smell the radiation.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
When it happened, you were with your father at the
post office, and the two of you felt the explosion,
and the post office window.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Waved back and forth.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
WHOA, I love this, your mom, Yeah, reminding you of
what happened. I was teaching the force of the explosion
knocked plants off the top of the lockers in my classroom,
and it felt like I had been kicked in the back.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I was the one who was responsible for going outside
and making sure all the kids got in because we
knew something was coming our way, but we didn't know
how bad it was going to be. As teachers, we
were making preparations for keeping the children overnight until we
got word that it wasn't anything lethal and the buses
would be coming for the children. Not only nothing lethal,
(04:08):
what's coming is the children's greatest dream, exploating marshmaw a.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Ten foot wave of marshmallow fluff. So yeah, it's got
a little radiation, but don't worry, but just a little.
It's kind of just a bit of spice, yeah, seasoning, So.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, stay sexy and don't store of vollattle chemicals next
to marshmallow factories.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Jen, Yeah, if you're going to keep that a secret
from the town, then you have to double pinky square
that you won't explode the fucking place. It can't be
in a neighborhood, no secret, I can't. And then you're like.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We had rocket fuel welding sparks and we had five
year old's lighting matches. That was in one room right
and then over here.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It's like, please, Well, no one said we couldn't do
it because we didn't tell anyone that we were doing it.
So elevators, it's kind of on you, guys, rocket fuel disruptors. Okay,
this one's called an Internet predator story. Hey, hey, hey,
my name was Chloe, and boy do I have a
story for you. When I was about eleven years old,
(05:12):
AOA Messenger and Yahoo Messenger were very popular. My dad
very graciously and soon after this story happened, probably regrettably,
allowed me to use Yahoo Messenger to talk to my friends.
There were rules, however, to make sure that I was safe,
thank God and jup of eleven weekly. My dad would
review my friend's list to make sure that he knew everyone,
(05:34):
and he also limited my time to about an hour
a day most days. If I got a new message
from someone, I showed my dad and got approval. But
on one fall day, my dad had run out for
something and left me alone briefly on Messenger, a message
of hi popped up from someone I didn't know, and
I still remember his screen name, which was my ZIP
(05:54):
code in Wisconsin at the time, so it was a
name and then a zip code. Due to this, I
asked the person, Hi, do I know you, to which
you replied no, I just found your profile on Yahoo
Profiles something or other and thought to send a message.
Did you have AIM or like, did you have this service?
I had Aim? Yeah? Could they know who you were
or how old you were? Anything like that?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I didn't have any of this. It was like I
was drunk in a gutter at this point of my life.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, yeah, they could tell because you had like a profile,
you know, and it'd be like and you'd tell all
about yourself and everything, and then you'd also be in
like chat rooms that kind of gave away your age
a little bit and okay, that sort of thing. So yeah,
it was pretty like not a ton of info, but
enough info that they knew that you were a child,
enough info that I have a stomach ache right now. Okay,
(06:39):
yeah that like this was the wild West. Yeah, and
then said I didn't have a profile anywhere. And then
I asked, Okay, how old are you to which he replied,
I'm twenty six. For a reminder, I am eleven. I
immediately stopped communicating, making a note to let my dad
know when he came home and signed off for the night. Smart.
(07:00):
A few days later, my dad did his weekly messenger check.
He asked me about the screen name he saw, and
I told him what had happened, I said, frantically. I
swear I didn't do anything bad, and I meant to
tell you and I forgot to which he laughed and said,
it's okay. I did the right thing. To stop the conversation.
But my dad used this as a learning opportunity. He
sat down and told me men on the internet aren't
(07:21):
to be trusted, especially older men, and proceeded to message
the guy, acting as if he was me. Oh shit,
fucking dad is ready to fight. Dad's like, let's teach
some people some lessons here. Yeah. Within fifteen minutes, the
man was asking for photos and then coaching quote me
had to sneak out of the house and meet him
nearly fifteen blocks away at a local Taco Bell at
(07:44):
eleven pm. Fuck even describing his dark blue truck and
license plate number. My dad immediately called the police, who
met the man at Taco Bell and arrested him. He
I mean, jesus, I know, like this was a creditor
This was not a fucking mistake, right, you know, the
predator had his eyes all the way open.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It wasn't like, oh she catfish men, I thought she
was twenty five, right right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
A few days later, the police came to the house
to let us know that the man had been released
because sadly, at that time, there weren't laws to protect
children being solicited via the internet, and he hadn't done
anything quote legally wrong. The cop apologized over and over
but said, we did the right thing. So I'm sure
he's on the radar by now. Yeah by then. At least.
(08:33):
I'm forever grateful to my dad for teaching me that
internet safety lesson, because had I been like most of
my friends with parents who didn't understand the interwebs, I
likely could have been abducted.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I hope you enjoyed my story, but I have to
get myself back to paintings, stay sexy, and don't talk
to creeps on the internet.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Chloe, Chloe, I don't know if the word enjoyed would
be the one I would use for having heard that story,
because it was a bit of a nail bier. But
God bless your dad, and you're very adult eleven year
old brain. That's like, okay, I need to let people know,
like really a perfect eleven year.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Old for the early gen days. Totally.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
The subject line of this email is my childhood bloon hobby.
It says hello to the beautiful team of MFM, and
exactly right, I love everything you do. You guys have
been a huge part of my weekly routine since I
was sixteen years old, and then in parentheses it says
I was a teenager you guys were yelling at for
being a younger listener. Hey, hi, we cater to every demographic.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Can you help me, purring loudly into the microphone.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
No, I can, just but I'm watching her when you
stop petting her, slap you with her paw full clause
out like I just don't want to, like.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Just like get I. I want to protect her. She's full
clause and she'll bite if I don't do it. Okay, yeah,
she's like doing something.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I don't care about your podcast anyways. I was listening
to episode four fifty one and was reminded of my
own balloon endeavors as a child and had to write
in I have always been the type of person to
pick up a random oh, I guess episode four fifty
one was Lawnchair Larry, the man who flew in his
weather balloons flew in a lawnchair definitely and survived and
(10:24):
lived at Tylldale.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It's a good one.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I've always been the type of person to pick up
a random hobby every summer because of an undiagnosed adhd
hi me too, and did so like clockwork as a kid.
My mom was a teacher and my dad worked full time,
so picking up a new hobby kept us kids busy
during the summer and out of my mom's hair. Until
I was around nine and I decided to pick up
(10:47):
the hobby of making balloon animals.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I love that, right, I didn't even think of that
as a thing you could learn, But yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I know they were, this is a crafty person that
bought us up. They were like, I'm not doing the
usual hook.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Rugs or whatever, hook rugs.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
That's the most seventies thing I've ever said in my
life while searching our craft closet, what yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Sign me up for that? Why don't I have that?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I mean, I'm so furious right now for on behalf
of my inner nine year old Well, sir, while searching
our craft closet. It came across our version of a
fucking craft closet. Was like me looking through old photo
albums of my parents, just being like, I wonder who
these people are?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Just nothing interesting, It was nothing. There was a couple
of board games with tons of missing pieces and dust bunnies,
and that was it.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
And a big fu Okay, so sorry. Back to the email. Well,
searching our craft closet, I came across a bag of
those skinny balloons, a hand pump, an instruction book on
how to make balloon animals. Yes, I have no idea
where the book or supplies came from, but I made
it my mom's problem all summer long. Imagine trying to
(12:04):
enjoy your summer evening and all you hear in the
distance is the high pitch sound of balloon squeaking together
for hours on end, with the occasional pop.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
The hand pump did end up going missing one day
and I was unable to find it, thus ending my
early beginnings to being a child clown. I'm pretty sure
my mom hit it, but only after I had already
made forty balloon animals up summer. Why do you like
rhinoceroses yet snake. Okay, thank you for everything you do
(12:40):
and being there when things got tough. You guys have
been with me through two graduations, the pandemic and the
strike as I was a fresh film grad when it
all went down. Stay sexy, and don't let your kids
pick up clown hobbies, Brooks.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
She they Wow, that's cool. Yeah, let us know your
weird childhood hob But you know what I was thinking,
I wonder if Brook's mom or parents put just random
hobby things in the in their craft closet, and was like,
I know this kid likes to pick up random shit.
If I say, you know, you should try, they're going
to tell me to fuck off. So here are ten
(13:16):
different options. Someday she's going to look through it, go
find it, right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Well, yeah, because I wonder if it's like they're strategizing
behind the scenes. Yeah, that's what you're saying of Yeah,
like I have something ready, something interesting, but that they
can kind of discover.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah. I mean, god, that'd be amazing parenting. That really
would be. Oh that was sweet. I'll tell us what
your weird childhood hobbies were. My friend had the largest
collection of Snoopy memorabilia.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Really, I got really into collecting Missus Grossman's stickers, which
were those like heart Teddy Bear bo. I really got
it to them, and then I thought. I tried to
sell them at school and people were like, we don't
need we don't need this. We already have our own
roads like sticky stickers you can buy. I got like
a box for Christmas, and I was like, you can
(14:11):
buy them through me. People were like, we don't know
what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
See, Karen, you were in the merch from a very
early age. I didn't know it. Yeah, that's right in
our it's in our blood. Okay, this one's called Oh,
this one's called of course, you can a petty solution. Hi, Karen,
Georgia and the whole MFM crew. I came across your
podcast a few months ago at the best time, as
(14:35):
I had already watched every true crime series, documentary and
movie on all the streaming platforms. Mm hmmmm hmm. So naturally,
I've been binge listening to your podcast at an alarming rate.
I love everything you do and all your content. Please
never stop being your amazing selves. Okay, I was listening
to one of the minisodes where a woman mentioned she
would go door to door for surveys and one man
(14:57):
played dead in his car so we didn't have a doctor.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So good.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It reminded me of the many things my dad has
done over the years to get rid of unwanted visitors
and callers. Aside from the time he cussed out the
Jehovah's witnesses that showed up at our house on Christmas,
this story is one of my favorites. That's a bad idea.
It's like, you're celebrating Christmas, the most lovely day with
your children and all these things, and they're like, hey,
(15:29):
you know what you shouldn't do anymore? I think this.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Don't you think they're in there trying to pick off
the like lonely people or the people who are having
a bad Christmas somehow there you go extra cynical in
my opinion, that is good.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Okay, this is one of my favorites. Back when I
was a kid, before the Internet was widespread, the best
way to look at businesses was the phone book. Great
resource unless someone accidentally submits the wrong phone number in
their little ad. This happened with our home phone number.
A doctor's office had our number listed as THEIRS, and
we would constantly get calls from patients. My dad reached
(16:06):
out to the Yellow Pages to report the issue, but
only the doctor's office could call to resolve this, So
my dad located their office and inform them of the mistake.
They claimed there wasn't an issue and the number was correct.
Someone fucking doubled down and was like, no, you're wrong.
I love those people.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
You mean, factually provable, but you're still going to You're
gonna go ahead and deny it.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yeah, I'm the front office manager, and I refuse to
admit that that's not the right number because I did it.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I'm the front office manager, and I had a very
difficult childhood with very critical parents, and so at this point,
one more mistake would feel like it would break me
into Therefore that number is correct.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
That you see that is not correct on paper? Oh God, incredible,
How frustrating for the dad, Like, I promise, I'm not
just making this up, Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Literally the new post truth world we live and now
where people are just like that didn't happen, and you're
just like, well, Okay, I guess, I guess it's whatever
you say right, What the fuck?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Oh my god, so Q. Several more weeks of back
and forth of my dad trying to fix this issue
to no avail. Finally, fed up, he decided to make
this a bigger issue for the doctor and started quote
scheduling patients for next day appointments yep, whenever they would call.
It wasn't long after that that the calls stopped once
(17:34):
your office got full of people insisting that they had
appointments next day appointments and getting fucking pissed off that
they that they didn't. Yeah, oh, looks like I did
make a mistake.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
My collar bone is broken and you said I could
come in as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I like to sit and think about the absolute chaos
and angry patients my dad unleashed on that doctor's office
just to get some peace and quiet for himself. Stay
sexy and don't piss off tired Dad's allie, you're so right, Alley,
and your dad was so right. Yeah, that's pretty diabolical,
and I love it.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, it's a real solve. Sometimes the solve is not infighting,
but in agreeing. It's like, fine, fine, I work for
your doctor's office, and I'm the worst employee of all time.
The subject line of this email is Albert Einstein was
my third man. Hello, longtime listener, longtime emailer, just waiting
(18:27):
for my big break. Hey, it's happening. You all recently
did an episode about third man syndrome, something I'd never
heard of but definitely experienced in my youth. And it
says in parentheses a long time ago SI. When I
was in high school, I would occasionally get to spend
the weekend with my cool older sister at her college
(18:50):
a couple hours away. She'd let me drink all the
Boons farm wine my fifteen year.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Old body could handle, which is not a lot. I
felt so cool.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Hanging out with her and her roommates in their ratty
college apartment. Despite being a bit of a party animal,
she was incredibly studious and was one of the few
women in her chemistry program. My god, did you ever
take chemistry?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Fuck?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
No, dude, I fucking attempted because I've had this idea
of myself of like I should be like more of
an honor student and junior year, I tried to take chemistry,
and literally it took me like three weeks, and I
think the first semester I got an f and then
I was just like, Okay, I'm dropping this class.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I don't I never been qualified to be able to
sign up for it. No. I love her bed.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
She had a huge poster of Albert Einstein's sticking his
tongue out, you know the one. After a long night
of underage drinking. I passed out in her bed and
had the most vivid dream of my life. I was
sitting in a classroom as Albert Einstein stood at a
chalkboard repeating the phrase the answer is always neutral in
a thick German accent. I attributed the dream to seeing
(19:59):
her post as I fell into a deep drunk sleep.
Later that day, me, my sister, and her boyfriend began
the ninety mile drive back to my hometown. She drove,
he rode shotgun. I sat quietly in the back, fighting
the urge to puke. About halfway through our drive on
a busy highway, my sister's face and body began to contort.
She was having a Grandma seizure. Her boyfriend immediately began
(20:23):
to panic, shouting what do I do? In that moment,
Einstein's words rang.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Out so clearly in my head it was as if.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
He was sitting right next to me with zero driving
experience or car knowledge.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
I calmly said, neutral, put it in neutral. Oh my
fucking god.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
He frantically grabbed the gear shift and put the car neutral,
allowing us to gradually slow down and drift to the
shoulder before pulling the emergency brake.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Oh my fucking god. Incredible.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
I waited a long time to tell her about my dream,
as this experience was incredibly traumatic for her.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
She struggled with epilepsy for most of her young life,
but has now been seizure free for ten years. Okay,
she completed her degree and now works as a chemist
in the top of her field. Yay women in stem
I can't help but think that good old Albert was
looking out for a fellow scientist, like some kind of
nerd guardian. Angel I love it, stay sexy and skip
(21:24):
the boons.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Emily, Oh, that's like third man slash matrix glitch, Yeah,
ish or like, I don't know what would you call that.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I mean, it feels like all of those, Like, what's
just an incredible, unbelievable story that happened to you?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, like a crazy coincidence.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
It's like there's a Reddit thread of like, what's something
that happened to you that no one would believe?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Right? Okay, send this to my favorite murder at Gmail.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Please we want to hear all of them and also
post them to Reddit because they started it right, sorry.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
And give read it all the credit. Okay. My last
one's called elementary school Beanie baby ring.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
It was the nineties and the height of the beanie
baby craze. Remember I was around ten and my brother
was eight, and we were avid collectors of those stupid toys. Anyway,
my greedy ass needed more money for beanie babies, and
at ten, didn't have a good way to get money.
Teachers at my school were also collecting and would mention
what beanie babies they wanted, and then it says why
(22:26):
was this something they talked about during class? And I
saw my opportunity. I made an inventory of my brother's
beanie babies and took it to school to share with
the teachers. With enough interest, I started slowly sneaking and
stealing his beanie babies to sell to teachers at school.
Genius entrepreneur. One day, my brother noticed his favorite, a
(22:48):
generic looking hound dog named Bones, was missing. After interrogation
by my mom, I finally fessed up. I was grounded
and forced to buy him replacements, which cost about four
times as much as I was selling them for at school.
I wonder why they didn't go to the teachers and
were like, you need to give those back, you know,
please don't buy things from children.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Don't let children sell you stuff. As a favor to
the administration.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
That says, I think that dumb bones one costs me
like twenty five dollars to buy a lesson Learn, Love,
Yell and the pod. When I started listening, I was
a stressed out internal medicine resident and single parent, and
now am a bona fide physician with a support of
husband and mother to three amazing daughters sixteen, three and one.
(23:37):
Jesus h so amazing. I so admire your altruism, advocacy
and vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
We admire you too for your accomplishments, your child rearing range,
and the third.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Thing entrepreneurial spirit. It is stay sexygan. Don't be a
greedy ass motherfucker or an adult who buys contraband from kids.
HB she her. I think that I like that. I
feel like that's one of the points that you learn
on this podcast is it's always the adult's fault if
there's an adult child issue. Yes, like don't buy shit
(24:12):
from children per se.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yes, there's a lot of adults writing in to go, hey,
when I was a kid, listen to this fucked, fucked
up stupid thing that an adult did where it's like great, good.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yes, yes, the children must know. All right, we've done
it all right. Send us your stories, guys.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yes, thank you for all your wonderful and delightful stories.
And stay sexy and don't get murdered.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Get Mary, Elvis, do you want a cookie?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer
is Alejandra Keck. Our editor is Aristotle Osceveta. This episode
was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Emailing your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
And follow it show on Instagram and Facebook at my
Favorite Murder. Goodbye, m