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January 6, 2025 20 mins

This week’s hometowns include a dog named Turbo and an annual Hot Dog Day.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
He welcome to my favorite murder the minisode. Yep, yep,
you agree, I think I think so.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Okay, Well think about it and get back to me.
Circle back whenever you have after the holidays.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
In the meantime, should I read you a story? Okay?
Should I go first?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Please do?

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay. This is called family vacation turned claustrophobic escape mission. Karen,
Georgia and co y'all have been my constant companions for years,
and I can't believe I'm just now writing in during
a recent catch up on minisodes, I heard you ask
for disaster vacation stories. So here's mine in the mid
zero zerosts oughts.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, I like mid zero zeros better though, mid zero zeros.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Mid zero zeros. My family went on a trip to
Prince Edward Island. My little sister and I in Sufferable
preteen book Nerds were hoping to see every place mentioned
in Anne of Green Gables. My dad had other plans.
His goal was to visit all the lighthouses on the island.
There are over fifty. Oh Jesus Christ's a lot of

(01:24):
driving around on a vacation.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
To get out to a point.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
The end of the jetty fucking think yeah to look
at a similar thing over exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
On a drive to the capital city of Charlottetown or Charlottetown,
Charlottetown probably, our dad spontaneously took us to check yet
another lighthouse on his list. We were the only people
there when we arrived, so we went to take a
couple photos. My sister and I had long since clued
into the meaning of the phrase if you've seen one,
you've seen them all, so we weren't too keen to

(01:54):
stay for very long. We were about to ask our
parents to leave when they saw two college aided girls
trying to climb up from the rocky shore with their bicycles.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
My dad asked if they needed help, and boy did they.
Turns out they worked for a cruise ship that was
docked in the city, and since they had the morning off,
they asked a local boat guy and says captain to
berry them across the bay so they could bike back
into town on the scenic shoreline. When they got halfway
across the bay, the boat guy turned off the engine

(02:25):
and began pressuring them to drink and take off their
clothes since it was so hot.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
They were stuck for hours with this creep on open
water before he finally brought them to the lighthouse. He
boasted that they would come crawling back to him because
he was their only way back to the city dock
before their cruise ship left.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Fucking asshole.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
I know.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
The lighthouse was so remote. There wasn't a visitor center
where they could get help, or any other houses or businesses,
and no one had a cell phone. The girls frantically
asked us if we could drive them somewhere and call
a cab, and it says, and the police to cut
get them. My mom and dad took one look at
these two young ladies and with two daughters of their own,
decided that calling a cab wasn't going to cut it.

(03:08):
We had no choice but to drive them back to
the city dock ourselves. The only problem are rented two
door Minnie Cooper, which was already fit to burst with
a family of four. Undeterred, my handyman dad was able
to and then it says, dismantle their bicycles to fit
in the trunk, while my mom squished the girls and

(03:29):
me in the backseat and then shoved my little sister
on the floor of the passenger seat between her legs.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
She's going to get that momming done.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
She is not no girl left behind because of a
douchebag man.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Exactly to this day, I'm still not sure how we
all fit. We must have broken countless unknown Canadian traffic laws,
but we got the girls back to their ship with
time to spare and to write a police report. Hopefully.
They even bought us T shirts from the cruise gift
shop as a thank you. Looking back on the story,
it makes my skin crawl to imagine how badly things

(04:03):
might have gone for those girls if my family hadn't
been in the right place at the right time. Stay
sexy and rent an suv, Abigail.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
For real, God, Abigail, I love that your parents are
the kind of people that like, oh, we are not
only just going to get involved, We're going to make
this work.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, because like, who knows what happened if they like
left them behind and then the guy came back, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, like ugh, ugh, gross gross. All right, keep your
eyes out for those boat guys. Hey, if you have
any positive boat guys stories, we're here. We're here to
read and counter this fucking bullshit.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
We know, we know there's positive ones out there.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
We know there's great boat guys out there. Okay, my
first one subject line's the one you've been waiting for.
I may have babysat for Witness Protection Program kids question
mark that is good, and then it says hello, good
people and pets. I've been wanting to write in with
this story for a long time, and when I heard

(05:01):
the story on episode four fifty four about the nineteen
seventy eight Leftanza heist, I knew the time was right.
I grew up in a small Appalachian city in the eighties.
When I was a teenager, a new family moved in
down the block, and as I had a monopoly on
the neighborhood babysitting jobs, it wasn't long before they hired
me to watch their four kids. About a month after

(05:21):
they moved in, and during what turned out to be
my last babysitting gig with them, the youngest kid, three
or four years old, told me about how they had
to leave their old house really fast in the middle
of the night and couldn't take anything with them. She
ended it with and then we came here.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
While she was telling me this, the eldest, maybe ten,
got a stricken look on his face and was doing
everything good to get her to stop talking. Oh no,
that's my sister and I all our lives, but we
were not in witness protection.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Just shut up, just shut up.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Being a kid myself, I'm sure I thought it was
just some weird toddler nonsense and didn't really give it
a second thought until a couple of days later, when
I realized they were gone and the house was empty.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
It was poor kids, I know, those poor kids.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
It was.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Then, in my fourteen year old, budding murdering no brain,
I decided that I had probably babysat for a witness
protection program family. I was convinced the ten year old
told his parents everything that went down, and they high
tailed it out of there.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
I was so freaked out by this.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Notion that I didn't tell anyone this story until just
a few years ago, in case the mob came looking
for me. Of course, I don't know that they were
really in the witness protection program. Maybe they just woke
up one morning and decided my town sucked, and they
didn't wait to leave. I guess we'll never know. Stay
sexy and don't blow your cover r and then it

(06:48):
says name withheld because you know the mob?

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Oh my god, are you the ten year old or
the two year old listening right now? And was that you?
And yes, indeed you were in the mob or no,
maybe not in the mom but you know what I mean?
Please email us?

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Oh can you imagine?

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Were you a witness protection family like? Tell us we
need to know the details. And I know you're gonna
say it's way more boring than you think it is. God,
we need to know.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Also untrue, it's boring to you because you already went
through and it wasn't. It wasn't all day, every day excitement.
But no, compared to walking around in a field full
of cows, it's way more exciting.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
I'm sure, oh man, that ten year old has chronic anxiety. Now,
I guarantee it my mom's third man experience. Hey guys,
I just heard Georgia's story about third man syndrome and
my hands are shaking as I write this. I haven't
even finished the entire episode yet, but I have to

(07:47):
tell you about how my mom's life was saved by
her deceased father. Years ago, my mom, Joyce, was working
at a Target store on the receiving dock in the
back corner of the stock room.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Joyce is such a mom name, isn't it such a
mom name? From like nineteen eighty seven?

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, it's good. She was literally standing in the corner
by herself, counting items on a palette when she felt
a massive shove from behind that pushed her away from
the corner. She turned around to say, hey, what the
hell to realize no one could have been behind her.
Her back was up against the wall. Just then, an
entire palette full of extra shelving fell from the top

(08:24):
shelf in the stock room near the ceiling. Holy shit,
it landed right where she had been standing. Turns out
there were employees in the next aisle trying to add
items to that top shelf and hit the palette of shelving,
pushing it off the other side. Guys, come on. The
security guard had seen it happen on the screen in
her office and came running back to grab my mom

(08:45):
and say, we almost lost you. There's no explanation for
what pushed mom, and no one else was in that
aisle with her on the security camera. Her parents had
passed away maybe a year before this, and she says
she knows for certain it was her dad that saved her.
My papa was an amazing man, and I thank him
every day for saving my mom. Thank of your amazing

(09:05):
podcast that gives all of us humor and hope. Oh
stay sexy, and thank you Guardian Angel Papa. Anastasia.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Oh my god, Anastasia, I love that one.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
The like surety that it's her dad is like so
like got me choked up.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, you know where It's just like She's like, my
dad shoved me like every other day.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Was a big pusher, a constant.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
I love to stand under things like pianos that were
dangling out of windows.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
I can't tell you how many times he shoved me
out of the way of danger.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
And in it one more time I knew that familiar feeling.
But also I want to know if that security guard
that saw it on the on the camera saw the
shove where.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
It's all sudden, right, she goes.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Like that totally me too, that'd be cool.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Okay anyway.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
The subject line of this email is Hell's Angels used
to pick up my mom from school. Gals, gals, gals,
It's time I've arrived. I can finally tell the story
and I know you'll get it. I've been here since
twenty sixteen, UK listener. You got me through it all.
We're grown.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Let's go. Huh excute.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
I know in episode four fifty you talked about the
Hell's Angels and yahs. I can sorry, yass yass, I
can finally share my mom's ridiculous connection to them. Back
in the seventies, my granddad, my mom's dad, was well
known in the northeast of England, first for being a
prize fighting Irish boxer whoa yeah right, I kind of

(10:35):
want to look that up, but also in his later
years as a respected pub landlord. When my mom was
around seven or eight, he decided to branch out and
purchase a well known wine bar that had fallen on
hard times. What he didn't know is that this bar
was often frequented by the Hell's Angels.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
A wine bar, A wine bar that's so classy, and
it was their base for dealing cocaine.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
That's why, that's why they're bringing the cocaine. Where the
people who buy cocaine are the wine.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Right, the people have money for cocaine. Yeah, the wine bar,
oh my god. But also kind of hilarious you're like,
do you want to go wine tasting? And then just
get insanely wired and talk about plans.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
They end that sentence with and was their base for
dealing cocaine terrific. He tried many different ways to churf
them out, including installing mirrors on the wall so he
could see everything they were doing, but mysteriously, they would
always end up smashed. This went on for a while
until one day my granddad remembered that if you can't
beat them, join them. No, he didn't become a hell's angel. Instead,

(11:39):
he freaking employed them. He made a deal with the
head of the gang, and then in parentheses it says,
is that the right term that if they stopped dealing
from his bar, he would give shifts to each of.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Them as doormen. Wow. Right.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
They were happy to accept the work, and it kept
the bar safe too after that, because the bar was
filled with wired lunar ticks with a bunch of money.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
I'm drunk, drunk on red shitty red wine probably back then,
and shit, oh my gosh, you.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Know that gorgeous vintage of wine that's from Northeast England.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Can just turned your teeth purple yep, and.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Get you swinging.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Well, after that, my granddad started to get on well
with their gang leader, a terrifying guy called Jungle Jim,
who would frequently give my mom a ride on the
back of his Harley.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
If Jim, I got it, Jim, Jungle Jim. Jungle Jym.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
So my Dave Demo, our family friend who was my age,
used to call my dad Jungle Jim.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
He thought it was the funniest.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Jungle Jim used to frequently give my mom a ride
on the back of his Harley. If you ever saw
her walking home from school alone, she said she was
never scared of him, and he kind of resembled a
goth Santa Claus.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
I could see it. That's perfect totally. AnyWho.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
I never got to meet either of my mom parents
as they died young, but gosh, I wish I had
the chance. My mom is an incredible human being despite
a chaotic childhood. But I will say that my murderino
tendencies are down to her, as she let me read
James Patterson since I was about nine. I now work

(13:18):
as a life coach, helping people find joy in these
dark times, and often listen to the podcast whilst I'm
creating slightly more lighter content. Keep going, gowls. We will
so thankful for stumbling across you all these years ago.
Stay sexy, Meg, Meg, can you coach my life?

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Please?

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Meg?

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Fun?

Speaker 2 (13:39):
You sound fun, Meg, You're a fucking legend. You're from
first of all. From what I'm gathering, and I could
be wrong, it sounds like an Irish prize fighter fell
in love with a British lady and moved to her
side of town, which is like ultimate Romeo and Juliet.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Come on totally. Oh my god, love it.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
It's fun. That's great. That was a great one. My
last one is called dog Snitch and it starts howdy.
A couple of years ago, after much begging from our kids,
we added a beagle mix with a gentle demeanor and
fantastic eye makeup. The picture attached to our family named Turbo.

(14:24):
This story also involves my son, who has sensory processing
disorder and will often put things that are not food
into his mouth. His favorites are small objects like buttons
and coins, you know, stuff that makes mom freak out
when they are in a four year old's mouth. Yeah,
we had Turbo for about six months when one night
he was scratching and barking at our son's door after bedtime.

(14:46):
Usually Turbo is pretty chill, so I assume the most
obvious thing. My son has snuck a lego or something
into his room to chew on and is now choking
to death, and the dog is telling me to get
in there and help. Now rush into the room, Turbo
at my heels to see my son looking surprised and
guilty with half a candy bar in his hand. I

(15:08):
stood in the doorway, scolded him for sneaking footage his room,
and Turbo took advantage of the moment to run in,
snatch what was left at the candy bar and scarf
it down as fast as doggily possible. I went in,
thinking we had adopted a hero dog, to realize that
he was a snitch who would sell you out for
half a chocolate bar.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Fortunately Turbo suffered no ill effects and the only stitches
he got was from a hernia surgery a year later.
And it snitches getting stitches. Oh yeah, stay sexy and
hydro chocolate megs? She her Oh another meg?

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, two megs in a row.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Oh, here's the here's all one hundred with the photo.
We'll put it up on Instagram and everywhere. Oh, let
me see it's a gorgeous dog.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Oh my god, that eye langage is simply incredible.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Truly, the tattooed on, I mean, that's just bring that
to like the tattoo the permanent makeup person and be like, yeah,
my eyes like this.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Can you give me one of the kind of a
permanent quoll cajol I believe they call it. Frank has
a really good eyeliner. Two Yeah, Okay, here's my last one.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
The subject of line of this email is hot Dog Day,
and it starts one of the best I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Enough, grab ass, let's get to it.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Good one.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
You say you like hot dogs, then you need to
come to my town's annual Hot Dog Day celebration. My
little college town of Alfred, New York, located about eighty
miles south of Rochester, has an annual hot dog centered
festival that you should totally attend.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Each year on a Saturday in April, our tiny main
street is closed to traffic and turned into a street
festival devoted to all things hot dog.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
If I were a mayor of the town, that would
be every day.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
That would be your first political move, Yeah, the first
bill you'd sign into law. There are, of course hot
dog vendors, as well as kosher dog and not dogs
for vegetarians like me. There's a parade with people dressed
as hot dogs, packets of mustard and ketchup, et cetera,
as well as fire trucks, adorable little kids from the

(17:16):
karate studio dressed in their tiny geese, and all the
usual small town stuff. There are games, rides, and of
course the wiener dog races, in which confused docs ins
run around, sniffing each other's butts and eventually meandering toward
the finish line. This is this sounds like the best
day of all time.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Why did our tiny town of eight hundred souls decide
to celebrate all things hot dog? Great question, I don't know.
Wikipedia says our hot Dog Day started in the nineteen seventies,
and hot dogs were chosen as the theme because they
were cheap and therefore popular with our college students and
also for those of us who lived through the seventies.

(17:58):
It was the recession and times were tough. It was
that was like the gas crisis.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Money were tight.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah yeah, there was a here. At least there was
a drought, right.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, all kinds of shitty stuff. Yeah,
nothing like today. Whatever its origin, hot Dog Day is
a chaotic fun event, with all proceeds from the food
vendors and games going to local charities. Oh my god,
So if you'd like to cheer on some bewildered wiener
dogs while stuffing your faces with everyone's favorite snack, come
on over to Little Alfred, New York and hang with

(18:31):
me and the probably two other murderinos who live here.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Oh my god, I'm picturing us like at the Rose Parade.
The we're like commentating on it as it below us. Yes, live,
We're live from the hot Dog Day festival and Georgia.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
If you look right down here, the children and geese
are storming up the street to protect us from all
the hot dog attacks.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
That float took eight thousand hot dogs to create. Thank
you for the donation from Nathan's.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
Whatever, stay sexy and don't mock the hot dogs. Juliana,
and then in parentheses it says rhymes with banana, like
we don't I can't pronounce Juliana without that album. Thanks,
Juliana rhymes with banana, rhymes with banana. That's the best.
I mean, these festivals like truly warm my heart.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, what's your festival? What's your town festival? We need
to know about it. We need to know what goes
on in it.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Do you think it's any better than the Pedlama butter
and eggs?

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Dape raaid, I doubt it, man, Yeah, that's cool, it is.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
It's real fun.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
All right. Well that was a quick one. Thanks so
much for listening and tuning in and all of the things.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
And if you have a story you'd like to tell
us that's interesting and funny and fun that you think
we'd like at horrifying or horrifying or a true hometown yeah,
or kind of anything in between. Yeah, head on over
to my Favorite Murder Gmail, which is literally my favorite
murder at gmail dot com and.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Send it in.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Please participate if you'd like, we'll give you a trophy,
a participation trophy.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Get in here.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, stay sexy and don't get murdered. Get the by Elvis.
Do you want a cookie?

Speaker 3 (20:24):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Our editor is Aristotle Osceveda.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot
com and.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Goodbye,
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Hosts And Creators

Georgia Hardstark

Georgia Hardstark

Karen Kilgariff

Karen Kilgariff

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