MFM Minisode 481

Hello, and welcome to my favorite Murder the minisode.

This one is Easter and Passover themed.

Congratulations, we've finally gotten to Easter Passover.

Finally we've made it another year. Everyone I know this is the time, but everyone likes to reflect.

We build toward it and we land at it.

Yes, Yes, here we go. My neighbor's house is haunted. Lighthearted, sort of dear MFM fam. When I was in high school, I used to dog sit for my neighbors when they went on vacation. Every night, without fail, the two mini poodles would congregate in the front hall in the exact same spot and bark relentlessly for lack of a better description, to the air above them. To be clear, this was not a neat to go out bark. They were both so focused and clearly looking at something. Fucking dogs, man, let's scare the shit out of you.

It's so scary.

One night, the barking was especially bad, and I had already taken them out for several walks to try to get them to calm down. I took them out one last time before bed and thought, well, eventually they'll shut up. When we got back inside, I locked the front door and pulled really hard on it several times to make sure it was locked. I remember doing this because I was really nervous about being alone in the house overnight.

The dogs resumed their position and barking while I attempted to watch some TV and fall asleep. After a while, they calmed down and stopped barking. All of a sudden, I felt like it was too quiet. I peeked around the corner into the front hall. The dogs were gone and the front door was wide open.

Ooh.

I freaked out and immediately ran outside to find them. Luckily they hadn't gotten too far, but I was sufficiently scared. I've always wondered if the house had a ghost who got tired of their barking and took matters into their own hands let them out, because they were like, would you shut up? Got to about seven years later, and I'm at my neighbor's house for passover. One of the guests had a two year old baby who was crawling around all night and providing much entertainment. During dinner, he pointed up into the air and said ghost, ghost, Ghost.

Everyone froze and his mom's jaw dropped. She had no idea he knew that word.

Hmm.

A little later in the evening, he was crawling on the floor and stopped at the exact same spot the dog she used to bark, pointed to the floor ready for this, and said, dead body.

No, this is this is not true.

He was so matter of fact about it, And once again the adults were shocked and creeped out because this kid's normal vocab is well that of a two year old. After years of feeling like maybe my experiences in the house had been due to my imagination, I was glad to get confirmation from the little munchkin. Hope you guys enjoy the story. Stay sexy, and stay away from dead bodies buried under houses. Emily sent from my iPhone.

Oh god, I mean that literally sounds like it's out of the Conjuring franchise somehow.

Yeah. I would immediately start digging, though. I'd fucking rip that floor open that night and be like, right, this kid's right.

Yeah, I mean that's just two. There's your two concrete pieces of evidence, right there. Dogs and babies.

They know dogs and babies like, trust.

Them, follow them into the floorboards if necessary.

Look at Frank right now.

Speaking of dogs, look at Frank.

He's like, God, so sick of these ghosts. Okay, this isn't in celebration of Passover. I'm going to read you this email, but I won't read you this subject line.

It says, hey, gang.

Last week I smoke pot at the Satyr where the house rules were. Every time bitter herbs are mentioned in the Hagadah, you have to take a hit puff puff over anyone. Anyway, my friend name withheld to protect the nice Jewish boys of America starts getting hassled by one of his roommates to tell the quote story about the guy who founded his temple. He finally agrees to and says, Okay, so my temple is in a very Jewish town, and it's a very prominent temple. But there's this guy who is instrumental in founding it, who used to be a really important rabbi there, who isn't mentioned at all on the website or in the temple history anywhere. And the reason is he hired a hitman to kill his wife Jersey. Right, Yeah,

this at table of partially blazed four cups of manishevits? In college kids start losing their fucking minds he continues, yeah, look him up, Fred Newlander. Damn from the opposite end of the table. The information enters my brain and with the voice simplifying power of the substances I've consumed that night, I bellow, all caps, I've listened to my favorite Murder episode about him.

Are you serious?

Fred fucking Newlander founded your temple? And he bellows back yeah, and the girls sit next to him, who I've never met, yells down the table. I love that podcast. Oh my god, I've listened to that episode. And then she turns back to him, Fred Neulander founded your synagogue. We are in a state of pot fueled recognition ecstasy.

I yell back.

I have to email them about this. They need to know, And now you do. I smoke pot for the first time at a passover Satya and I met a fellow murderino all because a nice Jewish boy bought me weed. Stay Jewish and don't get high, Sally.

We're impossible. That's a thing to do, by the way, right, Oh yes, my god, yeah, wow, I love that one. I love that. It's like, we're not telling you the story. We're just telling you about this story of finding out that the story happened. I just that was great. Okay, this one is fucking crazy. I'm not going to reach you the subject line, but this I fucking love this one. Okay, hey gang. In April twenty sixteen, I left my home in Phoenix to move to Seattle, because because why I live in a house with a yard when you can pay the same amount for a basement studio with free spiders.

Since I was born here, you could call it a return, but my only memories of the first two years of my life are derived from old photos. I met my partner in March twenty eighteen. It was on a dating app that almost goes without saying right. We clicked immediately after realizing how much we had in common, friends of friends, the same shows and favorite bars. One of those how have we never met moments? Fast forward, but there's just two little arrows. The next time I traveled back to Phoenix, he came with me. I had a whole host of things I was eager to show him. Childhood photo albums at my parents' house weren't at the top of my list, but I let our hosts have their moment. We got excited when we saw documentation of my first Easter egg

hunt not only because of my quintessential nineties baby, bright pink tights, but because it was in our Seattle neighborhood. My partner knew the neighborhood since his grandmother lived there, and my mom got a kick out of the idea that we might have been at the same Easter egg hunt. Before leaving, I made sure to snap a photo on my phone, you know, in case I ever needed fashion inspiration from my younger self. Once we returned to Seattle, his parents treated us to the same trip down memory lane.

I made sure to point out my partner's sweet baby angel bowl cut in his Easter photos, but to be fair, my wispy George Costanza hair wasn't much better, and I pulled out my phone to remind him. More shocking than my hairstyle was the little boy grabbing an egg behind me. Not only did he match the photos in front of us, he was in the same exact position, just captured from the other side. My cameo wasn't as conspicuous as his, but my bright pink tights were unmistakable in the background.

No, yes, there picture together.

Yes, we have the phone to get our Instagram to look at it. I'll show you. We started our relationship almost twenty five years to the day after that Easter morning, and next Easter will be married. Sorry Jesus, it's our holiday. Now stay sexy and let your parents show off their dusty photo albums. Kateps shout out to our badass moms who both evaded Ted Bundy in the early seventies at the University of Washington. Okay, Molly is going to show you the photo. Okay, it's fucking I've studied it. It's fucking real. There's her in the front, and then her little tights are up in the like upper corner, and then he's in the background like picking up an egg.

It's fucking that's insane, uncanny, It's uncanny. We'll put it on Instagram. Oh I love that.

I thought it was the cutest. I can't believe that.

And I have to say I did think that it was going to be Ted Bundy was in the background.

Shout out to them avoiding Ted Bundy.

In the background, Ted Bundy is hurriedly trying to get to his gold Volkswagen bug. Okay, well, here's a fun Easter story similar not the same. Okay, and I'm not going to read you the subject line. It says hello and welcome. When I was three, I loved candy more than any thing. Candy in any form or variety. Candy was my passion. I was also an early riser, which meant a lot of mornings spent unsupervised until my parents woke.

It was the nineties and parenting was mostly just light supervision. Far be it from me to interfere with the lives of my parents. Imagine my joy when I rose on a spring morning, likely before the sun, to see just at my eye level on the kitchen table a all caps, beautiful, colorful box of candy with Easter eggs and a bunny and beautiful flowers. I managed to get the box open and was delighted to find lots of colorful little tablets.

What could be better? Naturally, I ate them all. Oh God, my mom's telling you the story goes like this. I woke up and walked into the living room to find three year old tailor with black drool running out of her mouth, telling me how good the candy on the table was. Oh my god, it's the Easter egg dye pellets.

She's eaten Easter egg dye pellets.

I don't even know. I don't know what the like.

Shit, that's right, yeah, who are my Jewish friend?

So they're basically it's a kit you get at the store and they give you pellets of dye, so it's like green yellow and it usually comes out kind of like different.

What are the pellets look like? Like pills or something?

They literally look like sweet tarts.

Oh you put that in the okay.

But they're much darker than like a pastel colored candy, very dark because you put them in hot water with vinegar and something else and that's what you dunk your eggs into to dye them.

Dude, I'm fucking forty five and that's the first time I've learned that.

I guess we're going to get you a egg kit this year so you can see the joy we've got living in.

Eight the fucking color food coloring pellets.

The pellets.

Okay, I'll tell you more, because there's more, it says. Horror and panic ensued. After a call with poison Control, they determined that this particular brand of Easter egg dye was not toxic and I should be Okay, oh my god, it's so it's so dense. It's like you put a big bull of hot water down and like everybody can dip their egg in the red water all night if you want to crazy. Okay, this was not my only for ate with poison control, and my own child has already built up his own wrap sheet. We are exploratory eaters, stay sexy and don't be shy to get up when your children do.

Don't be shy to get up when your children do.

Taylor, Oh, exploratory eating and that sign off is fucking incredible.

Just genius.

Yeah, that's a real that's a you know, around Easter time, I think everybody gets a little crazy too, where it's like people maybe having more fun because it's a little warmer and they're gound.

Party is more sleeping in, maybe a cute outfits on, Yeah, drinking a gin fizz.

Okay. My last one is about a cockatial and it's got It's very long, but it has peachey vibes, so have to read it. Hi, Karen and Georgia and Stephen rip. I know he's not dead. I just miss him. I just listened to the Hometown's featuring pets and it jogged a memory of one of the funniest stories in my family's history, starring none other than Billy, are mean little cockatile with the lungs of a demon and the survival skills of a feral raccoon. Billy was technically my mom's bird, but he quickly became the entire family's problem. My dad, Tom is a plumber and is constantly coming home from jobs with fines, leftover supplies, random tools, once a weird antique toilet, but Billy was by far the strangest thing

he ever brought home. Billy was offered to my dad who thought, sure, why not bring home a cockatial. We think Billy was around one or two years old at the time. My mom had just had a double bunyanectomy. Imagine me reading that the first time, going what what the fuck?

But I like to picture that her mom was like old fashioned in a hospital bed, both legs up in the air interraction, but just her feet totally.

It's one of those things where it's like it's a tiny surgery, but it involves like so much recovery that you need a cockateal about.

Also that you have to get a bird that will remember, will not die for ninety years. I feel like bunyans were a big thing in the seventies that really haven't. People don't talk about it anymore totally.

And warts like can on hands and stuff. There's always kind of warts.

Warts were everywhere. No one talks about warts anymore.

It's almost like you should get vaccinated.

Okay, It's almost like there's cover up and a conspiracy with Jeffrey Epstein.

Okay, okay. So my dad thought, you know what, really help her recovery allowed emotionally unstable parrot, So naturally, Billy became part of the family. He lived to be twenty one. He died when I was seventeen or eighteen, which feels both impressive and like some sort of endurance challenge from the universe. He wasn't particularly sweet. He'd whistle back at you or say hi, and then immediately try to bite you.

But he did love my mom, and eventually he tolerated me. I was the only person he'd occasionally step onto without drawing blood, and sometimes he'd climb under my chin to cuddle like a tiny, angry neck warmer. I wanted a dog so badly growing up that Billy was what I had, So I pretended he was my dog. Until I was at least thirteen and mildly self aware. Now onto the main event, the Great Easter Escape trademarked. Our house had an enclosed sun porch with four doors between it and the outside world. Sometimes we'd let Billy stretch his wings and fly around on the sun porch for some solo bird therapy. One fateful Easter Sunday, while Jesus was out here resurrecting, Billy decided to follow suit and rise m

My uncle Chuck came over with my three cousins for Easter, and while trying to juggle the kids and open the sun porch, he left it open for just a second too long, and out flew Billy like a feathered banshee shot from a cannon. Our town was maybe fifteen hundred people, but rural and full of woods, open fields, and bad ideas.

My dad immediately took off after him, following Billy's panic screeches from tree to tree across town. He said Billy just kept flying up, probably because the highest he'd ever been was the curtain rod, and the sheer vertical freedom overwhelmed him. My dad climbed trees, sprinted through backyards, and got a variety of small town reactions. One man, bless his chaotic soul, offered to grab a chainsaw and cut down a whole ass tree if it would help reach the bird. Meanwhile, another man yelled at my dad, threatening if you fall, you'll sue me. I'm calling the cops, to which my dad mid tree, out of breath, yelled, good call the cops. I need backup Outwards into the saga, my dad finally found Billy perched in a tree two

blocks from her house. Tired and probably emotionally shattered, Billy let my dad yell, Billy, come on, let's go home, and I swear to God. He climbed down the tree, hopped onto my dad's finger like he was saying, all right, I guess I'm tired, and rode home on his shoulders like he hadn't just caused absolute chaos. Why chase after him?

I would exactly let that bird go.

He'll come back.

Why are you trapping birds in a house?

Yeah, all of it.

It's like me, our horse that we keep in the front room. Leave it alone. It doesn't want to be in there.

Billy's Easter escape is still a family legend. Told it every holiday and probably one of the most dramatic things to ever happen in our little town. He was a loud, stubborn, weird little guy and we loved him for it. Thanks for inspiring this trip down memory lane and for being the badass voices in my ears through life, grief, healing, and chaos, including bird related drama SSDGM. Forever warmly, Heather.

Heather, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be critical about you and Billy. I know it's such a meaningful relationship and it's forever. I just think it's like if that bird got out and the bird wanted to come back.

It's like the old saying, like, m go glad, I'm going to come back.

If they come back, it's meant to be.

Here's your bird forever. If not, you had trapped a.

Bird exactly, how do you feel about that?

You feel about this high Horse? Okay, let's wrap this out. This female starts no subject line, obviously. Dear Karena Georgia, High Ladies, longtime listener, first time writer. Please be gentle. I promise the story makes more sense once the pub gets involved. My name's Charlotte. I'm twenty six. I come from a family so large it feels like a clerical error.

My dad is the youngest of eleven children, and every single one of his siblings went on.

To have at least four kids each.

Because apparently no one in my family has ever heard of hobbies, I'm one of five, the only girl with four brothers, and because God has a sense of humor, I'm also the middle.

Child of triplets.

I was raised feral, loud, and extremely skilled at you guessed it sarcasm, I added, the you guest in one in. I live in a stereotypical English village, cobblestones, hedges trimmed within an inch of their lives, and neighbors who would absolutely notice if you moved a garden dome. It's the kind of place that feels like something terrible should have happened in a Victorian novel, but instead it's just quiet judgment and church fetes that feel vaguely threatening. When my youngest brother was born, the youngest grandchild of this already out of control family, everybody wanted to be there for his first Christmas. He was born in January, so by the time December world around he had somewhat developed a personality,

which apparently made him extremely exciting. Naturally, this caused arguments who would host, who would attend, etc. To avoid the inevitable chaos, my parents made an executive decision. They packed up the seven of us, five kids, two adults, plus our dog and took us to Wales, specifically to a little lodge complex where to this day they have no idea how they found with nothing but country sidewalks, one pub, a community swimming pool, and absolutely no phone service.

A bold move.

I was only three at the time, so I don't remember that first Christmas, but we must have had a wonderful time, because we went back the next year and the year after that, and then for that summer, and then for Easter, and then basically for every available holiday slot. Somewhere along the way we started inviting extended family and then friends. Before we knew it, we had essentially taken over the place. If you were there during school holidays, odds were you were either related to us or accidentally adopted for the week. Okay, so one Easter I must have been about seven. The complex had planned an Easter egg hunt for all the kids. It was canceled last minute.

Dozens of feral children now on the brink of mutiny, so the women of the family took charge. They marched us all off to the swimming pool. Because nothing calms a group of disappointed children like chlorine and hypothermia. They left the men of the family in charge of creating a quick and easy.

Easter egg hunt. This was their first mistake.

Their second mistake was forgetting that these men had spent most of the day in the pub. Oh dear, Three hours later, we returned, dripping wet, wildly excited to what can only be described as the most unhinged Easter egg hunt ever conceived. The clues made no sense. When they did make sense, they were clearly written for people over the age of fifty, and that was only when the clues actually matched. Eggs had been hidden in places that required upper body strength, adult height, or a complete disregard for child safety. There was no logical route, There was no mercy. My older cousin, who was about twelve at the time, took control. She rounded up all the drunken men in our family and reorganized the whole thing, and

then made them complete the hunt themselves. Yes, and then it says she's a teacher. Now obviously, it says every clue was rewritten. Every single ridiculous hiding place their beer sog brains had found hilarious was included. They had to climb, they had to crawl, they had to boost each other into small gaps. Children were hauled around like assistance equipment.

Dignity was lost, chaos reigned. In the end, the Easter egg Hunt was a success, even if it was mostly middle aged men apologizing to their children while actively encouraging them into questionable spaces, and it was the best day ever. Large complex itself is nothing special, but it is without question one of the most important places in the world to me. It holds decades of noise, laughter, chaos, and family mythology. We still all go back at least once a year over Christmas. I've had to explain to past boyfriends that my Welsh Christmas is non negotiable, even though I don't have a single Welsh bone in my body.

Stay sexy and don't let drunken men plan anything or maybe do Charlotte.

I love that. I love that just fucking chaotic uncles everywhere, just drunk chaotic uncles is like such a good vibe.

Yeah it is.

Oh my god, that was amazing. If we did it right, yours in for next year, You guys, this is going to be a tradition from now.

Yeah, get ready for it.

If we would love to hear from somebody that was raised half Jewish and half Catholic.

Right, tell us about your satyr fucking Easter egg hunt.

Yeah, we must know. And until then, stay sexy, don't get murdered.

Good Bye, Bye Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

This has been an exactly right production.

Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.

This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

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Goodbye,

MFM Minisode 481

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