MFM Minisode 505

Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder, the mini-sode.

Special edition.

Grandparents edition.

We did that so smooth.

I mean, it's like we memorized our lines earlier.

You want to go first?

Yes. So yesterday was Grandparents Day, and of course we... love and respect and admire all grandparents. So we thought it'd be the perfect time to do a Grandparents Day spectacular here on the Minnesota.

And you guys know we love grandparent stories.

And you know personally about me that my example always when I'm talking, especially when we were trying to do the combo stories, my example was always a grandma and Al Capone.

Yeah. No, you have one?

Grandma Al Capone story.

Holy shit.

And then in parentheses it says, kinda. Which is fair enough. It's perfectly done. It starts, hi, hi. I heard on your 500th mini-sode that you were looking for combination stories. And when I heard you say the combination of Al Capone and grandmas, that's my standing example. I knew I had a story for you. I'm from Windsor, Ontario.

You have an Ontario mug.

As if the Lord made me drink this coffee.

I remember when you bought that. I think I was there with you.

You were?

Yeah.

In the Starbucks in Ontario?

Yeah.

Or did someone send it to us?

No, I think you bought it. Okay. I think I remember you buying that one.

I really do love it.

Yeah, it's good.

And it's got your seafoam green. I love that. I'm from Windsor, Ontario in Canada, which is right across the border from Detroit, Michigan. I thought they were going to say it's right across the border from you guys. Yes, you're the land next door. We know. During the 13 years of U.S. Prohibition, Windsor was a major bootlegging hub.

The area was nicknamed the Windsor-Detroit Funnel. Did you know any of this? Because of all the alcohol that was being run across the river, my great-grandpa, my grandma's dad, was a rum runner, one of the people who smuggled the alcohol.

Got it.

He died before I was born, and I've been told that although he didn't talk much about his activities, he met Al Capone. Whoa. When my grandma was young, her home was robbed at gunpoint. They cut the telephone lines before they entered and tied her to a chair. I guess it was believed that this was the work of Al Capone's guys or something because they seemed to be looking for something specific on top of money. During the robbery, they went through a bunch of their paperwork and things, and obviously they did not clean up after themselves when they left. Later, when my grandma was helping clean up, she came across her own adoption paper.

Oh! I mean, trauma on trauma.

This is, we thought we were getting an Al Capone story. Holy shit. And that's how simply it could happen back then. You didn't have to have a, what do you call it?

DNA test.

No, it was none of that Ancestry.com stuff.

It was like. Almost too far-fetched.

One little drawer in that grandpa's roll-top desk.

Let me help after being tied up and fucking robbed.

Yes, you're right.

Oh, hey, what's this?

Oh, yeah.

On top.

It's total trauma Sunday. Oh.

Two veterans in an episode that we could name Trauma Sunday. Oh, God damn it. Save it.

What do you like on your Trauma Sunday? Pineapple sauce? Because that's traumatic.

Oh, my God.

This is how she found out that the people she thought were her parents were actually her grandparents. They adopted her and her sister was actually her mother. Yeah. Yikes. Growing up, I was always told that my grandma was adopted, so we didn't know much about her side of the family. Hey, so that is a very different story.

Yeah.

The reason I found out this whole story is that I started performing in a local bus tour group about rum running. A local bus tour group.

Must be like a haunting tour.

Oh, yeah.

Like they ride around and be like, that building right there is.

Where Al Capone. And she's playing Al Capone. I'm assuming it's a woman. It's got to be. A local bus tour group about run-rumming in Windsor and my mom casually brought it up like it was a normal story. I know this might not be exactly the Grandma Al Capone story you were looking for, but I thought it could count.

Thank you, Lexi.

It all counts, Lexi.

Lexi, you sharing your story about your family, even if there was never a label that we had asked for, it's always valid.

It's a good one.

You get Al Capone in there, we're listening.

That's us. Okay, well... This one's called Grandma, a Clown, and Kidnappers. Lighthearted. Hello, Karen, Georgia, and the person screening emails for the show. My sister told me I had to listen to you guys, forcing me to join the ranks of every single other person whose sister forced them onto the podcast. Thanks to her, I have been a loyal listener for a long time, and I realized I have a hometown story that needed to be shared. While my cousins were growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, my grandma had a side hustle that made her an absolute legend in our family.

Yes.

She was a children's birthday party clown named Bubblegum the Clown. Naturally, we called her Grandma Bubblegum.

Hold on a second. I need to say that I think this has changed my vote permanently about clowns. Because if it's a grandma clown, your birthday party is a dream.

Is it? No. I don't know. I still, you know.

You're saying the quality of the grandma is very crucial?

Absolutely. One summer day, Grandma Bubblegum had just finished working a gig and came straight over to my aunt's house in full clown attire and makeup to watch my cousins for a couple of minutes to help bridge the gap between my aunt leaving for work and my uncle coming home. My oldest cousin, Kevin, who was always a little shit and made it his personal mission to push her buttons, decided he wasn't having it. Hmm. The second she walked in, he bolted out the front door and took off down the street on his bicycle. Without missing a beat, my grandma took off sprinting after him down the road, still in full head-to-toe clown makeup and costume. That's right, running. Kevin, leaning completely into the drama, started screaming at the top

of his lungs, help, help, a crazy clown is chasing me. Kevin, you little shit.

Kevin, goddammit.

He led the chase straight towards the packed public pool down the block, still screaming about the deranged clown that was closing in on him.

Here's the thing. Kevin's really manipulating the, like, public fears.

Totally.

Because almost no one's going to stop and be like, no, I'm sure that clown is his grandma.

Right. Yeah. Of course not. Right as they reached the pool, my uncle happened to be driving by in his work van, saw the absolute circus unfolding, pulled over, and grabbed my cousin and his bike and put them in the van. As he did that, my grandma caught up and jumped in. Oh. My uncle drove them all to the house where Kevin undoubtedly received a harsh 90s-style grounding.

You mean five across the eyes? Exactly.

Shortly after they made it back inside the house, there was a deafening, aggressive pounding on the door. My uncle went to answer it, wondering who on earth was banging like that, and pulled it open to find a half dozen police officers with their guns drawn. Good. Thank you. The lead cop looked him dead in the eye and asked in the most serious voice imaginable, where's the clown?

Because you can't tell gender in a clown either, like full clown. I have a photo of Grandma Bubblegum. Okay. Turns out the pool goers hit 911 with the speed of people watching a true crime reenactment come to life. Fully convinced John Wayne Gacy was back on the loose and a local creep was helping him finish the job like a fucking work van.

Yeah. The work van, everyone jumping in is bad.

Thankfully, my uncle and my grandma managed to talk the cops down and they left without taking Bubblegum the Clown into custody. This, of course, instantly became a favorite story to tell at every family gathering, much to my grandma's eternal annoyance. She would just sit there scowling while we all laughed along with whoever was telling it. To this day, whenever anyone in our family.

Still in the clown makeup that's really mad.

She accidentally put permanent clown makeup on or she could never get it off. Oh, man. To this day, whenever anyone in our family wants to make the rest of us laugh, we just hold up finger guns and ask in a deadpan, dead serious voice, where is the clown?

So good.

Grandma Bubblegum's name was Nancy. She passed away in 2020, but she was an absolute badass. Not only did she beat cancer twice, raised three kids, and fiercely loved all eight of her grandkids— even the one who almost got her arrested. She fucked politeness before it was popular. She was one of the good ones. I miss her every day.

Karen and Georgia, you are both amazing. Thank you for helping me get through earning my bachelor's degree in marketing, then switching paths to get my teaching certificate because I wanted to be someone who made a difference. I'm now in my third year teaching and truly believe I found my calling.

Nice.

You are my favorite aunts that I never met, even though you have forgotten my birthday every year.

What do you think this fucking podcast is?

It's your birthday podcast. I have attached a picture of my grandma as Bubblegum the Clown. Stay sexy. Trust your gut. And when in doubt, ask, where's the clown?

Yes.

Best, Jenny. Here she is.

Jenny, show us your grandma.

It's a little terrifying. Nancy, I love you. It's a little terrifying.

Nancy, your wig covers your ears. It looks like you have secrets. There's all there's all kinds of you know, there's a whole like science and the. system to the clown makeup.

Like of why it scares us? Yeah. She looks a little like her eyes make it look like someone's forced her to do this and she's trapped.

Because she didn't include the eyes in the design.

Right. And there's no eyebrows. There's a little bit of like, I lost a dare.

It's a little bit. I just finished this in the bathroom. Can we get this over with so I can go.

Back to work? My pores. My blessed pores. Okay.

But what I love is the idea that, what was the clown's name?

Buttons? Bubblegum.

Bubblegum. So good. Bubblegum hauling ass up the street after Kevin.

Fuck yeah.

Is hilarious. Love it.

Love it. Okay.

Okay. Well, then we'll just go right into this one. This one is connected to yours. Grandma, the hometown hero. It says, Hello, Karen and Georgia. This is a story about my beautiful grandma, Gail, and her untold heroic actions in the local town. I feel very lucky to have grown up with my grandparents, as spending time with them is one of my favorite things in the world. But only as I've gotten older have I really taken an interest in their lives. That's how it is. When you're young, you don't realize other people have lives. Apart from their adventures traveling the world in a tiny plane and running the most amazing local pet shop.

That sounds like such a cool grandparents.

That sounds like people were smuggling chimpanzees to me. The story I want to tell took me 19 years, a bottle of Baileys, and the Christmas spirit to shake out of my grandma. Bottle of Baileys. Before I continue, I must put forth a do not try this at home warning for all listeners and the reason why will be obvious soon enough. One evening sometime in 1970, in the most English-looking town of England ever, my grandma was making her religiously routine walk to the local store. Footfall was of the typical quantity, and everything seemed normal until suddenly my grandma heard a huge crashing sound. Looking behind her, she discovered a white van had rammed into a shop window, and this shop turned out to be the electrical store.

My grandma and a bunch of other people looked on in shock, as a single man began loading up what were very expensive color TVs.

Whoa. It's not subtle.

No. It's like, oh, I'm crashing there and then fill the crashed van with TVs to drive away. For some illogical reason, my grandma made the unfiltered decision to get involved.

No. Keep walking.

Her thought process for what she did next goes as follows, and I quote, This is my town. I can't just watch it happen. Can I?

Oh, sorry.

This is my town. Anyway, the British version of that. Can I? Then, without much more thought, my grandma ran over to this man and tackled him.

To the ground.

Don't do that.

Yes.

Do it. The older you are, the more you should be tackling people. Bearing in mind this woman barely stands five foot one feet tall, she jumped on the man and using what must have been some mutant powers, fought to keep him under civilian arrest.

Citizen arrest.

Truly never do this.

Oh, my God.

All the while, everyone else looking on at the scene didn't think to help her and just continued to watch. That's why you don't do it. Yeah. Unless you have three friends with you.

Totally.

Then go for it.

Come on, guys. And it's just you.

Yeah, exactly. Eventually, the police were called.

Eventually.

It says eventually the police, in parentheses it says cops, were called. Yeah, we know what the fucking police are. The Bobby.

Bobby, maybe.

Was it in a lift or a flat? The police were called and my grandma was able to keep the man pinned down until they arrived. At which point she simply left the scene and carried on with her day.

Oh my God, Grandma.

It wasn't until she got home and the adrenaline had relaxed that she noticed a huge black bruises scattered all over her body from the action. As extremely mad as my granddad was with her that day, it's fair to say that my grandma is the toughest bad bitch in all the land with an uncanny amount of bravery. Having lost my mother to illness from a young age, my grandma has been my biggest role model and a hero to me every day. Therefore, I shared this story to give her some well-deserved social justice. Wow. Stay sexy and interrogate your grandparents about their past.

Anna. Yep.

How great is that? Wow.

I love it. Grandma. That guy beat her up.

And she's like, I don't care.

And she still held him down.

And she's like, you won't. This is my town.

These color TVs. She should have won a color TV. The store should have given her a color TV as a thank you.

Can we get that store's phone number and get this all happened 40 years ago?

Right.

Okay.

Hello, pleasantries and so on. I just finished the minisode where a girl from Perth talked about her job at Fremantle Prison and thought, hey, I have a story. Back in 1960, my nan and pop were boyfriend and girlfriend, still teenagers and living in Redcliffe, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. One night, my pop was in the back sleepout.

I don't know what that is. Back porch? Yeah, probably right. And Nana was returning to the main part of the house when she saw a man crouching on their back veranda holding his shoes. She crept back to tell my pop, who pulled her inside and went to look. There he saw a man on their veranda, so he chased after him.

Nana's brother joined in the chase. See, you got to have at least two.

Yes, you got to have backup.

With pop eventually lunging at the man and catching him. He said, quote, once I caught him, I thought, what am I going to do now? So I acted tough. They got him back to the house and called the cops who dismissed the man as a harmless peeping Tom. He ended up doing three months prison time, but went on to do much worse. Oh, no. That peeping Tom turned out to be the night caller, a.k.a. the Nedlands monster, a.k.a.

Eric Edgar Cook, which I don't think we've ever covered, but is a Serial killer, I mean, from that time.

Yes, and I feel like I've definitely listened to an Australian-produced podcast about the night caller. Am I wrong about that?

Probably. No, I would never say you're wrong about that. Why would I do that? Why? Pop passed away recently, and the funeral's celebrant. Celebrant? Celebrant. Celebrant.

It's like the priest that oversees the funeral.

Got it. Told this story as part of his eulogy, which, as a non-religious family, I think we can all agree was a solid use of time. SSTGM and Don't Dismiss Peeping Toms is harmless as they statistically go on to commit violent crimes due to not being held accountable for their creepy actions and tend to escalate. Oh, yeah, we know that. And this is from M.

P.S.

Here's a news clipping where Nan and Pop tell the story. That's them in the picture top right. Yes.

Look at them.

Look at how cute they are.

Yes.

And there's a documentary about this killer as well.

The night collar?

Yeah. They caught him.

Also just so creepy. There's a man on your back porch holding his own shoes. What is that? Or maybe they were someone else's shoes.

Holding a pair of shoes.

Yeah.

Just like so you don't make noise.

Sneaking up on that.

But then why?

Yeah.

It's so creepy. And then I'd be like, well, what if he comes back to this house knowing what happened? Of course. Right?

And you'd be like, well, then get into that sleep out. That's the only place that's safe. We have no idea what that is.

No. Back barn? Who knows?

Could be anything. Okay, here's my last one. The subject line of this is Grandma Pranks and Deathbed Confessions. And it says, Dear Karen and Georgia, I am writing in about my prankster grandmother's deathbed confession. My grandma, Nancy, was an advocate for disability rights, a wonderful mother and grandmother, but most spectacularly, a legendary prankster. It all started when my dad decided to propose to my mom. My grandma generously offered a family heirloom ring and mailed it to my dad. Now, dear reader, my dad has many positive attributes, but being detail-oriented is not one of them. On his way to propose to my mom, my dad stopped by the post office to pick up the ring. Without opening

the box to inspect the ring first, he got down on one knee. No.

Oh, no.

Gave his heartfelt plea to my mother to marry him. Opened the box to reveal a plastic Cracker Jack box ring. My mother in tears and my dad furious called my grandma, who thought it was all hilarious.

No, don't fuck with someone's proposal. But at the same time, she probably thought he was going to open it. Open the fucking box.

Look at the ring. There's one thing of like I'm not detail-oriented, and it's like I don't really care that much. I mean, not to say that, of course. Your father loves you.

Maybe he doesn't care about a ring, 100%.

Maybe he doesn't care about your mother. Let's talk about all of it. Somehow, my dad managed to redeem himself and married my mom. Over the years, my parents and grandmother gifted each other the plastic ring back and forth, continuing the joke. The last time the ring was seen was when my parents gifted it to my grandmother again.

bronzed on a small statue of a woman reaching out her hand.

Oh, my God.

So now for the last 20 years or so, everyone had agreed that the ring and the statue had been lost to time, and the prank had finally ended. My grandma swore she had no clue what happened to it. A few months ago, my grandmother was losing her battle to cancer, and we all gathered by her bedside to say our goodbyes. My parents sat by her bed, and she reached out to my mother and said, Get the lady from the closet. My mother, confused, went to the closet to reveal the statue with the ring that my grandma had been holding onto for the better part of two decades. In her last moments, my grandma regaled the whole family with her best prank and her final wish, that once she passed... Keep her ashes in the Golden

Lady statue. What? The statue now sits lovingly in my parents' house, a reminder of the legendary matriarch of our family. And here's the Golden Lady statue right here.

Oh. Oh, wow.

Thank you both for being my constant companions all these years. I started listening as a junior in high school, and this year I finished my master's and started my dream job working in a children's hospital. Wow. SSDGM and always open the box first, Eliana. Wow.

Wow. Oh, that's yeah. She got the last laugh. I mean, it's pretty.

It's so good. But also, it's such a funny thing to be like, open the closet. One last joke.

I thought she was going to have like the person put it in her like in her coffin with her for her viewing or something like that. That's good.

So many ways to do a prank.

OK, my last one is grandma superstitions. Hello, ladies. My 84-year-old grandma, Carol, is very superstitious, to the point where my mom began to joke that she got all these sayings from her witchcraft book. One year around Halloween, my parents were out shopping and found a candy dish that looked like a hollowed-out spell book. As a joke, they bought it for her, and for Christmas, my mom called all of my grandma's sisters and typed up as many of her superstitions and old wives' tales as they could remember and gave her the book. The kicker is that my grandma absolutely loves it and still adds new sayings to it to this day. The book is full of newspaper clippings and handwritten post-its. While I can't remember all

of the sayings, I have listed below all that I can remember off the top of my head. Thank you. Okay, ready?

Yes.

You can't get rain on a baby's face before it is a year old or they will have freckles. Like, give me freckles.

Just absolutely not related in any way.

Right, and actually not that big of a deal. If you drop a comb, it is bad luck unless you step on it and make a wish before picking it up.

She had OCD. Okay. Very simple. Yeah.

You are also not supposed to rake leaves or anything in your yard before May 1st or you are raking someone out of your life. This was put to the test one year when my aunt's dog pooped right beside their front steps and she knew someone was going to end up stepping in it. So she raked it up and within an hour received a call that her husband's uncle had died.

Not related.

Nope. You cannot cut a baby's hair before they are a year old. Grandma can't remember why this is, but she still enforces it on her grandkids and great-grandkids.

Just keep scissors away from babies.

They can't cut their own hair. To prevent the seven years of bad luck of breaking a mirror, do not touch the shards for seven hours. Never rock a rocking chair when nobody is in it or someone you love is going to die.

I've heard that one before.

Those last couple ones sound familiar. Yeah. And finally, my favorite. This isn't as much of a superstition as it is an old wives' tale. To soothe a baby who is teething, get a pair of mole's feet, tie them to a string, and place it around the baby's neck. Yes, you heard that right. Take the feet off of a little mouse and put them around your baby's neck. My grandma swears this works. And that she did it with my dad and uncle. She wanted to do it with my brother and I, but my mother wouldn't allow it. Why not?

What are spoils for?

A vermin from the yard?

And also to sue the baby who's teething. It's not that big of a deal that you would do. Maybe to save the baby's life. Sure, I'll try it. Yes. But that's not the first. Give him a pickle. Everyone knows.

Right. I mean, they're just going to keep on coming in. There's so much to cry about with teething.

And then you're crying because your parents did that to you? Yeah.

What's that weird distant rat smell?

I love my grandma and her superstitions slash old wives tales. Anytime I hear a new one, I am sure to write it down and add it to her book. Thank you for all you do and for keeping me entertained for hours since I discovered you right before the pandemic. I finally faced my fears and flew solo, I might add, from Columbus to Chicago to see you live. And I do not regret it.

Yay.

Thank God. ssdgm andrew he him.

Andrew thanks for coming yeah thanks for flying solo i love i bet you that's such a satisfying thing to have people as a gift be like here's all the shit you've said that you all remember and think is kind of either funny or wise i.

Love that and like here are the recipes that someone finally yes put together yeah that's so good all that um Well, thanks for listening to this grandparent. Go ask your grandparents what their fucking major malfunction is.

What have you been up to these last 80 years?

What did you even do?

What do you have to pass on and let us pass it on?

And don't forget to include their name because we love hearing the grandparents' names and imagining them as a baby named Faye or whatever. Yes.

A nice Maude out there. A nice Ernest.

Sure. Patty.

No more Ernests.

Oh, Ernest is good. Ernie.

I wish Grandparents Day was every day.

Me too.

Well, stay sexy.

And don't get murdered.

Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an Exactly Right production.

Our managing producer is Molly Smith.

Our consulting producer is Kate Schellenbach.

Our creative lead is Allison Agosti.

Our associate producer is Tessa Hughes and our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Squalacci.

Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder.

Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Or watch new episodes every week on Netflix. Search for My Favorite Murder on iTunes, add us to your list and hit the double thumbs up button.

Goodbye.

MFM Minisode 505

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