MFM Minisode 508

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

That was so, like, thoughtful of you and heartfelt.

You know what it is? It's because we get to record this from home. I know. So, like, I'm looking at Georgia sitting in a big rattan chair in a sundress where it's like, we're going to run out of this record and just go be in the day.

No makeup on. That's so nice.

Hold on.

But immediately, Elvis.

Oh, my God.

I just called Mo Elvis. Immediately, Mo is bugging me.

Mo, get in here. We need you for this record. How is he?

He's a jerk.

Is he high maintenance?

He is.

And I love it.

All right. Do you want to go first?

Sure.

This is kind of lovely. The subject line of this email is hero guide dog story from 9-11. Oh, dear.

Yeah.

So it says, hello, I'm writing this on the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. And I listened to Karen's story about the 88th floor heroes yesterday. And if you want to listen to that, it's episode 549. Let's action, which is also our new British new wave album. Okay, so it says, I wanted to share the story of a hero from the 78th floor, a yellow lab named Roselle.

Oh, no.

Michael Hingson, who has been blind since birth, was working at his desk on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower when the first plane hit the building above him. His three-year-old guide dog, Roselle, was asleep under his desk. She calmly guided Michael to stairwell B despite the fear, confusion, and smoke that was starting to fill the air. Over the next hour, Roselle led Michael and about 30 other people down 1,463 steps to safety. Oh, my God. She calmly guided him around obstacles and debris just as she was trained to do. Michael says that he repeated over and over throughout their descent that she was doing a great job. He wanted to reassure her that he was okay and because he was sure that

she could sense the panic around him. At one point, they came up to a woman who was having a panic attack in the stairwell. They stopped to comfort her, and Roselle gave her kisses. Then she got back to her task. Can you imagine just the horror show, and then suddenly there's just a dog there licking your face?

I would, like you, I mean.

I would grab that dog, scruff it, and never let go.

Smooches for days. Please. Okay.

Okay. Michael also calmed his colleague who had started to panic at some point, saying, if Roselle and I can make it down these stairs, so can you. Yeah. Roselle, her human, and their entourage made it to the lobby just as the other tower collapsed. Roselle, unfazed, led Michael to the entry of a subway station. All the way out.

All the way out into a subway station. Later that evening, when they made it home to Nurg.

They made it home. I was ready for this to end horribly.

Later that evening when they made it home to New Jersey. Roselle grabbed her favorite toy and started playing with their other dog as though it had been a totally normal day on the job.

Oh, my God.

There were, of course, many other hero dogs that day. Another guide dog named Salty, also a yellow lab, guided his human down to safety. And so many search and rescue dogs worked through the rubble in the days and weeks that followed. So sad. But I wanted to share Roselle's story with you and listeners. She might be the goodest girl ever. Roselle, it's such a good name. I have no personal connection to Roselle or Michael, but I am especially struck by this story because I'm a puppy raiser for the Seeing Eye. The Seeing Eye is the oldest guide dog school in the U.S. I didn't know that.

There's like one that was first. I mean, obviously. I didn't know things could, if they were the first one, that would mean they were....

I mean, it makes sense to be like, it's just a thing, not like, how did it start?

Yes, it's just suddenly. I guess I was thinking there was just the one. Okay, it's not the school where Roselle was trained, but all the guide dog schools rely on puppy raisers to get their future guide dogs a good start in life. Seeing eye raisers get puppies around seven weeks of age, and we have them until they're around 12 to 15 months old. At that point, we have to give them back, and we are unlikely to ever interact with them again. If they're successful in their training. Yeah.

It's a heartbreaking but beautifully rewarding task. Part of our job is to safely expose our puppies to as many sights, sounds, and environments as we can so that they are ready to guide their future person through any situation. I'm amazed by what guide dogs do on a day-to-day basis. But to think that a goofy, playful little puppy I could raise could go on to be as heroic as Roselle. Well, I'm not crying. You're crying. Thank you for everything you do and the human and animal stories you allow us to share. Stay sexy and become a puppy raiser, Lizzie.

What was the name of the company again?

The Seeing Eye.

Because if you have depression and you get a puppy who needs you to take it out to as many opportunities to learn as possible, can you imagine how important and life-changing that would be?

Yeah, because I think it's such a good way to go. It doesn't have to be about you to be important. And if you can't go, oh, nothing I'm going to do is worth it, but isn't it worth it for that precious little dog that.

Needs that training. And then you've got like 15 months ahead of you that are like the most important of someone else's life. So that's amazing. What a great email.

But then the heartbreak, like to be able, that's the same with people who foster dogs. They're just, they're in it for the big picture. I love it.

It's incredible.

That was great. Thank you. Yeah.

Great email.

All right.

Well, let's just jump right into a Ouija board email. How about go in the opposite direction?

Because that's what this show is.

Okay. Hello. As a new listener, I'm currently obsessed with your podcast. I listen to it in the car and while walking my dog. Oh, it's a themed episode. Oh. My dog is very happy because my walks are longer than usual as I like to finish an episode during the walk. So that's like a two and a half hour.

The dog's like, Jesus.

Okay.

I just finished listening to episode 378 about the Ouija board murders. You asked for Ouija board stories. Do I have an interesting story for you? When I was about seven or eight, my grandparents, my mom, and my aunt were all playing cards. This was the early 70s, so I was left to my own devices to entertain myself and keep out of the kitchen where they were playing Pinochle.

Pinochle is like... Pinochle.

Perfect.

While wandering around the house, I found an old Ouija board upstairs in a closet. My grandmother was from the Appalachia Mountains and was pretty superstitious. I had heard about the Ouija board and was told not to mess with it. Being unsupervised, I did what any kid would do. I pulled it out of the box and started asking it questions.

She's seven or eight years old.

All alone.

An Appalachia. Somehow that's like, you know it's so haunted.

It's just all these, you know, creatures kind of in their shadows around her.

Witches and ghouls. Okay. After having the board talked about by my family, I felt pretty let down. The board answered my questions, but I felt the answers were all wrong. I remembered thinking the board made no sense, and I didn't know what the fuss was about. About that time, there was a break in card playing, and my aunt found me with the Ouija board on the floor of the bedroom. She went out to the kitchen to tell my mom and grandparents that I was playing with it and that I knew I shouldn't be. I told them I was sorry and wouldn't do it again. I told them it was a stupid game anyway. They asked me why I thought it was stupid. I told them that I asked the board, when will I die? It says I was only seven. It seemed like a natural question

to ask. I said the board answered with the date of February 10th, 1919. My family let out an audible gasp. I should probably mention to you that I'm named after my great-grandmother.

No.

The mother of my grandmother that owned the Ouija board. The date the Ouija board gave, it's the date that my namesake died during the great flu epidemic of 1918. Stupid game. My favorite.

What a great example of how kids don't know shit. Totally.

It just kept talking to me and I was like, this isn't working. Literally communicating with you.

It's telling you, it's predicting the past and the future.

Right. I was only seven or eight, so how would I know?

I wouldn't.

All I know is I never saw that board again in my grandparents' house. Fuck yeah, they burnt that thing.

They burned it.

Stay sexy and keep Ouija boards hidden away or supervise your children during family gatherings. D, she, her. That's like a weirdly specific answer, but like an exact date of her namesake.

And do you think as opposed, like the first thing I thought of, which is just me trying to write a horror movie, but it's like because... that was a child by herself.

Yeah.

It's like, well, sure. I'll communicate with you.

Or just a child. Totally. Like, yeah. Like any child who doesn't have expectations either way.

Yes.

I think for sure. Yeah.

There's no reason to lie if you didn't think the board was going to do anything.

Totally. This game is stupid. It doesn't work because it's only telling me.

When great-grandma's death date was.

When great-grandma died.

My great-grandmother.

For whom I was made.

Okay, well, let's stay in the family theme. I'm not going to read you the subject line. It says, hello, Karen, Georgia, and everyone at Exactly Right. I grew up in small town Indiana in the 90s. My cousins lived in another tiny town, and we loved to visit them and have hours of unsupervised exploration of the ancient barn in their backyard, the amazing old-fashioned penny candy store a couple blocks from my aunt and uncle's house. Oh, and yes, the endlessly fascinating, very busy train tracks that we had to cross to get to and from said penny candy store with pockets full of change from our terrifyingly inattentive parents.

Oh, my God.

What an opening paragraph. Totally. It just set up. They've set up the danger. They've set up, it's foreshadowing. It's everything we need. Nostalgia.

We've got it. Yep.

On this particular day, six-year-old me, my three-year-old sister, and our one to two-year-old baby cousin decided to make the trek to the candy store with full permission and pocket change from our parents.

You can't walk. They're called toddlers because they toddle across a train track.

I mean, ours was not train track. It was just a slight hill straight away. But from age like Four and five, we were walking to the corner store.

The jaywalking across busy fucking streets we would do in suburbia as children.

Hey, we made it. Hey, we made it. Okay. My mom called, look out for your sister as we headed out, but that was it. Thanks for the advice. We made it to the store, spent our change on Tootsie Rolls, Gumballs, and Sprees, and began the trek back home. We approached the train tracks, and hear the telltale sound of a train horn signaling that a train is approaching the town.

This part of Indiana was flat as a board and full of cornfields, so we could see the train coming from probably over two miles away. But it was already rather close at this point. My six-year-old mind decides, hey, we can make it. And I'm so stressed out.

I am too. I'm just thinking, fucking.

Stand by me?

Stand by me, yes. Yep.

My six-year-old mind decides, hey, we can make it. And I grab my baby cousin's hand and sprint over the tracks. I assume my sister's behind us.

Oh, my God.

But as we're hearing and seeing this enormous speeding train getting closer and closer, I look back and see my terrified baby sister frozen in place, all caps, on the other side of the tracks. Look out for your sister, echoes in my six-year-old mind as I stare wild-eyed at my sister so close yet so far away. And all I can think is that my mom would kill me if I left my baby sister on the other side of the tracks by herself while the train was speeding by.

So I made the decision and beckoned to my baby sister to run across the tracks. That's all caps. To run across the tracks. The train horn is blaring wildly. The sound of it is deafening. The tracks are vibrating with the speed and size of this metal monster hurtling toward us with no sign of slowing down. And my baby sister looks at me, looks at the train and sprints across the tracks. I catch her as she crashes into me and I instinctively shield both her and my baby cousin with my tiny body. As seconds later, the train hurtles through. And I remember being so close to it that the wind from it whipped our clothes and our hair. And the clanking, clanging metal hurtling by and that blaring horn screaming on and on.

Oh, the train conductor was livid, I bet. Heart attack.

Probably like, I want to talk to the mayor right now. What are these children doing? It took me all caps years to think of that moment without feeling abject terror and imagining all of the what ifs that could have so easily happened that day. What if she had tripped as she ran? Yes. My God. What if she had hesitated half a second?

Okay.

I have to stop and just say this. This is why everyone from my generation, Gen X, is so fucked up. Because when you were six years old, you had to make adult decisions with no fucking help and you got in trouble if you did it wrong. Right. And so shit like this where you're like, she can't stay over there.

She's got to come over here. The worst decision of all time.

Totally.

Because you're six. It's so fucking unfair. Yeah.

You're put in charge of what? Adults should be doing.

Yes. And they have the gall to be like, you raised this child wrong in this emergency situation. I'm so mad for this person. Okay. What if she tripped as she ran? What if she hesitated a half a second longer? Her tiny body and her terrified face staring. Also, it's her sister trusting her sister to go.

Totally. No, you're completely right.

Her terrified face staring at the oncoming train and then searchingly back at me honestly still haunts me to this day. Thankfully, when my sister and I finally talked about it years later, she appreciated my instinct to not make her feel abandoned on the other side of a moving train, but also confirmed it was 100% fucked up and could have ended in truly horrific tragedy. The moral of the story is 90s parents were fucking idiots. I'm reading off the page, listener.

The moral of the story is 90s parents were fucking idiots and six-year-olds are not qualified to make decisions about anything, much less the safety and well-being of even tinier children. Thank you for the incredibly wonderful podcast. I've been listening since day one. Aw, hi. And your voices never fail to bring me so much joy. Stay sexy and don't let six-year-olds babysit or cross train tracks alone. Ruthie.

Ruthie, I am sweating.

We're all so triggered and PTSD'd out by that experience.

I mean.

Mine was never a train. Mine was always some weird subtlety of you're not supposed to do that, but you're doing it anyway. Right.

Or we're all jumping off this thing. And you're like, I'm the littlest, but I can't be left behind.

No, I can't be the crybaby. I was already the crybaby one time and not allowed to be the crybaby.

Okay. This is totally different. Suggestive Georgia and Karen sounds playing through loudspeaker. Hello, you lovely ladies. I don't have a hometown murder per se, but I am a band teacher, and every day it feels like my sanity is getting murdered. Smiley face. The school year has just begun, but I have already managed to embarrass myself in front of my high school marching band students. Right now we are in the heat of marching band season, literally, so a majority of our rehearsals take place on the football field. The summer heat is absolutely miserable in the state I'm in, yet I find myself doing it again year after year, dot, dot, dot.

Mm-hmm. No.

No. If you'd like to follow along, this was episode 537, live at the Paramount Theater, Seattle Night 2. The extremely tiny yet specific moment plays what sounds like a plaintive groan from Georgia and then Karen softly whispering the name Anthony. Uh-oh. Can you play it, Molly? Anthony. I don't know what it is. Anthony.

Also, I've never heard you think Anthony. That long during a show. You know what I mean? Like, have either of us ever considered anything for that long before speaking?

No, that's our point. What's happening? And that's playing on a football field in high school. Of course, the speaker was on full blast. So those two sounds suddenly piercing my eardrums startled me to say the least. Not only that, but unattached to the context surrounding them, which was Karen's DB tuber bank story. They could sound somewhat sexual, and to a large group of teenagers, it's guaranteed someone will say something about it sounding sexual. With reflexes no slower than a cheetah's, I attempted to close Spotify, but instead of swinging up out of the app, I sent the playhead back to the beginning of that exact sound clip. Anthony.

For a second time, my ears were pierced with the loud groans and seductive whispers of our lovely co-hosts, their voice echoing through the football field. After sprinting over and killing power to the speaker, I looked up to see if anyone happened to witness that embarrassing moment. And sure enough, the entire 100-piece marching band was standing there waiting to take the field for rehearsal. I was mortified. Instead of addressing it, rehearsal was started as normal and nothing was said by the students. My coworkers avoided eye contact with me for the rest of the day. I have been a listener since COVID and you've frequently accompanied me on walks, cleaning sprees, and home cardio workouts done in the bedroom

of my second floor apartment. Thank you for doing everything you have done to keep us sane through this tumultuous time. Your brand of humor is a beautiful combination of sarcasm, joy, and a healthy dose of darkness. that has helped an entire community process and cope with all these atrocities we keep living through. I have a feeling that history will look back upon you guys as a positive impact on our culture.

Oh my God. You know, that's a nice thing to hear.

I know, right?

That's a nice idea.

Yeah. Stay sexy and don't play MFM in front of your students, especially if the sounds Georgia and Karen are making are somewhat suggestive. A.

Thank you, A. That's so true. Any noise... Anything we were doing probably would have sounded suggestive in a high school.

Out of context, blasting.

What I was hearing, and I have no idea what that, I can kind of remember the story, can't remember the moment. Yeah. But what I think is, it was like one of those moments where we're trying to be philosophical about why people do what they do. Right?

Or maybe I was looking at a photo of him. Maybe there was like someone, we were looking at a photo and maybe he was hot.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe they really were detecting something that we ourselves can't see. Thank you. Have we humiliated you in front of your high school band class or any other one you teach? Please let us know. Okay, here's my last one. It says Billie Jean King, Gloria Steinem, and a bridge of a dad. And this was actually sent in. We just lost Gloria Steinem. I think everyone probably knows that. But if you didn't, Gloria Steinem died on September 2nd. Very sad. She was one of the first big visible feminists, a woman who was saying it's a good thing to be a feminist. It's not bad.

It helped a lot that she kind of looked like she was on Charlie's Angels with Farrah Fawcett. She was really an extraordinary woman and thinker and leader. And I'm not reading off paper right now. That's just, I just wanted to give her her due because We keep losing, you know, it's like, of course, we all are like, oh my God, how do we lose Dolly? But we lose people all the time and we never get to give kind of everybody their due. So anyway, so this email was sent in before Gloria Simon passed away. Yeah, all that is to say. So it starts, hi, Karen Georgia and the MFM crew. I was listening to the episode where Karen read about Billie Jean King and it unlocked a deeply buried beautiful memory that brought happy tears

to my eyes. And I wanted to share it with you. Growing up, my father Richard was a unique mix of traditional and progressive. I always considered him a bridge between the old ways and the new. He'd always wanted to be a sports writer and could regale absolutely anyone with his flawless, encyclopedia-like sports stats. But he also had a massive heart for the shifting world. When I was eight years old, I got entirely used to him calling me into the living room every single time Gloria Steinem was on TV, pointing at the screen and telling me, listen to what she has to say.

Wow.

Naturally, when the media circus surrounding Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs started ramping up on our usual weekend sports marathons, my dad was locked in. The day of the battle of the sexes finally arrived because I was only eight. I can't tell you a single stat or play from the actual tennis match. but I will never forget what happened when it ended. From the far end of the sofa, the spot always claimed by my dad, I heard a small croak. I looked over and saw this man, born in 1930, wiping a genuine tear off his cheek. He looked at me, smiled, and said, we just watched history.

Remember this.

Oh my God, I'm chilled.

So good. He wanted me to know that the world was opening up for me, and he was proud to witness it. I hope that one day women will no longer even need the bridges of wonderful men to get across. But I am so incredibly grateful that he was mine. Thank you for unlocking that memory for me. Stay sexy and listen to what Gloria Steinem has to say. Kathy in Massachusetts.

Oh, my God, Kathy. That was beautiful.

Kathy, you're very lucky to have a dad like that. And there's so many. That's what Jim's like. He's like fiscal conservative, feminist against his will. You know, he's like that's his favorite thing in the world is an underdog story. Totally. Yeah.

That was beautiful.

So good.

I hate that I'm following it up with a trash teen story.

Well, I think that's more like us. I think this is a nice pause. But, you know, let's get back to business. All right.

Okay, my last one is a trash teen. Hi, Karen and Georgia. First, thank you both for countless hours of laughter, comfort, and making me feel like I'm hanging out with two friends. I've been listening for years, and when you asked for stories about the high school experiences or scams that shaped who we became as adults, I immediately knew I had one.

The year was 2005. Netflix was still mailing DVDs, remember?

I used to have like 12 of them right next to the DVD player.

I lived in an apartment building. And so at night, someone would put them in their like outgoing mail for tomorrow. And I'd take it and watch it that night and then put it out before.

That's really good. You were getting like double usage.

Yeah. And I didn't even know what movie I was going to, I didn't have to like make a decision about movies.

You're like, oh, didn't my dinner with Andre.

Right. I was so broke.

Okay.

Blockbuster was king, and if you were a teenager who wanted to watch an R-rated movie, you had to find someone to drive you to the video store, hope they didn't card you, and then return the movie three days later before the late fees hit. Oof. Yeah. I was a sophomore in high school working 40 hours a week as a subway, quote, sandwich artist. And it says, yes, 40 hours, sometimes even more. My manager would write my overtime on personal checks so we didn't have to acknowledge those pesky child labor laws.

Yeah, that's right.

Was I helping support my family?

Nope.

I just genuinely loved working. At 15 years old, I was making around 20 grand a year.

Hell yes.

Did I save it for college? Absolutely not. Instead, my friend Jojo and I launched what can only be described as an underground R-rated DVD rental business out of my backpack.

You and Jojo. Jojo.

I already owned a ridiculous DVD collection because, again, I had no bills and terrible financial priorities. Then I invested another $ 500 into the hottest new releases. I even laminated a professional-looking menu listing every movie available. What? Premium titles rented for $ 5. Regular titles were $ 3. No tax, no late fees. If someone kept a movie too long, I simply hunted them down at lunch every day until they gave it back. It's your business model.

It's like a junior high blockbuster brought to you.

High school blockbuster, yeah.

Yeah, it's high school.

Business was booming. My fastest rentals, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers. Because you couldn't, I don't know if people know this, but you had to be 18 to rent our movies, right?

I believe so, yeah. I mean, if they were hardcore about it, or if you lived in a town like I lived in, everyone knew what grade you were in.

Totally. No one was like fucking around. Eventually, my inventory became so large that I was using four full-size school lockers organized by genre. I even expanded into concessions by selling candy and microwave popcorn as add-ons. Honestly, I was accidentally creating the world's least legal student-run blockbuster. Within a few months, I was making about $ 100 a week. Everything ran flawlessly until one teacher, Mr. Stevens, spotted one of my laminated menus. I assumed this was the end. Surely he'd take me straight to the principal who would call my parents, who would shut everything down. Instead, Mr. Stevens quietly pulled me aside and said, you need to stop this today. Not because he wanted to crush my entrepreneurial spirit. Actually,

the opposite. He told me he admired the hustle, but he didn't want to see me get caught by administrators who absolutely would. So that afternoon, I shut the entire operation down. What a cool teacher who was like, I like this.

Yes.

She's, I'm fucked up.

It's so smart. It's, it shows so much like ambition and like, you can get it together to keep this organized.

Totally. Oh, absolutely. Well, listen to this. After inventory costs, I'd made almost $ 3, 000. Did I save any of it? Of course not. I treated my friends to Burger King, TGI Fridays, mini golf movies. I basically became the world's least responsible teenage venture capitalist. The funniest part is what came next. Today, I'm a human resources and employment law executive for a Fortune 500 company.

Holy shit.

I literally spend my career helping businesses follow labor laws, employment regulations, and company policies.

You hypocrite.

So I guess my biggest lesson was this. Entrepreneurship is great. Just maybe don't start your first business by violating school rules, renting R-rated movies to minors, operating tax-free, and storing contraband inventory in four school lockers. You got to learn somewhere, right? I know.

And also the tax-free part was really a plus. Yeah.

Stay sexy and don't use your illegal child labor money to start a black market rated R movie business out of your backpack. Nick, Florida.

Nick, you're just a monster of industry. Jesus.

Do you want to come work for Exactly Right Media?

I know. Nick, what's up?

We need a whatever the fuck you do.

We need someone that's just like, I don't know, let's stand in the hallway and sell movies. That's kind of what the industry is these days.

Sell podcasts from school lockers.

We could do it. It's a can-do spirit.

Well, that's it, you guys. If you want to send your story and do it at My Favorite Murder at Gmail.

We're taking anything anybody wants to convey.

Truly.

And 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 My Favorite Murder.

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, Add us to your list and hit the double thumbs up button.

Goodbye.

MFM Minisode 508

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