Listener Tales 113: 90's Sleepover Edition

Episode Overview

• Hosts Ash and Alaina Urquhart present a 1990s sleepover-themed "Listener Tales" episode of the Morbid podcast, sharing four listener-submitted stories ranging from sentimental paranormal discoveries to close calls with violent criminals, while off-camera producer Aiden relays automated outputs from their electronic spirit box device, "Nicholas."
• The episode opens with 90s nostalgia and lifestyle banter, contrasting the hosts' teenage styling with modern pre-teens drinking high-caffeine energy drinks, alongside non-sponsored product disclosures.
• In "A Dreamy Discovery" and "Tale of the Traveling Ouija Board," listeners recount unexplained phenomena—including prophetic dreams leading to a preserved 29-year-old childhood heirloom and an inexplicable haunting in Canada involving a Ouija board that returned after being thrown away.
• In "I Met a Murderer" and "The Time a Christmas Elf Prevented an Abduction," listeners detail harrowing 1990s brushes with true crime, highlighting how polite behavior can mask a killer and how bizarre, decisive intervention can stop a kidnapping in progress.

Key Concepts

• 1990s Nostalgia, Modern Contrast, and Host Disclosures: Alaina styled her hair and makeup to look like herself in the 90s at "12, 13 years old" (taking "six tries" to do a zig-zag hair part), while Ash styled a "Pam Anderson eye and a Y2K hair." While reminiscing, Alaina hedges that she knows the 1990s weren't a better time overall given "the nuance of it all." They contrast their youth with modern 11-year-olds filming TikTok "Get Ready With Me" videos for 5th grade at 7:00 a.m. while drinking Alani energy drinks, which Ash notes contain 200 milligrams of caffeine. Ash (a "30-year-old married woman" who recorded the earliest Morbid episodes at age 22 and notes they now have a backlog of "like 800 episodes") drinks Alanis, whereas Alaina has never had one and has only taken a literal sip of Red Bull out of fear her heart will explode—though both explicitly hedge that Alani drinks will not actually make your heart explode. Alaina also notes she no longer drinks alcohol, preferring mocktails or Shirley Temples. This prompts Ash to disclose that Canada Dry sent them a package of exclusive flavors (Cherry Fruit Splash and a strawberry flavor), which both hosts explicitly state is not a paid ad. Ash also mentions meeting fans on a recent book tour, and Alaina shares the podcast's email (morbidpodcast@gmail.com), noting staff member "Deb-Deb" sorts submissions.
• Generational Connection and Intuitive Recovery ("A Dreamy Discovery"): Listener Lori, who drives a solid 1.5 hours to and from work as a direct support professional for an adult with autism, is the youngest of 3 siblings (the only girl, with 4 years between her and her middle brother, and 6 years between her and her oldest brother), born on Friday, May 10, 1991, and brought home on Mother's Day. When Lori was 1 year old, her mother Gina opened a licensed preschool, "The Lane Day School," in a house previously lived in by Lori's great-grandmother (Mildred, aka "Me-Mom") and grandmother (Joy, aka "Nani"). In that creepy basement, Lori's legs would give out 9 times out of 10 running up the stairs, and Gina and Nani used to hear women talking and clinking glasses. On her 4th birthday, Lori's parents gifted her a 90s battery-powered Barbie Lamborghini with a car phone, and when she was 16 years old, they sold the school to a family acquaintance. In October 2017, Lori gave birth to her son Jay, who had a heart condition, brain bleed, premature lung disease, and required several cardioversions, resulting in an 86-day stay at the local children's hospital before coming home on January 10, 2018 (during which Gina only missed 1 day of visiting). Jay left with moderate-to-severe bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, enrolled in a school for the deaf at 18 months old, and at 6 years old is fluently bilingual in spoken English and ASL. Gina showed signs of pancreatic cancer but died of COVID-19 on January 15, 2021, while Lori was 7 months pregnant; almost 2 months later, on March 11, 2021, Lori's daughter Ella was born. Ella attended the old preschool (renamed "Learning Lane") for 2 years until it sold. Lori had recurring dreams of the basement and 2 sheds her father built in 1991 (one empty, one locked). A week after the sale, a friend texted a Facebook post about a garage sale at the school on Friday and Saturday between 12:00 and 4:00. Using her phone flashlight in the dark basement, Lori felt she went back 29 years in time and found her mother's handwritten newsletters and folders. When Lori asked about the sheds, the organizer hedged that she might be totally wrong in thinking she knew what Lori was looking for, but opened the locked blue shed to reveal Lori's Barbie Lamborghini from 29 years ago. The organizer let her take it for free, and Lori gifted it to Ella for Christmas, hedging that either her late mother or "the lovely old tea party ghost ladies" guided her there. Immediately after this story, the paranormal device "Nicholas" randomly interjects, "Buttocks on the table."
• The Halo Effect of Small Courtesies ("I Met a Murderer"): An anonymous listener who found Morbid in January 2022 via the 4-part series on Albert Fish explains how minor polite acts can mask dangerous individuals. She lived in a North Carolina mountain town until age 10, then moved 6 hours north to southeast Ohio. The summer she was 14 in the late 90s, she visited her granny in North Carolina and hung out with her uncle's former military roommate, "Lynn" (a Korean-American woman). Lynn drove the 14-year-old 30 minutes on the interstate in a pickup truck to a mall, where they met "Luke," an acquaintance from Lynn's intensive therapy/mental hospital group whom Lynn assumed was only there for substance abuse. Lynn, the listener, and Luke drove 15 minutes by highway to a second mall across town before dropping him back at the first. Because Luke reflexively caught the listener's hairbrush before it slid out the truck window, the 14-year-old assumed he was safe and nice. (During this tale, Ash shares a personal memory of moving into "Ma and Papa's house" at age 15 and reading The Bailey School Kids book Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots.) Days later, Luke's photo appeared on the front page of her granny's newspaper after he and an accomplice were placed in custody for killing a mother and child on the Parkway. The listener hedges that "if the timeline was accurate," she and Lynn were with Luke right before the double murder occurred, a secret they kept from the listener's mother for several years.
• Absurdity and Bystander Intervention ("The Time a Christmas Elf Prevented an Abduction"): Listener Steve illustrates how rapid action can disrupt violent crime regardless of how absurd the bystander looks. In high school in the late 90s in Arizona, Steve—who stood around 5'2" or 5'3" at the time—was a theater geek who dyed his hair half-red and half-green every Christmas and was hired to play an elf at a party alongside his drama teacher as Santa. Driving home around midnight in an affluent neighborhood while stopped at a red light, Steve heard blood-curdling screams and saw a man (whom Steve hedges was "a beast of a man" in his stressed memory, "but in reality, he was probably pretty average") dragging a woman by her hair into the backseat of a parked car. Steve ran the red light, called 911 on his emergency cell phone, pulled behind the car, flashed his brights, and honked his horn, causing the attacker to throw the woman out and speed off. While comforting the victim in his rented elf costume, a man on drugs pushing a shopping cart walked up the hill; Steve stepped between him and the victim, and the man asked, "Do you like crack?" before proclaiming, "Well, I do!" and fleeing when police lights appeared. Feeling cold, Steve put a black emo Matrix-style trench coat over his elf costume while being questioned by skeptical police. Steve later grew up to become a physician.
• Escalating Paranormal Phenomena ("Tale of the Traveling Ouija Board"): Listener Amanda—who notes both of her children, born 7 years apart, shared Ash's June 8th birthday as their exact due date, with her son born 8 days late and her daughter 4 days late—recounts a childhood haunting in Manitoba, Canada. When Amanda was 11 years old and her sister was 9, their parents bought them a Ouija board for Christmas. After weeks of nightly use, strange phenomena began: footsteps in the hallway after midnight, shadows (prompting both Ash and Alaina to claim they frequently see shadow figures out of their peripheral vision walking into the kitchen or backroom of their own homes), and an unplugged, battery-less alarm clock blasting music at full volume while Amanda was home alone. Additionally, her sister had a doll with mechanical eyelids designed to close when laid flat; one night Amanda woke to see it lying on its side with its eyes wide open staring at her, though when she tested it the next morning, the eyes shut immediately. When the family moved from Manitoba to Alberta, Amanda's mother threw the Ouija board in the trash, yet after driving over 1,000 kilometers to the new house, her father opened the final moving box and found the exact same scratched, bent-edge Ouija board sitting on top.

Quotes

• At 0:00:00 - "Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And this is Morbid in the 90s at a sleepover." - Ash and Alaina introducing the theme of the episode.
• At 0:01:46 - "Now you have like 11-year-olds doing get-readys with me to go to fifth grade." - Alaina contrasting her 1990s childhood experience with modern pre-teen social media culture.
• At 0:04:06 - "Canada Dry sent us a bunch of their exclusive flavors. This is not a paid ad at all, it's just you talking about Shirley Temples." - Ash disclosing a product gift from Canada Dry while clarifying they are not being paid to promote it.
• At 0:14:30 - "Without giving all the fucking devastating details, my mom passed away on January 15th, 2021, not from cancer, but from fucking COVID." - Alaina reading listener Lori's account of losing her mother two months before her daughter Ella was born.
• At 0:21:54 - "But as she opened those two squeaky splintering doors, my heart fell out of my asshole. There, leaning vertically in the left corner of that shed was my fucking Barbie Lamborghini from 29 years ago." - Alaina reading the climax of Lori's story, where her recurring dreams led to the recovery of her childhood toy.
• At 0:34:38 - "I thought to myself, well, he must be nice. Murderers do not catch hairbrushes." - Ash reading the anonymous listener's reflection on how a polite reflex convinced her at age 14 that a dangerous acquaintance was harmless.
• At 0:37:48 - "My cheeks started to feel really hot as I read the headline by the photo that I recognized: 'Two men arrested, mother and child killed on Parkway.'" - Ash reading the moment the anonymous listener realized the man she rode in a pickup truck with had committed a double murder.
• At 0:44:33 - "I looked over to my left and I see a man literally dragging a woman by her hair across the street to a car parked on the other side of the street." - Alaina reading listener Steve's account of witnessing a midnight abduction while driving home from a Christmas party.
• At 0:47:06 - "He's very clearly on drugs and he comes up to me and says, 'Do you like crack?'" - Alaina reading the surreal moment a man with a shopping cart approached Steve and the kidnapping victim before police arrived.
• At 1:02:40 - "My dad sliced it open, and believe it or not, sitting right on the very top was the Ouija board." - Ash reading the conclusion of Amanda's story, after her family drove over 1,000 kilometers from Manitoba to Alberta believing the board had been trashed.

Takeaways

• Follow persistent intuitive nudges and recurring thoughts even if asking feels awkward; inquiring about a locked shed at a garage sale allowed Lori to recover a 29-year-old family heirloom for her daughter.
• Do not rely on superficial politeness or small reflexes—like someone catching a falling hairbrush—to judge the safety of a stranger or casual acquaintance before letting them into your vehicle.
• Verify the background of acquaintances before introducing them to minors, rather than assuming someone from a therapy program is non-violent.
• Use your vehicle's lights, horn, and positioning to create noise and visibility if you witness an abduction or violent crime in progress, allowing you to disrupt the attacker and call 911 without engaging in physical combat.
• Maintain situational awareness after interrupting an emergency until authorities arrive on the scene, as unpredictable bystanders may approach while victims are still vulnerable.
• Monitor young children's caffeine intake and morning routines, recognizing that adult energy drinks like Alani contain 200 milligrams of caffeine and are unsuitable for elementary school students.