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00:01:49
To my favorite murder. The mini-sode. Hey. Hi, it's fast. It's emails. It's everything you like.
00:01:56
You want to go first? You want me to go first? I can go first. Okay. The subject line of this email is former demon child.
00:02:07
Dear Karen in Georgia, after listening to today's mini-sode, wherein a small child made a deal with a demon
00:02:13
and scared the ever-living fuck out of her mom's co-worker by predicting her mysterious illness,
00:02:19
it's my great pleasure to inform you of my status as a former demon child, or at least a child who might have made a deal with a demon.
00:02:28
When I was nearly three, my family moved into a new house. It was a small bungalow on a tree-lined street in a suburb of Detroit.
00:02:35
Some real Norman Rockwell shit. Everything was lovely for the first few months until the weird noises started.
00:02:42
At night, my parents would hear my brother and I running around in the second floor bedroom we shared.
00:02:47
They would come upstairs to put us back to bed only to discover that we were sound asleep.
00:02:52
On other nights, they would hear the toilet lid slam shut and hear the flush. But again, when they came to check on us, we had definitely not been out of bed.
00:03:03
They wrote it all off as parental exhaustion until the day I declared that there was a quote-unquote mean angel in my room.
00:03:11
A mean angel is a definition of a demon, right? Yeah. It's almost like a small child's euphemism for a demon.
00:03:20
Oh, wow. Okay. A mean angel. My mom called me downstairs for lunch and I replied,
00:03:26
I can't, she won't let me. Properly freaked, my mom ran up the stairs to see who she was,
00:03:33
but there was no one there except me, her toddler daughter, who was pointing toward the staircase saying,
00:03:39
she doesn't want me to leave, she's so mean. Over the next year, I kept seeing this mean angel,
00:03:45
who I said was a young girl named Angie. She wore a white dress and bullied me ruthlessly.
00:03:51
And I was the only one who could see her. Worried that her kid was having some sort of psychiatric break,
00:03:57
my parents consulted the next-door neighbor for advice. Perfect. Yep. Take those serious problems right where they belong, next door.
00:04:06
My dad began to tell her that he thought I had an imaginary friend. But before he could begin describing Angie to her, she stopped him.
00:04:14
Is she seeing a little girl who's not much older than her? No. She asked. My parents were baffled.
00:04:21
The neighbor asked why I called her an angel and my dad told her it was probably because
00:04:25
of the white dress she was wearing. All the neighbor said was, oh no, that's so sad.
00:04:32
As it turns out, the family who lived in the house before us had a daughter who had run out into the street
00:04:39
in her nightgown and been hit by a car. She didn't survive. My parents bought a different house
00:04:45
in the same neighborhood soon after that and I haven't seen a ghost since. I remember all of this vividly even 30 years later.
00:04:53
I live in Boston now, but our old house is currently for rent and I'm tempted to fly back to Michigan for a showing
00:04:59
just to see if that upstairs bedroom is still haunted. I hope it isn't. That little girl deserves peace.
00:05:05
Stay sexy and make nice with the ghost children, Megan, she, her. Wow. Mm-hmm. How about it?
00:05:14
Also, a recent ghost, like- Oh, yeah. That's very, very tragic and intense. Yeah, old-timey ghosts, fine.
00:05:22
Recent, so sad. Also recent child. Yes. Everything about that, Megan, that's very intense.
00:05:30
Well, I have a similarly sad one with an uplifting... Okay, here we go. All right.
00:05:37
It just starts murder and co. I've been waiting for the right time to send in this story,
00:05:43
and since you asked for glitches in the Matrix, I figured now would be good. So fucking hooray.
00:05:49
When I was 12, my mom married into a family with a tight-knit network of cousins.
00:05:54
My mom husband was particularly close to his aunt Dana and uncle Barry and their three children including the only girl in the entire mix Tina And by the way they said that the names are changed for privacy
00:06:06
Oh, good. Dana, Barry, and their kids lived in a bucolic hamlet nestled amongst a dense thicket of trees in Northern Texas.
00:06:14
This person writes poetry, clearly. And the only sign of contemporary life amongst the forest
00:06:20
was miles and miles of cargo train rails that had been without a crossbuck for decades.
00:06:26
Ooh, that's especially haunting. Right? That's like, what's a crossbuck? Is that abandoned train tracks?
00:06:34
I have no idea what a crossbuck is, but the idea of abandoned train tracks, I think,
00:06:37
is through a forest. Oh, yeah. I mean, please. Well, so on one week before her high school graduation,
00:06:44
Tina got into her car and started her route to school, which included crossing the train tracks,
00:06:49
but the lack of crossbuck and the dense forest made her unaware of the incoming train.
00:06:56
They weren't abandoned. No, a crossbuck must be like a train is coming or like stop.
00:07:02
Yeah, the arm that comes down and the lights and everything. Yeah. Her car was struck at full velocity,
00:07:08
killing her almost instantly. At her funeral, Dana and Barry gave 30 of her closest friends a rose,
00:07:15
symbolically adopting them as their daughters, using the gesture as a floral tonic
00:07:20
to manage their immeasurable grief. Over the years, they kept in touch with all of them
00:07:25
except for one. Tina died a few years before my mom married into the family. I was an athlete and played piano
00:07:31
and Tina was an athlete and played piano. And as such, Dana and Barry took a liking to me
00:07:36
so we would visit them often. One morning while we were visiting, Dana was telling me the story of the, quote,
00:07:42
adopted daughters and the one they couldn't track down. She showed me the memory book they had made with all the girls' names
00:07:49
and the, quote, daughter with whom they'd lost touch had been circled. I read the name out loud, Jessie Polney.
00:07:57
I looked at Dana and said, that's my athletic trainer. No! Dana was mixing pancake batter and dropped the bowl.
00:08:05
What does she look like? I described her. Dana's eyes welled up with tears and she said, that's her.
00:08:10
We've been trying to track her down for years. Dana and Barry lived five hours away from us
00:08:16
and I grew up in a city with hundreds of high schools the odds of Jesse and me intersecting
00:08:21
were impossibly slim Dana wrote Jesse a note which I delivered when I returned to school
00:08:27
her stunned look when I handed over the envelope is branded into my brain she called them soon after
00:08:33
finally after years of wondering where she had gone all of their quote adopted daughters
00:08:38
were accounted for thanks to this deeply improbable glitch and two forever grieving parents were able to feel,
00:08:45
if even for a minute, the closeness of the daughter they tragically lost. There are tons of other stories like this concerning Tina,
00:08:52
and I will leave you with my favorite. As I mentioned, Tina played piano, which sat mostly unplayed after she died.
00:08:58
One summer, when Dana and Barry returned home from vacation, their lawn keeper told them
00:09:03
he thought someone had broken into their house, but there was no indication that was the case.
00:09:08
When they pressed him, he said, you're gonna think I'm crazy, but someone was playing piano.
00:09:12
They asked him which song and he said he knew the melody but didn't know the name.
00:09:17
They brought him inside and put on Claire de Lune. His eyes widened and he said,
00:09:23
this is it. Dana said, don't worry, that was just Tina. It was her favorite. In theory,
00:09:29
I don't believe in supernatural occurrences or intervention, but the happenings surrounding Tina
00:09:33
disrupt the intellectual metric repeatedly and remind me that following the emotional evidence
00:09:39
connects the disconnected. Thank you for being a light in dark places. Stay sexy and always stop at train crossings are...
00:09:46
I mean... Intense. Layer upon layer. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. That is an unbelievable, like, it's not a coincidence.
00:09:57
Right. That's kismet in a way. Totally. It's unbelievable. I'm obsessed with these kismet stories.
00:10:04
Yeah. I mean, it's really cool. Yeah. Because also it does make you feel like there's more going on.
00:10:11
Yeah. Than just what our kind of cynical, you know, like injured by life outlooks tell us or make
00:10:19
us want to believe where it's like, all right, you can tell yourself that. You know, there's an interconnectedness to it all.
00:10:25
And that is better than nothing. Yeah. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.
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00:13:51
to how my mom ran me over with a pickup truck. And then here's truly my favorite opening maybe of an email so far.
00:14:01
Listen up tens of five is speaking. Oh, wow. That is one to beat. That is the one to beat.
00:14:12
They just took the classic. They reversed it. It's a compliment. It's comedy. It's everything you want.
00:14:19
Oh, that's going to stay with me. Okay. Recently, we've heard a few stories about kids jumping out of cars because of neglectful parents.
00:14:28
Finally, my time to shine. I grew up in a small city on the east coast of Canada with a single mom doing her best.
00:14:36
However, my mom, having a pretty bad case of undiagnosed anxiety, was never able to successfully get her driver's license.
00:14:43
She would get her learner's permit over and over, but could never get the courage to make it to the actual driving test.
00:14:48
One day, when I was six, we went out for a drive to a very rural, small town in my stepdad of the month's pickup.
00:14:56
Who are you? You're so clever, I can't even handle it. And also just that idea, it's like, that's part of the mom's anxiety.
00:15:05
She's like, yeah, okay, you. No, no, no, not you. You, you, you, you. Hold on a second.
00:15:09
I'll marry you. The whole thing just paints this perfect picture. Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:14
Okay. He had to visit a friend for a few minutes, so he left us in the truck to wait.
00:15:19
And then in parentheses, it says, me in the middle seat with my legs around the gear shifter thingy
00:15:23
and my mom in the passenger seat. However, my stepdad had left the truck parked on a slight hill
00:15:28
with a very busy two-lane highway passing directly behind us. He had also not put on the emergency brake.
00:15:35
Suddenly, the truck began to reverse in the direction of said highway. My mom panicking and not knowing what to do,
00:15:42
thinking we were about to be shot into oncoming traffic, suddenly yanked the door open, jumped out of the truck,
00:15:48
looked at me and yelled, jump. Thanks, mom. Yeah. Me being six, tried to do as she says.
00:15:58
However, I have to cross over two seats to jump out. My feet get caught in the gear shift
00:16:04
and I stumble through the door, landing, all caps, underneath the front tire of the truck, which proceeds to run me over.
00:16:13
Oh. Yeah. Fortunately, I'm not too hurt as the truck had only gone over my legs,
00:16:19
and we both turned just in time to see the truck gently turn into the ditch, not going anywhere near the highway.
00:16:26
Motherfucking truck. That fucking truck. Cue the tears and screams. We then drove to the nearest ER, which was 45 minutes away,
00:16:37
and waited hours before being seen as staff had me brush out rocks from my legs with a metal comb.
00:16:44
The doctor said I was very lucky the truck had not gone over my abdomen and internal organs.
00:16:51
Seeing the opportunity, I took this exact moment to blurt out through tears, I want a puppy.
00:16:58
Clever. That's right. Always clever, this person. So smart. So smart. that's right.
00:17:03
This was also the day I got my first puppy, a miniature schnauzer named Pepper. Oh my God.
00:17:10
My mom finally got her license at 52 years old and I was so proud of her. That's amazing.
00:17:16
So cute. After years of people teasing her and feeling self-conscious, she finally got over that shit,
00:17:22
passed her test and bought herself a Mini Cooper convertible like a badass boomer.
00:17:26
Yeah. Stay sexy and use your e-brake. Steph Myers, she, her, you can say my full name. And then it says Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.
00:17:37
All right. Wow. Steph. Epic. So good. So good. Effortlessly wonderful. Do you want me to tell you a story about when I witnessed
00:17:47
my cousin Dina get run over by a truck? Of course. Very similar. Very similar to this. We were all standing in front of,
00:17:54
it was we were at the Demos house who are our family friends but we called everybody aunt uncle and cousins and it was like four different families It was some holiday say it was like Mother Day or something like that It had recently rained and their driveway was a circular driveway
00:18:10
of dirt with gravel. One of our family friends, Woody Painter, had a really old, like a Peterson
00:18:17
truck or something like that that was like a real old flatbed. And it was slightly uphill
00:18:23
from like the front door of the house where we were all standing on the front porch.
00:18:27
Something happened. The truck kicked into gear, rolled forward. Dina was standing in the driveway.
00:18:33
It hit her. She fell down. It rolled over her. Everyone stood like, everyone like did exactly what you just did
00:18:41
and did the gasp. It rolled over her like abdomen, both front and back tires. Oh my God.
00:18:47
And rolled away like into a tree. And then she popped up out of the mud, like covered in mud.
00:18:53
And all it did was push her down into the mud. And she popped up and she goes, I'm okay.
00:18:59
I'm like, if it hadn't been muddy, she would have probably been really hurt. Yes.
00:19:02
And instead it was just like, everybody was traumatized by watching it. And then it was like the funniest, craziest thing
00:19:09
where she was like, nobody worry. Nobody worry about me. I'm fine. Holy shit. Okay.
00:19:16
I'm not going to read the subject. Georgia, Karen, and all other humans and animals.
00:19:23
I discovered your- All? Every single one? I guess so. Okay. Might as well say hi now that you have the mic.
00:19:31
I discovered your podcast during the COVID shutdown. My sister had previously recommended it,
00:19:36
but since I typically ignore her recommendations, it took me three years to start listening.
00:19:42
Apparently, this is the one time when she was right and I was wrong. But I binge, I'm working to get all caught up, and I joined the fan cult last summer, something she hasn't done.
00:19:53
Because you requested badass grandma stories, I wanted to share some about my grandmother, Thelma, my mom's mother.
00:20:00
We all called her Grammy. My grandmother's name was Thelma, and I called her Grammy.
00:20:05
Isn't that crazy? Oh, wow. Yeah. Whoa. Thelma. Now it's happening outside of the emails.
00:20:11
Oh, yeah. Now it's happening about the emails. That's right. Oh, wait. Or did I write this?
00:20:16
I don't know. Oh, wait. Oh, you forgot that you wrote yourself. My story. Born in 1900 in Lynn, Indiana,
00:20:24
Grammy was married in 1923, but lived on her own after my grandpa died in 1969, eventually going into an assisted living facility
00:20:32
when she was 90. Grandma was always prim and proper. One time when my dad said shit in front of her,
00:20:39
her response was to say, I wouldn't hold in my hand what you just had in your mouth.
00:20:43
And then it says prim and proper. Yeah. But it wasn't until I had moved out of state
00:20:51
and started visiting her during trips back home that Grammy started telling me stories about her life,
00:20:56
which I had never heard. The most jaw-dropping story was when she casually mentioned to me
00:21:01
that she had taught Sunday school to Jim Jones when he was a kid. Oh, whoa. Jim Jones is in Guyana.
00:21:10
Cult, Kool-Aid, mass suicide. What the actual fuck? I was flabbergasted. All I could think to ask was,
00:21:17
so what kind of student was he? And do you think you played a part in his religious ideas?
00:21:22
That's what I was going to say. It's like, you have something to do with the Jim Jones origin story.
00:21:28
That's pretty intense. What's up, formative years? She said he was a nice boy, a good student, and always listened well.
00:21:35
And no, she didn't think she had turned him to the dark side. No, that was meth or speed.
00:21:41
Right. That's actually how it happened. That was megalomania and meth. Terrible combo.
00:21:47
Years later, I started to doubt myself. Like, did I really hear that? So I researched his background
00:21:52
and also pumped my mom for information. Turns out, it's true. My Grammy died in 1999 at the age of 99,
00:21:59
and I miss her still. She was an amazing woman, more amazing than I ever knew growing up.
00:22:05
I truly, truly wish I had asked her more when I had the chance. Anyway, this email's getting long,
00:22:10
so I'll just close with this. Stay sexy. And of course, don't drink the Kool-Aid.
00:22:14
Mary. Mary. Wait, Georgia, didn't your grandma die like at a very old age? Didn't she make it?
00:22:22
104, yeah. Thelma. Oh my God. So both Thelmas. Name your kid Thelma. You want them to have a long life.
00:22:29
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Okay, the subject line of this is walking into a random place. You didn't ask for it, so here it is.
00:25:05
I'm a librarian. And then in parentheses it says, I can write stories of interesting patrons and library ghosts later.
00:25:11
Yes, do it. Please, librarians. Yes. Please, librarians. Yes. We beg of you. We know you're there.
00:25:18
Yeah. We know you're listening. Yeah. Tell us everything. Yes. Please, librarians.
00:25:22
Okay. And in closing? Please. Please, librarians. I'm a librarian and me and a bunch of other librarians
00:25:29
were in Vicksburg, MS, Mississippi. Yeah. Shit. For a conference. From. There was a big scholarship fundraiser bash
00:25:39
happening in the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation buildings where the Soggy Bottom Boys performed
00:25:45
in Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Right?
00:25:50
The most classic, like, gathering hall. Town hall type of place. Town hall. Amazing.
00:25:56
Movie is so good. Okay. So good. Okay. We thought this was cool, and we had a little get-together pregame drink, and then in parentheses,
00:26:04
multiple drinks, in the courtyard before the bash. Well, me and another librarian, let's call her Barb, get adventurous when we're drinking.
00:26:12
So we decided to explore the surrounding buildings before the bash. So we're climbing stairs and going into rooms, and then we hear the music.
00:26:21
Oh no, the bash. We're 100% drunk and 100% lost in this compound of buildings. So we do what any person would do, follow the music.
00:26:30
And it brings us down a fire escape, through a loading dock, into the kitchen, past the caterers, out a door, and this is all caps,
00:26:39
onto the stage where the DJ is playing. Oh, no. So two drunk-ass librarians stumble out onto the stage,
00:26:49
Oh. Pause for a moment. Hum a few bars from the Soggy Bottom Boys. I am a man of constant sorrow.
00:26:55
And then continue off the stage. That's it. Stay sexy and follow the music. Jess, she, her.
00:27:02
Oh, no. Follow the music slowly, I think. Don burst through doors maybe The thing that truly I think it happened to me but I just kind of can put my finger on when or where But the idea of thinking you going into the back of a room
00:27:18
and coming into the front of a room is my lifelong fear. And it's too late to turn back.
00:27:25
Like when you're trying to be subtle and instead you are the most obvious person in the room kind of a thing.
00:27:33
And drunk. And drunk. Well, it wouldn't probably happen if you weren't drunk is the key to that story.
00:27:39
That's true. They're very connected, those two elements of the story. Great one, Jess.
00:27:44
Yeah, so good. Okay, happy ending. My baby survived because of a noise in an episode.
00:27:51
Okay, this one's crazy and kind of long. Hello, Karen and Georgia. I've been meaning to write this email for a couple of years now,
00:27:57
but always end up giving up as I can't find the right words to describe my feelings.
00:28:01
I guess there just are no words. I've been listening to My Favorite Murder forever.
00:28:06
I listened to it through my pregnancies, hours of breastfeeding, and throughout my early mommy days
00:28:11
when nights were long and lonely. It was one of these nights that you changed my life forever,
00:28:16
or to be more accurate, kept it from changing. I don't remember what the episode was
00:28:21
and I regret not having written it down later, but as I was listening to you gals talk,
00:28:26
I heard a noise coming from my kid's bedroom. I paused the podcast and went to check on them,
00:28:31
sure that my two-year-old had woken up. He was fast asleep, so I checked on my 10-month-old baby
00:28:37
and found him wrapped in a blanket. As I unwrapped his little face, my heart sank with horror that my
00:28:43
worst nightmare was happening. I can't honestly say I remember what happened, but I remember running
00:28:49
with him to the hospital a couple blocks away. I remember vaguely knowing he was still breathing.
00:28:55
He was in the ICU for three days and had a heart arrest, but he is one hell of a fighter and he
00:29:01
pulled through completely unscathed. He made an amazing recovery and looking at him today,
00:29:06
you would never know anything ever happened. He is a bright, energetic, amazing kiddo. The only
00:29:11
side effect of what happened is in me and my husband, how we still sometimes suddenly feel
00:29:16
that dread all over again. And I think we'll never get over how fragile existence is and that we were
00:29:21
so close to losing him that night. After that, I stopped listening to podcasts for a few months,
00:29:27
but eventually I resumed. I'm one of those assholes that listen to every episode.
00:29:31
So I also was making my way in reverse. Hey, easy, easy, easy. You're fine. I can see that's how podcasts, A, work.
00:29:40
And B, you're helping us out. We appreciate you. Yeah, we actually like it when you listen to every episode.
00:29:47
So I was listening to one of the ones I had missed. One day I hit play and the episode started from the middle,
00:29:54
picking up right back from the second I had paused it before. I was confused, so I rewinded 15 seconds a few times to understand the context, and I heard
00:30:04
you both chat happily about something, then a noise. You both stopped talking and listened
00:30:10
in silence, and then made some joke about Karen having a ghost in her house. Oh that was the jar that fell on the ground Yes the clanking and it sounded like a bell I broke down crying The noise was a ghost in Karen house The noise I thought I heard in my kid bedroom was inside the podcast
00:30:31
The noise that prompted me to go check on my kids and find my baby barely breathing
00:30:36
just in time to free him and save his little life. No. Remember we were like, why did that not, what was that?
00:30:43
Why'd that happen? A bull just jumped off of your counter and clanged. Yes. holy shit. Are you serious? Uh-huh. That noise never happened in my kid's bedroom. Had I not
00:30:54
been listening to that episode at that time, late at night when everything was quiet,
00:30:59
I would have never heard any noise coming from their rooms since suffocating babies can't cry.
00:31:06
Fuck. Uh-huh. I think a lot about if this was all a coincidence or something more,
00:31:13
and I try not to get into an internal loop of what ifs. I have a really hard time accepting
00:31:18
it could have just been different, both that I could have been more strict about sleep safety
00:31:22
and none of this would have ever happened as well as the other scenario. So I wanna say thank you to you and the ghost
00:31:30
that even if inadvertently saved our lives. And if you happen to read this on air,
00:31:36
to use this moment to reinforce how important it is that babies sleep in a completely empty crib.
00:31:41
and that's true too about the bunting. What's it called? The like little barriers.
00:31:47
I was just reading about it. I don't have kids. Just read about shit like that. Even when you think they are big and strong
00:31:54
enough to have a blanket, it's better to wait a few more months. Thank you both forever.
00:32:00
And then no name. Holy fucking shit. You have got to be kidding. I know. Can I just tell you that I thought
00:32:09
the way that story reads, I thought she kind of missed the moment of telling why we had anything to do with it.
00:32:18
Like, I thought she was just like, and then I thought I heard something, so I got up and went, whatever,
00:32:23
where I was like, well, what's happening? Like, that's not a very good story. And then it's a fucking thing.
00:32:28
Like, because there was no reason. That thing that fell down, I wish I could remember,
00:32:34
because it was made of glass. It was a bowl. It was a bowl. Right, it was a Pyrex bowl.
00:32:38
Yes. That ordinarily, and I've had lots of them because I try to reduce my plastic footprint.
00:32:45
Those things drop from the counter height and they crash into a million pieces. This hit the ground and then gave a ringing noise
00:32:54
that was so strange. It sounded like an old bell. We both stopped and said, well, did that come from your house?
00:33:00
What was that? And you got up and walked out there and Steven and I were holding our breaths
00:33:03
while we waited to see if you were dead. I was like, bye. And then it was like, for no reason,
00:33:10
this thing that was not on the edge of the counter, like it was in the middle of the counter, fell off.
00:33:15
I mean, this is nuts. This is the craziest story. I am so excited to be a part of it.
00:33:22
And I am so thrilled that that baby is 100%. Yeah, amazing. Amazing. And then months later she pressed play and realized it wasn even oh my God Yeah Nuts Epic Also seriously like I props to people who choose to be parents because that kind of shit
00:33:42
I would have one of those and be like, anyway, you need to take this back. I don't know.
00:33:46
I can't do it. That's horrifying. I know. I know. Oh, that was the last one. Oh, I'm so glad we ended on that.
00:33:53
Yeah, that was amazing. you guys write us your stories whatever the fuck you want them to be
00:33:59
whether we ask them or not especially coincidences that are huge and crazy I fucking
00:34:05
we love them coincidences that prove there's no such thing as coincidence yeah and also stay sexy
00:34:14
oh and don't get murdered goodbye Elvis do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
00:34:28
Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
00:34:35
Our researchers are Gemma Harris and Haley Gray. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
00:34:43
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.
00:34:48
Listen, follow, and leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:34:54
And don't forget, you can listen to new episodes one week early on Amazon Music or early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.
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