Search Captions & Ask AI

MFM Minisode 270

March 14, 2022 /

This episode of My Favorite Murder features stories about close calls with danger, survival, and humorous anecdotes. Hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark read listener submissions about their experiences.

One story from a listener in Bellingham, Washington, describes a frightening encounter with a man claiming to be Jack Sparrow. After initially allowing him to use her phone, she became suspicious and refused to let him in. Later, she learned he was a transient with a criminal record who had attacked women in the area.

Another listener shares a tale about her mother, Janet, who survived an attack by the Gainesville Ripper. Janet cleverly offered her attacker a beer, which led to a conversation that ultimately saved her life.

Other stories include humorous childhood memories, such as a misunderstanding during a bomb threat in the Philippines, and a listener's experience with Chippendales playing cards in middle school.

The episode concludes with a reminder to stay safe and assertive in everyday situations, encouraging listeners to share their own stories.

TLDR

Listeners share survival stories and humorous childhood memories, highlighting danger and resilience.

Episode

29:05
00:00:00
This is exactly right. average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers
00:00:32
compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited Wireless plan as of January 2026.
00:00:35
For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. Sun's out, so dads are too. This Father's Day at Lowe's, shop the gear that'll make his summer.
00:00:45
Get two free select DeWalt power tools when you buy a select 5-amp hour battery kit
00:00:50
for weekends in the garage. Plus, get a free Blackstone 6-piece stainless steel griddle kit
00:00:56
when you buy a select Blackstone griddle. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. Valid through 624.
00:01:02
While supplies last, selection varies by location. You're listening to a podcast.
00:01:08
So you're doing something else too, like maybe scrolling home listings on Redfin.
00:01:14
Saving places you like without thinking you'll get them. Because that's what house hunting has become.
00:01:19
But Redfin isn't built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home.
00:01:25
Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents, which means when you find a place you love, you've got a real shot at getting it.
00:01:34
Redfin helps turn saved listings into real addresses. Get started at redfin.com.
00:01:40
Own the dream. Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder. The mini-sode. Where we read you your stuff and you listen to us read you your stuff.
00:02:09
It's going to be just like Georgia said. But. Better. But. We're going to take a hit of helium first.
00:02:17
Oh. Oh. Let's go. Let's go. Birthday party time. Please. Want to go first? Joffert.
00:02:25
Yes, I do. Please. Here we go. I'm not going to read you the beginning of the title of this,
00:02:30
but in parentheses, it says classic hometown close call. Cool. Dear fabulous humans and animals,
00:02:37
including Steven's mustache. I've been meaning to write to you about this for literal years.
00:02:42
And this event popped up in my Facebook memories yesterday. So I guess now is as good as time as
00:02:47
any. Nice. Let the computer tell you. I lived in Bellingham, Washington for six years in the early
00:02:55
2000s. Weird things always happen in Bellingham. I miss it. Most of the time I was while I was there,
00:03:01
I lived alone and had no car. So I walked everywhere. I was also very bad at the fuck
00:03:06
politeness thing because I thought you had to be accommodating to everyone in order to be a nice
00:03:10
person. Wrong. And it says that on this email. That's not me. Wrong. It was pretty normal for
00:03:18
me to chat with unusual people while out and about, even when they would come to my apartment
00:03:22
door to proselytize about weird cultish stuff. In early spring of 2007, a woman knocked on my
00:03:31
door claiming to know my neighbor and asking to use my phone to call him. Yeah, that does not track.
00:03:39
This was in the olden days when a lot of people still had landlines. I let her come in and use the
00:03:44
phone, but she appeared to be tweaking on some kind of drugs and I realized it was possible
00:03:49
that she was just looking for things to steal. So I decided not to answer the door for strangers anymore.
00:03:56
That's great. I love the like simple here's what happened. And so I just didn't do it.
00:04:01
I said, yep, I didn't realize that was the possibility on the other side of that door.
00:04:05
I'm not doing it anymore. Love it. My mom helps me plan out possible ways to respond to unwanted visitors.
00:04:12
My mom is much less trusting than I am. And this lesson would soon come in handy.
00:04:16
A couple weeks after this incident, I was at home one night with my best friend, and another one of our friends was on her way.
00:04:23
I left the door unlocked for her. When there was a knock on the door, I assumed it was my friend, so I called out in a goofy sing-song voice,
00:04:30
Who is it? But a gravelly, slurred man's voice responded, It's Jack Sparrow. I ran to the door and put on the safety chain.
00:04:41
I opened the door a crack to see a scruffy man carrying a bunch of stuff under his arm.
00:04:45
Definitely not Johnny Depp. He said, hey, can I use your phone? I told him I could hand him the phone.
00:04:53
No, you don't have to do any of that. No, the answer is practice it. No, don't even answer the door.
00:05:00
If a man who you don't know. No, you can't use my phone. Yeah. And the guy's already using an obviously fake name.
00:05:07
That's menacing. So just don't even answer the door. He told you he's tricking you.
00:05:12
He told you to your face he's tricking you. Right. But, you know, this person is sharing her or their more innocent days with us.
00:05:21
So we're not going to attack. No shaving. But truly, please, in your day-to-day, in your car, on the bus, at work, practice saying the word no out loud to other people.
00:05:34
Get rid of the strange stigma it might have in you. Just say it. It's your right.
00:05:38
You get to say it. Okay. God damn it. Okay. already the show is giving us high blood pressure
00:05:48
so upset okay okay okay okay I told him I could hand him the phone and set through the door if he needed he insisted that no he needed to come inside to use the phone and I continued to calmly but firmly offer to hand him the phone through the door Why He said no He told you he
00:06:06
didn't want that. That offer is now off the table. He seemed to be intoxicated, slurring his speech
00:06:12
and not making a lot of sense. He growled, it's an emergency. So I said, do you need me to call
00:06:17
911 for you? At this point, as soon as I mentioned 911, he turned and started to walk away down the
00:06:24
hall grumbling. I just got fucking shot, man. My friend and I listened to him walk down the stairs
00:06:30
and into the carport under my apartment where we heard him tear the side mirror off my neighbor's
00:06:35
car and throw it against the wall. From the window, we watched him lurch away down the alley,
00:06:41
barely visible under the dim streetlights. I called the police, of course, and they told me
00:06:45
they couldn't connect him to the vandalism on the car because we had heard it rather than seen it,
00:06:50
but that they would try to find the man because he said he'd been shot. My friend, the one I'd been waiting for, showed up a few minutes later.
00:06:58
She had exchanged greetings with him on her walk home and found him to be creepy.
00:07:02
Yes, everybody. The police were unable to find Jack Sparrow, quote unquote, that night.
00:07:09
But I learned that the items he'd been carrying under his arm were consistent with those that had been stolen from a neighbor's car.
00:07:16
A few weeks later, I found an update in the news. This man, our so-called Jack Sparrow, was a transient with a known criminal record.
00:07:24
And over the course of a few days, he had forced his way into several homes in my neighborhood, raping and beating the women inside, sometimes robbing them as well.
00:07:34
Oh, my God. One of the victims was in the building next door to mine. It could have easily happened to me, too, if I hadn't been prepared by my previous encounter and my badass mom.
00:07:45
By the time police identified the perpetrator, they believed that he had left town.
00:07:50
As far as I was able to find, the man was never caught. But thanks to my mom helping me practice to be more assertive.
00:07:56
Do you want to touch my phone through the door? My friend and I were saved from being among this man's victims.
00:08:03
And my friend and I have had 13 years of sneaking references to Jack Sparrow into our gifts to each other as a reminder of our shared brush with danger.
00:08:13
stay sexy and never open the door to strangers especially if they claim to be fictional characters
00:08:19
there we are jessica there we are jessica we're glad you came around yeah but we were all dumb
00:08:27
in the early 2000s right can we all agree on that i don't care how old you were right or like if it's your first apartment there's a lot of innocence and a lot of
00:08:36
i just want to meet people and be in the world and totally be in whatever so then then you
00:08:43
have an experience like that. Yeah. Things change a little. In my Hollywood apartment,
00:08:48
so I was in my thirties, I had like a, like a used couch delivered or whatever. And the dude
00:08:54
who had moved it in later, like was, I was like paying him or whatever. And he goes,
00:08:59
this is a nice apartment. Do you live here alone? And I was so proud of my very first apartment
00:09:04
alone that I was like, yep, I live here all by myself. And then he left and I was like,
00:09:10
Why didn't you say, no, I live here with someone. I live here with my boyfriend.
00:09:16
He's also a sniper. That's right. I live here. I was so proud. So proud. I know.
00:09:21
You know? I just told you the story of walking down my own street and a guy who walked out of a driveway,
00:09:28
but I didn't know if he lived there or not. He could have been anyone. Basically said hi, asked what Frank's name was, chit-chatted a little, then asked me where I lived.
00:09:37
And I literally was like, I'm right up there. And it was like, I walked away going, I have, who am I'm the biggest hypocrite in the world
00:09:45
to be yelling at Jessica during her email when I literally did it myself at age 51.
00:09:50
It just doesn't cross our minds that people, sometimes that people are like, they're always out for bad things.
00:09:56
You just, or maybe they're not, but you should just assume they are. Just don't, here, save it for the fourth conversation.
00:10:03
That's right. Just make that the rule. Well, then you don't, it doesn't have to have a bunch of good or bad around it.
00:10:08
It's just like, it's just a nice boundary. No, you have to, you have to earn the information about what, what color my house is.
00:10:15
What address, what addresses and social security numbers. Where I hide my cash. Right.
00:10:20
I thought you were going to say cat, but that's okay. The same place. Okay. This is a hometown survivor story.
00:10:27
It just starts. Hello. I have to tell you about one of my mom's old high school friends.
00:10:32
Her name is Janet, and she and my mom went to high school together in Ohio. Fast forward to 1990 in Florida.
00:10:38
Janet was coming home from a video store when she decided to stop real quick to pick up some beer.
00:10:43
She grabbed her six pack of Keystone Gold and went back to her two bedroom home where she lived with her two cats.
00:10:50
Love Keystone beer, by the way. Yeah. It got me through college. Yeah. Actually, it didn't.
00:10:55
It got me to flunk. It's the reason I flunked out of college. It didn't get me through college.
00:11:01
It got me through nothing. Yeah, I ruined your life. Some would say. A couple hours after getting home, she was attacked by a man who had slipped through her bedroom window.
00:11:13
Wearing gloves, a black ski mask and holding a hunting knife to her, he tied her up with duct tape and proceeded to rape her.
00:11:20
Janet knew this guy was going to kill her. She also knew that she had no chance of overpowering him.
00:11:25
So she decided to try to relax and stay calm. And then what did she do, you ask?
00:11:30
she offered him a beer. Yep, Janet quietly asked her attacker if he wanted to take a break and have a beer.
00:11:37
At this, he immediately went from a vicious maniac to a chill dude who told her to shower off
00:11:43
and join him in the kitchen. Being the brilliant murderina she was, Janet cleaned off with a towel before showering
00:11:49
hoping to grab some DNA from the D-bag. And this is in the fucking 90s. Wow. Yeah.
00:11:55
Janet poured him his beer and he started telling her all about his terrible childhood and how awful his abusive dad was whom he later killed and blah blah blah we get it
00:12:06
Janet was like, okay, let me relate to this fool. So she told him that she too had a miserable upbringing, which she totally didn't.
00:12:13
Super great fam and friends. Hi, mom. But he didn't need to know that. After chatting for a while over some beers, she calmly told him that it was time for him to leave.
00:12:21
and you guys, the suit actually got his stuff together, headed for the door, turned around and
00:12:27
asked her for one favor. He asked Janet if she would give him a 10 minute head start before
00:12:32
calling the cops and then he disappeared into the night. A few years later, Janet heard a man
00:12:37
talking on TV who was pleading guilty to the murder of five college students from the University
00:12:42
of Florida. She knew it was the same man by his voice and body language and sure enough,
00:12:48
it was confirmed by that DNA she snagged. The guy who attacked Janet that night was Danny
00:12:54
Rowling, the Gainesville Ripper. Wow. Quick thinking, nerves of actual steel, and some
00:13:00
cold brewskis saved Janet's life that night. She's a true badass, and I'm glad to know she
00:13:06
existed in this world. She died of cancer a few years ago, but her story of bravery and quick wit
00:13:11
sticks with my mom and me, and I'm sure many others to this day. Stay sexy and keep the fridge
00:13:16
stalked chelsea wow i know i mean that's harrowing that story is the story of the
00:13:28
gainesville ripper is so upsetting and so awful and that idea that yeah that a survivor came through
00:13:36
that and and then was able to see him on tv basically go to jail so that's scary but it
00:13:45
It must have been satisfying. Yeah. You know, there's like a lot of people that never get closure like that or it's not closure.
00:13:51
Right. But that final moment to say he's there safe from that person. Totally. Totally.
00:13:57
And because she saved DNA, she was able to get that confirmation. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
00:14:03
Bravery. All right. Well, I'm going to change the tone slightly. Great. Because the subject line of this email is the statue of the Virgin Mary cries blood.
00:14:14
Hey, friends. When I was 20, I worked in a children's retreat center in the UK that's basically a scaled down version of a U.S. camp.
00:14:23
Lots of outdoor activities for groups coming from schools with an extra helping of Jesus since it was a Catholic center.
00:14:30
Obviously, all the teenage camp counselors here were very much fucking each other.
00:14:36
Oh, tradition. Tradition all over the world. Yeah, because that's right. Especially if it's a religious camp.
00:14:43
That's when the heat starts. That's when the friction begins. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to tell you.
00:14:50
The camp was based in a listed Victorian folly, which in turn had been built on the remains of castles dating back to the 12th century.
00:14:59
Right? It had been everything from a private home to a boarding school run by the Sisters of Mercy, the band.
00:15:06
Great band. And now is the Catholic Children's Camp Center. As you can imagine, there are so many creepy things and stories from this place.
00:15:15
These include, and then it's a bullet pointed list. All right. The straight up crypt built into the basement where bodies were kept before burial.
00:15:24
Now a place for prayer and creeping kids out. The life-size statue of John the Baptist who stood on the stairway to nowhere and scared the shit out of me all the time.
00:15:34
The stuffed animals kept in a glass case in the basement, again, just to scare kids, I think.
00:15:39
The ghost, this is the last bullet point, the ghost of the little boy who was a student at the boarding school who had died on my goddamned birthday.
00:15:48
Oh, no. WTF. The most popular story was that the statue of the Virgin Mary, who stood on the ruins of the old castle, would cry blood.
00:15:57
We'd have to convince kids all the time that it wasn't true. Go back to sleep, please.
00:16:03
When a school came with a teacher who had worked here the very first year the center was open, I asked him about it.
00:16:10
Did he know how this rumor got started? Oh, he said, it's probably because we'd climb the ruins every night and move the statue around to scare the kids.
00:16:20
Oh, my God. Yeah, you did. The next thing is, thanks, dude. okay that just made me flash back to the one of my favorite videos i ever saw on twitter which was
00:16:37
the girl or it was probably a tiktok because it had the writing on it yeah where it's just a hand
00:16:43
on the breaker and remember it's my 12 year old sister and her friends are playing with a ouija
00:16:49
board and she's just turning all the lights in the house off and turning it back on and you can
00:16:53
just way in the distance hear little girls screaming every time she turns the light through
00:16:58
the wall that was so good that's this is basically like the analog version of that
00:17:04
moving a religious statue around by hand so fucked up oh anyway stay sexy and don't scare the crap
00:17:11
out of kids in this name of jesus question mark and then it just says s she her wow that reminds
00:17:19
me actually so we have so in uh jewish uh in the religion one of the holidays you leave a glass of
00:17:26
wine out for this spirit called Elijah. And supposedly you just leave it out overnight and
00:17:32
Elijah will come drink it. And every time a lot, a house over. Thank you. That's the religion. I
00:17:36
got to read it Passover one year. And that's when I became convinced that Judaism was for me.
00:17:41
Right. That's the holiday. I always thought Elijah came and drank it. It was clearly my mom,
00:17:46
which I fucking realized when I was a little older. I was like, I actually goes, it somehow
00:17:51
It goes away. I think I even thought it was like it evaporated because I was like at six was like I don think ghosts exist But then I realized my mom just drank it every time I was like oh Elijah sure sure
00:18:05
Wait, when does that, when is that supposed to take place? Like, is it real time during Passover?
00:18:12
No, I think it's, I thought it was overnight. We left it overnight. Like we clean up and we'd leave that out.
00:18:17
Oh, got it. Okay. So sorry to compare it, but it is a little bit like leaving cookies out for Santa Claus
00:18:22
at Christmas. Exactly. Yes. Exactly. Except for Janet's eating all the cookies, quote unquote.
00:18:29
Exactly. It's our version of that. Okay. Mistaking a bomb threat for a naked man. Lighthearted.
00:18:36
Dearest badasses. I've apparently lived through multiple bomb threats through no fault of my own, but only one has ever made me laugh.
00:18:46
Let's get into it. Back in the day, our Costco equivalent superstore called for an emergency evacuation.
00:18:52
My mom, with seven-year-old me and my three-year-old sister in tow, fucking booked it.
00:18:59
Nice. Over the speakers, they announced, Maybamba, which exactly translates to, There is a bomb.
00:19:06
Unfortunately, in Tagalog, our common tongue here in Manila, Bamba also means naked.
00:19:13
I was in the second grade, having just learned how to speak and read English, so my Tagalog was definitely not up to par enough to understand the looming threat.
00:19:21
Looking back, I should have known that bomb was just given the typical Spanish colony treatment of borrowed words where we add A or O to the end.
00:19:31
But I was seven. Leave me alone. Okay. You got it. I was unfazed by the potential threat of a naked man running the hallowed halls of the superstore and kept wondering why they'd be making such a fuss over said man in the first place.
00:19:47
The alarm started to blare and light started flashing, but I took to heart my duty of grocery cart pusher and began leaving our cart of groceries to the checkout counter.
00:19:57
My mom began to scream, just leave it over the alarms as she pushed my sister and her stroller.
00:20:03
I looked at her stunned and offended, beginning to explain eloquently how we worked so hard over the past few hours for these groceries.
00:20:11
But all that came out was, but mom. she eventually grabbed me and ran to the car tossing my sister and i into it as quickly as
00:20:20
possible never mind the violence involved once in the car i popped out from the back seat
00:20:25
mandatory seatbelt laws for people over the age of five were not a thing at the time
00:20:29
to ask my mom doesn't bamba mean naked i don't remember so she thought a naked guy was
00:20:35
being called over the speaker running around the store instead of an actual fucking bomb
00:20:38
She's like, why is everyone freaking the fuck out for a naked man? I don't remember her exact reaction.
00:20:46
But when I asked my mother about it, as you do when you're about to send in a hometown,
00:20:50
she just laughed at me and told me to send it into our long drive podcast pals, Karen
00:20:54
and Georgia. Oh, I know. By the way, the grocery was never blown up. It still stands today.
00:21:00
But I'm sure my mom is very grateful that she can order her groceries online. Hope you enjoyed this long but hopefully funny story from the other side of the world.
00:21:09
I hope this hometown proves you have loyal murderinos wherever English is kind of spoken.
00:21:14
Been listening to the podcast since 2017 and you ladies have changed and saved so many lives with your openness and honesty about anxiety and addiction and just overall weirdness, including mine.
00:21:28
Thank you, Lady Stephen Jay, the team, and Paul Holes. stay sexy and ask your mom what that word means Isabella from the Philippines nice Isabella epic
00:21:41
epic journey hello beautiful I'm Amy Eric founder of Madison Reed a hair color company I named after
00:21:49
my daughter forget everything you know about hair color the mess the smell the hassle the damage
00:21:55
I started Madison Reed because I believed women deserved better our mission is simple to give
00:22:01
you the highest quality hair color with salon results and ingredients you could feel good about.
00:22:06
Female founded and female led, we've transformed every part of the hair coloring experience from
00:22:11
what goes into your color to where and how you use it. Our salon quality color is made with
00:22:17
ingredients that care for your hair and gives you the freedom to color at home or visit our first
00:22:22
of its kind hair color bars and let us do it for you in less time and for a fraction of the cost
00:22:27
of a typical salon. At Madison Reed, you get more than gorgeous results. You get confidence,
00:22:33
convenience, and award-winning hair color tried and true and loved by millions of women.
00:22:39
Come experience it for yourself. The future of hair color is here at Madison Reed.
00:22:46
Hello, hello. This is Malcolm Glabal from Smart Talks with IBM. Today, we're diving into a
00:22:52
fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari HP.
00:22:58
Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari. I'm still working on
00:23:05
rolling my R's. But what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the
00:23:10
Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans in the digital age. Ferrari fans and superfans want to be part of
00:23:17
something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they
00:23:22
want to be part of a winning team. You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history.
00:23:31
And now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. I'm curious how you balance those two
00:23:36
traditions. When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology and digital channels
00:23:43
are being able to create a deeper connection with our fans. To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology
00:23:50
to build deeper connections with fans, visit ibm.com slash Ferrari. Next, that's...
00:24:00
K-N-I-X leak-proof underwear isn't just for one moment, it's for all the everyday moments you
00:24:05
didn't realize leak-proof underwear could make easier. Maybe it's day one of your period,
00:24:10
maybe it's a long travel day, maybe it's hot outside, you're on the move and you just want
00:24:15
to feel fresh. Their leak-proof underwear comes in a range of absorbencies, from light to ultra,
00:24:22
and helps protect against periods, light leaks, sweat, and everyday surprises. And because they
00:24:28
look and feel like real underwear. They're soft, invisible under clothes and machine washable.
00:24:34
No extra hassle. No complicated routine. Just dependable protection you can wash and re-wear.
00:24:42
See why millions have made the switch to leak-proof underwear. Visit Nix.com. That's
00:24:47
K-N-I-X.com and use code FLOW15 for 15% off. That's K-N-I-X.com. Code FLOW15. Okay, I'm not going to read you the subject line.
00:24:59
Karen, Georgia, and the rest of the MFM crew. My mom, Bernadette, is a badass. She graduated as a chemical engineer at a time when professors had the audacity to ask if she was getting her MRS degree.
00:25:12
Oh, fuck you. How about fuck you? How about think about it for a second? Put your index finger on your chin.
00:25:20
Oh, fuck you, is the answer to that question. And when she first entered the workplace, they had to, all caps, build her a woman's restroom.
00:25:30
Oh, my God. For a while, she had to put a sign up on the men's bathroom while hers was under construction.
00:25:37
A bunch of shit. My favorite story of her early career days is the calendar story.
00:25:43
All the men at her workplace had Playboy-style calendars with women posing scantily clad with power tools.
00:25:50
And then in parentheses, it says, of course they would. My mom didn't really appreciate that they had these and at first politely asked for the calendars to be taken down.
00:25:59
HR said this must have been fucking in the 70s because listen to what HR said. HR said they didn't see an issue and that people were allowed to decorate their offices however they want.
00:26:11
What the fuck? Yeah, that ain't true anymore, friends. My mom immediately went and bought as many Chippendales calendars as she could find and she wallpapered her office with them.
00:26:22
Yes. When the men began to complain, she gave them a smile and said that she was allowed to decorate however she wanted.
00:26:30
Needless to say, a week later, all of the calendars had to be taken down. Yeah, they did.
00:26:36
Yeah, because men don't want to look at it. No. Men don't fucking want to look at it.
00:26:40
No. My mom put up with some real shit and worked the system as cleverly as she could to get things changed.
00:26:47
Oh, thank you. As a young female mechanical engineer who still sees some ridiculous things in the workplace I can imagine how my mom dealt with it Stay sexy and fight workplace sexism with Chippendales Question mark
00:27:01
I read that wrong. Stay sexy and fight workplace sexism with Chippendales. Meg. Got it. Oh my God. Wow. Thank Bernadette. First of all, it's such a fucking good name. I can't
00:27:13
even stand it. Bernadette's the best name. Yeah. And then also it turns out you're also a badass.
00:27:18
and also I'm the best dancer from St. Bernadette's my favorite line from Greece um I have it hold on I have a Chippendales one somewhere let me see okay you know what I'm
00:27:32
going to read this Chippendales one I wasn't planning on reading just perfect I couldn't
00:27:35
end on that it's funny all right this is called Chippendales and 80s parenting hey MFM crew in 1984 I was 13 years old and slogging my way through eighth grade
00:27:48
I was there. I was with you. I was there and I was with you. That year in my Christmas stocking, my mom gave me a deck of playing cards featuring the famous Chip and Dale's dancers.
00:28:02
And then it says, you know, because it was the 80s and parents did crazy, seemingly irresponsible stuff all the time.
00:28:09
But now before you start thinking that my mother actually gave her 13 year old pornography for Christmas,
00:28:13
Let me say that none of the guys in the cards were naked, much to my chagrin. The skimpiest photo showed one of the guys in a Speedo.
00:28:21
And in fact, several of the cards showed guys fully clothed. Come on. It's Chippendales.
00:28:26
Can we get some fucking equality over here, please? But still, this was the best Christmas present I had ever received.
00:28:33
I was thrilled. I felt so grown up, so sophisticated to receive such a gift. I couldn't wait to show all my friends.
00:28:41
So sophisticated. So sophisticated. Oh, you're just you're my you came over on the Mayflower.
00:28:47
You're like old money, sophisticated. If you're naked man playing cards. That's how you know it, mom.
00:28:52
The next year, mom got you wine coolers for Christmas. OK, on our first day back to school after Christmas break, I asked my mom if I could
00:29:00
take my cards to school to show my friends. Of course, she agreed, but did tell me.
00:29:05
But did tell me that I had to leave them in my backpack during class and could only take
00:29:10
them out during passing periods and lunch. and I said, such a responsible parent.
00:29:15
There are rules to life, Karen. That's right. So I took the cards to school and showed them off before class.
00:29:21
My friends and all who saw the cards were amazed and impressed. These cards had done what my carefully feathered hair,
00:29:28
pop shirt collar and Jordache jeans had so far failed to do. They had raised my social standing and popularity to never before seen heights.
00:29:37
I was over the moon until I got to third period English. As I stood in the hallway showing my glorious gift to a friend a boy in my class we call him Dick came over and said what are you looking at I hurriedly tried to hide the cards but Dick grabbed them saw what was on them and ran
00:29:57
into the classroom straight for our teacher. We'll call her Mrs. Smith, yelling, look what Megan has.
00:30:03
Pictures of naked men. Shut up. Shut up, Dick. Shut up, Dick. He handed the cards to Mrs. Smith, who promptly motioned me over to her desk.
00:30:14
she quickly flipped through the cards and said where did you get these does your mother know you have
00:30:19
these to which I replied um my mother this is her emphasis by the way to which I
00:30:26
replied um my mother is the one who gave them to me for Christmas really said Mrs. Smith the word
00:30:33
no wait hold on really said Mrs. Smith no that's not it either keep this all in soon
00:30:39
it says it's dripping with sarcasm So it's really, is that it? Did I get it? Yes, I replied.
00:30:49
You can call her and ask her. She even knows I brought them to school today. Mrs. Smith stared at me for a minute, harrumped and said, well, we'll see about that.
00:30:59
For now, I'm going to hang on to these. You can pick them up after school. I was pissed.
00:31:05
My dreams of conquering the hellish landscape that is middle school by way of almost pornographic
00:31:10
playing cards were dashed. I trudged through the rest of the day and went to Mrs. Smith's classroom to pick up my cards, where she again questioned whether my mom knew I had them.
00:31:20
I just rolled my eyes, grabbed my cards, and ran to catch up with a few kids who were still in the building, hoping to recapture some of my previous glory now that I had my precious cards back.
00:31:32
I know I should probably end this with stay sexy and don't give your child Chippendales merchandise.
00:31:37
But I think the real moral of the story is stay sexy and don't take things that aren't yours.
00:31:43
Dick. Dick. And Mrs. Smith. Megan. Oh, Megan. What a wonderful email you just crafted.
00:31:53
Epic. Epic sweeping tale. Well written. Beautifully. You know, whatever it is. I mean, the idea, too, that this was going to somehow break the ice of junior high and that it actually was working until until the child, the boy child stepped in and snitched like outright snitched.
00:32:18
I hope I hope she was just like, hey, don't trust this guy with any insider information.
00:32:24
Kids. I hope Dick's popularity, whatever it was at, probably not high, plummeted that day.
00:32:30
I mean, while Megan was a rising shooting fucking star. Also, it's like, why are you so let people have their dirty playing cards in eighth grade?
00:32:40
It's hard enough. Yeah. I mean I had way worse stuff in eighth grade Yeah for real Like please keep perspective Yeah Yeah Hey send us your fucking crazy ass tales of the craziest birthday or Christmas gift you ever gotten and all that stuff
00:32:59
Yeah, we want to hear all of it. Great job to everybody who wrote in this week. Thank you so much for sending us your stories and stay sexy.
00:33:07
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
00:33:20
Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
00:33:28
Our researchers are Jay Elias and Haley Gray. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
00:33:35
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.
00:33:40
Listen, subscribe, and leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:33:47
Goodbye. Right when the game gets tight. But Boost Mobile, their $25 a month unlimited wireless plan is the most consistent player on the floor.
00:34:18
No contracts, no price hikes. Unlock the savings today at BoostMobile.com slash unlock.
00:34:23
Based on average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile unlimited wireless plan as of January 2026.
00:34:29
For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:34:41
Every episode, I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible.
00:34:47
It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:34:57
Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales.
00:35:09
And somehow, none of them talk to each other. That's where Odoo comes in. An all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together.
00:35:18
From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. All in one powerful platform.
00:35:23
No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs. And best of all, no spreadsheets.
00:35:30
Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system.
00:35:35
Try for free today at odoo.com slash iHeartRadio. That's O-D-O-O-O dot com slash iHeartRadio.

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most shocking
  • 85
    Most inspiring
  • 85
    Biggest twist
  • 80
    Most dramatic

Episode Highlights

  • Jack Sparrow Encounter
    A woman encounters a suspicious man at her door, leading to a tense situation.
    “He told you he's tricking you.”
    @ 05m 10s
    March 14, 2022
  • Janet's Brave Encounter
    Janet cleverly distracts her attacker, saving her life during a terrifying assault.
    “She offered him a beer.”
    @ 11m 30s
    March 14, 2022
  • Naked Man Bomb Threat
    A child's misunderstanding leads to a humorous evacuation during a bomb threat.
    “Why is everyone freaking out for a naked man?”
    @ 20m 44s
    March 14, 2022
  • Madison Reed's Hair Color Revolution
    Female founded and led, Madison Reed transforms the hair coloring experience for women.
    “The future of hair color is here at Madison Reed.”
    @ 22m 39s
    March 14, 2022
  • Engaging Ferrari's Superfans
    Stefano Pallard discusses the importance of connecting with Ferrari fans in the digital age.
    “Ferrari fans want to belong to something.”
    @ 23m 10s
    March 14, 2022
  • Bernadette's Bold Office Move
    Megan shares her mother's clever response to workplace sexism with Chippendales calendars.
    “She wallpapered her office with them.”
    @ 26m 15s
    March 14, 2022
  • Middle School Drama
    Megan recounts the chaos of bringing Chippendales playing cards to school.
    “I was over the moon until I got to third period English.”
    @ 29m 32s
    March 14, 2022
  • A Lesson in Ownership
    Megan learns a valuable lesson about not taking things that aren't hers.
    “Stay sexy and don't take things that aren't yours.”
    @ 31m 37s
    March 14, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • You're listening to a podcast.
    MFM Minisode 270
  • I was so proud of my very first apartment alone.
    MFM Minisode 270
  • Quick thinking, nerves of actual steel, and some cold brewskis saved Janet's life.
    MFM Minisode 270
  • I should have known that bomb was just given the typical Spanish colony treatment.
    MFM Minisode 270
  • Needless to say, a week later, all of the calendars had to be taken down.
    MFM Minisode 270
  • Stay sexy and fight workplace sexism with Chippendales.
    MFM Minisode 270

Key Moments

  • House Hunting01:10
  • Helium Hit02:14
  • Janet's Encounter11:13
  • Bomb Threat Confusion18:52
  • Female Empowerment22:06
  • Fan Engagement22:52
  • Workplace Sexism25:05
  • Life Lessons31:37

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown