My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia HardstarkThis week’s hometowns include an MFM origin story and a petty family.
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Last, Hello and welcome my favorite murder the miniesod dolet me read you your story?
You love it, we love it.
You go first.
Okay, this is called family drama and my MFM origin story.
Well, I like, dear, Do we ask for MFM origin stories?
No, I guess we should Dear Karen, Georgia, Kitty Cats and the rest of the team. I am not a Day one listener, but my college epidemiology professor is, and in epidemiology three fifteen, she assigned us a project called My Favorite Outbreak Girl.
No, I'm so proud.
This was twenty eighteen question Mark, and she introduced the project by saying you were her favorite podcast, and we were going to research a pandemic and present it as a podcast twenty eighteen. Yeah, we needed the who, what, when, where, and how of the outbreak and we would pull assignments randomly from a hat. Like if I hadn't college was going to be like this, I know there's going to tried a.
Little harder difference between like good teachers and bad teachers. We were just like, I like learning totally.
What did my group pull? The nineteen eighty four bioterrorism attack committed by followers of the bog shweet What is it bog bog Bogwan Shri raj Ni, Bogwan she raj Nice Shri raj Bogwan Shrie Raanish Rajnich Bogwan she raj Nie. No I got sorry, no, I gotta I get it.
It's hard Bogwan Shrie Rajni.
Got it by followers of Bogwan Shri raj Nie. That's close enough, you get?
Yeah, that ending you like pulled it back.
Oh that's a hard one, female, which you covered in episode fifty. Can we please in that hold me trying to pronounce it?
Sure? So fun? Oh that was hard.
I obviously can't fit all the details in this email, so people can find them there in episode fifty.
Thank you for doing really good research.
Meanwhile, I grew up in a religious household, and as a child I had an aunt that I would describe as quote very cool. She lived in Manhattan. She worked in television and then as a massage therapist. She always smelt like essential oils, studied film when she was in college, and at one point she had a horse. I mean, that's all the trappings.
Of a cool an. How did she check every boss seriously, truly, and we have to get horses now. Yeah.
To top it off, she traveled a lot, particularly to India, and always brought back jewelry, Sorrey's and other trinkets. It was always the best when Aunt Holly name changed came back from India. Fast forward back to twenty nineteen. I've graduated with my degree in public health and after a brief stint in the psych word, I'm on my way to New York City to study theology.
Yes, girl, just that little got to dip into maybe like just hang out in a robe and smoke some cigarettes and take it easy.
And don't explain it to us.
Yeah, we fucking got it. You owe no one any.
Hang out with Aunt Holly and live in Harlem. She did body work in a center with a lot of different therapists, and I attended workshops and listened in on their radio show and helped in the office. I got to meet some of her friends going to meditations, and before you know it, I was in a retreat outside the city with followers of oh show, also known as as Bogwe Shri raj Ness Nash raj Niche.
The only reason I know that is because all through the early eighties. He was on the news every single night, and because it was Oregon and they were like, these people are taking over, it was like your story. Yeah.
Come to find out as a fully grown adult that my aunt wasn't just visiting India throughout my childhood, but studying meditation in Pune at the Oh Show International Meditation Resort. There she met her life partner and remains the follower of OH Show to this day. Oh my god, if I didn't do the My Favorite Outbreak project, I wouldn't have known the details of the nineteen eighty four salmonella outbreak when I was introduced to some of the group in twenty nineteen. My aunt maintains OH Show is innocent and personally I do vibe with some of the meditations. However, I'm quite distant from it all now. The raj Niche and followers of OH Show are still very much a thing, and they have really snazzy meditation retreats with names like Mystic Rose. Then it says, don't be fooled though, because in one of them, all you do is cry for like.
Three weeks done. I'm done, easy Flying Colors.
Anyways, thanks so much for reading and for all you do to highlight the lives and stories of victims, stay sexy, listen to podcasts recommended by your professors, and don't eat from the salmonilla.
Salad bar v V. I mean that's the thing about people like that, though, is the like, of course people vibe with the meditations a all of it is based on really good like scientific like breathing in a certain way helps you, sitting and concentrating helps you, blah blah blah whatever. So it's like, yeah, that's all so beneficial totally, just like he didn't invent it.
Your aunt was in a cult.
Oh cool, and in a cult. I mean we got some work to do. Wait, well kind of in a cult already. Yeah, this is definitely cool. We started our own that's the coolest of all time.
Oh my god, that's a fun cult.
It's a fun cult where we're kind of not really in charge. But wait, the fact that v used the descriptor snazzy is that was my mom's descriptor for things when she was like, you can get like a snazzy glass like that was. It's the funniest I haven't heard it in years.
My god, no one says that anymore.
Say, let's bring it back on behalf of v and there ant and my mother who is always with this, all right, and speaking of which, the subject line of this email is stories from the Golden Age of parenting and landline phones. Dear Hi, Karen and Georgia and all who love you. Oh, a longtime listener, but if never written in you asked for stories of the kitchen phone and all its related trauma. So here you go. I was born the youngest of six kids, with four older brothers and a sister who were all much older than me. Yes, I was a big Oops. Four years after my dad's vasectomy, I've been to shut the fuck up? Can you get that DNA tested girl?
One guy that was like I'm not ready to be done, and he's slipped on by.
He's like, I'm a fighter. Actually actually anyway, one kitchen phone for all those people chaos, to say the least. It is. So it was not that long ago, and it is like the Stone Age where it's like if you're on the phone, that means somebody else ready for a call couldn't get a call.
Absolutely, And you fucking you talked as long as you could, just to fuck with them.
Yes, and these days, if you had to share a phone number was someone.
Could you imagine when I have to hand Vince my phone so he can order what he wants off the food delivery app, and like, where's my phone? Where's my phone?
I get my phone?
Like he has over two minutes to order sushi and I can't fucking handle it.
There's no worse feeling in the in my world than when I'm like, I can't find my phone. I'm walking around looking for it forever, and it is in your fucking hand. Okay, Okay, back to the email. Obviously, what do you even.
Know that when you're on the phone and then you're like where you're walking over, where's my phone? And you're on it like phone, you never make a fucking phone call.
I'm like listening to my sister talk, but I'm like, wait, I have to get my phone before I leave. Okay. We clearly drank a ton of caf before this episode. I had I had a cappuccino made for me in our kitchen. Okay. Obviously dinner time was not a good time for any of our friends to call, although I'm not sure how they were supposed to know we were eating, but if my parents' friends called during dinner, all good. We would wait at the table for a goddamn hour while my mom talked and we stared at our food. It's no wonder that my brothers tried to distract themselves by making me laugh, because I sat underneath where my mother would be gabbing on the phone. If I start laughing, I got a big crack on the back of my head now, and they got some big laughs themselves. Mission accomplished. But I digress. One thing I definitely remember was how my parents used that phone to call Joe when any of us were misbehaving. Joe was a vigilante of sorts who apparently roamed around the verbs, picking up naughty kids and taking them away in his nasty pickup truck. This scared the shit out of all of us. Although by the time I was of the age to get the calls made on my behalf, my older brothers weren't having it. They spilled the beans that Joe was fictional pretty early on. AnyWho, after ten years of therapy, much dysfunction, and lots of life later, we can all now laugh at that ridiculously sadistic parenting techniques. Souch. I haven't seen that one in the most recent parenting books, although it is twenty twenty five out there, so you never know. It may make a comeback. My God, stay sexy, and no matter what anyone says, Thank God for cell phones, Lisa.
My mom had one of those, and she'd pick up the phone and like start bringing it to her ear and say she was gonna call whoever.
Yeah, and it worked, it worked.
Yeah.
That was like Adrian's one of the man is going to see you. And she would say it's scared to her own kids, like she was scared too, and it would It was just like Jesus. She's like, have you ever had three kids under the age of eight in a restaurant, you know, at a table in Applebee's. And I'm like, no, you're right, you.
Gotta do what you gotta do, same time you doo. I really love this next one. I'm not gonna reach you. The subject line, Okay, hello friends, you asked for crazy wedding drama and do I have some telenovella level nonsense for you.
Yes.
My second attempt at marriage first one is at least three separate emails ended with an opportunity to embrace my entrepreneurial side and turn lemons into do yes. I am a professional ballroom dancer and own a dance studio. Pause, pneez, what amazing professional?
Do you know how hard that is.
To like make a living as a dancer?
And it's just a hard I started. I started watching Dancing with the Stars only because of Alona mar and her partner Alan something or other, and they were having they were trying to do this thing where it was almost like a love romance thing that that was so captivating on TikTok. It was the best, but it is so hard as it hurt on your body.
And yeah, which is where I fell in love with my coworker and fiance number two. I was very happy despite the red flags littering our conversations. Who says in my defense, I was trying to be tolerant and he was super hot And he found a non refundable, all inclusive wedding gun nu that we put a deposit down on. Five months before the wedding. He came home one night to tell me he isn't sure about the wedding. The next morning he wasn't sure about our relationship. After he ended things a week later, I found out that he was already planning to move out of state to be with the new woman he met at a dance competition I didn't attend.
I just don't understand why you meet that person, go with it and let the other person fucking know totally instead of immediately you're planning a wet Why would you go all the way any other direction?
Yeah? No, it's super fucked up. He leaves a couple months later, assuming no financial responsibility for any part of our wedding. Then it says or the Southern California rent he left me with, and I put on my capitalism thinking cap. I couldn't get a refund and was left with all the pieces of a great party. So I turned my wedding into a ballroom dance competition for a few local studios.
Yes, brilliant, Yes, I.
Had the pleasure of telling several vendors about the change in plans. Wedding cake is now cupcakes. Dan's playlist now is full of tangos and chatchas, so many awkward phone calls and emails. I in no way cover the financial loss on that event, because the wedding industry is a scam. But it certainly helped. However, the students loved the event so much it has since become an annual tradition that grows every year, and this year is poised to be our largest yet.
Can we host it?
Let's mc it, you and me?
Can we judges? And we go and we have to do it all caps.
It's not a horrible reminder of my trauma.
Loo.
It was a bittersweet day that has been replaced annually with much better memories with much better people. I'm now planning wedding number three to a lovely man who is not in the dance industry. He is a thoughtful, loving, intelligent person and the cats love him the most out of any of my past partners. Coincidence. I think you know the answer thanks to reading and stay Sexy and don't date. Ballroom Dance Kristin, Santa Barbara, California.
Kristin, I got so wait is the fest? Is this ballroom dance competition yearly in Santa Barbara?
I think it must be. Yeah, God, I love that idea. It's like lemons and a lemonade. My friend Jocelyn, he was on her what was supposed to be her wedding day, with fucking asshole. What she called an un wedding weekend where she just all her girlfriends came out. We did all kinds of fucked up, funny things around weddings, and it was not a depressing weekend for her.
Nice. You know, Yeah, I was really smart. That's very good. It's like being proactive.
About yeah, I know this is going to suck.
Yes, I mean I've seen a lot of those stories on TikTok too, where it's like, yes, you got left at the altar, or you got you know, two days before or whatever, and it could go this way, and you're going to just decide it's going to go this. Absolutely. I love that. Okay. The subject line of this email is my Petty Family. Hi, Karen and Georgia. My girlfriend is a longtime listener, but she knows I love the hometown, so we often listened to the minisodes together. You guys ask for Petty Family stories, and boy do I have some for you. The Telescope my family, So each one of them has its own title. Okay, the Telescope. My family has an old farmhouse that we use as a vacation spot. One of my uncles had a rather nice telescope that he kept up there that anyone could use. One weekend, when my uncle's family and my family were up there at the same time, the telescope was found broken on the porch. But who was to blame three question marks? No one confessed, So my uncle, being a rational adult, used deductive reasoning and decided the most logical move is to blame my sibling. Why, you might ask, that's a great question that I have no answer for. But for almost a decade and a half he held a strong grudge against my sibling. He would be rude, mean and not talk to them all over a telescope that he had no proof of them breaking what. They did not break the telescope, and still nobody knows who did, but the grudge was formed.
Oh I that he broke it himself, right, Yeah.
Trying to get someone to pay for it. I mean, I would love right now to be able to see a family photo when we just go through and see who we think didn't do it.
Absolutely, it's a whole podcast.
It's some like old kindly Grandma that no one would suspect. Yeah, that's what I h I don't like stars. H Okay, this one is popovers. My grandmother was quite the cook in her day, and in her old age would often still make elaborate breakfasts and dinners for the family. One day, the whole family was up at the old farmhouse and my grandmother decided she was going to make popovers for breakfast, a small pastry like pancake that you can put jam and butter in. They'll change your life if you've never had them. I don't think i've ever had that.
It reminds me like a Dutch baby.
They kind of look like little muffins.
Yeah, well that's like a panty. I don't know.
I'll eat it. I have to look into it. They are a very labor intensive thing to cook and they take a rather long time. So my sibling and my cousin got hungry because it was already eleven AM and breakfast still wasn't ready. They went into the kitchen to make a piece of toast. This was their first mistake. They made their toast and ate it in front of my grandmother. Second mistake. She did not like this and decided she's not going to finish cooking because nobody's going to be hungry anyway, because they're all too busy eating before our breakfast is even ready. My god, she stopped cooking completely, left the kitchen and went around telling everybody how breakfast wasn't going to happen anymore because everyone is so full of toast. Oh, my mother, that's so batty. If anybody in my family did that, the second they would start saying that, everyone else would be like, oh, shut the hell up, like truly immediately crowd shamed. Okay, good. My mother made my sibling and cousin apologize to try to smooth things over. My grandmother quote unquote accepts their apology, finishes making breakfast, but doesn't allow them to eat any of the popovers because they were still too full of toasts. This might be a deep lesson, a deep lesson lesson about patient or just extreme pettiness. The popovers were amazing, by the way. I mean, there is that thing where it's like, hey, my old wretched hands. It's you know, I have arthritis. It hurts me to make this, and you're just gonna like, you're just gonna be uncaring.
As long as you eat them still, you know, yeah.
And give people a chance to eat them. Yeah, Although it does feel good to punish it does a lonely movie theater. Okay, my sibling and my grandmother were spending a day together and they decided to go see a movie. My sibling accident. I don't know why. I'm already laughing. I don't know what the story is. I think it's heavy. Yeah, my sibling accidentally inferred that my grandmother was old. Stop it's the same fucking grandmother. I think. My sibling accidentally inferred that my grandmother was old in front of her, and my grandmother did not take this well no, and so sat my sibling in the back of the theater and then went to the front of the theater and sat separately for the entire movie for the movie. After the movie, she drove my sibling home in complete and total silence. All things considered, though, my grandmother was a fantastic woman, a true it's too late, it's too late. She was a fantastic woman, a true badass, and could have very well been a NASCAR driver. I have many stories of her legendary yet terrifying driving abilities. Sorry for the amount of stories in the length of them. I hope my family's drama brought you laughs and maybe put a smile on your face they did. Thank you, as always for the wonderful job you do. Your stories always make long drives and doing dishes far more entertaining. Sincerely a friend.
Oh, I think this is a good reminder that you can write in your partner's story. If they don't listen, you can still use it.
Yes, exactly. And also this person's saying that they don't feel like they're a murdering r and crime but then they're like, but also I like what my girlfriend likes, right, so.
And the hometowns are so different, it's like anyone could listen to that.
I mean, who couldn't listen to this book? Try it? We dare you? Okay.
My last one is called My Greatest comedic Moment home voicemail Story, Hello friends. While our phone number was never accidentally dialed for a funeral home or published as a doctor's office, it was one digit off from a classmates and I would sometimes have to tell people they called the wrong house and what the correct number was. But that isn't my story. My best home phone story comes from my comedic genius. As a nine year old, my family just gotten a new home phone with a voicemail system. Pretty sure, We just had replaced the cassette voicemail thingy, and we were having an upbeat discussion about what our outgoing message should say over dinner. That's when it hit me a bolt of inspiration. You see, our last name is stump like a tree. Stump. Our voicemail message since I was nine is thanks for calling the Now make like a tree and leaf a message. I peaqued, Melissa, Melissa, you did.
Yes.
My parents still have a home phone and had to replace their phone system, which means I no longer greet in coming callers with my little voice, but I did for twenty plus years.
Oh imagine being able to call and listen to your nine year old self right now.
When you have like when you have a bad day and you're like, I'm not worry you know you're feeling down on yourself. Just be like when you were nine, you fucking did this.
You had comedy coming out.
Your poor comedy gold. Here's the last got the stump.
The subject line, You've got this stump subject line. No, you really won't believe this. I was listening it just starts. I was listening to minnisode four eighteen and the writer mentioned how her Grandpa rejected the opportunity to draw the golden arches. Oh yeah that way. Yeah it's an architect. It was beneath him. Well, I got one better. My father told me the story that my great grandfather was sitting in his recliner feeling late, and decided to create something that would allow him to change the channels from his seat without having to get up. Somehow, he mu guivert a box with a wire that went from his chair to the TV. He called my great grandma in with excitement to share his invention with her. She took one look at the contraption and told him it was ridiculous to think that people would be so lazy that they wouldn't even be willing to get out of their chair to change the channel. She scolded him first, then took the invention and tossed it in the trash. Wow, now that's patty, some old school marriage right there. I don't believe in you. Get your shit out of my way. It wasn't until some time later that the TV remote was invented by some other man who was lucky enough to not have a wife scold him and toss it in the trash. I could have been the heiress to the TV remote empire, but instead I'm a public high school teacher.
You're raising the next generation of inventors.
Certainly, yep. You with that bitterness in your heart, you could have had it all. And there's a they do. My favorite little typing smiley face that's sideways. Love you both more than you know. What you do is needed more than you know. Keep at it, Christina.
She hear, Oh my god, this is why it's so important to be supportive in your relationships.
That's right. We need you guys to support us so we can keep reading your emails by.
Sending them to my Favorite Murder at Gmail. Please about anything and everything.
So many things. Just a good story, yeah, good stories, that's good. Stories are great.
That's all we want.
Stay sex and don't get murdered.
Good Bye, Elvis.
Do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production.
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Our editor is Aristotle Osceveta. This episode was mixed by Leona Squalactually, email your home tow owns to my Favorite Murder at gmail dot com and follow a show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite Murder. Goodbye MHM
