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Transcript

Lucille's Last Request · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to creep Ghast.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Today, we are doing a story called Don't Buy Anything
• 0:20
  from Lucille's Late Night Snack Bar, and we have been
• 0:23
  told that this is in similar vein to the Voodoo.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Shop story that we've read probably last year.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, the Gypsy Rose story.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: That's right, the Gypsy the Gypsy ROAs story, very true,
• 0:36
  very impormant, keep anything.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's too cute. Behind.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pretty good Gypsy Rose impression.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: What's crazy is I think I heard your impression before
• 0:51
  I remembered what Gypsy Rose sounded like, and then I
• 0:53
  saw it's like a commercial for her TV show, and
• 0:56
  I'm like, wow, that's pretty pretty impressive, and I'm gonna
• 1:02
  buy something?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: You think this is gonna be?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Can we are we gonna assume that this is also
• 1:06
  Gypsy Roses Late Night Snap Bar?
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: What is Gypsy Roses Late Night? Have you said you
• 1:10
  did you.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Watch that first season all of at all of a
• 1:14
  Life After lock Up or whatever the fuck it was?
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: No, but I think Kayla did and told me it
• 1:19
  was it was just about like relationship drama and stuff.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was about her relationship drama with her
• 1:25
  then husband or fiance Ryan, which he bagged her when
• 1:29
  she was in prison, and she like comes out and
• 1:32
  she's like basically like showing them all these prison snacks
• 1:35
  she had.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: She's like and it's like a big bowl of gruel.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Basically, he's like, oh God, damn, Gypsy, I don't know
• 1:44
  if I want to what is this is what he
• 1:46
  did and it was I cannot remember the concoction, but
• 1:50
  it was so fucking nasty, and he was like, I mean,
• 1:52
  I'll try anything once for my baby. He's like fucking
• 1:55
  gagging and hurling eating it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: She's like, I got nah.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: I think this so to just become like any other
• 2:03
  TLC reality show where it's just kind of like, yep, no,
• 2:07
  you just sort of hang out.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean no, not really.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: She's like in this love triangle kind of in the
• 2:16
  season one where she's like.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: She's like me, don't know why can broke up with me.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: There's this other like really beat looking Missouri guy, which
• 2:26
  is it's just the absolute truth, is just this The
• 2:29
  Midwest just breeds the most heinous of all human beings.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Just this guy's like, that's that's self deprecating. He's from
• 2:35
  the Midwest.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Dian Well I did I speak from it?
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: All those Kansas people come for us.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I well, I don't blame him and the I it's
• 2:44
  it nothing really amounts to anything, but it's just it's
• 2:47
  just I don't know, it's just a wild It's insane
• 2:51
  that they're like, we're gonna give you a show like
• 2:53
  I just it's it was wild anyways, Uh, I wonder
• 2:57
  if that story I think a yeah, yeah, yeah, So
• 3:01
  today we're reading Don't Buy Anything for Lucille's Late Night
• 3:04
  Snack Bar, which, like we said, is supposed to be
• 3:05
  in the same vein as the Voodoo Shop story. So
• 3:08
  I'm guessing I don't know, maybe, like the one thing
• 3:12
  I really remember bout that one is that more so
• 3:15
  it like fantastical maybe is a better word for it,
• 3:18
  or something like a weird.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it felt very felt very fantasy. Now granted that's
• 3:24
  Harry saying that it'll be like that, so it could
• 3:26
  be nothing like that. Who knows, his interpretation could just
• 3:30
  be a storefront and that's where he's getting that from.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: We have that's the only thing.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it has in common.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I really don't remember.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I have such a poor memory that this is going
• 3:40
  to feel, probably very new to me.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: But as always, guys, we don't read these beforehand.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: We go in blind with you, so you know, we
• 3:49
  might say one thing and it's a complete opposite.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So I don't know what I'm supposed to what I
• 3:53
  was just to tell you? Do you want to give
• 3:54
  us a rundown? And who the author is?
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah? So this was written by Shinzy user Shinsey on Reddit.
• 4:00
  They have a bunch of posts in No Sleep and
• 4:03
  the No Sleep out of context. A bunch of their
• 4:07
  stories are highly upvoted, like one called the single car Accident.
• 4:11
  There's another one I saw that had some attention called
• 4:15
  an even Trade posted r slash Scary Stories, and then
• 4:20
  this is among their most up voted, don't buy anything
• 4:22
  from Lucials Late Night Snack Bar. Their most recent story
• 4:25
  was posted six years ago, but they still seem active
• 4:27
  on Reddit. So Shinzy, if you ever want to come back,
• 4:30
  hopefully a bunch of people go check you out from this.
• 4:32
  Now is a great time. I don't know if it's today.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I think it's Shesney.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: It is Shesney, isn't it.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I'm so Kenny Kenny Shesney s Yeah.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure. That's what they.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Meant, is that even Kenny Chesney sheeved, don't.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's Ken Chewssey. Do I tell you
• 4:54
  his dad was my neighbor growing up.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Kenny Chesney's dad was your neighbor growing really, Yes, yeah,
• 5:01
  I lived right up from us.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: I don't think I'll get in trouble for saying this,
• 5:07
  but he was so I only interacted with him a
• 5:11
  couple of times. And this I think I've mentioned before
• 5:16
  that I grew up on a golf course, so he
• 5:19
  was also on the golf course. And one day, I
• 5:22
  don't know the specifics of it, but one day, supposedly
• 5:27
  his neighbor up at the condo he lived in, the
• 5:30
  dog came out and like, pooped on No, Kenny's dog.
• 5:36
  Kenny Chesney's dad's dog pooped on his neighbor's yard. So
• 5:39
  the neighbor comes over. He's like, hey, man, can you
• 5:43
  can you keep your dog on your side of the property.
• 5:47
  And the story I always heard is that Chesney's dad said,
• 5:51
  hold on, let me get something to knock that chip
• 5:54
  off your shoulder, and he came back with the golf
• 5:58
  club and says it's not out of the Oh my god,
• 6:03
  you arrested. He got arrested.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I was huge.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: This was huge drama around uh, around town.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: I would I would hope, So, my god, let's remove
• 6:16
  that ship.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Also always says he's from Knoxville. He's not. He grew
• 6:21
  up in Maynardville, which is just outside of Knoxville, and
• 6:23
  that matters to me.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I I I do like that that Kenny Chesney is dead,
• 6:30
  who I'm just gonna refer to as Dennis Chesney. Uh,
• 6:34
  I like to I really like the kind of joker
• 6:36
  aspect he took. Let's knock that chip off your shoulder.
• 6:39
  I just imagine he's like a big purple suit, just
• 6:44
  shipped all over dogship, all over his hands.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: My son's country, think my director sexy there.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: But there'd always be stories of like Kenny would show
• 6:57
  up in like a or something to walk the dog
• 7:02
  and people would see him and be like hey Kenny,
• 7:04
  and he would like scamper off real quick and stuff
• 7:06
  like that.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So Kenny, I don't know how true that is, but yes,
• 7:08
  which he said Knoxville.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Right, he says he's from Knoxville, but he's actually from Maynardville.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Say he just he's the cockroach of Knoxville.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: He just you barely look at him, and he just
• 7:19
  like gets on all fours and just like skitters into
• 7:23
  the into the into the high brush. As they say, Uh,
• 7:27
  all right, Kenny Chesney. You know what, Kenny can you
• 7:30
  Chesney one out of ten if you had to rank him,
• 7:32
  If we're gonna rank Kenny ches you real quick, one
• 7:34
  out of ten, like his like his songs, just him,
• 7:39
  I guess I guess that's a full package.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: You're putting him as one, like out of ten different artists.
• 7:45
  You're putting him his number one.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: No, I'm saying ranking him one out of ten? What
• 7:49
  would you rank him?
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, I see what you're saying. I mean I kind
• 7:53
  of like his music. A lot of his older stuff.
• 7:55
  I like the album with American Kids. I'd give him
• 7:57
  a six. You know what, he still does a lot
• 8:02
  of that, like what I call nine to eleven country music,
• 8:05
  where it's very like after nine to eleven, all the
• 8:08
  songs were either patriotic or they were about beer and trucks,
• 8:12
  which is kind of lame.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: I follow that pretty hard. I always thought he was
• 8:16
  like one of those beach cowboys. It was always like
• 8:19
  I'm out on a beach by the ocean, like the
• 8:22
  J type kind of shirt, no problem whatever, Like I
• 8:26
  think of that kind of stuff.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm gonna get?
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I mean in A three A three, I guess I
• 8:32
  have nostalgia for him, but I'll acknowledge that there. I
• 8:35
  wouldn't consider h one of the great country music singers.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: And this is a horror story podcast.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: This is a horror story podcast. Today we're reading don't
• 8:43
  buy anything from Lucille's Late Night Snackbar. Credit to author
• 8:47
  Esney will be linked in the description. Be sure to
• 8:50
  show them some love Hunter. Are you ready to get started?
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: I am, And I just want to give a shout
• 8:54
  out to everyone who's listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all
• 8:56
  the places you can listen to a podcast, and shit,
• 8:58
  thank you so much for listening.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, try to give us a nice rating. It really
• 9:02
  does help us out.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: And also to our beautiful patrons who do support us
• 9:05
  and get a little free content on the side, well
• 9:07
  not necessarily free, you are paying for it, but appreciate you.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I am ready.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Let's get entery content. Don't buy anything from Lucille's Late
• 9:17
  Night Snack Bar. My tail begins with a ten dollars
• 9:20
  lava lamp I found in a fake hippie mall store.
• 9:23
  This summer, I moved back to my hometown. I was
• 9:26
  getting in an apartment with my fiance Marcus, and I
• 9:29
  wanted some decor that screamed well traveled boho girl instead
• 9:33
  of middle Georgia hospital clerk who's been to Florida twice?
• 9:37
  What is boho?
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but this is just immediately scream Candy
• 9:42
  Chesney to me.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I'm legitally wondering if Sezzi has anything to do.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: With What is Bohot's see bo ho meaning.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Short for Bohemia.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm bohol all immediately disliked the protagonist.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: I see, we're looking this is like like two thousand.
• 10:06
  It might as me like a twenty eleven like millennial,
• 10:08
  like a imagine Dragon's uh listener, Maybe.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Not that, but like a like a two thousand.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: They listened to the non.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Radio imagined Lona del Rey fans like a twenty eleven.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Now, hold hold the hold, hold on, don't don't bring
• 10:22
  on into this, don't bring summer child?
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: What am I thinking of? What am I Coachella like
• 10:29
  a Coachella girl or whatever?
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, very very yeah, yeah, that I'll that'll
• 10:33
  go with, that'll go with. I must have been in
• 10:36
  that incense gas chamber for the better part of an
• 10:39
  hour looking for something that screamed wonderlust without actually having
• 10:43
  the word wonderlust printed all over it. I glanced over
• 10:46
  the meditation bells, beat at curtains, and fae distressed world maps,
• 10:50
  not seeing anything that really jumped out at me that
• 10:53
  wasn't egregiously overprised. I was gonna call it quids when
• 10:57
  out of the corner of my eye I saw a
• 10:59
  lava lamp sitting next to a himaland salt lamp fifty
• 11:02
  percent off. I'd always wanted a lava lamp when I
• 11:05
  was a kid, and I was seized by that dangerous
• 11:07
  mix of nostalgia and financial freedom that hits you in
• 11:10
  your twenties. An hour or two later, the lamp had
• 11:13
  a new home on my nightstand, casting its soft light
• 11:16
  on my alarm clock and contact Len's case. Marcus, of course,
• 11:21
  thought I was a weirdo for buying it. He thought
• 11:24
  I was a weirdo anyway, but this served as a
• 11:26
  fresh reminder for him.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: It doesn't even go with anything, babe.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: His face turned a purplelish pink in the glow of
• 11:32
  the lamp.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Besides, did you want to go with an adventure theme?
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: I nestled my chin in my hands and watched the
• 11:39
  pink wax slumps rise and fall in the glittery violet water.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but maybe we should go with our sixty steam instead.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: That's fun, right, he just shook his head. Whatever theme
• 11:50
  you want to go with this fine with me. Also,
• 11:52
  if you can have the lava lamp, then can I
• 11:54
  get to Oh my god, oh god, oh god. If
• 12:03
  you can have a lava lamp? They did I get
• 12:06
  to put up my Ricken Morning poster? Oh, says Webble
• 12:15
  Love a dub Dub Babe. Here, here's understand. Uh, if
• 12:23
  you if you're a boho girl with a lava lamp,
• 12:27
  and if you are a guy with a Ricken Morning
• 12:29
  poster and you are a full grown man, you both
• 12:33
  need to re evaluate where you are at in your lives.
• 12:38
  You're a crazy confession if you were in a relationship
• 12:43
  with a guy, whatever, can you get dicked down?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And there's a Wubble love a dub.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Dub post got I've got a worse one. I've got
• 12:49
  a worse one. When I start in college. Yeah, she
• 12:53
  had a Ricken Morning poster.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: You know, it was extremely popular.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I will give I will say that to people like
• 13:03
  the Liners again.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Going in there and seeing that it's like, I.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: This is twenty twenty five, this is in your child's nursery.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: But yeah, this is right. I'm looking at a rick
• 13:12
  and Mordon poster.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the only I'm trying to think of
• 13:16
  the only weird poster I ever. I whenever I was
• 13:19
  hooking up with this one girl in college, she had
• 13:21
  this like she had like four of the same I'm
• 13:24
  not even four of the same Jurassic Park posters, just
• 13:27
  like the black poster with like the emblem, four of
• 13:30
  them and I was like, oh.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Car poster, I guess, but I wouldn't have more than one.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: It's four and they were all crinkled the hell.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: And I was like a big Jurassic Park fan, and
• 13:40
  she did kind of And that always rubbed me the
• 13:42
  wrong way. How are you gonna have four of the
• 13:44
  same poster and you're kind of a fan.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: How does that have a fan? Yeah, it reminds me
• 13:49
  of a I know this guy one of my friends
• 13:51
  went on a date with a girl lately, and I
• 13:53
  was like, oh, had it going. He's like, oh, she
• 13:55
  was just kind of boring. I asked h if she
• 13:58
  was into anything, and she said Harry Potter. So then
• 14:01
  he asked, well, which of the books is your favorite?
• 14:03
  And she said, oh, I haven't read the books. So
• 14:07
  when asked are you into anything, the only thing you
• 14:10
  can come up with is Harry Potter. You're not even
• 14:13
  really that into Harry Potter.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: That's another thing too, man. Another Hunter's tip is, have
• 14:17
  you ever see a girl with a deathy hollows ankle tattoo?
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: You run away from that person. You get that, you
• 14:22
  get the hell away from that person.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of feeling that way too with the that
• 14:26
  that that symbol I see tattooed lot on people.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: That's the berserk one. I see that all the time.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, the curse of the Sun, of the sun, the
• 14:35
  one that marks them to be killed during It looks
• 14:38
  like a witch project.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: It looks like a Blair witch project kind of symbol,
• 14:41
  or some ship.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I the Feast, the mark of the Feast.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I think, whatever it is, But all I know is
• 14:46
  that people online are like, why would you want to
• 14:48
  get that tattooed on you do you even know what
• 14:51
  that means?
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: What that symbolizes, Maybe a tot of psychopath, I guess,
• 14:54
  get it?
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: The brand of Sacrifice, Brand of the Sacrifice. Yeah, yeah,
• 15:00
  so I'm trying to think right now. I used to
• 15:03
  just put a ton of random stuff up in my
• 15:05
  rooms when I was like middle school in high school.
• 15:08
  And I think the weirdest one I had is when
• 15:12
  I was a kid, do you remember like junior pro
• 15:16
  sports or like you played basketball in the summer and
• 15:19
  stuff like that. I played basketball in elementary school and
• 15:23
  one year I did I probably still have this somewhere.
• 15:27
  One year I did junior pro at like the local
• 15:32
  YMCA or whatever. So it's like a summer basketball league
• 15:37
  and we got pictures done for it where it was
• 15:40
  it was me when I was like nine years old,
• 15:42
  and it was like a photo of the team. But
• 15:47
  then it was just my single photo, like full body
• 15:50
  shot photo shop to be giant behind everyone.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Like why did you have this?
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: It was just still have this. I think it was
• 16:00
  like we all took photos almost in like a yearbook style,
• 16:05
  you know format, and then they're like, oh, you can
• 16:08
  get posters, And when I was nine, I'm like, yeah,
• 16:11
  that's cool. So my parents got it and it's framed.
• 16:15
  I'm pretty sure I still have that. I think it's
• 16:17
  in the garage or something of a giant nine year
• 16:21
  old me in front of the basketball team. Yeah. I
• 16:24
  don't know why I had that hung up on my wall,
• 16:27
  and I just didn't think about it for years.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Do you remember the big heads.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: I do, Yeah, where you could like take your head
• 16:36
  and get like the little stick standy things.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, this was like there was a brain
• 16:41
  called big head. It was like a it was like
• 16:44
  a decal you could put on your wall, but it
• 16:45
  was a full size cutout of somebody.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah or whatever.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: My friend's dad he gave him. The dad gave a
• 16:54
  big head of himself to his son. He like installed
• 16:57
  it in the room.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: See that's good. I was so scary.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: We were like nine and we would be like, I
• 17:05
  don't know, playing like Nintendo, and there's his dad embedded.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Into the wall with like the flickering lights on his face.
• 17:12
  Was fucking horrifying.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: And I will say, you know what I'm doing that, Please.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I say please.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: I will say to end the poster conversation too, I
• 17:21
  will say the most dastardly thing I ever did in college.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I uh, I got. I got a.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Alt J poster for UH for the for the lady folk,
• 17:31
  and I also bought and I kept sealed a alt
• 17:34
  J record. I just left you like old J. It
• 17:38
  was a big deal back of the day for the
• 17:40
  you young. And let me tell you that had a
• 17:42
  stranglehold on art chicks. M remember all J used to
• 17:48
  how you're.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Like, wait, I don't, I don't. I don't even know
• 17:51
  what al J is.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: You know that song? It's like that sounds like, yeah,
• 17:56
  what is it? It's like that song Breezer Blocks that
• 17:59
  was like really pun popular. I'm not gonna take me.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're neither way.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: At that time, I hadn't counting Breeze Box and yeah
• 18:08
  name or Nat It's Pleasure Broe Pleasure. We are that one?
• 18:15
  Have you heard it?
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: You'd remember it?
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: No? Whatever, No, it had a show it came out.
• 18:20
  So this song came out fourteen years ago when I
• 18:23
  was twelve years old.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Oh that she would have been perfect time dud.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you have to understand I was like raised
• 18:30
  in like the religious setting where I had like sneaked
• 18:32
  to listen to any music. So what I did listen
• 18:34
  to was sparse, so it was like my chemical romance
• 18:37
  and stuff like that.
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: I see, I see.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Right, So Rick and Mordy poster.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Rick and Morty poster. Yeoh what this is all about?
• 18:46
  I grimaced, but agreed to his terms. Relationships were all
• 18:49
  about compromise, after all. So the poster went up and
• 18:52
  the lava lamp stayed illuminating our evenings with psychedelic glow.
• 18:57
  Settled into our apartment life once our decorations were all
• 19:00
  squared away, and I started work at the same hospital
• 19:03
  I was born in while Marcus started his new engineering
• 19:06
  job work. I refused to believe. If there's an engineer
• 19:10
  with a Frick and Marty poster.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I could believe it. It's a sci fi thing. I
• 19:14
  believe Marcus is. They're both educated.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: Work was mine numbing, and my coworkers ended up being
• 19:20
  a bunch of caddy shrews with nothing better to do
• 19:23
  than gossip about other people. Some days were okay, but
• 19:26
  other days I would come home at the end of
• 19:28
  the day exhausted, only able to eat, take a shower,
• 19:31
  and stare at my lava lamp before I eventually drifted
• 19:34
  off to sleep. It was on one of these bad
• 19:37
  days that a strange thought entered my mind. I was
• 19:41
  staring at my lava lamp, all undulating, smooth wax and
• 19:45
  gentle light, and I thought about unscrewing the top and
• 19:49
  downing the whole thing, like it was just a fancy
• 19:52
  soda bottle instead of a glass tube full of scalding
• 19:55
  wax and water.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: What.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: I initially dismissed it without thinking about it it, but
• 20:01
  thought would pop up sometimes after that, and frequent but
• 20:05
  ever present. I brought it up to Marcus one day
• 20:08
  when he took me to lunch during my break one day.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I never think about it seriously doing it,
• 20:15
  but sometimes there's a zoning out of work and it
• 20:17
  just happens.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: You know. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, kind of know
• 20:21
  what you.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Mean, sometimes feel something pretty similar, he said, this pretty
• 20:25
  strong feeling about around colk, like I wanted to stick
• 20:29
  the nozzle in my mouth and eat it like easy cheese.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Weird.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I just want to say, I just want to say,
• 20:39
  if I was, if I was in this break room,
• 20:42
  or if I was like in public and heard this, like,
• 20:46
  I would freak the fuck out.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine hearing this like.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: In past crusive thought couple, Is this what I understand?
• 20:56
  Like having weird intrusive thoughts like that? But to be
• 20:59
  like you used to want to stick the nozzle in
• 21:01
  my mouth, and it's like, I don't know.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: There's been things I mean, I know what I think,
• 21:06
  I understand what they're getting at where it's like I
• 21:08
  don't know, like a weird like a like a gel
• 21:11
  pack or something. You're like, oh, I just want to
• 21:12
  chew on it. It just seems like a weird thing you
• 21:14
  want chew on it. To continue to continuously think that
• 21:18
  much and then have to even bring it up, I
• 21:20
  don't know, I mean thinking about it, but it's not.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Like I really think about it. The other guy's like, yeah,
• 21:23
  I like COLK.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: I want you to like easy, would be delicious.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I'd love to have some COLK.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: I snorted into my soda that yeah, better not try
• 21:33
  that unless you want to be visiting me at work
• 21:35
  in the worst possible way. An excuse, any excuse to
• 21:39
  see you in those sexy scrubs.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: He laughed, then booped my nose with the fry.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: We got to really, he's up on the millennial ship here, dude,
• 21:50
  is I want to say right now, I think this
• 21:52
  is we have to mark this as a historic moment,
• 21:54
  that this is the first time we have actually gotten
• 21:56
  a fucking booped in our in our reading session. We
• 22:00
  have got to we got to figure some shit out.
• 22:03
  I just don't think it's anything to worry about. It's
• 22:05
  something that happens to everyone every now and again. Like
• 22:09
  thinking about diving into the media in a highway or
• 22:11
  jumping out of window.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Talk about that's more hold on, that's more understandable because
• 22:20
  it's like the whole of the boy thing.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Into the median and the highway.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Have you ever been standing at the edge of like
• 22:30
  a railing or a high up place and you're like, oh,
• 22:33
  what if I jumped right now? And like you get
• 22:36
  the chill, like, oh man.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: I like, no, no, I don't think I've ever No,
• 22:41
  I mean maybe I'm in the maybe I'm in the
• 22:44
  like the not the wrong, but maybe I'm the completely normal.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: People have it a lot.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: They talk about with kids, like when they're holding a kid,
• 22:51
  it's like, oh, what if I dropped it right now?
• 22:53
  And it gives you like a shiver, like should do that? Good?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Lord?
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Okay, there's a there is an argument in psychology that
• 23:01
  it comes from like prepping for worst case scenarios. So
• 23:07
  the idea when you're standing at a tall place, you're like, well,
• 23:10
  now I definitely need to not jump, So your brain
• 23:15
  lays that idea in your mind, like what if I jumped,
• 23:17
  so that your body is like, okay, stay far away
• 23:20
  from that. Same with trying to think about like an
• 23:22
  almos seems like a weird It almost seems like a satisfying,
• 23:27
  like painful reaction or something like I've heard people.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've heard people say this.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: About like if you if they see like a nail
• 23:33
  sticking out of a floorboard, they want to step on
• 23:35
  it or something weird.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: It's the exact same thing. It's like, this is definitely
• 23:39
  the kind of thing that shouldn't happen. So here's the
• 23:41
  idea of planet in your mind. It's maybe there's a
• 23:44
  term that a psychologist coined. It's whatever the French translation
• 23:47
  is for call of the void of.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe it's just whiplash. I don't know.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I think it just whiplash because we went from eating
• 23:55
  kulk to booping noses with fries and then all of
• 23:57
  a sudden, we're diving into the medium in a highway.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: I don't know. La pel Yeah, that's the term for
• 24:04
  the sudden, fleeting and obtrusive urges to engage in self
• 24:07
  destructive or dangerous behaviors. It's just jumping from a high
• 24:10
  place or steering into traffic. Yeah, there it is.
• 24:13
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  your purchase the last we heard about them. Please support
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  our show and tell them that we sent you there.
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  Please lie to them and say that we're the best
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  of all time. Please do that. They're paying us right now.
• 25:15
  Please please, please, Thanks guys. I'm sure there's some deep
• 25:19
  forty and psychological bullshit meaning behind it all, but as
• 25:21
  long as you don't actually try it, it's no big deal.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Marcus's nonchalance put my mind at ease. I guess I
• 25:28
  wasn't such a freak after all. There's probably something deep
• 25:32
  in the human subconscious that made my monkey brain want
• 25:35
  to do the unthinkable. I pushed it out of the
• 25:37
  forefront of my mind after that and tried to concentrate
• 25:40
  on my garbage job. I would have probably stayed nice
• 25:43
  and safe in my happy routine for a good number
• 25:45
  of years if it hadn't been for the snack bar.
• 25:48
  I had to stay at work late one Thursday night,
• 25:51
  well I'd been lucky enough to get a day's shift,
• 25:53
  or server had gone down and we got ridiculously backed up.
• 25:57
  I felt bad leaving it at all in the night
• 25:59
  shift take care of, so I stayed until about ten
• 26:02
  thirty to help them process everything. I wobbled out on
• 26:05
  sore feet ahead of a chorus of thank yous, feeling
• 26:08
  fulfilled but also tired and hungry as hell. A thirteen
• 26:12
  hour shift can do mean things to a body. A
• 26:15
  texted Marcus to tell them that I'd be late, and
• 26:17
  then I hopped in my car and started heading home,
• 26:20
  driving carefully so that I didn't run off the road
• 26:22
  in my depleted state. I passed a few familiar sites
• 26:26
  on the way, check fil, a Chevron gas station, a
• 26:30
  few cowfields. I got to an intersection that I'd passed
• 26:33
  a million times before and noticed something new. In the darkness.
• 26:37
  The abandoned storefront setting across the road from an Episcopal
• 26:40
  church looked significantly less abandoned than it used to. It
• 26:44
  was a rundown wooden building with one of those coke
• 26:47
  signs usually reserved for old timey Southern general stores or
• 26:51
  hole in the wall barbecue restaurants. A neon open sign
• 26:55
  in the window cut through the darkness and nearly burned
• 26:58
  my eyes with how bright it was. I slowed curious.
• 27:03
  It was true that I was dead tired, but my
• 27:06
  growling stomach convinced me to stop and grab a snack
• 27:09
  before I drove home and face planted into my bed.
• 27:12
  I pulled into the empty parking lot and walked up
• 27:14
  to the door hesitantly, sighing, cast enough of a glow
• 27:17
  for me to see the name of the place, Lucille's
• 27:21
  Late Night Snackbar. It seemed like a pretty odd place
• 27:23
  for a snack bar, but it got to point across.
• 27:27
  Not many places in a small town like this were openly,
• 27:30
  so why let taco bell and waffle House corner of
• 27:33
  the market. First of all, we let waffle House do
• 27:36
  whatever they want. Actually wearing a waffle House shirt right now,
• 27:40
  funny enough, I walked up the creaking, water damage steps
• 27:43
  and pushed open the door. Rush of cold air and
• 27:46
  the tinkling of a bell greeted me as I stepped inside.
• 27:50
  The tiny shop was filled with all kinds of snacks
• 27:52
  from all eras, kind of like the ones at those
• 27:55
  cracker barrel general stores. I was surprised at just how
• 27:58
  well stocked and organized the place was. Jars full of Twizzlers,
• 28:03
  licorice and peppermint sticks lined the shelves of stacks and
• 28:07
  stacks of freeses, cups, Mary Jane's and candy cigarettes. Multicolored
• 28:12
  gumballs set in their little machines waiting for the offering
• 28:15
  of a quarter. Chips and crackerjacks were stuffed onto shelves
• 28:19
  so tightly that it looked like the ones in front
• 28:21
  would fall over any minute. A fridge full of a
• 28:24
  million different kinds of soda hummed in the back of
• 28:26
  the room, the light inside doing a better job illuminating
• 28:29
  the snacks that the overhead lights were doing. The flamehaired
• 28:33
  queen of this bountiful kingdom set at the register, smacking
• 28:37
  on gum and flipping through a fashion magazine with nails
• 28:39
  nearly as long as her fingers. She hadn't even looked
• 28:42
  up when I walked in, so I cruised through the
• 28:44
  shelves unmolested. It's an interesting adjective to us to applyed there.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: But our damn, my house is in all right.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: I was about to grab a moonpie called a knight
• 28:54
  when I noticed that there was another room. It was
• 28:57
  separated from the main room by a curtain of multicled
• 29:00
  beads that would have looked more at home in a
• 29:02
  kid's bedroom than a snack shop. Sign outside the door
• 29:06
  read Midnight Snacks, Enter if you dare. I raised an
• 29:10
  eyebrow at that seemed a little cheesy, but I got
• 29:13
  my imagination going. My initial thoughts were bongs or porn.
• 29:18
  But when I pulled back the beads and stuck my
• 29:20
  head inside, that wasn't what I found at all. The
• 29:24
  Midnight Snacks seemed like a jumble of random objects. A
• 29:28
  few bottles of Fabuloso and train cleaner populated one shelf,
• 29:33
  while the next held what looked like a few jars
• 29:35
  of human teeth. I roamed the shelves, taking in everything
• 29:40
  I saw. Legos, different assortments of rocks, play oh, jars
• 29:45
  of mud and dirt, detergent and dishwasher pods, bath bombs,
• 29:51
  makeup calk, so on and so forth. I picked up
• 29:55
  one of the rocks, a sedimentary gray and brown type deal,
• 29:59
  and turned it around my hands for a while. It
• 30:02
  felt like a rock, but at the same time not
• 30:04
  much like one, almost like I could sink my teeth
• 30:07
  into it and it would yield. Put it down before
• 30:10
  I tried it. I moved on instead of the teeth.
• 30:14
  I reached into one of the jars and pulled one out,
• 30:16
  expecting it they had to be fake, a sheer variety
• 30:20
  in detail, and that someone had spent an awful lot
• 30:23
  of time crafting these. I started to get the same
• 30:26
  feeling from the tooth that I did from the rock,
• 30:29
  so I hurriedly shoved it back into the jar. A
• 30:32
  freezer with large pictures of different types of ice cream
• 30:35
  set in the corner. But when I looked inside, I
• 30:38
  was staring at what looked like human eyes and limbs,
• 30:41
  separated in little containers. I stepped away from it when
• 30:45
  I saw that the label on one of the white
• 30:47
  plastic containers said, chubby fingers. Starting to get really nervous.
• 30:52
  Was everything in here some kind of edible replica of
• 30:55
  a non edible thing? It seemed like a pretty ridiculous
• 30:58
  business venture. This is fun. I see the similarities between
• 31:03
  this and the Voodoo shop right where it's kind of like, oh,
• 31:06
  whatever your desire is, it feeds into it. But it's
• 31:09
  for people who like want to consume random objects.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I was wondering if it's random people or if it's
• 31:15
  catered to her specifically, like at the store knows and
• 31:19
  it's just like a bunch of other shit that we
• 31:20
  haven't found out yet, you know.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, what's a it's a pika. Pika is that
• 31:26
  thing where it's like you feel compelled to eat like
• 31:28
  dirt or metal or like non digestible stuff.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: If you're thinking, if you like, if you've looked at.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Like a lava lamp and you're like, man, I want
• 31:36
  to drink that, you would assume that there's other things
• 31:38
  of like almost like just generalized sensations that you you
• 31:42
  know that you feel there's probably been other random stuff.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you've thought about Yeah, I'm curious if it's it's
• 31:48
  This is interesting because it's almost like a story that
• 31:51
  would typically be about sex, right, like if be about
• 31:54
  a woman or temptation and stuff like that, but it's
• 31:56
  about wanting to eat random things. It's interesting.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I was like this they did too of it being
• 32:00
  like a on her way home from work. It feels
• 32:02
  like it's very much teetering towards the idea of like
• 32:05
  she's gonna fucking pop in a just a pee on
• 32:07
  her way home and like eat a bunch of random
• 32:09
  shit to where I wonder how it's gonna affect like
• 32:11
  by the time she gets home during these things, like
• 32:13
  does it affect her physically to where even like her
• 32:17
  partners like what the like, what the fucking what's been
• 32:20
  going on?
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it also kind of makes it feel like like
• 32:24
  a ghost diner, Like it's just a place that appears
• 32:27
  when you're tired and by yourself and there's no witnesses around. Yeah.
• 32:32
  I was about to just pay for my moon pie
• 32:34
  and get out of there when my eyes fell on
• 32:35
  a tiny shelf at the corner of the room sitting there, which,
• 32:40
  like it had been in that hippie store, was an
• 32:42
  exact replica of my lava lamp. There were a few
• 32:45
  sitting next to it that had different colors, but my
• 32:48
  eyes were locked on my purple pink bedside companion reached
• 32:53
  over and touched the class felt warmed at the touch,
• 32:57
  not quite hot. It was more like outside of a
• 33:01
  coffee mug than anything else. Figured I could screw off
• 33:05
  the top below on the contents a little, and I
• 33:10
  wish I could tell you that I drew my hand back,
• 33:13
  marched out of that store with my moonpie, and never
• 33:15
  went back to the freakish place again. But instead, a
• 33:19
  hand that may have been mine reached out and grabbed
• 33:22
  the lava lamp, card that may have been mine, paid
• 33:26
  for it along with my moonpie. A person that may
• 33:29
  have been mean drove home in silence, Moonpie in one hand,
• 33:33
  steering Will in the other, hearing my new lava lamp
• 33:36
  shift around in a brown paper bag wrapped like it
• 33:39
  was a bottle of wine instead of tacky home de core.
• 33:43
  The Moonpie was gone. By the time I pulled into
• 33:45
  my driveway, the lamp was all I had left. I again,
• 33:51
  the phrasing on this is so much like it's a
• 33:54
  sexual act, right, like a sin or like a shame
• 33:57
  that you're carrying with you and it's all you can
• 33:59
  think about walking through the door, sessing over and stuff
• 34:02
  like that.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I think it's a temptation factor that makes it feel that, yeah,
• 34:05
  it gives that because we've already she's already discussed that.
• 34:08
  It's just like I don't know, I probably shouldn't, but
• 34:11
  it's actually being tempted at the store and giving in
• 34:13
  you know what I mean.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's like the the phrasing with It's almost
• 34:17
  like a teenage boy who's trying to hide a porn
• 34:19
  mag from his mom, you know, like it's in the bag.
• 34:22
  I just have to get in the door, move still,
• 34:24
  like stuff like that. I shoveled into the house, trying
• 34:28
  to be light on my feet so I wouldn't wake Marcus.
• 34:31
  I slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind me,
• 34:34
  praying that he wouldn't wake up anytime soon for his
• 34:36
  late night pe. I slowly took the lamp out of
• 34:40
  the bag, stared at it, my hands trembling. Even though
• 34:45
  it was unplugged, it was still warm, and the globs
• 34:49
  of wax made their slow journey from one end to
• 34:52
  the other without the help of electricity. There was something deeply,
• 34:58
  deeply unnatural going on here. I wanted to question it,
• 35:02
  to go back to that store and demand some answers,
• 35:05
  but my desire to do my own experiment was growing
• 35:09
  by the second. I tried to fight through the urge.
• 35:12
  But I was tired in the loopy and that moon
• 35:16
  Pie just hadn't done the job. I knew it was stupid,
• 35:20
  but would it really hurt that much just to try,
• 35:25
  just have one little taste. What harm could it really
• 35:29
  actually do to me? God? One second I had the
• 35:32
  lamp in my hand, and in the next instant was
• 35:35
  lying on the bathroom floor, trained of its contents. An
• 35:40
  incomprehensible flavor lingered on my tongue, grape like in nature,
• 35:45
  but so much more than that. The soft texture of
• 35:49
  the wax that had been so pleasant in my mouth
• 35:52
  felt even more pleasant and nestled in my stomach. I
• 35:56
  sat there basking in that taste before I looked over
• 35:59
  at the empty lava lamp and figured I should get
• 36:01
  rid of the evidence before I got some questions. I
• 36:05
  washed it out and tossed it in the back of
• 36:07
  our closet, not wanting to risk Marcus coming across it
• 36:10
  in the trash. After I brush my teeth and gartled
• 36:13
  with licerine about fifteen times. Who even knows the sugar
• 36:17
  contents of a drink like that, I crawled into bed
• 36:20
  beside Marcus. I laid there, staring at the ceiling at taste,
• 36:25
  keeping me just on the edge of sleep, till the
• 36:28
  rising sun bathed the room in a pale yellow glow.
• 36:32
  I skipped breakfast that morning, the stem I had decided
• 36:35
  to riot against what I had done last night. Marcus
• 36:38
  looked at me with some concern.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Are you feeling okay?
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: You usually never skip breakfast on pancake Day.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: I am vibe in with the story. But pancake Day
• 36:49
  is another millennialism.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, man, we're in it. At least it's consistent.
• 36:53
  I'll give it that it is.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: It is not a temporary guest that it is here
• 36:59
  to stay day. You usually never see a breakfast on
• 37:02
  pancake Day. Like all right? I smiled weakly as I
• 37:06
  grabbed my keys off the counter and pecked him on
• 37:08
  the cheek.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Sorry, babe, my stoke was a little upset last night.
• 37:12
  I don't want to risk anything too heavy. I'll describe
• 37:14
  a granola bar up before I go to work.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: He didn't seem playcated, but he nodded and tucked into
• 37:20
  his pancakes. As I slipped out the door. My hands,
• 37:23
  which I had been trying to keep steady in front
• 37:25
  of Marcus, shook as I put the key into the ignition.
• 37:29
  Even after my minty exorcism, I could still taste the
• 37:32
  content of the lamp warmth grape flavor, all the undertones
• 37:39
  that somehow made warm grape flavory not completely gross. The
• 37:43
  softness of the wax. I shuddered, thinking that maybe a
• 37:47
  pancake or two might have helped to overpower the taste,
• 37:51
  but it was too late for that. Now. I drove
• 37:53
  to work, blasting the local generic pop station and trying
• 37:57
  to focus on the day ahead instead of the night prior. Again,
• 38:01
  it's so it's so well written, like a private shame
• 38:04
  that you have to keep yourself. It's about drinking a
• 38:06
  lava lamp.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: What kind of like also tasty? A lava lamp sounds
• 38:10
  too like I would not expect any of those tape
• 38:12
  you know what I mean. But it's like I believe
• 38:14
  that it would.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: You know. It kind of just makes you question how
• 38:18
  much money would it take for you to drink a
• 38:20
  lava lamp?
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: God, dude, nothing, that's like fuck, No, it was just
• 38:26
  wax of water? What right? Really, that's it, I thought,
• 38:29
  I thought. I don't know why. I thought it was
• 38:30
  chemicals and stuff.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: So the water may have some light chemicals in it
• 38:34
  for preservation, but it's nothing deadly. You'll probably get a
• 38:36
  stomach ache, but that'd be it.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know why, my fat ass dude, I'd feel
• 38:40
  like I would. I'd buckle. I'd buckle under a lava lamp.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Now there's a dollar amount. If someone came up and
• 38:47
  it was like, here's a million dollars to drink, I
• 38:50
  probably shoke. So that means there's a price between zero
• 38:53
  and a million.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I mean like maybe maybe a thousand dollars.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: That is way closer to zero than a million. Still,
• 39:05
  it would need to be a lead for me to
• 39:06
  finish a lava lamp. It needs to be more than
• 39:08
  ten grand.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I feel like I get I feel like I could
• 39:12
  see probably hidden it for a thousand, you know, not
• 39:14
  just even a thousand.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Not a thousand now, not a thousand, a thousand no,
• 39:20
  uh ten grand? Yes, not a thousand. I like how
• 39:24
  it's like, well a million dollars, You're no, what one
• 39:27
  thousand dollars?
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Well you throw it a million? I was like, well,
• 39:30
  god damn? Did I mean?
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Will? But then I kept thinking about it. I'm like, realistically, also,
• 39:35
  I don't know the size of it. But if someone's like,
• 39:37
  I have a thousand dollars, do you want to drink
• 39:38
  this lavaine for a thousand?
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Dollars.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think a lot of I think I
• 39:43
  think I might. I think I think I probably could,
• 39:45
  even if I would be nervous, I'd just be nervous
• 39:47
  of the wax or whatever would get caught my throat
• 39:50
  and I'd be like, because I don't, it's not going
• 39:52
  to be like as smooth as like an egg yolk,
• 39:53
  you know what I mean?
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Even though it's what it looks like, if they could
• 39:56
  get like a lamp.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Here and actually looking at the side, this is comparable
• 40:01
  to a large water bottle, you know, they do, just
• 40:05
  have a screw cap on top.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: What colors your level amp?
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: That wax does look pretty. I've never thought about the
• 40:27
  logistics of eating one of these.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: But oh my god, are you doing it?
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: Is?
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Are you doing it?
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: No? I'm not, No, I'm not gonna do it. Oh okay,
• 40:33
  I'm just saying looking at it right now.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Well, even if you aren't, even if you don't, even
• 40:37
  if you don't drink the whole thing, would you take
• 40:39
  a swig?
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Take a swig on camera for us? Would you?
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: No? I feel like it's about I think I have
• 40:46
  to break it. This is like a pop cap bottle
• 40:50
  top instead of a screw. I think i'd have to
• 40:53
  break it to do that. What what chemicals are lava lamps?
• 41:03
  Lava lamps contained two primary components of dense colored paraffin
• 41:06
  wax surrounding liquid, usually water, propelin, glycol or mineral oil. Oh, yeah,
• 41:12
  you'd be fine with all those. You shouldn't take a
• 41:14
  lot of propelling guy, call, but it'd be fine. Uh, solvents.
• 41:21
  It's used in food preservative and stuff like that. Yeah,
• 41:23
  you would. You could eat a lava lamp. No problem, then, Okay,
• 41:27
  I need to I need to stop thinking. Okay, I'm
• 41:32
  going to continue all right. Work was a mess, which
• 41:35
  I was eternally grateful for. The servers were still acting wonky,
• 41:39
  and the ensuing chaos totally distracted me from any untoward
• 41:42
  thoughts about lava lamps. I was too busy trying to
• 41:46
  figure out how to process patient information without my computer,
• 41:49
  betrayed me to be worried about weird urges. I was
• 41:52
  going to stay put past my shift like last time,
• 41:55
  but my manager sent me packing, telling me that I
• 41:58
  look like hell about to argue. As I drove home,
• 42:02
  I kept a lookout for that freaky snack place. I
• 42:06
  saw it just where it had been before, same rundown building,
• 42:09
  and all the open sign was off, thank God. Still,
• 42:14
  it was a little twinge in my gut as I
• 42:16
  passed it, like I would have stopped if I could have.
• 42:20
  I taste a liquid on my tongue again, and my
• 42:23
  mouth started water In response. I put my foot on
• 42:27
  the gas and sped to Chick fil A to pick
• 42:29
  up dinner for me and Marcus. There's nothing quite like
• 42:33
  the sweet chicken of Jesus to cleanse a tainted palate.
• 42:38
  After that, that, the Jesus chicken thing, that's also millennial code.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: You know what. Nothing wrong with it, dude, nothing wrong
• 42:48
  with it.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying
• 42:52
  referring to it as Jesus chicken is a millennial beat,
• 42:56
  for sure. After an eight piece nugget, mill, some white
• 42:59
  wine and the affection of a very grateful Marcus, I
• 43:02
  was feeling more or less myself again. I drifted off
• 43:05
  comfortably in a light haze of alcohol and pleasure. Around
• 43:08
  eleven PM. Did it, Wait, didn't you do with Chick
• 43:11
  fil A? Ranking and you put the fries lower or
• 43:13
  something like that.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: No, I put chick flavorally high. I'm pretty sure I
• 43:19
  think we have effected it to be high. We've done sandwiches, That's.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: What it was, So what it was? The hunger hit
• 43:27
  around three. I felt the awful clinching in my stomach
• 43:31
  before I was even fully awake. I tossed and turned
• 43:34
  until my eyes snapped awake, forbidden taste of the lava
• 43:37
  lamp filling my mouth faster than my own drool. Marcus
• 43:41
  snored next to me, completely oblivious to my torment. I
• 43:45
  checked the alarm out of the corner of my eye.
• 43:48
  The number two thirteen was illuminated with the purple light
• 43:52
  of the lamp, which was doing nothing to help with
• 43:54
  my craving shit. So much for getting a good night's sleep.
• 43:59
  Snuck down to the kitchen and open the fridge. We
• 44:02
  were well stuck thanks to the convenience of the Kroger
• 44:05
  right across the street, but nothing in there appealed to me.
• 44:09
  I knew what I really wanted that I attempted to
• 44:11
  silence the urge with a few cookies and a glass
• 44:14
  of milk. It made me feel okay for a few minutes,
• 44:17
  but as soon as I climbed back into bed, the
• 44:19
  craving hit me again at full force. I sat there,
• 44:23
  fighting back tears as a little voice in my head
• 44:25
  told me what I needed to do. I told me
• 44:28
  to get inside my car, drive to the snack bar,
• 44:32
  and get myself a bottle of the good stuff. It
• 44:35
  was either that or down the lamp by my bedside.
• 44:39
  I didn't want to, I really really didn't want to,
• 44:43
  But at the same time, I just knew that I'd
• 44:46
  go crazy if I didn't. So I threw on a coat,
• 44:49
  hopped in my car, took off, peeling out of the
• 44:52
  neighborhood before I had a chance to change my mind.
• 44:56
  Even as I was driving, I tried to reason with myself.
• 44:59
  Still options, even at this ridiculous hour. I could go
• 45:03
  to Taco bell. I could go to a gas station
• 45:06
  and load up on regular human snacks. Hell. I could
• 45:09
  even try to hit up one of my friends for
• 45:10
  late night munchies. Although they probably wouldn't have appreciated such
• 45:14
  a late company. Anything would have been better than pulling
• 45:18
  up to that store, grabbing an armful of lava lamps,
• 45:21
  and standing at the register in my pajamas being judged
• 45:24
  by that bored redhead with the lethal nails. You can guess,
• 45:28
  of course, which one of these things I actually did.
• 45:32
  Threw in a twinkie like that would make me feel
• 45:34
  less bad, but instead just made me feel like even
• 45:37
  more of a weirdo. Started to hustle out of the
• 45:40
  store with my haull when I nearly bumped into someone
• 45:43
  on my way out.
• 45:45
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• 46:02
  water is. I like when my asshole gets frostbite. I
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  which is great for my hemorrhoids. That's the size of
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  like a green a green apple jelly or a green
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  apple jolly rancher, And so when I don't have to
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  press on it with my fingers because it's hard, It's
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  true I'm and Joe. I actually started using bedets because
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  of that. I'd wipe my ass and to be so
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  hard it was disgusting. But it's wired about hemorrhoids, is
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  they literally it'll pop out and be angry and then
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• 46:46
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• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Startled, I looked up to see a stranger, also in
• 47:22
  their pajamas, looking as flustered and embarrassed as I probably looked.
• 47:26
  She mumbled something that might have been a greeting, then
• 47:29
  pushed past me with her head down and made a
• 47:31
  beeline for the back room. I left the store, still
• 47:34
  feeling sick, but also a little bit vindicated. At least
• 47:38
  I wasn't the only person in this town with the problem.
• 47:41
  I drove home to the soft music of the lamps
• 47:43
  clinking around in their paper bag, almost lulling me to sleep.
• 47:47
  Now that my panic had faded, I didn't bother bringing
• 47:51
  them into the house at this time. I gulped them
• 47:53
  all down, one by one right there in the car.
• 47:58
  The taste was absolutely indescribable, blue, red, green, purple. They
• 48:08
  all tasted vaguely of fruit, but also something deeper, like
• 48:12
  the notes and wine I've heard so much about. Never
• 48:15
  had the palette to taste and the wax. It was
• 48:19
  heaven on earth. Finished all four of the lamps and
• 48:23
  wiped my lips, totally satisfied twinkies that abandoned among the
• 48:28
  empty glasses. Shame that I felt that first night was
• 48:32
  weirdly absent. The first time it had been a curious mistake.
• 48:37
  This time it was an act of choice, and I
• 48:40
  no other option than to own it.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: You're talking about this being like a sexual kind of thing,
• 48:45
  but I keep it almost keeps reading to me like
• 48:47
  a drug use or something.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: It's like a drug use or like a food addiction.
• 48:52
  You know people who are, like, you know, trying to
• 48:56
  lose weight and they're really big, but they hide food
• 48:59
  from their family and stuff like that, and they don't
• 49:03
  eat with the family because they're claiming that they don't
• 49:05
  have a problem, but then they binge by themselves and
• 49:07
  stuff like that. It reads like a lot of addiction,
• 49:11
  like a lot of addiction that derives from pleasure. I
• 49:14
  shoved the empty lamps in my glove compartment for lack
• 49:17
  of a better disposal idea, then went upstairs and brushed
• 49:20
  the taste and smell of their contents out of my mouth.
• 49:23
  I crawled back into bed with a snoring Marcus, and
• 49:26
  pretty soon I drifted off because he is over. I
• 49:30
  really wish I could tell you that that was the
• 49:33
  last time I went, that my curiosity had been sated,
• 49:36
  and I had purged whatever sick urges I'd had for
• 49:39
  my body with that last binch, But I didn't. I
• 49:43
  found myself back there again and again, sometimes in my
• 49:47
  work clothes, sometimes in my pajamas, but always late at night,
• 49:51
  and always always unbearably thirsty. I've heered for my usual snacks,
• 49:57
  sometimes just to see what they were like. The flavors
• 50:01
  of these things were so hard to describe. Every single
• 50:05
  thing tasted like an approximation of what it would taste
• 50:09
  like in real life. Dirt was earthy and gritty, the
• 50:13
  richness of the mineral varying by type and giving each
• 50:17
  variety a depth of flavor more complex than anything a
• 50:20
  world famous chef could whip up. Cleaning supplies were acidic,
• 50:24
  with a sharp chemical smell, capable of curling your nosehirs,
• 50:28
  but a milder, fruity taste could overpower the less desirable
• 50:31
  parts of the experience. Not unlike strong booze, legos were
• 50:36
  horribly bland and only fun to eat because of the
• 50:39
  colors and sizes. I never knew why those went as
• 50:42
  quickly as they did. I avoided the teeth entirely, but
• 50:45
  I could see from the fluctuating level in the jar
• 50:48
  that they were a popular item. Despite my experimentation. The
• 50:52
  lava lamps, my sweet tacky saviors, were always my number
• 50:58
  one go to. I would walk out of that store
• 51:00
  with at least a couple of lamps clinking together in
• 51:03
  my brown paper bag. My satisfaction overpowering my guilt. That
• 51:09
  line right there drives home that a lot. My satisfaction
• 51:12
  overpowering my guilt. Yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: The her also trying all the different stuff is surprising too.
• 51:17
  I almost thought that she would only stick with the lovelows.
• 51:20
  But it's almost like, uh, just testing everything now, Like
• 51:24
  it's just so the addiction has spread so much.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like what you said about drug addiction,
• 51:29
  Like typically heavy drug addicts will try whatever they can
• 51:32
  get their hands on. Right, it's weird.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: What do you think the psychological effect of this story
• 51:37
  so far is with because if you just did this story, psychological.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: Effect as I am now looking at my lava lamp
• 51:44
  in a new line.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now I'm like okay, well maybe this is good. No,
• 51:48
  I'm wondering you can do this story again? And literally
• 51:52
  it's I stopped on the side of the road and
• 51:53
  I picked up crack like you could that would be
• 51:55
  that would be the same story. Right then you go back.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: To those coming for my nursing ship. I saw the
• 52:00
  crack bag on the side of the road.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but you know what I mean, like like
• 52:04
  it's you could replace this immediately drugs it to.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Be the same kind of story of hiding it. I
• 52:10
  wonder what doing it to be like like it's.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: It's very intentional being like lava lamp going specifically like
• 52:16
  fabulous so legos. I'm wondering. I'm wondering does that disarm?
• 52:21
  Does that disarm the threat of what it is? Like
• 52:24
  it's gross, but if it's you do you Is it
• 52:26
  supposed to be a thing where we're sympathizing with the
• 52:29
  person of like, well, this is just a weird ticket,
• 52:31
  It's not like it's bad, you know.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: What I mean?
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: I think I think the addiction metaphor is pretty fitting,
• 52:37
  and I think that's what is being implied by the author,
• 52:42
  Like you know, sure, I'm sure it is. I'm just
• 52:44
  wondering if it's the radio addiction.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering if the psychological thing though of just making
• 52:49
  it like normal objects has like, like I was saying,
• 52:52
  like a psychological effect of like it makes the viewer
• 52:56
  not as.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Like, not as not as judgmental.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: Is wrong.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: But you don't think it's as much of a threat.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: I guess. Yeah, you see it as something odd instead
• 53:04
  of something dangerous.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: Just that was interesting.
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like, I mean, honestly, the way people
• 53:10
  view food addiction a lot, where it's like, yeah, it's food,
• 53:13
  you know, like, what's their problem? Just stop eating as much.
• 53:16
  But similar to any other addiction, like people would the
• 53:19
  noonality types can fall into it and stuff like that.
• 53:22
  It's easier said than done.
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: Damn.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: I wasn't the only one either. I had some company
• 53:27
  during some of my late night snack runs. Sometimes someone
• 53:31
  would be ringing out a bottle of Fabuloso while another
• 53:34
  person picked through the rocks to find ones that looked appetizing.
• 53:38
  Sedimentary was a favorite of one of my neighbors, who
• 53:40
  never acknowledged me whenever we made fleet and eye contact.
• 53:44
  In fact, no matter how many people were in the store.
• 53:48
  The place was always dead silent. The regular snacks in
• 53:51
  the front remained so unpopular. I was sure that some
• 53:54
  of those rappers were collecting a fine layering of dust.
• 53:58
  A tea or a soda would sometimes disappear, presumably to
• 54:01
  wash whatever horrible junk they had purchased from the back down.
• 54:05
  But that was the extent of it. Through it all,
• 54:08
  the cash ear with fire engine red hair and scary nails,
• 54:11
  sat impassively at the register, ringing out all us freaks
• 54:15
  without outward judgment. I had begun to suspect that she
• 54:19
  was none other than Lucille herself, but I never got
• 54:22
  the courage to ask. I'd just pay for my stuff,
• 54:25
  get my head in an awkward half nod, and be
• 54:27
  on my way. There wasn't another customer behind me. Her
• 54:31
  eyes would follow me all the way to the door.
• 54:34
  Marcus began to notice the frequency of my late night trips.
• 54:37
  He didn't say anything outright at first, but I could
• 54:39
  tell that he was regarding me with a little suspicion
• 54:42
  and more than a little concern. I wasn't ever gone
• 54:46
  long enough to justify any worries about an affair, but
• 54:49
  I was increasingly furtive, distant. I didn't want to hide
• 54:54
  it from him, but I also didn't want my husband
• 54:56
  to know I was a lava lamp guzzling weirdo. Wait
• 55:00
  on me, and my guilt seeped through my actions and words.
• 55:05
  Eventually set me down. After we had an unusually quiet
• 55:08
  evening of pizza and game shows. Babe, he started and
• 55:13
  then stopped, looking down at his bare feet. I knew
• 55:16
  him well enough to know that he'd start and stop
• 55:18
  and start and stop again whenever he had to talk
• 55:20
  about something serious. But I didn't have the patience to
• 55:23
  deal with it. A knot of dull anger was beginning
• 55:26
  to form in my stomach, right next to where my
• 55:29
  unusual hunger sat.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I know this is about where I've been going.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: I snapped. As soon as I said it. I shut
• 55:36
  my mouth with an audible click. Shamed of my reaction,
• 55:40
  he looked at me as if I just slapped him.
• 55:42
  Jesus Baby, calm down, his voice wavering. I never been
• 55:46
  the type to get too upset, especially about something like this.
• 55:50
  I took a deep breath through my nose and blew
• 55:52
  it out slowly, willing myself to calm down.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I've just been pulling a lot of long
• 55:58
  hours at work. One edge, it was.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: Technically the truth. I've been leaving later and later, but
• 56:04
  only because I was distracted and not getting enough work
• 56:07
  done on time. My manager had yet to say anything
• 56:10
  about it, probably because I'd seen her at Lucy Eel's
• 56:14
  of the plastic bag labeled baby cheeks and black sharpie.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Eh my gosh.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Well, the occasional lateness of our paycheck indicated that she
• 56:24
  was experiencing the same issues I was, so she wasn't
• 56:27
  about to point the finger. Marcus seemed to accept my
• 56:30
  work explanation, dropped the subject, and started talking about his
• 56:34
  upcoming business trip. I could tell that my outburst it
• 56:37
  scared him a little, and it tore me up inside
• 56:39
  to think that I made the love of my life
• 56:41
  feel that way. But there's nothing I could do about
• 56:44
  it now. I decided to quit going to the store again.
• 56:47
  Back to the addiction thing, hurting family members, your boss
• 56:50
  suspecting it but not being able to call you out.
• 56:52
  Stuff like that. The connections are pretty numerous. I decided
• 56:57
  to quit going to the store, considering whatever the hell
• 56:59
  was in those lava lamps probably wasn't good. For me
• 57:02
  physically or mentally, and I didn't want my secret driving
• 57:05
  a wedge between Marcus and I. I started taking a
• 57:08
  different route to and from the hospital so I wouldn't
• 57:10
  have to pass the store, and bought a ton of
• 57:13
  my favorite snacks from my prelu seal days so I
• 57:16
  would have something to munch on in case I got cravings.
• 57:19
  I thought that it would be easier, like going on
• 57:22
  a diet for bikini season or drinking a little less coffee.
• 57:26
  Reality was much much crueler. The first thing to go
• 57:30
  sleep couldn't fall asleep for the life of me, and
• 57:33
  when I did, I'd only get an hour or two,
• 57:35
  and before I woke up and sweat shaking. I lost
• 57:40
  focus at work and started making mistake after mistake, mistakes
• 57:44
  that I took out of my co workers. Due to
• 57:46
  my increased yrtability, my skin had started turning dry and dull,
• 57:51
  and my eyes were constantly red. If I had been
• 57:54
  worried about my relationship with Marcus, cutting out the lamps
• 57:57
  certainly wasn't helping. We were fighting on a weekly basis
• 58:00
  about the littlest things, and I was always too wrapped
• 58:03
  up in my own suffering to realize how rational I
• 58:05
  was being. My breaking point came one day when I
• 58:08
  was sitting in bed, crying after getting into yet another
• 58:11
  fight with Marcus. Through my blurred vision, I could see
• 58:14
  my faithful lava lamp wax floating gently through the purple
• 58:18
  glowing water. Without even thinking about it, I grabbed it,
• 58:23
  started to undo the cap, ready to down it like
• 58:26
  I had done with so many others like it. If
• 58:29
  the plug hadn't popped out of the socket and turned
• 58:31
  the lamp off, I may very well have attempted it.
• 58:34
  I sat with the hot, dull lamp in my hands,
• 58:37
  shoulder shuddering as I cried even harder over what had
• 58:40
  happened to me. Something was really really wrong with me,
• 58:45
  and I knew who might have some answers. I drove
• 58:49
  to Lucille's late night snack bar for the first time
• 58:51
  in weeks, going nearly twice the speed limit. My rage
• 58:55
  was accelerated by a clear and attainable target, and I
• 58:58
  stormed into that dingy shop, booed by my righteous fury.
• 59:02
  My target looked up from her magazine at me, a
• 59:05
  sort of fear or excitement registering in her eyes. She
• 59:09
  chewed lazily on what I was beginning to suspect was
• 59:11
  not gum at all. I walked up to the counter
• 59:14
  and slammed my hands down in front of her.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Tell me what the hell you're putting those freakish snacks.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: She looked at me blankly for a second, then smiled.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you mean, honey.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: Her voice sounded like someone taught a garbage disposal how
• 59:28
  to talk. Set my teeth on edge and took all
• 59:31
  the wind out of my sails. Tried to collect myself
• 59:34
  and lay into her again.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: You know, damn well what I mean.
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: She continued to smile, but closed her magazine and focused
• 59:40
  the full front of her gaze on me.
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: I don't make the snack, sugar, I just sell them
• 59:46
  to you. All his is just at a discount because
• 59:50
  I'm a generous woman. I'm just trying to make a living,
• 59:53
  just like anyone else, you know what I mean.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: She smiled wider, and I could see what she had
• 59:58
  between her teeth. Yeah, that was definitely not gum. I
• 1:00:03
  swallowed hard and considered going home with my tail between
• 1:00:05
  my legs, but I still wanted answers.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: This stuff though.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: You've had this stuff, though, you have to be lines
• 1:00:15
  it's fucking rocks and poison.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: No, I can't eat that, She chocked her head to
• 1:00:20
  one side.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: But you do, but everyone does. I just make it
• 1:00:26
  a little easier to swallow as all.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: Her smile never wavered as she spoke, even though her
• 1:00:31
  voice deteriorated and became less and less easy to understand.
• 1:00:36
  The pupils of her eyes distorted it to it look
• 1:00:38
  like I was staring down at goat. Her nails extended
• 1:00:41
  and retracted like a cat's claws, and I saw the
• 1:00:44
  faintest flicker of a forked tongue before I backed away,
• 1:00:47
  certain that she wasn't human, and since I had been
• 1:00:50
  greedily sucking down whatever she'd been giving me, not so
• 1:00:54
  sure I was wanted anymore. Just before I reached the door,
• 1:00:57
  she returned to her normal state and winked me before
• 1:01:00
  returning to her magazine. I climbed back into my car, shaking.
• 1:01:05
  When I reached into my purse to grab my keys,
• 1:01:07
  I heard a familiar clink, purple lamp with pink wax
• 1:01:12
  sticking slightly out of the paper bag, with a note
• 1:01:14
  that read, this one's on the house. I didn't question
• 1:01:19
  how they got in there. The thing that I had
• 1:01:21
  always known there was something not right about that place,
• 1:01:25
  but I was too driven by curiosity to listen to
• 1:01:27
  my instincts, and now I was paying the price. I
• 1:01:32
  drove back in silence, knowing full well what I should
• 1:01:35
  do and what I do instead. I like that again.
• 1:01:39
  It's like a dealer who's like, oh no, just take
• 1:01:42
  another hit, just to get back into it. Yeah, and
• 1:01:44
  it's that last line. I knew what I should do
• 1:01:46
  and what I would.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Do, almost like a I mean, it's like a new way,
• 1:01:51
  like a different take on doing a deal with a
• 1:01:52
  devil kind of deal, you know what I mean?
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like the four tongues obviously devilish, but it
• 1:01:57
  also makes me think of that this is some like
• 1:02:00
  like a troll almost, or there's some there's some folklore
• 1:02:04
  creature I'm trying to think of that I can't remember
• 1:02:06
  right now, but like a shape shifter.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, some weird yeah, some kind of like not goblin,
• 1:02:12
  but some kind of weird.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Kind of thing.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I reached a kind of equilibrium after that night.
• 1:02:20
  I was broken, and the best I could do was
• 1:02:22
  work around my brokeness the best way I knew how
• 1:02:25
  I resumed my nightly snack runs, taking care to be
• 1:02:28
  sneak here about it than I used to be. I
• 1:02:31
  just down my lamps in the car outside the store,
• 1:02:33
  in the dead to night, looking for all the world
• 1:02:35
  like the attic I had become. I chuck all the
• 1:02:39
  tubes in the dumpster and go on my way, leaving
• 1:02:42
  my crimes and my dignity behind me. My mood stabilized,
• 1:02:46
  and I was back to my normal, agreeable self. With
• 1:02:49
  a few slight caveats. I had a bevy of excuses
• 1:02:52
  ready for my late night trips, not that I needed
• 1:02:54
  them anymore. Marcus had stopped asking. I thought that he
• 1:02:59
  had just let it go. But one night, when I
• 1:03:01
  pulled up to the store, I saw his car parked outside.
• 1:03:06
  Skip my binge for that night. He never told me,
• 1:03:09
  I never asked. We shared the rest of our lives together,
• 1:03:13
  and we indulged in our shame alone. Our relationship was
• 1:03:17
  a ghost of what it had been. We were limping along.
• 1:03:21
  That's all we could expect to do. I really like
• 1:03:24
  that details. Yeah, that's that's tragic, but man like like,
• 1:03:29
  if this is a metaphor for addiction, it's like everyone
• 1:03:32
  like you could imagine everyone in the town visits the store,
• 1:03:35
  just at different times, and they're all ashamed of it.
• 1:03:37
  But everyone carries their own private shame.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: That's really cool.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: So like the description that it's across the street from
• 1:03:45
  a church, right, it feels very much so like the
• 1:03:49
  heaven or hell, like the duality between the two things.
• 1:03:51
  You know to give in to your lust of temptation
• 1:03:56
  order to reject it. I try to tell myself all
• 1:03:59
  kinds of things. I wasn't actually doing anything bad to
• 1:04:02
  my body. I was perfectly fine. Really, I was in
• 1:04:06
  peak physical condition, other than my weird sleep schedule and
• 1:04:09
  my perpetually shitty mood. Besides, I was in like those
• 1:04:12
  other freaks behind teeth and other human body parts. My
• 1:04:16
  cravings were totally benign. There were days that I could
• 1:04:19
  ignore my cravings, and that allowed me to pretend I
• 1:04:22
  was still in total control. I lied to myself like
• 1:04:25
  this until the day it all fell apart. That was
• 1:04:28
  the day that Lucial's late night snackbar closed down. I'd
• 1:04:32
  gotten off work late and was heading to Lucial's to
• 1:04:35
  pick up my usual But when I pulled into the
• 1:04:37
  gravel parking lot, I noticed that the Neon open sign
• 1:04:41
  wasn't on. Not only was it not on, it wasn't
• 1:04:44
  even there. I sat in my car, trying not to panic.
• 1:04:49
  Maybe the sign was broken or she was getting a
• 1:04:51
  new one. I staggered out of my car and peered
• 1:04:54
  through the window. Nothing. The whole store was empty. No jars, twizzlers,
• 1:05:00
  no gumball machines, no fridges full of soda, not even
• 1:05:04
  a wrapper left on the ground. The whole place was
• 1:05:07
  cleared out, like nothing was even there. I leaned my
• 1:05:10
  forehead against the glass and fogged up the window, muttering no, no, no, no,
• 1:05:14
  no to myself, like that would do anything to help me.
• 1:05:19
  I heard footsteps creaking up the stairs behind me, and
• 1:05:21
  I turned see Marcus standing there, no doubt here to
• 1:05:25
  make his own late night run as well. I opened
• 1:05:28
  my mouth to speak, but the only thing that came
• 1:05:30
  out was a choke sob. He pulled me into his
• 1:05:33
  arms and hugged me tight, and I gripped his jacket
• 1:05:36
  for dear life, knowing that without Lucille's would soon slip away.
• 1:05:42
  It didn't take very long for us the attics start
• 1:05:45
  breaking down. We started receiving patient after patient in the
• 1:05:49
  hospital suffering from poisonings. They'd ingest, common household cleaners, and
• 1:05:53
  sometimes even drain fluid. Some of them made it more, didn't.
• 1:05:59
  I heard whispers of people walking into dentist offices having
• 1:06:02
  broken their teeth to try to eat rocks. One report
• 1:06:06
  on the news said a dental assistant was arrested for
• 1:06:08
  pulling patient's teeth without clearing the procedure with the dentists first,
• 1:06:11
  and storing them in a jar. The reporters said that
• 1:06:15
  they didn't have a motive for such a bizarre crime.
• 1:06:18
  But I knew. I knew it from the trembling in
• 1:06:20
  my hands, the bags under my eyes, and the glow
• 1:06:24
  of the lava lamp that I couldn't bring myself to
• 1:06:26
  get rid of. I remember how much I needed to.
• 1:06:30
  Soon the children started coming in. You know how your
• 1:06:33
  creepy aunt said she wanted to gobble you up when
• 1:06:36
  you were a little kid. Apparently Lucille had capitalized on
• 1:06:40
  that urge too. Kids with huge bite marks, some with
• 1:06:44
  entire chunks of their flesh missing, started to fill up
• 1:06:47
  our emergency room. The number of single digit ages I
• 1:06:50
  was having to punch into the system was wearing thin
• 1:06:53
  on my already threadbare sanity. Eventually I quit with little
• 1:06:58
  ability I had left to do my job evaporated after
• 1:07:01
  I looked over my desk and saw my manager's catatonic
• 1:07:04
  husband holding an infant with half its face gone. Jesus, huh,
• 1:07:09
  oh Gosh, just chewed on her child's face. Oh man.
• 1:07:15
  I lost Marcus one month after Lucille shut down, and
• 1:07:18
  one week after I quit. I came home one day
• 1:07:21
  to find him lying on the floor of the kitchen
• 1:07:23
  and nothing but his boxers, a colt gun clutched in
• 1:07:26
  his blue tipped fingers. I called nine to one one,
• 1:07:30
  sobbing into the phone, but I knew there was nothing
• 1:07:32
  that could be done for him. I was helping to
• 1:07:34
  plan his funeral instead of our wedding, and by the
• 1:07:37
  week's end he was in the ground and I was alone,
• 1:07:41
  staring into my lava lamp until exhaustion dragged me into
• 1:07:44
  sleep night after night. The only reason I'm still here
• 1:07:48
  is because I received a letter in the mail a
• 1:07:50
  couple of days ago. It was from the Lucille's Late
• 1:07:53
  Night Snack Bar corporate office. Apparently, despite their closing, business
• 1:07:58
  had been a thriving six and they expressed a desire
• 1:08:01
  to open more locations in other towns. I had been
• 1:08:04
  a loyal customer, and since they heard I was recently unemployed,
• 1:08:08
  they were wondering if I would give opening a franchise
• 1:08:11
  across the state line a shot, and of course I
• 1:08:15
  would have access to all the merchandise I wanted free
• 1:08:18
  of charge. I read the letter by the light of
• 1:08:21
  the lava lamp and then stared at the words for
• 1:08:24
  a long long time. You might be driving in your
• 1:08:28
  hometown one day and happen to see a loose Eels
• 1:08:32
  might look like mine. It's rickety wooden building and the
• 1:08:35
  Coca Cola sign. It might be in the shell of
• 1:08:38
  an abandoned Windy's. Might look like a bodega or a
• 1:08:42
  mal kiosk, or whatever un assuming place one can buy
• 1:08:45
  cheap snack from. If you do decide to go inside,
• 1:08:50
  only buy the items from the front of the store.
• 1:08:53
  Never ever go into the back. And if you do
• 1:08:57
  go back there out of curiosity, don't pick up anything.
• 1:09:01
  If you do pick something up, don't buy it. And
• 1:09:04
  if you idiot throw caution to the wind and buy
• 1:09:08
  it and you see my face staring at you across
• 1:09:11
  the counter, don't blame me. At least, I tried to warn.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: You that was a fun story man, like what we're
• 1:09:20
  sick of it?
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: That impressed me. I really enjoyed that.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of comes across like you know what,
• 1:09:27
  you know why Towards the end, I was like, you know,
• 1:09:29
  like it started to setting setting a bit, but it's
• 1:09:32
  like a fairy tale.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: It's like a grim fairy tale.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Like I I ken't you know, I thought it was
• 1:09:37
  going to go the route of like the witch who
• 1:09:40
  has the uh housemade of gingerbread or whatever, you know,
• 1:09:44
  like that the handsome Gretel whatever. But it does read
• 1:09:48
  to me like a like a warning or like a
• 1:09:51
  folk tale or a grim fairy tale that's like trying
• 1:09:54
  to teach somebody something of like you know, this addictive
• 1:09:58
  habit or giving into impulses. I do like this idea
• 1:10:01
  of like very obscure temptations that get hold of you
• 1:10:06
  is really really fun. But that that fairy tale element
• 1:10:09
  I think works really well.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: And I like the end. It's really cute, like a
• 1:10:12
  really cute way to end it.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: I like the ending too, And it also to go
• 1:10:16
  back to the addiction metaphor, it's like they eventually become
• 1:10:19
  the dealer, right, they become so sucked in by it
• 1:10:25
  and they lose everything else that they had going form
• 1:10:27
  in life, so might as well fully commit over to
• 1:10:29
  your addiction.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: Right, so so quickly tragic to this story was like
• 1:10:34
  the uh they really they lower your defenses quite a bit.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: With like the millennial lines and stuff and yeah, the
• 1:10:41
  Rick and Morty.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: Poster mention and stuff like that.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: You almost want to throw up from how cute it is,
• 1:10:46
  you know, like, oh, like you I'm booping your snoot
• 1:10:49
  with my fry that kind of thing.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: But it just, I mean, it really does nose dive
• 1:10:53
  into just complete darkness so quick.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it takes all of that, all of the
• 1:11:01
  like apprehension we had with like the lightheartedness, and it's
• 1:11:05
  like this is a story about addiction and then my
• 1:11:07
  husband died of the addiction and blah blah blah.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Well I thought I thought that was fun.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: Was like it made me throw up from that, But
• 1:11:14
  then by the end of it, I was like, oh
• 1:11:15
  can we go back to that? Thank God, I'd like
• 1:11:18
  you guys to go back to that time.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: Uh yeah, it's like, do we get where's the Rick
• 1:11:23
  and Morning posters?
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: Still the idea too, that it was addicted.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: To buying Rick and Morty posters.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: The idea that it was affecting the whole community too
• 1:11:31
  is not maybe not the whole community, but enough people
• 1:11:34
  to warrant that many hospital visits and stuff. Is particularly interesting.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: It was a very I see the connection between this
• 1:11:42
  and Late Night and the Voodoo Store, because it's like,
• 1:11:45
  you know, it's it praise on the thing you want
• 1:11:48
  to do, and they're just the seller, you know. It's like,
• 1:11:51
  well you ate it. I'm just the person providing the goods.
• 1:11:55
  And I like how Lucille might have been, like she
• 1:11:59
  was at some point point and she's thealed to someone else.
• 1:12:02
  Maybe she like we can't tell because the story is
• 1:12:05
  narrating from her perspective, but maybe she's taking on these
• 1:12:08
  goblin s qualities, becoming the monster in someone else's story
• 1:12:11
  down the road. It's really cool, and of course, obviously
• 1:12:15
  the fairy tale thing at the end that if you
• 1:12:17
  ever see in your town this place.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: Blah blah blah, the uh yeah god, I just I
• 1:12:24
  feel if it just kept getting worse and worse, like
• 1:12:28
  you're like, oh my god, do you feel like it's
• 1:12:29
  lowest point?
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: And almost immediately the next paragraph is like yep, so
• 1:12:33
  I kept doing it and it kept getting worse, and
• 1:12:35
  you're like, oh my god, dude, holy hell. It just
• 1:12:37
  was really unrelenting in that way, which was a kind
• 1:12:40
  of an unexpected turn that I thought that this was
• 1:12:42
  going to take, because it really is such a I
• 1:12:45
  still think that there's.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: Something to the idea of just these like weird ticks.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: Like not making it obviously, not making it so obvious,
• 1:12:56
  like if it was just literally drugs, then this isn't
• 1:12:58
  really much of a horror story, or it isn't kind
• 1:13:00
  of weird. It gives it like a weird, fantastical and
• 1:13:02
  like I said, fantasy or fairy tale kind of quality
• 1:13:06
  of almost being like almost you know, like a house
• 1:13:08
  made of candy, like but this being like a room
• 1:13:11
  full of like obscure treats that are not traditional is
• 1:13:16
  just it's a very interesting way to do an addiction story.
• 1:13:21
  Just wouldn't have expected that. It's just very, very very odd.
• 1:13:24
  It was fun.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I thought this was fantastic, and it was
• 1:13:30
  really a sleeper to me because when it started, I
• 1:13:32
  was kind of like, a, Right, we'll see where this goes.
• 1:13:35
  But the metaphor worked really well, and I dug it
• 1:13:38
  that was a lot of fun. Enjoy it, do you
• 1:13:39
  think again? Everyone wants to check it out, Chesney on Reddit. Chesney,
• 1:13:44
  I know you haven't written a story in six years,
• 1:13:46
  or at least posting one, But get back to it.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: That was enjoyed that come back to the light, Shesney,
• 1:13:53
  appreciate you. There's a fol one.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: Though, nice little fun quick story, nice little drive by
• 1:13:58
  kind of story.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: And then we're out. You know, it's a fun one, Chesney.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: They have a bunch of other like looking at some
• 1:14:05
  of their other titles too. They have The Night my
• 1:14:07
  Church Burned Down, I Summoned an Angel, an even trade
• 1:14:11
  all of these. I'm done.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna When a story is called as it's it's
• 1:14:18
  never never good.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: I would love the three stories like I summoned an
• 1:14:22
  Angel and it was awesome. I would would love one.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: Of the best friend and now I believe in God
• 1:14:28
  and everything's great.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then at that point on life was pretty
• 1:14:33
  badass the end.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: But that's an episode.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: This week, guy, I'm looking at this lava lamp and
• 1:14:42
  it is kind of appetizing.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: I want you to drink it, dude.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: And when next time we see this lava lamp, it
• 1:14:46
  better be empty and your your lips better be caked
• 1:14:49
  and wax.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, I get I like it to trust me.
• 1:14:53
  After reading that description, I get it a bit more,
• 1:14:55
  but I still wouldn't call this appetizing, especially if the
• 1:14:58
  we little like wax flate floating around in there and.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. I yeah, especially dude
• 1:15:06
  eating't caul.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: When it's on. I get it a lot more. But
• 1:15:10
  it's like moving around.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: Well, so you're saying, whenever the whenever the yolks are
• 1:15:14
  kind of.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: Dancing its broken up? Yeah yeah, whenever they cut you
• 1:15:17
  know they're moving for me a little bit?
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: Why yeah? Okay, Well, guys, that's our episode. Thank you
• 1:15:26
  so much to our listeners here, especially crazy sons of
• 1:15:30
  bitches on audio platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. We
• 1:15:34
  appreciate you and giving us a nice rating there, and
• 1:15:36
  of course got a shout out to patrons. Thank you
• 1:15:38
  so much.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: And until the next week, guys, we will see you
• 1:15:41
  in the next one. Stay creeped, bye bye.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: See you in the next one. I can if someone
• 1:15:50
  gives me a thousand dollars, I'll convince Hunter to drink
• 1:15:53
  this lava lamp. I think I can probably make that
• 1:15:55
  happen again.