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SMNTY Classics: Delete Culture · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie. And Smitha. And welcome to Stuff
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio. And today
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we are bringing back a classic that is a fiction.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We love to do these fiction episodes that have sound
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: effects in them. We took a break for a while
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and hopefully we'll get back into it soon because we
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: love to do it. I don't know if there's any
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: particular reason you suggested this one, Samantha, or if you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: just were like the title.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I remember the story.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, I think we should do
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: this one. Okay. Well, I listened to it again last
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: night and I kind of was laughing at it because
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I was laughing at my intro and outro because I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: was definitely concealing some things in here. Number one. There
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: is a knocking trope. I frequently use a knocking trope
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: when I write fiction. This one in particular is inspired
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: by Doctor Who. I know exactly what I was thinking of.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: It was funny when I was listening to it. I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: was like, I can't believe you didn't tell them this
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: was Doctor Who inspired. But there is a plot line
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: in Doctor Who where it's like prophesied he'll die when
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: he hears four knocks. And when he finally hears the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: four knocks, it's really upsetting. So that is one thing.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Number two, Charmed. There's a Charmed reference in there that
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't say anything about. But the line, maybe we've
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: been here before, maybe we will be again, that is
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: from Charmed. I was not being completely upfront with some
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of this. That's okay. It's good to have inspirations. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And I know I said at the end of this
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: episode that sometimes you get those stories that are more vision,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: like you're trying to, it's like an idea. But actually
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: writing the story is difficult. And this one was one.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: So I'm not mad at myself. I was actually kind
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of surprised I didn't say anything. Normally, I'm very upfront
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: about this stuff. But yeah, it was fun to listen to,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and all of the sound effects, as always, were great.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm excited to bring these back. I'm glad you did. Yes. Well,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy it, too, listeners. Please enjoy. Hey,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: this is Annie. And Samantha. And welcome to Stuff Mom
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio. Wow, my voice
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: kind of gave out in that intro. Things to come.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: What? I'm just kidding.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: What? Please don't put a curse on my moneymaker.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Your moneymaker.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: My moneymaker. I love it. I love it. So this
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: brings us to another edition of Sminty Fiction. I have
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a little teaser for you all. We are at the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: end of my one-shots, which means... We're going to move
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: into a longer form, continuous one. What? Yes, which I'm
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: very excited and nervous about. It's kind of nervous putting
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: these things out there. But I am excited. I think
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it'll be great. As always, if this is not your deal,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: totally cool. We only do this once a month. It
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: won't hurt my feelings. If you're like, nope, not for me. Also,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: as always, Christina. Amazing. Thank you. These would not happen
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: without Christina.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: She brings it to life.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Love it. She does. She does. So Samantha and I
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: have a lot of stuff going on in our personal lives.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I know we've alluded to some. I know everybody does.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So this one might be a bit shorter because there's
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: some moving. There's some vacation, perhaps.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So a lot's going on right now. This
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: one might be a bit shorter. So this one is
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: interesting for a couple of reasons. We've talked before about
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: dreams and dreaming and how women, gender differences in dreams,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: but also how in the pandemic my experience has been.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: My dreams have become more vivid and more wild than
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: they ever have been. And as of late, I've noticed
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I have a lot more sleep paralysis happening where dreams
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: are happening with the sleep paralysis. And it's terrifying. It's
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: so scary. But I do get what I feel like,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and I know that's kind of a trope and people
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: make fun of it, really good ideas from my dreams. Hey,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: that's even better though. Yeah. There's been so many I've
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: written down where I just have like the title and
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the basics and they are in our like Svinti fiction
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: folder because I might come back to them. I had
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: one last night where Sebastian Stan tried to kill me.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Did you watch Fresh again? No, I didn't. I didn't.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: And then he became best friends. He was mad about
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: my Winter Soldier costume. And so I guess that was
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the grounds to kill me. And then he became best
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: friends with one of my best friends and I became
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: very jealous. But anyway, this story comes from that because
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: this is actually a really vivid dream that I had.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And my love of time travel horror. Do you have
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: any thoughts, opinions on time travel?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I love a good trope on time travel, for sure.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I like that whole perspective because I really lived wishing...
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: And again, this is very much me being a part
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: of white culture, not realizing how damaging it was. But
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: in the 1930s, 1940s, because I loved the old school musicals.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: So any of that, 1950s, really wanted to be a
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: part of that. Not realizing... as an Asian woman, I
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have done much. But, yeah, like, there are moments.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And then also because the unknown of way back when feels, like, interesting. Like,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: you can get some good stuff, like witchcraft and all
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: of that. Like, that is us today. And we know
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: good horror can be... But when we talk about the
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: witch and stuff like that, when it throws it back,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: it feels even more ominous.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And I also... I'm somebody who loves puzzles,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and I feel like a good time travel movie or story...
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I like trying to put together the pieces. And I
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: think there's a horror in thinking you can go back
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: and fix something and then it makes everything so much worse.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Even worse, yeah.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, so with all this in mind, let us get
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: into the fiction portion of this episode. When I was
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: 11 years old, a man knocked at my door. Four crisp,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: demanding knocks, and goosebumps broke out over my skin. The
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: hair on my arm stood up. He wore a long
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: black coat. His skin was pale, strikingly so. His eyes dark.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Had no hair. Cold permeated the room. The heavy kind
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of cold that froze everything in its tracks, that slowed
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: time itself. My mom, a small, petite woman, was swallowed
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: in his shadow. He smelled like vinegar. It was overwhelming.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: He looked out of place in our small apartment, a
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: specter looming in the doorway. They spoke in hushed tones,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: his voice a void. I watched out of the corner
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: of my eye from behind my couch. I thought he
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: might be a tax collector. or there to evict us.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: There was a seriousness about my mom's shoulders that reminded
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: me of how she held herself when she spoke with
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: the bank on the phone. She stepped back to let
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: him inside. The way he moved was unnatural, as though
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: he was gliding. They went into the small kitchen, my
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: mom taking a seat at the table as the man
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: stood in the corner. The harsh fluorescent light of the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: kitchen painted shadows on his face, obscuring his features. From
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: his jacket, he produced a piece of paper, sliding it
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: onto the table, followed by a pen. I watched my
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: mom as she read it, her head in her hand.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: He stood in silence, watching, waiting. My mother's shoulders slumped.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: She signed the paper. In the corner, the man smiled.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: A thin, garish smile in the light. Something shifted in
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the air. A shiver. I couldn't see his eyes, but
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I knew he was looking at me. He collected the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: paper with reverence, pocketing it in his long, black jacket.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: He murmured something, stepping out of the kitchen and into
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the dining room. My mom followed behind him, her arms
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: wrapped around her middle. For the first time, I looked
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: into his eyes. They were empty. Though I desperately wanted to,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I couldn't look away. Ten years from now, your life
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: is going to change, he said. The statement was flat. Lifeless.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: The moment passed. He showed himself out, walking out of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: our lives. I assumed forever. I hoped forever. I stared
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: at the door until my mom came and knelt in
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: front of me, blocking it from view. Happy birthday, sweetheart.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Over the years, I asked my mom about this incident,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: but she just got the same guarded smile with a
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: vague explanation about a mortgage before she changed the subject.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Not one birthday went by I didn't think about it.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: My 21st birthday and the life-changing promise loomed larger and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: larger the closer I got to it. That wasn't the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: only reason I could never forget that day. I saw him.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: The man. I saw him everywhere. Sometimes it was just
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a flash, a reflection in a window, in the TV.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Others it was more of a peeling, a pervading sense
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: of dread and cold, always accompanied by the strong smell
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of vinegar. Once I was in a movie theater and
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: this presence was so strong, I swore there was a
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: hand on my shoulder that I could feel his empty,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: vacuous smile next to my ear. I ran out of
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the theater. My friends made fun of me for it
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: for years. Sometimes I saw him, not a shadow, not
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a reflection, standing there, watching, smiling. I pretended I couldn't
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: see him until he went away, but he never truly
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: went away. I jerk awake in the middle of the night,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: convinced someone had been standing over me only moments before.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I only told one person about this, My best friend, Katie.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: We jokingly called the apparition Feingar. There are things you
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: don't question as a kid. We moved into a house,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: a big one. After so many years in a small
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: apartment worrying about money, it was the height of luxury.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: My mom became increasingly distant. It hurt, but her armor
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: was seemingly unyielding. Soon after the move, my friend Katie
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: bought a Ouija board over for a sleepover. With nervous anticipation,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: we laid it out, giggling, unsure what to do. We
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: asked it about boys, jerking away and laughing at the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: first signs of tentative movement, asking each other if the
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: other moved the cursor, and both vehemently denying it. Let's
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: talk to Vinegar, Katie asked, excited. To her, the specter
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: that followed me around was a source of morbid curiosity.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Where she felt excitement, I felt fear. I wanted to
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: know more about him too, though. And whatever he'd spoken
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: to my mom about. Whatever contract they signed that left
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: me with his shadow. Is Vyngar here? She asked. The
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: cursor stayed resolutely still. My friend tried again. For a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: long moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, surely, it slid across
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the board, the window coming to a stopover. Yes. We
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: both stared at it, then at each other, shaking our
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: heads at the silent question. Neither of us had moved it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: What do you want? Another pause. We waited with bated breath.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: The familiar cold settled heavy in the air. the faintest
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: sound of a whisper. The smell of vinegar. We read
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the letters aloud as the cursor skittered across the board. S-O-O-N.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: My stomach clenched with fear. Then, the cursor twitched, and
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: we both jerked away from it as it burned. It
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: began moving erratically on its own as we watched in
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: growing horror. With jerky movements, the indicator darted and halted
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: over a string of numbers. The date of my 21st birthday. Suddenly,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: he was right behind me. I knew if I turned around,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I'd see his too pale face and two empty black eyes.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I froze in terror, the cursor's movements growing even more frantic.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: My heart pounded against my ribcage, racing out of control. Panicked,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I threw the board against the wall. Silence descended, interrupted
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: only by my gasping breaths. Then, my friend laughed. Awesome,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: she declared it. I never used the Ouija board again.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: By the time I was 20, my mother and I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: may as well have been strangers. My impassioned fee for
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: her to talk to me, to look at me, was
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: met with silence. Her expression unmoved. The specter was an
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: almost constant now, a shadow I'd been forced to accept.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Dread saturated my life and I became a shadow of myself,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: a certainty taking stronger hold every day that I was
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: getting closer and closer to my execution. And then, scientists
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: announced that they'd discovered time travel. That they were working
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: on a machine and training their first travelers, as they
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: called them. Everything was about to change, they said. Jubilant,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: they set the date for the first voyage. The same
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: date as my 21st birthday. I was in my apartment
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: when I found out. My stomach dropped. I tried to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: swallow and couldn't. This couldn't be a coincidence. Could it?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: The news reported on their progress as the day ticked closer.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: They speculated about the date they'd go to, forward or back.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: I already knew what date they'd choose. Ten years earlier,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the same day the mysterious specter first knocked on my door.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: When my 21st birthday arrived, the entire world watched with
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: excitement as they powered up the machine, wires and coils whirring,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a steady hum filling the room as scientists gave updates
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: on the status of the machine. The travelers stepped in
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the glass case. Four men and women, excited, nervous, determined.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: A countdown blared. The humming intensified. Zero. A tearing sound
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: rent the air, one that you could feel in your bones.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: The travelers were screaming horrific, primal sounds as they were
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: ripped apart and reassembled, again and again until they seemingly
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: were shorn out of existence, the broadcast cut out. The
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: world ended that day. I'm not sure how long I
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: stared blankly ahead, waiting. There was a knock on my door.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Four sharp knocks. Dreamlike, I answered it. The man who
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: had haunted me for years stood there, fully corporeal, just
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: as he had a decade ago. Behind, where once the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: landscape had been verdant, it was now desolate. The sky
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: purple and angry, even though it was the middle of
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the day. Strange creatures, twisted, all teeth and claws and
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: tentacles snarling, shambling and galloping and screeching. The man smiled
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: that lipless smile. his eyes brighter than I'd ever seen them,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: some unidentifiable quality burning within. With purposeful movements, he reached
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crisply folded
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: piece of paper. He held it out to me. Shock
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: dictated my actions. I reached out and took it. When
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I unfolded it, certain words stuck out to me. Tethered. Fixed. Point.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: My mom's signature. The date of collection, today's date. You're
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: one of the travelers, I said as the fabric of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: reality was torn asunder behind him. He smiled. Images invaded
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: my head as he stared at me, sharing his memories,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: images of a cavernous darkness and screaming and pain of
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: being reputedly torn apart. Impossibilities and monsters and demons as
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: time lost meaning and reality collapsed in on itself. Gigantic creatures, roaring,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: evolving and unnatural, the answer to our summons, rushing into
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the tear we created. Watching, existing, aging, unending pain, loss
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of self, mutating. And then, arriving, finally, to the location
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: and time they'd sought after. No longer quite human. Aged
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and monstrous. Unable to return home. Furious. Ten years to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: wait seemed like nothing compared to the near eternity they'd
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: spent in a hellscape, exposed to so much horror as
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: the world was unmade. But they were unmoored from time,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: outside of it. Discordant. the contract was only meaningful and
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that the intent inherent in it provided a thread for
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a lost traveler to follow a guiding light my mother
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: signing that contract rang across the universe until it reached
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: its terminus a fixed point in a destabilized universe He'd
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: followed me, shifting in and out, a shadowy constant in
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: my life, tethered to me as I guided him back home.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: His energy manifesting in starts and stops as he grew
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: more powerful the closer we both arrived at our destined
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: meeting at the end of the world. And in return,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I was not unmade. As humans all around us screamed,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: transformed as their cells destabilized and reconstituted into twisting, mindless,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: pained creatures. What now? I asked. He smiled and held
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: out his hand. Haven't we been here before? Maybe we
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: will be again. And we're back. I hope you enjoyed
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that fiction bit. Okay, so a couple things on this one.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Like I said, this was based on a very vivid
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: dream that I had and my love of time travel.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So I believe I've talked about it before on the show,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: but Vinegar is a real thing. I hesitate at real,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: but it is something that I... believed that I saw
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: as a child. And I'm sure it was like the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: creepy child from a movie who can see ghosts that
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: they can't see or whatever. I am very, very confident
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: that I was just dealing with trauma. And also I
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: had a friend who would really prop up... We both
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: liked horror. We both liked these kinds of things. And
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: she would really prop that up. So I... would smell
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: this vinegar and I would see this figure. And my
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: friends knew. They knew about Weingar. And the Ouija board
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: incident is also true. And I just want to, you know,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: put out there, I love horror. I don't particularly believe
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: in ghosts or anything, but I don't dismiss that I
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: was going through something and it felt real at the time.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it did feel like something always hanging over
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: me and always watching me. And I, again, I think
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that was my trauma. But that was part of the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: inspiration of this story too. The title I got from, again,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I love these technological, applying these technological terms to these human,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: deep human experiences that we all go through is, Delete
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: culture is a term that refers to an idea that
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you can just post something and then delete it and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: it's gone, but it's never actually gone. And so this
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: idea in terms of contracts and time travel, I don't know.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I just really like the title. I do think it's interesting,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the idea of a parent selling the future of their child,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: knowing that in like a 10 years time in this case,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: their life is going to go terribly wrong. But in
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that 10 years, you're going to have your fame, your fortune,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. I find that really fascinating, especially
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: in our culture of... And this is broad generalization, but
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: in our culture of seeing, kind of like pushing kids
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: from a very young age to be Olympic athletes or
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: actors or whatever it is, the parents kind of making
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: this decision and then really pushing... And in the best
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: case scenario, that works out great for everybody. But it
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't always. It doesn't always. So that is one thing
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: that I've just been thinking about, I guess, on my mind.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And kind of that whole signing of a contract and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: not worrying, like, we're not going to worry about that now.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: We'll deal with that later. We'll find a way out
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of it. We'll find a way out of it. And
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: then you can't. And clearly I have a whole thing
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: about knocking and somebody being there that is mysterious. So
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I'm getting like vibes just thinking about it. But also,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to be real honest and admit this
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: because I bet some of you picked up on it.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I can't remember how it ended. The dream, I don't
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: remember how the dream ended. So I made up, like,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I remember all the stuff leading up to it, but
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: it's kind of without an ending. And it felt appropriate
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: for a time travel story.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, so those are my nightmares. When something doesn't end,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: like when something doesn't end in the movie, I need
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: an ending. I need closure, which is one of the
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: ways I prevent from being scared from a movie is
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I need to see an ending. So, ooh, that's even worse.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Right. No, it is. It's upsetting. There's no real ending.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: And I just wanted to put that out there. I'm
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: going to be real honest because I'm sure some of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: you were like, wait a minute. What? I'm not the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: only one that does it. There are plenty of movies
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that just sort of end. Oh, absolutely. So, as always,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed. And yeah, look out for more
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: interesting fiction content in the future. And, as always, too,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: if you have suggestions for something in the public domain
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: we could read, that would be awesome. So, Please send
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: those our way. Our email is stuffmediamomstuff at iheartmedia.com. You
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at MomStuffPodcast or on Instagram
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: at Stuff Mom Never Told You. Thanks as always to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: our super producer, Christine.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Making the magic happen.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Yes. And thanks to you for listening. Stuff Mom Never
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Told You is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.