Armchair Anonymous: Church
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Danica Modkin. Nah, I can't. It's new and it's not working. Danica Monica. No. No, it was... Danamonica. Yeah, it was Danamonica. Yeah, fuck. We gotta scrap that one. The prompt for this one is, tell us a crazy church story. Mm-hmm. These were good. We got an array. We certainly did. You would think church stories would go a certain way and...

This one really spans the globe in a fun way. Churches can be wild. And it ends really sweetly. It ended really nicely. It truly did. I know. I remember being super touched at the end of that. I came inside and told everyone in the house that story. It was very sweet. Yeah. But there's some rough ones before that, so don't get too horny for the sweetness coming your way. Please enjoy Crazy Church Stories.

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Hi there. Is this Evie? Evie. It's my dog's name. Evie. That makes more sense than Evie. I have to go undercover for this. Okay, great. That's a good start. Where are you at? I also feel like I can't tell you that. Great. Because I don't want to give it away. I also considered doing an incognito voice. Oh, my. To go undercover, I was going to do, I used to work at a mega church. Because I'm human, they may.

All the robot was going to join us. How fun.

I used to work at a mega church. Oh my God. Because they're human, they make lots of mistakes. That was really good. But also I feel like the robot would get somehow like- Sucked into the mega church. For sure. Because it's where a good boy would go. It's where real boys go. Yeah. Okay. Well, with however many details you can give us, set up the stage for your crazy church story. Okay. So this was two years ago and I worked,

for an evangelical multi-site megachurch. So these productions every Sunday had insane production value. Full LED walls, lighting rigs, the fog, the band, pyro, everything, every single Sunday. Just like Righteous Gemstones? That show was a little too close to... Which is so upsetting because that show is so absurd that the fact that it's actually close to home is upsetting. That show is so amazing. But yeah.

So this Sunday was an extra big production. It wasn't Christmas. It wasn't Easter. But it's something that we celebrate every year. My job on this Sunday was to be in charge of having a whole bunch of kids join in the intermission show. So I was working under that site's stage manager. She said, have the kids go here, run through the audience, throw out some beach balls, go down on electric scooters with some E.T. stuff. Oh, my God. They're playing like Dua Lipa.

But at the end, we were all supposed to gather in front of the stage, lock arms and then like sway to the end of the song. And then at the very end, they were going to do this giant hit with all the kids cheering, the drum going crazy, the lights, the fog, the beach balls, everything. Really quick, were the kids going to rehearse at all or they would be pulled out of the audience and just expected to somehow know how to do all this?

The stage manager ran through it with me. And it was my job to just tell them when these kids showed up, I'm going to tell you when to go, but this is what you're going to do. No rehearsal. No, I was going to do it with them. So that would kind of help. They could watch me if they needed. And so our cue starts going. They start playing the Beatles song. And me and all the kids, we run out. We hit the beach balls.

And all the little kids line up in the front of the stage and we lock arms and we start swaying to the Beatles song. And it gets to the very end of the song. And then all of a sudden, I feel this really hard force hit the back of my head. And my hearing just kind of goes... I can feel my head start to get really hot. And I turn around and I just see confetti falling. I had been shot in the back of a head with a confetti cannon. Oh!

Oh, no. I'm like, a scaffolding fell on her. I know. The stage. Oh.

You were blasted with a confetti cannon. Yes, and that's exactly the language I used when I ran to the back of the auditorium. I didn't know what to say, so I was just yelling at my boss, holding my head. I got blasted! I got blasted! I can't hear anything! I got blasted! Of course, they're laughing because that's a ridiculous statement. But I was like, you know what? I can't hear anything. I got shot with a confetti cannon. Oh!

Oh, fuck. At a church. How did we end up here? Yeah, exactly. I know. I'm like 22, and you know, 22-year-olds, they're like, whatever, it's fine. I want to stay in the game. So I'm trying to act normal and do the rest of my job, but time just kind of started moving slower, and my head starts hurting and getting all red and bruised. And so at that point, I was like, maybe I have a concussion, whatever. Fuck.

God will save me. I'll just go into like a quiet room by myself in the dark and sit for a couple minutes. But as soon as I got in that room, the act was up. I called my dad and I was like, Dad, I got shot in the head. And it hurts. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Shot in the head.

I had a concussion, so my thought wasn't in my dad's best interest. This is worse than your injury, what you just did to your dad. I'm so sorry, dad. But I explained what happened. I feel bad laughing. What else can you do? I know. Yeah, so my dad was obviously very angry that I had been put in this position. It could have been one of the kids even. Might have ripped a kid's head off, a little one.

I know. He was like, you need to go to the emergency room and they actually need to check you out. And it was a rough like year after that, that I had symptoms from the concussion. Really? Like headaches and stuff? Yeah. Headaches and just stimuli sensitivity. I would get super bad migraines. But like the weird thing was that my car sickness was so bad. Oh, you almost had like vertigo or something. Yeah. And whiplash from getting shot.

I asked someone that works for a fireworks company near us what one of those shoots out. And they said it can shoot up to 1800 PSI out of those industrial confetti cannons. I mean, I was like a foot away from it right into the back of my head. Are you still affiliated with that church? No, no, no, no. Was your dad affiliated with the church? No. I could imagine being like, get out.

Get away from there. Get out of here and don't ever go back there. I do want to add a counterpoint, as much as I'm laughing at it. Also, it sounds really fun. Like this show you just described. That might be part of the problem. Yeah. When you're part of that church culture, it's a lot of codependency and being a good girl. And so it was hard for me to...

learn to advocate for myself and for my boundaries. And I would definitely listen to Taylor Swift to like hype me up. Hell yeah. But I did end up suing them. Oh, okay. All right, great. I like that.

I like that for you. Yeah, I do. They have a lot of money, those churches. They're sparing no expense on the pyrotechnics display. We now know that. That is true. That's probably a big hemorrhage on the final. Well, that was great. Wow. I'm going to promise you the first person I've ever met that this happens to you. It's exciting to do something original like that. Yeah. Well, lovely meeting you. Thanks for telling us that story. Yeah, nice to meet you guys too. Thank you guys so much. All right, take care. See ya.

We have so many young armchairs. I think it's like... You? It's me? I must be...

no, no. It's so endearing. I was in New York and I was walking down the street and this girl shouted at me across the street, ran over. She said she had the same birthday as me. And I was like, oh my God, happy belated birthday. How old did you just turn? And she said 23. Wow. I think I like deer in the headlights her. It's 2001. Ah,

It just felt really very, very young. Calvin's seven. He listens to the 20s. Wow. How old do you think our youngest actual listener is? Not their parents are playing it, but that they seek it out themselves. There's no parent involvement. They have it on their little iPad. Yeah. Boy, that's...

That's really quite hard to imagine. I think my kids are too young for it. Anytime there's an actual guest they think they might really like, I did it with Kiwi Kwan. And Lincoln just now can appreciate it. It's so boring. Talk radio. I would feel like at least 15. I just imagine a 10-year-old sitting at their dinner table with their parents like, what did you do today? And they're like, well, I took my A score.

I learned about it on Armchair Expert. The Gangs in India with Bill Gates. They don't know why they were invited. Still don't know. Here's Rick. Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick.

Oh, hello. Hello there. How's it going? Good. Are you Rick? I am Rick. Where are you at, Rick? In Milwaukee. What a place. Fucking Harley Davidson. Fuck yeah. The pride. You look a little Harley Davidson-esque. Sure. They would kick him out if he didn't. Yeah, I have to. I actually had one for like a week, and then I crashed it. I had to give it away. Oh, no. Oh, no.

That'll happen. Okay, so does your church story take place in Milwaukee? It does. Let's hear the year. What happened? Long time ago, around 88. I was like 13 years old, seventh grade. Went to St. Mary's because Italian family, very Catholic.

Oh, no.

Huge Bible is, sit right there on the podium, candle on each side, light it with the big stick, bell, light the first one, the wick's supposed to be flush with the bell. Come over, wick's about an inch out. Pause on the Bible. Ah!

That shit just burned right up. Oh my. This is such a cartoon. It's like a home alone. Totally. I'm a kid. I'm in panic mode. I'm like, shit, fuck, shit. She's laughing and swearing. She's laughing at my swearing. The whole church is like, oh my God, screaming. It's a Sunday mass. It is packed with old people. Oh no. Finally, it goes out.

A friend's dad who's in church comes up. I go in the priest chambers. The priest has no clue. He hasn't come out yet. They tell him. He just grabs a new Bible, acts like whatever. We go back out there as all the communion is getting given. I'm the crumb holder. So I'm holding that little glass pan when people get their communion. And as they come up, they look at me like I'm a demon. Everyone's fucking staring right in my eyes. My friend's parents, teachers, just staff, parents.

The priest tells my mom, I should bless your house after this because, you know, he burned the Bible. Oh, okay. My mom's like, all right, come over. So it's on a Friday. She decides for the priest to come over, leaves me home from school. He comes full white gown, looking like a Pope. He brings a little chalice, like a wand with a ball on the end with holy water in it. He blesses every room, living room or dining room, just splashing holy water, kitchen. What is going on?

What are humans doing? Yeah, exactly. I'm like, what the fuck? Also, the irony is that it's so close to witchcraft. They're so against it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So ritualistic. It's all the same thing. Yeah. You know, I'm a 13-year-old kid. It's like, well, okay, I made a mistake. Whatever, right? We are supported by BetterHelp. Spooky season has officially begun, and we love it. It's happening. Already planning the hayride. You are. Adding a hamburger truck to the mix this year. Oh my gosh, exciting.

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So, kids upstairs. Three bedrooms. We had a small house, but they're all kind of right next to each other. Older brother, we shared a room. He was going through his satanic phase. Yeah, D.O. D.O., yeah. So, he pops open our door. My mom didn't think he was going to go into any rooms and do this shit. My brother has an economic on his dresser. Wait, what's that? It's a satanic Bible. Oh, wow.

What a mixed household this is. We got a choir boy and a Satanist. Yeah, he was going through a stage. And then he had an inverted pentagram on his headboard, upside down cross. And at every corner of the wall, he had Leviathan, Lucifer, Satan, and Belial. All four demons that ruled hell. The priest cocked his hand back with the holy water, looked at my mom, looked at me. He just walked away.

Out of the house. Oh, my God. He's like, I would need a fucking bucket of this holy water to hose this place down. There wasn't enough holy water at all. Oh, that's so funny. He tells my parents I'm possessed. I need to see him three days a week. They don't try to kick you out of this school, though? Oh, they tried. If I didn't go see him three days a week, I would have to leave. Oh, my Lord. Ew, ew. Nope. Oh, then I have to see him three days a week.

It is creepy chambers, which is dark as hell. It's wild. So that passes. I couldn't do any altar boy stuff for a good six months. Finally, when I got the chance to again, me and my buddy went down there to do it in the chambers. We get everything ready, like the wine, the host, everything. Sounds like you're throwing a party. I know. I feel like you still wanted to do it after all this. I know. We pocket some of the host and drink some of the wine.

He don't know about any of this. Well, we bring it back into our classroom. We have rooftop desks throughout recess. We come back in. My teacher decided to look through all of our desks. He finds me and my buddy have just a shit ton of the host, the little wafers, all in our desks that we took. At that point, I am pure evil. They don't want me in the school anymore. My trip got canceled to Six Flags. Wow, wow, wow. Oh, my God.

What a crazy story. I just love that there's a Satanist in the house and an altar boy. That can't be beat. That's so 80s. That would never happen in the 90s. I just need a room with a Satan worshiper. Yeah. It was crazy. I mean, that's something else to just go like, I'm really sorry. You're going to have to sleep in this room. Your brother's older and he picks the decor. Yeah, exactly. It's a Satanist thing.

Oh, that's funny. Oh, boy. Well, that was great, Rick. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. You are welcome. Absolutely. Also, before we go, my wife, huge fan. Oh, would she like to say hi? Oh, she would love to say hi. Do you mind if I bring her in? Yes, make sure you give her your headphones so she can hear us.

Hi there. I'm so excited. I listen to you guys forever, every day. Shout out to my friend, Bobby Joe. Oh, that's so nice. Thank you. Nice to meet you. You too. Monica, I have to say, I loved that you translated

try to feijoa because i actually have a feijoa tattoo on my arm way yeah it's like homage to a trip to new zealand 10 years ago when i took my kids surfing there so i was very excited and i did enjoy it great taste well so nice to meet you please thank rick for us that was a great story yeah he's nuts okay take care

He was so unique. Yeah, that was funny. I couldn't tell. Who was our narrator? Is he a rascal? Right. It turns out he was a rascal. He wasn't a good boy. Her friend, Bobby Joe, such a Midwestern name. I know! And the way she said it, too. It was so, like, Fargo's. That was an older armchair. Rick. God, we span. Well, he and I were the exact same age. Seventh grade, 88. Old. Old.

Actually, probably valueless in the demographic. What's the demo? Two to six. Two to six years old. That's our full demographic. It's a nice drink. Matcha. We've traded because you got a coffee. I got a cappuccino. And I got a matcha.

That's a swap. You've been getting matches. Yeah. I've been up in these streets getting matches. And I've been getting cups of chinos. Well, I guess there's nothing new to observe here. It's all old news. Back to my internal ruminations. Hello. Hi. Hello. It is 1233 at night for me. Oh.

Oh, it is. Where are you? I'm in Moscow, Russia. No way. Okay, so what fake name should we give you? Whatever you choose. I think something really ironic. Ashley? Yeah, like a Southern name. Yeah, that's funny. Okay, so Ashley, you have...

A wild church story. And you're currently in Moscow, which is blowing my mind. For some reason, I didn't even know if this was possible currently. Listen, there's a lot of things that don't make sense about my life. So I just kind of go with the flow at this point. Should I just get into the story? Yeah, let's hear it. So it's not an actual church story. It's a monastery story. Ooh.

Oh, okay. That's acceptable. A little bit of background. My grandpa is a priest. My dad is very religious. My parents are very religious. They would send me to a lot of church camps during my youth. So this story takes place at a church camp in California. Oh. I grew up in California, which is why I listen to you guys and I speak English. Oh, wow.

What age did you come to California? I was born there. I moved to Moscow at 18. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. So this is a California church camp story. Didn't see that coming. Yeah. Exactly. It was my second time at this specific church camp. I had my kind of love of my life at the time. It was a very toxic cycle. So I would see him every six months.

I would just kind of get over him and then I'd see him again and the cycle would start again. That lasted for two and a half years. So I'm 16 at this church camp. It's like 110 degrees every day. You're wearing jeans, you're wearing t-shirts to do manual labor. At the time, it was me, my friend Elizabeth, my friend Sam, and my friend John.

So it was kind of a quadruple. So Elizabeth with John and then me with Sam. Second to last day, Elizabeth and John got together. They did their shenanigans. And then the next day, the word gets to us. So Sam, we're kind of hanging out in this hammock in this very peaceful place.

priests and monks are kind of among us. Are you canoodling? More or less. Yes. Wow. Right in public. Okay. At that point, there were no people around us, but people could walk in on us very, very easy. We're hanging out and he's like, we got to keep up.

And we start making out whatever. And then at one point he's like, let's go somewhere more secluded. And this is kind of in the more mountainy region of California where they have the old gold mines. So we go up to a gold mine. We start making out. And he's like, will you go down on me? Oh.

I'm like, sure, but it's my first time. Okay, you said that. That was brave. I'm glad you said it. Most people try to act like they've done it. That's what I would have done, yeah. I like to be quite open with those kinds of things. So we figure it out. Mind you, it's not even noon at this point. Wow, it's early morning delight, yeah. We finish our thing. We go have lunch among the priests, among the monks, as if nothing happened.

Next day is the last day when parents start picking us up and everything.

My dad comes to pick me up. I'm kind of saying bye to my friends. And then most of my friends leave at this point. And I keep texting my dad. I'm like, hey, where are you? What's up? What's happening? He doesn't respond. Another like half an hour goes by. I keep calling him. I keep texting him. Nothing. At that point, I get pissed because I'm like, hey, dad, what's up? Like he came here to pick me up. I'm 16. I'm angsty.

Another half hour goes by. I start getting worried. And then I see my dad coming out.

covered in dirt, covered in blood, covered in scratches, just looking miserable, frankly. I'm like, what happened? He likes to explore. He's been camping, just very outdoorsy guy. I'm terrified of where this story is going, but continue. You should be. He tells me, he's like, I want to explore.

That specific cave, the one that I was at the day before. No. And I'm going around looking with my flashlight. I don't notice that there is a hole in the floor. So he ends up falling through the floor. Oh.

He tells me it's like 10 seconds at least, but you know, time gets distorted. So he tells me, I'm falling through this old gold mine hole. Oh my God. And he's like, my life flashes in front of my eyes. And then eventually he lands in water. Thankfully. He's like, okay, if something happens, probably nobody will find him. And then eventually he,

He tells me, I see this one beam of light. If there's a beam of light, that means there's an exit. So after like a half an hour, after climbing through the rocks, he kind of gets out with minor scratches, minor injuries, gets back to me and just takes us home. But what that meant for me, I was punished by God for whatever I did the day before. Oh, no.

And that gave me trauma for about four years. So I couldn't give that to anybody else. You caused that. You just make yourself asexual for the next four years? Not asexual, but...

Still, it left an impact. The stories we tell ourselves. I thought your conclusion was going to be, wow, I could have fallen through the same area of the cave. I actually thought maybe your dad was going to find your underwear. I thought he was going to walk around the corner and see what was happening.

And then I don't know why he got bloody. Maybe he fought the young man. I had a lot of options on the table. But this is classic religious guilt that that was the takeaway. You were responsible. Yes. Everything's your fault because you're bad. Yeah.

didn't really stop me from doing other bad things. In my teenage years, of course, I kept doing all sorts of stuff. Yeah, and then you just feel guilty, and then you're in a cycle. Exactly. And the funniest part was that next year, I met up with that same boy, the same toxic cycle, the same everything. And he's like, do you want to repeat what we did last year?

I'm like, listen, dude, my dad nearly died last time. I'm not trying to kill him this time. Yeah. Wow. That explanation has not often been given. What? At the request of oral. Not too many people have heard. Well, the last time I did that, I almost killed my father. Yeah, exactly. Oh, right. Okay. Of course. Oh, well, Ashley, that was quite an interesting twisty. Lots of turns. Twisty, turvy. Yeah.

I mean, you can probably assume how the rest of my life went. I'm a California girl living in Moscow, Russia. So there's a lot of twists and turns. Yes, a lot of twists and turns. Well, I'm so glad we got to talk to you. This has been a first for us. And we love that you're listening. I've been listening for like two years. And once I got the email, I was just so happy. So thank you so much. Our pleasure. All right. Take care. Have a good day or night.

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I was tripping out sometimes. I got this fantastical in my head. I'm like, well, I constantly am talking out about Putin.

Constantly. Is this a, like... Oh, you thought it was an infiltration? Yeah, like somehow they just hooked to our computer. Oh, God. You know, I had some kind of fantastical thoughts about espionage. Well, I told you to not say that. Say what? Oh, Putin. Yeah. Well, I've done it on Kimmel, you know, right into the camera. Well, you've done it here a lot, and you say you want to fight him and stuff. I do. I understand by that. No, we'll cut.

i was like is she a double operative is she a single operative what's going on is she allowed to call someone on zoom in russia right now i was surprised by that like does that mean anyone can communicate out of russia with liberal media i mean that seems crazy yeah probably liberal media

Meaning minimally critical to Russia. Western media. Oh. I wouldn't have thought it would be that easy to call the Washington Post from Russia and describe what's going on. But clearly you could. And I guess how would they? How would they know? But they do track stuff there. Yeah, but there's VPNs and there's. Oh my God, I'm so scared. I'm scared for her now. Yeah. Oh no. I felt like, are we betraying the Ukrainians? Exactly. Not her.

My better angels was like, no, the people that live there. They didn't choose. A lot of them are against. We should have asked her if she was against Putin. And then said, then we can continue. Yeah. She can't even answer that question. God. Are you critical? What a fucking horrible situation. I also would not think you could listen to our show in Russia right now because he's trying to keep this narrative going that they're like defending themselves against Ukraine, which is such horseshit. No one agrees with that.

They couldn't let that info get in, could they? Are the people not even interested to look? Maybe we should do a prompt on that for next month. Call us if you're a double operative. Wait, no, we should do call us if you've ever been undercover.

But obviously they'll be anonymous, but that's good. I know, just what percentage of the country's been undercover and then the odds that they listen to the show. What do you mean? I bet a lot of ex-CIA and stuff listen. Are aren't serious? I just don't know how we would get a full episode out of that, but I'm happy to put the prompt out. You never know when it's going to be good. Kind of like a wildcard prompt. Yeah, wildcard plus if you've been undercover. I think you'd be surprised.

Well, I'd love to be. Let's do it. Get some, like, witness protection people. Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of people would qualify. Some reporters go to school and then they put on incognitos. Actors. No, not actors. Kevin Bacon went to that school in Utah to learn about Footloose. Ugh, I hate that movie. Uh-oh, cut that. Wait. You don't want Footloosers coming after you? I don't want him to hear this. You hate Footloose? Yeah, I don't like that movie. The original. Well, it's not the movie. I hate that song.

Okay. No, why? Oh, I just want, there's a lot of songs. No, the main one. Yeah, okay. I got you. Because another popular song from that movie was, I need a hero. Oh, yeah, I know. For the tractor scene. And he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be. You like that one though, right? It's fine. Yeah, it's fine.

I don't like it all that much either, but I don't dislike it. What happened just now? If it's infiltrated, it's already happened. Oh, there's no going back. Yeah. Oh my God. Whatever happened, happened. I hope she whispered some like messages at the end of it after she left. That activate. Stop you guys. They can hear us. All right. Here's Melissa. Oh man. Melissa's Ukrainian.

Hello. Hi. Oh, wonderful. We can hear you. You're in a closet. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Really, really good. We just had a real giggle before we signed on with you. Oh, I love that. Yeah, sometimes we get the giggles and it just happened. Do you mind if we ask where you're from? Do you want to guess? I love when you guys guess. Yeah, you're rarely asking this question. I was just wondering if you by chance were from Ukraine. Oh, that's okay. Okay.

Okay. No. Okay. Okay. All right. I'm not. I wouldn't have guessed that. That wouldn't have been my guess. Okay. What's your guess? Let's chat a little more. You're in this closet. It's yours, I presume. Yeah. It's very organized. It is mine. It's a very small closet. Okay. You're Midwest. You're not Southern. You're not East Coast. You're not. Wisconsin? No. Illinois. No. But I'm in Northern Kentucky. Oh.

Oh, right across from Cincy? Right across from good old Cincinnati. Okay, yes. Kentucky to me is the South. It is, but the first five miles of Northern Kentucky is really Cincinnati suburbs. So you would never think of Cincinnati as the South, right? No.

But then that bluegrass starts. Then the bluegrass starts. God's country, as they say. Although that's not where I'm from, and it's not where the story takes place. I'm from San Diego originally. Oh, nice. Very neutral. Right around the corner from us. Yes. Is that where the story takes place? It sure is. Oh, great. Let's hear it. The story takes place in San Diego, out

out of church, obviously. This is a church story. And we're going back to 1997. Okay, great. Fast math. Monica's 10, and I'm 22. Whoa.

That sounds weird. And I'm about 12. Okay. Right in the middle. Right in the middle, 12 years old. And my family lived about three houses away from our church growing up. So we were like very involved. We could walk there. My mom sang in the choir. So we knew lots of people and it was just like a really special, great community. So I was an altar server growing up. So I would help with the service and get everything ready and carry the book, all the things.

So one Sunday, I'm sitting kind of on the side of the congregation. And so I can see everybody and I can see everything. And I'm sure I'm daydreaming or thinking about something else. And I hear someone crying. It's not like a moved by the spirit kind of cry. It's like a sob. It's like someone's not well. And I kind of like look around and I'm checking it out. This is like not normal behavior either. So I look around, I see this really old man.

And he's sitting kind of in the front and he's sitting by himself and he's just sobbing. Oh, I hate this story. It starts sad. And gets sadder. We all go our merry way. We come back the next week. I'm there again. Same thing. Almost like same time, same channel.

sobbing again. So I'm like, something is not right with this poor man. Like, I'm not really sure what it is. So I go home. I remember talking to my mom. My little 12 year old heart is just broken for this poor guy. So anytime my mom would sense conflict or if we needed to express our feelings, she'd be like, why don't you just write a letter? So she's like, well, why don't you write him a letter and see what he says? So I write him this letter and I don't even know what like a 12 year old offers to like a 70 year old man. I don't remember what I put. I'm sure I put something like, Hey,

hey, I see you here every week and I see that you're really upset. If there's anything I can do for you, like I'll pray for you. So sweet. So I remember giving it to him the following week. He was there, same thing. I think I just like gave it to him, kind of like scurried away. I'm sure I was nervous. So then the following week, I see him again and he comes up to me after church and he's still crying. And he tells me that his wife died and she was the one who would typically go to church. And sometimes he'd go with her, but like not often.

And she loved it. So he felt like really close to her being there. And it was just like very emotional for him. And so we just became friends. I sort of adopted this old man. It's like an adopted grandparent. This is like a movie. This is like a sweet, sweet movie. And as we get to know each other, I learn how just distraught he is over the loss of his wife. And he would spend...

All of his days at the cemetery. He would sit there and I remember going with him one time to her gravesite after church one Sunday. We like went together and he was like listening to tapes of her voice in his car. Like he was just like so sad. So I remember he came to like my eighth grade graduation and we'd take him like cookies at Christmas. Oh my God.

When I would see him, I would sit with him. We sort of lost touch through high school, but I sent him a graduation announcement, all the things. We kind of keep in touch here and there. So then fast forward to 2011. I get home from work. Now I'm out of college, check the mail, and I have this big envelope in the mail from an attorney. And I'm like, this is weird. Oh, I fucking love where this is going. Me too, but don't say it. Okay. Okay.

So I open the letter and inside I learned that my friend had passed away. And the reason I learned that was because in his will, he left me $5,000. This is so sweet. It was really sweet. Yeah, it's overloaded. I was like so blown away. And I kind of vaguely remember that.

him saying like, I want to help you pay for college, but I was young and he was old and I didn't take him seriously or anything. So I was shocked. And I wrote another letter classic to his family because I was the only person not in his family, in his wills. They're probably like, who the hell is this girl? Sure. Like cause of family crisis. Who's this woman? Yeah.

So I like wrote them a card and just said, so sorry for your loss. I really loved getting to know your father. And when I saw the prompt, I was like, I want them to hear like a happy church story. Y'all had all kinds of crazy church stories. Yes. I love this. We needed this one. Yeah, we really did. We needed a palate cleanser. That's so sweet. Your parents must have been so proud. I got to tell you, my kids do things like that. Oh my God.

God, nothing makes me happier. Well, I had great parents and a great community. So takes a village, all the good people. Oh, what a pleasure meeting you, Melissa. That was really beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. That was lovely. Yeah. Thank you. And I just, I got to do my shout outs. I got to have my fangirl moment if that's okay. Of course. I want to shout out to my bestie, Kristen, who's my best friend, Erin Weekly. Everybody needs one. And I'm so grateful I have

mine. We chat about you guys all the time and all the umbrellas. I loved all the race to 35 to 270. Thank you. I love getting new perspective from you guys. And I think it's so important that we all hear from all kinds of people. And I just love what you guys do. I'm so grateful. And I feel like you guys are old friends. It's so crazy to talk to you. Well, right back at you sincerely, like the perspective you just gave is so valuable. It's not my perspective and it's so legitimate and valuable and beautiful.

And I like being reminded of it. Yeah, I just think it's so special. We always have dialogue with the same kinds of people. And I don't believe everything you guys believe and vice versa. But I learn so much. It challenges me in good ways and in hard ways. It's just special. I think we all need to do that more. Oh, my goodness. Awesome. Thank you. I love that compliment. That's a really good compliment. All right. Well, take care. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Oh, I love that. What a great way to end it.

That sad man. If Putin was coming for us and he heard that, he might change his mind. That might be how we got out of this situation. That's very optimistic. That's an optimistic take on a horrible dictator. What if this whole thing, we actually turned his heart? Then we would get our, what's the word I want to win? A Peabody. Jesus Christ. If we grinched Putin's heart, that'd be worth a Peabody. That'd be worth it. I want to stop talking about him. Okay. Okay.

Okay, that was love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? Or a theme song? Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, I rhyme-ish. On the fly, I rhyme-ish. Enjoy. Enjoy.

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In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her, and she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names, photos, addresses, and specific instructions for people's murders.

This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. And it turns out convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C True Crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening.