Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
KIDS NEED HALLOWEEN, NOW MORE THAN EVER!
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Jaimee joins Ross to discuss whether traditional trick or treat is dying out. Tangents include: "Phrogging"; parents and vodka; black plants; gothic gardens; movie recommendations; "trunk or treat"; panic costumes; marsh mellow peanuts; Bride of Frankenstein costume; jail bathroom procedure; serial killer unemployment. This is a re-release that is one of our all-time favorites.
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
You know, another kid's like grabbing a paper bag, just oh, I'll be a guy with a bag over my head. Like, I don't know. You know, it's like we don't know. We're panic. It was actual panic. We're running around like just grabbing anything. I'll be someone with a rolling pin. Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and my guest today is a stellar human who is so ahead of the game. If she were a pinata, she would break herself open before a bunch of bat-wielding blindfolded kids could get to her goodies. It's Jamie! Hi, Ross. Welcome back! You have not been here for a while. Way too long. You know what you've been on? What? Hi, Adis. Well, you are exactly the person that I needed for this show because we know it's time for Halloween. And some humans really like Halloween. And in our now famous episode called You Blew Your Pumpkins from season one, we talked about the origins of Halloween and how it has changed over time, et cetera, et cetera. I recommend those of you who like hearing Halloween stories and how I fell off a bridge into a into a pool of water at a haunted house, you need to uh revisit You Blew Your Pumpkins from season one. I think we also re-released it in season two because the demand was so high.
SPEAKER_00It's so high. It's so hot right now.
SPEAKER_03But we couldn't do that again.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_03So we have to freshen it up. We know that Halloween for some people is a time for dressing up, getting their candy on, but things may be changing with the Halloween tradition, at least in this country. And I want to talk specifically about whether the trick or treating ritual is dying out. No. But first, Jamie, I know a secret about you. It's not really a secret. You like Halloween.
SPEAKER_00I don't like Halloween. I love Halloween. Yeah. I'm obsessed with Halloween. It's my favorite thing ever.
SPEAKER_03Do you understand what makes it so important to you? What gives you so much enjoyment?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think a lot of things. Um when I was a kid, um my dad uh my dad was obsessed with Halloween. My dad loves scary movies.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, and so we would always watch like the kind of like the classic uh Dracula, you know, uh with uh Bella Legosi. Right, you know, uh classic Wolfman, all those kind of movies. Um and my dad loved Halloween so much that we weren't allowed to buy store-bought Halloween costumes, like the pre-made ones. We had to we spent weeks putting together like sewing and um yeah, putting together our costumes, and it was so fun to do it with my dad. Um and just how much he liked it was like uh infectious, you know. And uh I've just been like that ever since. I love anything costume related, I love scary things, I love Halloween.
SPEAKER_03So, yes, and you I have seen you in various costumes over the years. You go full out.
SPEAKER_00I don't half ass. I full ass Halloween. Full ass.
SPEAKER_03You full ass.
SPEAKER_00I full ass just costumes.
SPEAKER_03Echo that. And you uh commit to the process. So when you dress up, you are and you like costume parties, anything, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You don't need to I literally painted myself blue from head to toe for Comic Con. Yeah. So yes, I fully commit. I love it. It's so much fun putting it together and then like seeing how it comes out at the end. It's great.
SPEAKER_03Now, I just drove by your house. You did.
SPEAKER_00And were you scared?
SPEAKER_03Well, I was scared. There were a lot of decorations out there for Halloween. Uh I've got a couple of questions. Okay. Shoot. Number one is you know, when you decorate your house like that, you're gonna get kids potentially walking up there. Do you do you want those kids around?
SPEAKER_00I I am really so this is the first year we've owned our house for Halloween.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We just bought it. I'm so excited. It's in a neighborhood, and if I don't get trigger treaters, I'm gonna be devastated. I want to see those kids in their costumes. I don't want kids myself, but I love I like kids and I like seeing all the little costumes, and I'll be uh really bummed if we don't get trigger-treaters.
SPEAKER_03So you like kids as long as they stay away from me. It's like going to the zoo.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You like looking at the lions.
SPEAKER_00But you know, be be be in your kid. Yeah, exactly. The second the first leaf hit the ground, I was like, it's time to put up the Halloween decorations.
SPEAKER_03It's good that you're excited and it's and it's really fun to decorate. I also really always enjoyed. I live in a building now and I don't get any trick or treaters back in the day when I was living in a house. It was so fun to do all the decorations. And you know, you just play with different things. And one year I really enjoyed uh dressing up as like one of those little scary dummies you can buy. And I would sit in a chair.
SPEAKER_00Like a ventriloquist dummy?
SPEAKER_03No, no, not like a ventriloquist dummy, like a big, like stuffed like a mannequin? Yeah, like a mannequin type thing. I can't remember exactly. It was a while ago, but but I dressed up as some kind of person, but it doesn't look real. Right. And you know, you these people have these on the around their house. They have things hanging in the trees.
SPEAKER_01I get you. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So I'm sitting there, you know, looking stuffed, and then when the kids would get up to the door, then I would spook them. Spook them, and they whoa was fun. I love that. It's fun. You know, some kids, you know, died from fright.
SPEAKER_00Right. And that so you did it correctly.
SPEAKER_03I did it right. Good job. And you just roll them into the woods. Right.
SPEAKER_00You add them to your Halloween decor.
SPEAKER_03It's just All right, you're gonna be here. I need a taxidermist and a bottle of scotch. Um yeah, so I really, I really got into it too. I really loved it. It was I used to tell people it was my favorite. It's not really a holiday, but I always treated it like a holiday. And I enjoyed it as a kid, but I also enjoyed it as an adult, preparing it for kids and you know, having my own kids sort of uh take them under my wing and show them how it's done. Yeah. This is how you do it, this is how you hit a house. This, you know, this is how you know it's a good house or it's a dud. Yes. This is where you get the good candy, this is how you know full-size candy bars, all the stuff.
SPEAKER_00So go to the house that hands out pennies.
SPEAKER_03Now, you know, my oldest kid was never really keen on being an aggressive trick or treater.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_03When when they got like a couple of pieces of candy, they're good for the night.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And be like, come on, run, run, run. This is a challenge. We have to get more houses. It's all about quantity. We've got to have so much candy. And they're like, uh, I'm good. Can I take off this really hot raccoon costume? I've got a really hot raccoon costume on right now, and I've turned into a ball of sweat, and I need to stop. Yeah. You've only got three Starburst. You can't call that a night. So maybe I was a little bit too much. Right. But it was really, really fun, and I really, really enjoyed it. The other question I had about your house. Yes. So you don't have you don't have any grass. I just saw a black.
SPEAKER_00I did. I kill I I killed my grass.
SPEAKER_03You have blackout.
SPEAKER_00I have black mulch down.
SPEAKER_03And what is your plan for the once the Halloween's over?
SPEAKER_00I am I'm a spooky person, Ross. I'm making a gothic garden in my front yard, and it's gonna be so cool.
SPEAKER_03What does that mean, a gothic garden?
SPEAKER_00So a gothic garden has so right now I just laid down black mulch, which is exactly what you're picturing. It's just super dark.
SPEAKER_03It's super black, and there's like gravestone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's tombstones. Which might come down, might they might stay up. I don't know. We haven't decided yet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, could be year-round.
SPEAKER_00Could be. Um, but so I'll have like all black plants, um, which can mean they have black leaves or like a colorful flower on them.
SPEAKER_03Wait, what's a black plant?
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of plants that have um like black foliage, black leaves, really black petals, yeah. In the real world? In the real world, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You can get black plants.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's gonna be cool.
SPEAKER_03Your neighbor come back next year. Your neighbor. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_00You know what's funny about my neighbors though? Um I so I was laying down my black mulch in the front yard. Did you bury one of your neighbors? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, I was laying down my black mulch in the front yard, and my neighbor came out, and they're kind of like uh bizarro us. No, they're super cool. I really like her. Uh it's this gal and her um husband, and I she was asking me, Oh, what are you doing to the front yard? And I was like, I'm making a gothic garden. She said, I have a gothic garden in my backyard.
SPEAKER_03Oh no.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we're like kind of like mirror images of each other. I'm like, Barbara, she's a hairstylist. Hers is in the backyard, mine's in the front yard. Yeah, it's cool.
SPEAKER_03Switched.
SPEAKER_00So we're gonna swap plants. It's gonna be cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You found yourself.
SPEAKER_00I found my people. And she said to me the first day we moved in, she was like, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that we really go all out for Halloween. So uh hope you don't mind that we put up a bunch of decorations. Oh my god. Oh my god, this is amazing. You were so happy totally. I thought when I put out my Halloween decorations, uh, that that would be like the cue for the rest of the neighbors to put theirs out, also. But uh nobody's followed suit quite yet. They might be October 1st purists.
SPEAKER_03That kind of is what I want to talk about. What has happened? This beautiful, I will call it a pseudo holiday. It I I liked it almost more than any other holiday. Like Thanksgiving is kind of a dopey holiday.
SPEAKER_00It's just food.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and a lot of times it's turkey.
SPEAKER_00All the time.
SPEAKER_03And a lot of people overcook the turkey. Right. So now you're sucking on some dry turkey, you're looking around at a crowd of people around the table, half the people you don't even like that much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You got a weird uncle, he's drooling, he's choking on a bone.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03You know, Halloween is awesome. Awesome. All of it awesome. Yeah. But I'm afraid we might be losing the spirit of this whole Halloween thing. Right.
SPEAKER_00I'm trying to bring it back. Well, let me ask at least in my little neighborhood.
SPEAKER_03So I I really don't want to sound old man here, but I know I'm gonna sound old man. But it used to be for me, we'd be turned loose on the neighborhood with no restrictions.
SPEAKER_00No restrictions.
SPEAKER_03And no parents.
SPEAKER_00You stay out until people turn their lights off. That was our rule always. You got it. If the lights start going off, then you go home. Yeah. Nobody's watching you.
SPEAKER_03If you see the sunrise, you better get home. So kids turned loose, no parents. I mean, I'm sure there was a parent or two here and there. I don't remember seeing any because you know, we're going back a lot of years now when I was roaming around as a kid, and most parents just didn't care if you came home or not. It's just like just go for it.
SPEAKER_00We got other ones.
SPEAKER_03Go out into the dark with some crummy mask on you can't see, and maybe you'll fall down a well, and we'll call it a you know, we'll call it a day. But so the idea of just being out, encountering other strange kids that you don't know, and just like going up to houses and you didn't know like who's gonna answer, and is it gonna be weird? Because sometimes the people would answer would be surprised that it's Halloween. I don't remember. Let me look at my calendar. And it was just so fun as a kid just like, what's wrong with this person? Why are they so weird? Or the you know they were in the house, you know, but they were hiding, uh-huh. So then you'd start creeping around and banging on the windows. Come out! We need candy, and as a kid, it's just so fun. It's always so fun to be out at night, yeah, dressed up with the opportunity to get candy, which to me is like the least important part of it, but it's just fun, it's a fun part of it. And you're not supervised, so you have this sense of independence and freedom and adventure. Yeah. It's such an exciting thing for a kid. Totally. When you I'm not trying to make you into an old woman because you're far from that. Although you are a homeowner with a gothic garden.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So you're on your way to the old witch status.
SPEAKER_03Being a cat woman.
SPEAKER_00Which is the goal. Actually, you know what's funny about that is there's these two black neighborhood cats, the two black cats that run around the neighborhood, and they're like obsessed with me.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_00And you buried them in your yard? Yeah, they come out to my black garden with my black fingernails, and I give them scritches.
SPEAKER_03You do have black fingernails. That's pretty cool. I just noticed them. They're black and they're long. Yeah. Scary.
SPEAKER_00Scary, witchy.
SPEAKER_03They're witchy nails. Fast forward 30 years. Yes. Open the door. Hello, children.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I want to be like, you know, Helena Bonham Carter on Big Fish, where she's got like the milky eye that sees the future. The milky eye. That's the goal.
SPEAKER_03Why don't you come in?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, with the eye patch.
SPEAKER_03For some treats.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna be amazing.
SPEAKER_03I don't know. My mother said we're not allowed to come in. Oh, did she? Well, bring your mother in too. Yeah, I can see that happening for you. I would love that. Okay, but when you were a kid, I know you were in Utah. Yes. I know you were a Mormon. Yes. So I'm wondering, did you get to do anything like that?
SPEAKER_00Yes. My dad was such a fan, and at that point, my parents, like my biological parents, got divorced when I was three. So, and my my dad stopped going to church, you know, and and so he would want to he would encourage us to do like the scary costumes, not like the cute we couldn't be like a a little kitten or something, you know. Like I was, I think I was in like third or fourth grade, and I was the bride of Frankenstein, and my dad made this big like cardboard tube uh wig and glued like fur with the lightning bolt on the side. That would probably I need to find some pictures and send them to you.
SPEAKER_03That part was played by none other than Elsa Lanchester, who is a great actress. Okay. But I think that was one of her early roles with that tall big hair.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that big hair.
SPEAKER_03And um, I'm pretty sure that's where they got the idea for uh Marge Simpson.
SPEAKER_00I think so. Yeah, and Marge is uh the bride of Frankenstein, or uh yeah, bride of Frankenstein in one of the episodes. She has the black hair with the case.
SPEAKER_03Yes, you would know that. You are an expert. I am a so you're this Mormon kid walking around Utah. What city? You were out in the Sandy. Sandy, Utah, walking around, bride of Frankenstein hair, and you'd show up at other Mormons' houses, and what would happen?
SPEAKER_00Uh were they giving out candy to the Mormons? Like, totally. Yeah, the Mormons, except for if it was on a Sunday, they would move it to a different day because we couldn't go trick-or-treating on a Sunday. I hate that. I hate so much.
SPEAKER_03Well, here's the thing. So one time, so back in the day when you used to kids would be turned loose, so we have to go back, way back, dinosaurs, all that stuff. Okay, so dinosaurs also be trick-or-treating with meat. Right. Which was interesting. Because a lot of those T-Rexes cannot handle their bags. Right. But anyway, how would you reach it out?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I watch Kandy.
SPEAKER_03So, um, what was I saying? So it was one of those weird things. Yeah. And it never happened when I was a kid, but it happened this one time where it was like fell on a Sunday, and there was like in the in the place where I lived, I guess there was some confusion as are we gonna do it on Sunday? Are we gonna do it on Saturday? Are we gonna do it on Monday? Where how are we gonna do this? Yeah, and it wasn't because of religious reasons, it was for whatever reasons. It was just a bad idea. Yeah. And so we are assuming it's gonna be on some different day, and we're sitting around watching TV or whatever we're doing, and all of a sudden my mom comes down. We used to always hang out in the basement because that's where kids belong. Right. We had a lot of kids, as I know, and parent, my parents didn't want us on the main floors or as little time as possible. So we lived in in the basement, as you know, you also your situation was a little different because that you were locked down there, but that's a whole different thing. We've talked about that before. So your own little scary movie, and I'm waiting, you know, I'm waiting for the book to come out. Right. So we're down there, my mom shows up, she goes, Oh, I guess like we're trick-or-treating after all, you know. So Sunday? Yeah, or whatever day. We weren't expecting it. What we just thought it was gonna be like the next day. Yeah. So we're not even like primed up, and we go, it's already dark. So we're like, what is happening? Yeah, it's a horrible feeling. It's like, you know, like my plane's leaving now, is that kind of feeling. So we're wanting we don't even have our costumes, so we're just grabbing anything. I remember like grabbing, like, you know, little cowboy stuff. Like, I'll be a cowboy, you know. It's just like panic costumes. Yeah, you know, another kid's like grabbing a paper bag, just like, oh, I'll be a guy with a bag over my head. Like, I don't know. You know, it's like we don't know. We're panic. It was actual panic. We're running around like just grabbing anything. I'll be someone with a rolling pin. So so we go out there, but because everyone's confused, most people are not prepared to give out any candy. Right. And literally, we'd go up to door, the the the door of the house, you know, and knock, and it'd be all dark, and some grumpy person, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00They're like, here's a clove of garlic.
SPEAKER_03Hey, would you like to roll in my gothic garden? If you know what I mean. Yeah, it was really the worst Halloween because we we didn't like what our costumes were because they were just busted.
SPEAKER_00Slapped together.
SPEAKER_03It sucked. And nobody was ready for it. Yeah, nobody was prepared. So, going back to you.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03So you're in Utah, Sandy, Utah.
SPEAKER_00Sandy, Utah.
SPEAKER_03You're dressing up, you're hitting the houses, and you're getting candy. Yeah. Did you now given the fact that you your dad was such a big fan? Yes. Did he accompany you as you made your rounds? Um or did you get turned loose?
SPEAKER_00To a certain point when we were really young, he would take us around. And he would always dress up, by the way. I assume always he would dress up with us, and I have some hilarious pictures that I will find and post on our Instagram.
SPEAKER_03Please, that would be so fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Check us out on Instagram, by the way. You can join us there. You can message us, you can uh ask us questions, you can tell Jamie what you think of her Halloween pictures.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But anyway, so he would.
SPEAKER_00So to a certain point, he would uh realize when we were really little. But I think I don't know, how old would you be when you're 10, maybe, when you're able to go out by yourself?
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say three years old.
SPEAKER_00If you're walking and you got long pants, get out of the house and go get some candy. Right. I definitely remember walking around the neighborhood, and we were always the last kids to come back home because we were like you, where we were like, okay, we have to make we have to get enough candy to last us until next Halloween. Oh, yeah. So we have to hit every single possible house that there is. Yeah. And we would go too late where we would knock on the last house and they'd be like, you guys, go home. It's 10 o'clock.
SPEAKER_03I was I I've I like candy at least like anybody else, but I don't have a candy problem. I'm not like totally into candy like some people, and if you're into it, that's cool. Enjoy yourself and uh good luck with the uh diabetes. Yes. I loved coming home after really working the neighborhoods. And I know if you didn't grow up in a suburb and you had to do buildings or you didn't do trick-or-treating, I feel sorry for you because very sorry for you. If you had any kind of neighborhood and you worked a neighborhood and you came home with a ton, and then I loved dumping it all out. Yes, and then sorting it into A, B, C, D, and did you like trade it with your siblings too? Not usually because when you grow up in a big family, there's no sharing or trading. I know a lot of kids did that, trading and what have you. But I like sorting it into piles the good, the bad, the ugly, you know, the the nice candy bars, the kind of medium candy, which you don't really care about, but it's better. And then you what'd you say?
SPEAKER_00The circus peanuts.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, you get to that circus and that marshmallow crab.
SPEAKER_00There's like the those uh peanut butter things too. What are those peanut butter things of
SPEAKER_03If you want your house trashed on Halloween, why don't you just give out some of those marshmallow peanuts? Yeah. If you don't like where you live and you want your house burned to the ground, just put a big stack of marshmallow peanuts on your porch. Anyway, I don't like them. Do you get the idea? Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, those ones go in the garbage pile. I mean, desperation pile.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you put them in your pillowcase for that weird, you know. Yeah. You're in December, it's cold, it's dark, you're you're feeling depressed about Christmas not going well.
SPEAKER_00You need to eat something.
SPEAKER_03Your Hanukkah was a bust. Yeah. Your Kanza sucked, and you dig into your pillowcase, and there's some of those marshmallow peanuts. Because they never go bad.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_03They they're like Twinkies. They're good forever. They they they still sell Twinkies. They're made in Mexico now or something. They they they they say, but you know, they're the same Twinkies they made 50 years ago. They just never go bad. They were just in a warehouse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They're still selling them. People are like, these Twinkies taste just like they always did.
SPEAKER_01Well, they're the same ones.
SPEAKER_03They're 50 years old. It's like you could take these into space and stick it in a Martian's butt and it would still taste the same. Maybe better. So I took both my children out every year, but by the time they got older, my youngest daughter was really too old for trick-or-treating. So there used to be a trick-or-treating sort of festival in this town. This is when I lived uh in a uh more of a rural setting out in Virginia. And so they had this town, and all the kids and their parents would gather and be like just excitedly checking out everyone's costumes. And then after whatever, I don't know what would happen, but after like 30 minutes would go by, then there'd be a parade of kids and they'd hit the neighborhood. Yeah. Usually accompanied by their parents. But my daughter was too old that she's like 13, maybe 14. She's not going trick streeting. But we still showed up for this thing. And I dressed up, I have this uh oh, I wish I brought a picture of it, but I would dress in this long black trench coat, black pants, black shoes, all in black. Um, I would black out my face and put on this pretty creepy skeleton mask. And a skeleton mask doesn't sound scary, but it was a scary one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03When your face, especially your eye, eye sockets are blacked out, then it's really it looks really strange. I would wear this like kind of scary kind of hat. So I just look like a strange person. And she would have a rope that was tied around me. So I'm tired, she's holding me by a rope. And then I I every once so I'd be walking around sort of herky jerky. Yeah. And every once in a while I would break free from her grasp.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03And she'd be like, come back, come back, and I'd go running off and towards some kids, and then the kids would be like, ah!
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But they kind of liked it because kids like being scared.
SPEAKER_01Totally.
SPEAKER_03The moms thought it was pretty cool. Uh-huh. Like the moms kind of dug it. I don't know why. Something up. I mean, you tell me uh why a mom would dig a scary dude in a costume and a skull mask kind of lurching around. It's the mystery.
SPEAKER_00What's under there?
SPEAKER_03What's under there? Yeah. Hopefully it's mulch. I likes me some mulch. So um. So who was really freaked out? Who was the most freaked out in this situation? With me lurching around, lunging after children. I never grabbed them or anything. Right. Lunging, and then my daughter would come running up and grab the rope. Come on, no, no, and try to pull me back. So the little kids thought that was really fun. The moms were thought it was mysterious. Yeah. Hey. So sexy and mysterious. Maybe. And who was freaked out? The dads.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03The poor dads. Right. You could see it in their face because I would just come up to them lurching, and they'd be like, because you know, as a dad, in the old days, dads would be like, and maybe still now, dads are like, okay, is this something I gotta deal with?
unknownYeah, right.
SPEAKER_03Because if somebody has to deal with it, it's probably gonna be me. Yeah. And even if I can't deal with it, people are still gonna say, Why didn't you deal with it? Right. Like, even if you like hide behind your wife, like I would if I were married, I'd be like, but you take care of me. Yeah, I got your back. Literally, I'm gonna be back here. You'd still feel you'd be embarrassed later when the story was told. There's a great movie, by the way. Oh, you gotta watch this movie. It's not scary. It's called Force Major. Okay. It's foreign, you have to read subtitles. Doesn't matter. It's just it's based on uh the the man in a family who kind of does that. He kind of he bails on a scary situation, and then the rest of it's all about can't live it down. Yeah, but he tries to, tries to pretend it didn't happen, or you're just seeing it a different way. Force majeure, super good. I think it's on Netflix. Yeah, the dads, because they're like, oh no, I'm gonna oh yeah, is this guy really crazy? Right. It's no fun being a dad. Yeah, like and it's really like, do I am I gonna have to do something? Yeah, and I just feel like, yeah, it's just different energy for them where the moms are like, I know this is fun and maybe a little mystery. And the kids are yeah, fun is fun, they're just having fun. They can tell it's fun. Like kids, they weren't I never did anything to scare. Like they were just they knew it was just fun time. Like the whole experience was fun. They're too young to know when they should be scared. That's why so many kids disappear.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00You're that's just reminded me, uh, I hadn't thought about this in a long time, but m my dad, when we were kids, my dad uh we would play this game called Frankenstein in the graveyard. I like it already. And it was basically hide and seek. Uh, we would like go to a park and we would hide somewhere, and then my dad would pretend to be Frankenstein, like he'd have his arms out and he'd do the you know, like the groans, and he would try to find us, but as Frankenstein. I know I got it. So it's a hidden gem memory that I had totally forgotten about. Yeah, it was really fun. My dad was such a character.
SPEAKER_03In the episode, I talked about how I used to late in later years, then I would set up a very elaborate Halloween house and I would have kids come in. Yeah, and I would be hiding in the house in that same costume and only appear after they were inside.
SPEAKER_00Well, you couldn't do that nowadays.
SPEAKER_03No, no, not if you want to go to prison, unless you like having a bunk mate. Unless you like go into the bathroom in front of everyone, which I don't. No. That to me, people I saw the all the all the jokes about the worst part of prison. The worst part of prison for me is that I gotta go to the bathroom in front of everyone. Totally.
SPEAKER_00I even I lock the door when when I'm home alone in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, lock the door, pad lock. Nobody walking in there. Yeah. Put on some nice music, you know, bring in a big magazine, maybe a crossword puzzle, stuffed animal for comfort. The the foot massage machine, you know, that you dip your foot.
SPEAKER_00Plus, I don't think there's toilet seats in prison. They're just like a metal rim.
SPEAKER_03Those metal rims are cold. Yeah. They are cold. No, it's bad. No, thank you. It's bad.
SPEAKER_00That's why that's the only reason I'm not in prison. Yeah. That's just prison toilets.
SPEAKER_03There's nothing worse. I mean, it's enough already, and then it's cold to sit down. Right. So, you know, and you're probably used to hovering, you know, but I don't I don't know how to do that. I feel I don't have the quads for that. Can't do it. All right. So here's the deal. I've been I've been reading because I have been out of the trick-or-treat game for a while because I live in a building. Right. I've lived in a building for a number of years now, and as I mentioned earlier, nobody is coming up in an elevator into a building to see what happens to them. Yeah. Because everybody's into true crime now, and they know that you're automatically killed.
SPEAKER_00You will get murdered.
SPEAKER_03You will get murdered if you go into a strange building and start wandering around, especially my building. So what's happening is it's trick-or-treating is on the decline. The old-fashioned turn kids loose, get them in a Bride of Frankenstein costume, cover them with gothic mulch, and send them into the neighborhood, and then they come back or not with bags of candy. Those days are apparently are slipping away from us. What's going on? Well, what's going on is that kids still go out, sort of, but they might go to like a church thing or a business thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's like designated neighborhoods now, I think.
SPEAKER_03That's another thing people do.
SPEAKER_00And then the mall. Sometimes the stores in the mall do candy. And then there's the trunk or treat.
SPEAKER_03I just read about the trunk or treat. Yeah. And what the trunker treat is is so much.
SPEAKER_00Tell me what you need to do. It's like like a bunch of families, they and I think that's probably like at a like a church or a school parking lot or something like that. And you have the candy in your trunk, and the kids go car to car and get a piece of candy. Yeah, so you put candy in your trunk. It's bullshit and I hate it. It's I you know, I feel You should have to walk all the way to the next door else. That's part of the whole thing.
SPEAKER_03Don't even get me started.
SPEAKER_00There's no So you're walking ten feet to the next trunk.
SPEAKER_03There's no effort in it, and there's no chance you're gonna get a dud house. There's no chance there's gonna be a creepy person because everybody's like the thrill is gone. There's parents everywhere. If you want to ruin it, you remember Facebook being cool a long time ago, and then your parents got on it? Right. Parents kill all the fun.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03And so here this is parent heavy. You know they're getting drunk. That's the only reason they're out there. Yeah. They're like, oh yeah, let's do a trunk thing. They are getting liquored up off their ass. That's the thing about parents. Like, oh, we're gonna do a nice safe community event. In the meantime, they're pounding vodkas.
SPEAKER_00I mean, if I was taking my kid uh actual trigger treating, I would probably bring like a boozy cider with me, like a hot cider with booze in it, right? You gotta walk house to house.
SPEAKER_03You're pounding boozy ciders, you get home with your kid from trunk day, and then you know it's not even your kid because you're so tanked. What kid who you look actually kind of a good-looking kid. What what did what do they call you at home? X65? Well, you're now in this family. So, yeah, so there's the there's the controlled controlled situations at schools or malls or churches or other sorts of business things, and then there's the trunk thing, and then there's the designated neighborhoods where there's enough people like you who are like, let's make this a candy hot place.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So with technology, you know, kids drop pins, this is where you go. People come, they have their parents drive them to these hot neighborhoods. Yeah. So they don't go around their own place because it's janky and nobody's giving out candy anymore. So they go to these places that have like there's like a block or two of houses where you know it's kind of just like a trunk thing, except it's a house. Right. It's like you know that's guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00It's guaranteed to get it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it's guaranteed to be, and this is the most important thing for parents, even though they're pounding vodkas and you know, in the backseat of their Volvo getting some action during this whole thing. I may be embellishing a bit, but they are pounding liquor. I'm telling you, no parent, if there's a parent out there at a trunk thing, they are getting not sober. They're getting hammered off their ass.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03That's a fact. Okay. So can we just stick to the facts here? I think it's important because a lot of people listen to the show for factual information. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So what we're known for.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say something, but I don't know what it was about this whole scene. But I feel really sorry. Not for the parents, because they're actually having fun.
SPEAKER_00They won't remember anyway.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they're self-medicating out the wazoo. Like any reason they can self-medicate little alcohol or whatever they got, you know, in their uh glove glove glove compartment? Is that what it's called? They still have glove compartments. When's the last time you pound gloves in a glove compartment?
SPEAKER_00You don't have a car.
SPEAKER_03You have a garage now, though.
SPEAKER_00I do, I do have a garage. Don't tell anybody that my garage has electricity because I just watched that Frogger's show about people living in your crawl spaces and your attics.
SPEAKER_03I could only watch one episode. I watched the very first episode. Thinking someone was living in your No, I said, how stupid.
SPEAKER_00There's 10 episodes, two people per episode. There's so many people living in your walls.
SPEAKER_03All right, so listen to this.
SPEAKER_00Every house has somebody living in their crawl space.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So first episode. Uh wife tells husband, hey, I hear the doors opening and clo closing, and the husband's like, No, you're nuts. No, you're stupid. There's no no door. It's like, are you uh on a is this a like a terrible horror movie right now? Right. They always say that in horror movies. No, it's okay. Let's call for the dog and he won't come back. So, so, so then so it's like, I oh, I hear the sliding door open. Okay, I'll go down and check. And he goes down and it's open. Well, I still don't believe her. Why not, stupid? How about a hatchet to the neck? Are you gonna I got a hatchet into my neck, but I still don't believe my wife that there's any trouble. And there's like all the stuff that goes on, and it's yeah, so finally, yeah, somebody's living in your house.
SPEAKER_00I like how everybody thinks it's a ghost too, because it's it's less scary to think that you have a ghost in your house than uh skinny white guy with big crazy hair. Who are these people?
SPEAKER_03It's like, come on, I hear a like just a house settling, like one of those little cracks. The whole place is being machine gunned. I'm just gonna start firing. I don't even have a machine gun. I'm gonna be shooting something, a super soaker, whatever I have in the house. Yeah. And it just made me so mad. It's like it went on for weeks or months. This guy's living in their house. They're like, no, I don't know. It's weird, but someone's using the computer. Why is there why is there Tupperware with the name Joe on it, and there's no Joe living here? He's got his own food there. He's Tupper wearing the food. Yeah, he goes out at night, he comes back, he brings friends over. It's just totally unbelievable. It happens. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00I bought locks for all my crawl spaces. All of them.
SPEAKER_03Crawl spaces. Here's who I feel sorry for. It's the kids. I feel sorry for the kids because they have no clue what they're missing. Right. They're happy. That's the thing about kids, is that whatever their situation is, they adapt immediately. So kids aren't sitting there going, Oh, I wish we could run around loose in the neighborhood and be at risk. They don't care. They're having fun. They go walk from trunk to trunk, they walk around the mall like a bunch of goobs, goobs on wheels. Just a bunch of freaking flame out nerds. It's like in their stupid ass costumes, store-bought costume. Store-bought plastic ass costumes in a mall with their parents walking around behind them pounding vodkas. Yep. So, but they don't know they're happy as clams. They are having a great time and they're getting candy and they like candy, and kids are happy with our but so they don't know what they're missing. But you know, in the 80s, where you're from, you're from the 80s, right?
SPEAKER_00Barely.
SPEAKER_03That's when they started the 24-hour news cycle, and that's when they started telling parents that your kids were gonna kidnap be kidnapped and murdered every day. Yeah, and they just played that, and now people have just people are too afraid to let their kids loose in the world. Yeah, you are watched from the moment you blow out of the womb, okay, till the moment you go off to college, which at that point, because you've been watched for 18 years, you lose your freaking mind.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's why so many kids go off the deep end when they go to college now, because they've been watched and supervised and organized, and everything's been planned and scheduled. And they get to college and they have the first taste of freedom, and they go to nuttown. Yeah. I think it's too bad for those kids because they just don't have that adventure, that night of freedom and excitement, and there's a little tiny teeny bit of danger. Yeah. But there really isn't. The world isn't any less safe. It's probably more safe, but it certainly isn't any less safe than it was when I was a kid when parents hoped that we didn't come back.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03They were disappointed when we showed up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was so easy to be a serial killer in like the 70s. That's why they didn't get caught until now, you know.
SPEAKER_03You can't even be a serial killer anymore. I mean, there's like there's serial killers that are showing up at the unemployment office now. Are you looking for work? Yeah, but I get DNA's keeping me, keeping me, it's holding me down. The DNA machine, those geniods at 23andMe kicking my ass. So sophisticated now. So even if you're just like a rel a distant relative of a serial killer, you're kid you're crimping their style by doing that 23andMe, because they will liberate that information and use it to get, you know, these guys are like 80 years old, they got no teeth. You know, they got they got away with it. They got a janky leg, and now they're like, we got you. And the person's like, I don't remember where I had for breakfast. You know, it's like there's no justice because they're so old. Right. It's like uh it's like something like finding. Some of these guys, yeah. It's like, okay, oh wait, I get to go to jail. I have friends. Uh yeah, it's like a reward for them because they weren't even, you know, they were sitting in a pile of poop with a Swanson's TV dinner. So I think so, because parents got afraid in the 80s, they really exerted a lot more control. That was also, you know, it was there there's more complexity to it because then there was all this spirit of you gotta make kids' lives perfect. So there's just a lot of parental involvement in what kids are doing. Yeah. Reduce freedom, reduce fun, who loses, the kids lose. And I've also argued on previous podcasts the parents lose because what happened to their life? Yeah, that's why they're pounding vodkas in a school parking lot at trunk trunk night. Yeah. Because what are they doing for fun? Nothing. They're just spending time with their kids. What a waste. Why'd you just give up? Right. That's your that's your life. I love my kids. Oh, give the kids a moment.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03Like, just what are you doing? Nothing. What I go to work and I come home and I play with my kids. Oh, you're an idiot. You're not getting a reward for that. Guess what's gonna happen to those kids get out of school and go off on their own? They're gonna ditch your ass. You'll be sitting out at trunk night with nobody but your vodka. You'll be wearing a trench coat and a blackout mask, and you'll have no friends. So, my so I feel like the kids have lost, and it's all been manufactured. I think a lot of the fear that parents have about their kids being abducted is a manufactured fear. I mean, sure, you want your kids to be safe, but you don't want to strangle them with safety. Let them have some fun. But here's the question I have for you, my fine feathered friend. Okay, and that is we can agree that kids aren't allowed to do a lot of stuff by themselves anymore. Like they were even back going back to Utah when you used to run free uh with the Frankenstein wig.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so Frankenstein. Frankenstein had crap hair. My sister was Frankenstein.
SPEAKER_00I gotta find that picture too.
SPEAKER_03Your sister what?
SPEAKER_00My sister was Frankenstein. Oh, you guys went out as a couple? I can't remember if it was the same year, but yeah, it was great. I gotta find those pictures.
SPEAKER_03If kids aren't allowed to do anything, including trick or treating, when do they learn any sense of independence?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03I'm just wondering. And I'm wondering if It matters.
SPEAKER_00I think it does. I think uh I think like doing those things and um you know, even like making mistakes or doing like bad stuff and kind of like learning from it, you know, like egg in someone's house on Halloween or something, and then you get busted and you get in trouble, right?
SPEAKER_03Not if you run fast.
SPEAKER_00Not if you run fast enough. But yeah, I think it's it kind of like uh helps shape you into a a better person or a more interesting person, definitely. A more interesting person, perhaps a criminal.
SPEAKER_03I I used to argue that very same thing, and I used to say parents are strangling their kids' experience of the world. Again, yeah, I totally get wanting to keep your kids safe, but if they don't get any adventure or independence, it's just kind of narrowing their opportunity to learn some things like they can be okay on their own. Like you can go ride your bike off in the neighborhood, and you get to decide where you go, and you get to decide, you know, you know, who you see and what you do, and just that's that that sort of sense of independence is an important part of growing up as a kid. However, I've given it some thought and have gone a different way.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Let me hear it.
SPEAKER_03So throughout history, the average kid experience has improved all over the world. Okay. Constantly getting better. So if we just turn the clock back, you know, it was way worse for kids the farther you go back. And whatever their situation, even if it was being stomped on by dinosaurs or whatever, and whatever their situation is was bad, horrible. But the kids are so resilient, they've always succeeded because hey, we're here. So obviously, it's kids have been doing okay. They find a way to overcome whatever it is and figure out how to be in the world and do their thing. Kids, the kids, no matter what their parents are like, most of them on average, and we're just take we'll take the abuse abusive, horrible parents off the table. Take them off the table, put them on a trash barge to China. We don't care. Unless they're from China and we'll put them on another trash barge going somewhere else. But the point is the bad parents aren't a trash barge. I think we okay, we can agree on that. But on average, no matter what your parents are like or how much they're involved in your life, or not involved in some cases, most kids overcome whatever that situation is, even if it was surrounded by love, but a lot of like tight control. They once they get out of the house, they figure out how to get on in the world and they do fine. And I think, you know, some kids grow up, even when they grow in a grow up in a very tightly controlled environment, they become bold and adventurous. You know, they become fearless people out in the world and they do things and you know have exciting experiences and create their own path. So I don't really think it I think in the end it probably doesn't matter as long as they're not the trash barge parents. I don't think it matters too much what the parents do. I just think the kids are missing out on a certain kind of fun. But since they don't know what they're missing, it doesn't really matter. I think they're gonna be fine. You can't bust a kid just by ruining their fun. They still they do okay.
SPEAKER_00But they would do better if they did Halloween.
SPEAKER_03They would do better in the moment for sure, if they were allowed to run loose on Halloween. It's just so fun. It's so fun. It's a fun idea. And it's been around for a couple thousand years or more. It goes back a long way. And it's just and it's one of the few like rituals that a lot of different cultures like experience in a different way sometimes. I think kids, no matter what you do to them, they turn out okay. I have two kids. They grew up during the time when everybody was worried about kids being snatched. I worried about it because I was being told your kids are gonna get snatched. And so I was more protective, even me. I did not let them run loose. And you know, I look at that at them today, and they're older and they're out of the house, and 50% of them are are good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03There's only one dud.
SPEAKER_00And you won't specify which.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, I think they both listen to this podcast. Uh-huh. So I'd rather not say that one of them is a dud.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03No, they're not. No one's a dud. Just one of you is very disappointing. No one's a dud, okay? So I think I saved that, right? Well, this has been fun. Can you recommend a scary movie before we check out of the scary Halloween episode?
SPEAKER_00Jeez, so many scary movies.
SPEAKER_03What's your favorite? Which one? If you if you met somebody and they were in a coma their whole life, yeah, and they woke up out of the coma, and you were there by their bedside, yeah, and you were both laughing and stripping out tubes and stuff out of their body, and they said, I'm so glad to come out of this coma that I've been in my whole life.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03I really want to watch a scary movie, but I don't know where to start. You would tell them to watch what.
SPEAKER_00Well, okay, I guess. My I'm gonna go with a classic. I'm gonna go with a classic because I watch it every year for Halloween and I love it. Um, and it's not necessarily scary, but it's nostalgic and it's good, and you should watch it on Halloween, and that is the first poltergeist movie.
SPEAKER_03The very first poltergeist, the This House is clean. Uh-huh. That one with the That Lady was great.
SPEAKER_00Tangina.
SPEAKER_03Oh, is that her name?
SPEAKER_00That's her name. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it just in a nutshell, yeah. Why is it so why is it your favorite?
SPEAKER_00I think we watched it every year when I was a kid. It's like a good mix of like funny, but also kind of spooky, you know. And it was like scary when I was a kid. Obviously, it's not scary at all now, but literally no movie scares me anymore. I pretty much only watch scary movies. And I'm searching for that high of something that will actually scare me.
SPEAKER_03But you know what's funny because science tells us that scary situations releases dopamine in the brain. And you can it it you can get addicted just like it to any other movie. Totally.
SPEAKER_00So if any of our listeners have any scary movie recommendations, I've probably seen it. But still send it in. Uh I want to know what your favorite scary movie is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, tell us what your favorite scary movie is and post it on our web uh what's on a web page. What is it called? Insta page. Instagram. That's what all the kids are doing. Are the parents on there now? Probably ruining it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They're stupid shots of vodka. Well, thank you, Jamie, for coming back to the show. We missed you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so good to be back.
SPEAKER_03Super glad you're here, and I want to wish you a happy Halloween on this.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Ross. Happy Halloween.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. During this lovely Halloween season, and I might stop by with a bag of the bag looking for tank.
SPEAKER_00The bag of vodka.
unknownWith a bag of vodka.
SPEAKER_03I might stop by your house with a bag of vodka. But that wouldn't be any different than any other any weekend. So uh I'll try to do something different for Halloween. And thank you, everyone, for joining us for this episode. I'm sure we've knocked it out of the park when it comes to Halloween, and hopefully you'll have a good one. If you don't celebrate Halloween, you keep your lights low so nobody will bother you. Then come on, you're ruining it.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03And and if but if you take your kids out to a trunk thing or to a mall, it's great. You're helping your kids learn nothing. We truly appreciate you being here, and we appreciate that you help us by sharing the show. If you have a show favorite show that you like, we have over a hundred episodes, all different topics, different guests. We have like about 30 different guests that appear on the show and growing. So you always hear a different point of view, uh different topic, and please let us please let people you know that you think would like the show, let them know about the show. And we will thank you, and we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are burying your neighbor's cats in a gothic garden, or just someone snapping out of a Halloween coma, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody. It's like good coffee. This is a a swell cup of joe.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful.