Lucille’s Late Night Snack Shack | CreepCast

Welcome back to Creepcast! Today we are doing a story called Don't Buy Anything from Lucille's Late Night Snack Bar and we have been told that this is in similar vein to the Voodoo Shop story that we've read probably last year, right? Yeah, the Gypsy Rose story. That's right, the Gypsy Rose story. Very true, very infomant. Ryan, I can't believe that everything just feels super high. You have to admit it's a pretty good Gypsy Rose impression. What's crazy is I think I heard your impression before. I remembered what Gypsy Rose sounded like and then I saw like a commercial for her TV show and I'm like, wow, that's pretty impressive. Hello, I'm going to buy something. You think this is going to be, can we already assume that this is also Gypsy Rose's late night snack bar? What is Gypsy Rose's late night? Did you watch that first season at all of Life After Lock Up or whatever the fuck it was? No, but I think Kayla did and told me it was just about like relationship drama and stuff. It was about her relationship drama with her then husband or fiance Ryan, which he bagged her when she was in prison. And she comes out and she's like basically showing them all these prison snacks she had. She's like, look at this, Ryan. And it's like a big bowl of gruel basically. You're like, oh god damn Gypsy, I don't know if I want to, what is this? Is what he did. And it was, I cannot remember the concoction, but it was so fucking nasty. And he was like, I mean, I'll try anything once for my baby. And he's like fucking gagging and hurling, eating it. She's like, I think it's pretty good. So to just become like any other TLC reality show where it's just kind of like, yep, now we just sort of hang out. Yeah, I mean, no, not really. She's like in this love triangle kind of in the season one where she's like, she's like, man, I don't know why Ken broke up with me. There's this other like really beat looking Missouri guy, which is just the absolute truth. It's just this, the Midwest just breeds the most heinous of all human beings. This guy's like, yeah, that's self deprecating. He's from the Midwest. I am. Well, I did. I speak from Kansas people come for us. I, well, I don't blame them. And the, I, it's, it's nothing really amounts to anything, but it's just, it's just, I don't know. It's just a wild, it's insane that they're like, we're going to give you a show. Like it just, it was wild. Anyways, I wonder if we're reading the story. I think we are. Yeah. Yeah. So today we're reading, don't buy anything for loose, loose heels late night snack bar, which like we said is supposed to be in the same vein as the voodoo shop story. So I'm guessing, I don't know. It may be like the one thing I really remember about that one is that more so like, fantastical maybe is a better word for it or something like a weird. Yeah. It felt very, felt very fantasy. Now granted, that's Harry saying that it'll be like that. So it could be nothing like that. Who knows his interpretation. Could just be a storefront and that's where he's getting that from. We have no idea. That's the only thing. Yeah. The only thing it has in common. I don't know. I really don't remember. I have such a poor memory that this is going to feel probably very new to me. But as always guys, we don't read these beforehand. We go in blind with you. So, you know, we might say one thing and it's the complete opposite. So I don't know what I'm supposed to, what I'm supposed to tell you. You want to give us a rundown on who the author is? Yeah. So this was written by Shinzi user Shinzi on Reddit. They have a bunch of posts in no sleep and the no sleep out of context. A bunch of their stories are highly upvoted like one called the single car accident. There's another one I saw that had some attention called an even trade posted r slash scary stories. And then this is among their most upvoted. Don't buy anything from Lucille's late night snack bar. Their most recent story was posted six years ago, but they still seem active on Reddit. So Shinzi, if you ever want to come back, hopefully a bunch of people go check you out from this. Now is a great time. I don't know if it's a Shinzi or a Shazini. I think it's Shazini. It is Shazini. Isn't it? I'm so skinny. Kenny, Kenny Shazini. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that's what they meant. Seven to three, three to 11. Is that even Kenny Shazini? She's the one. I don't. I don't think that's King Chesney. Did I tell you his dad was my neighbor growing up? Kenny Chesney's dad was your neighbor growing. Really? Yes. Yeah. How was he? He lived, lived right up from us. I don't think I'll get in trouble for saying this, but he was. So I only interacted with him a couple of times. And this, I think I've mentioned before that I grew up on a golf course. So he was also on the golf course and one day, I don't know the specifics of it, but one day, supposedly his neighbor up at the condo he lived in, the dog came out and like pooped on it. No, Kenny's dog, Kenny Chesney's dad's dog pooped on his neighbor's yard. So the neighbor comes over, he's like, Hey man, can you, can you keep your dog on your side of the property? And the story I always heard is that Chesney's dad said, hold on, let me get something to knock that chip off your shoulder. And he came back with a golf club and beat the snot out of the guy. Oh my God. Did he go to the water and get arrested? He got arrested. Yep. I would fucking hope this was huge drama around, around town. Wow. And I would hope so. My God. Let's remove that chip off your shoulder. He also always says he's from Knoxville. He's not, he grew up in Maynardville, which is just outside of Knoxville. And that matters to me. I, I do like that, that Kenny Chesney's dad, who I'm just going to refer to as Dennis Chesney. I like to, I really like the kind of Joker aspect he took. Let's knock that chip off your shoulder. I just imagine he's in like a big purple suit. Just shit all over dog shit all over his hands. My sons. He thinks my tractor sexy. But there'd always be stories of like Kenny would show up in like a hat or something to walk the dog and people would see him and be like, Hey, Kenny. And he would like scamper off real quick and stuff like that. So I don't know how true that is, but yes. You said Knoxville, right? He's my neighbor. He says he's from Knoxville, but he's actually from Maynardville. Well, I was just saying, he just, he's the cockroach of Knoxville. He just, you barely look at him. He just like gets on all fours and just like scatters into the, into the, into the high brush as they say. All right. Look, Kenny Chesney, I, you know what? Kenny, Kenny Chesney, one out of 10. If you had a rank of it, we're going to rank Kenny Chesney real quick. One out of 10. Like his, like his songs. No, just him, I guess. I guess that's a full package. You're putting him as one, like out of 10 different artists, you're putting him as number one. No, I'm saying ranking him one out of 10. What would you rank him? Oh, I see what you're saying. I mean, I kind of like his music. A lot of his older stuff. I like the American, the album with American kids. I'd give him a six. You know what? He still does a lot of that, like what I call nine, 11 country music where it's very, like after nine, 11, all the songs were either patriotic or they were about beer and trucks, which is kind of lame to me. I was remembering him. He falls into that pretty hard. I always thought he was like one of those beach cowboys. It was always like I'm out on a beach by the ocean. Like the Django and Tut kind of thing. No problem. Whatever. Like I think of that kind of stuff. You know what I'm going to get? I'm going to give him a three. Give him a three. I guess I have nostalgia for him, but I'll acknowledge that there. That I wouldn't consider him one of the great country music singers. And this is a horror story podcast. This is a horror story podcast. Today we're reading don't buy anything from Lucille's late nights, neck bar credit to author Shesney will be linked in the description. Be sure to show them some love. Hunter, are you ready to get started? I am. And I just want to give a shout out to everyone who's listening on Apple podcast, Spotify, all the places you can listen to a podcast and shit. Thank you so much for listening. And hey, try to give us a nice rating. It really does help us out and also to our beautiful patrons who do support us and get a little free content on the side. Well, not necessarily free. You are paying for it, but appreciate you. I am ready. Let's get in. complimentary content. Don't buy anything from Lucille's late nights, snack bar. My tail begins with a $10 lava lamp. I found in a fake hippie mall store. The summer I moved back to my hometown. I was getting an apartment with my fiance, Marcus, and I wanted some decor that screamed well traveled boho girl instead of middle Georgia hospital clerk who's been to Florida twice. What is boho? I don't know, but this is a merely scream Kenny Chesney to me. I don't know. I'm legitimately wondering if Schnezzi has anything to do with Kenny Chesney. What is boho? Let's see. Boho meaning short for bohemian. Oh, I see. I'm boho girl immediately dislike the protagonist. I see. We're looking. This is like a like 2000. It might be like a 2011 like millennial like a Imagine Dragons listener. I mean, maybe not that, but like a like a 2000. They listen. They listen to the non radio Imagine. Lana Del Rey fans are like a 2011. Now hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Don't don't bring Lana. Don't bring summer child on it. What am I thinking of? What am I Coachella like a Coachella girl or whatever? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That all that I'll go with that. I'll go with I must have been in that incense gas chamber for the better part of an hour looking for something that screamed Wunderlust without actually having the word Wunderlust printed all over it. I glanced over the meditation bells, beaded curtains and faux distressed world maps, not seeing anything that really jumped out at me that wasn't egregiously overpriced. I was going to call it quids when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a lava lamp sitting next to a Himalayan salt lamp. 50% off. I'd always wanted to lau the lamp when I was a kid and I was seized by that dangerous mix of nostalgia and financial freedom that hits you in your twenties. An hour or two later, the lamp had a new home on my nightstand, casting its soft light on my alarm clock and contact Lynn's case. Marcus, of course, thought I was a weirdo for buying it. He thought I was a weirdo anyway, but this served as a fresh reminder for him. It doesn't even go with anything, babe. His face turned purpleish pink in the glow of the lamp. Besides, did you want to go with an adventure theme? I nestled my chin in my hands and watched the pink wax slumps rise and fall in the glittery violet water. Yeah, but maybe we should go with our 60s theme instead. That's fun, right? He just shook his head. Whatever theme you want to go with is fine with me. Also, if you can have a lava lamp, then can I get to- Oh my god. Oh god. Oh god. Also, if you can have a lava lamp, then can I get- Then I get to put up my Rick and Morty poster. It says, Wubba Lubba Dub Dub, babe. Here, can I- Can I- Can I do a hundred steps? This is so hard. Here's a hundred steps. If you- If you're a boho girl with a lava lamp and if you are a guy with a Rick and Morty poster and you are a full grown man, you both need to reevaluate where you are at in your lives. Can you imagine? Can you? Can you? This is a crazy confession. If you were in a relationship with a guy, whatever, can you imagine getting dicked down and there's a Wubba Lubba Dub Dub poster? I've got a worse one. I've got a worse one. When I started dating Kayla in college, she had a Rick and Morty poster. You know, it was extremely popular. I will give- I will say that to people. No, no dude, it was like seven years ago. Going in there and seeing that, it's like, I- I think this is 2025. This is in your child's nursery room. Yeah, this is right. I'm looking at a Rick and Morty poster. I think the only- I'm trying to think of the only weird poster I ever- I- Whenever I was hooking up with this one girl in college, she had this like- She had like four of the same- Four of the same Jurassic Park posters. Just like the black poster with like the emblem. Four of them. And I was like, oh, big Jurassic Park fan. Cool poster, I guess, but I wouldn't have more than one. I just- It's four. And they were all crinkled to hell. And I was like, oh, you big Jurassic Park fan. You should take Kinda and that always rub me the wrong way. How are you gonna have four of the same poster and you're Kinda a fan? How does that happen? Kinda a fan, yeah. It reminds me of- I know this guy, one of my friends went on a date with a girl lately. And I was like, oh, how'd it go? And he's like, oh, she was just kind of boring. I asked if she was into anything and she said, Harry Potter. So then he asked, well, which of the books is your favorite? And she said, oh, I haven't read the books. So when asked, are you into anything? The only thing you can come up with is Harry Potter. And you're not even really that into Harry Potter. That's another thing too, man. Other Hunter's Tip is if you ever see a girl with a deathly hollows ankle tattoo, you run away from that person. You get that, you get the hell away from that person. I'm kind of feeling that way too with that symbol. I see tattooed a lot on people. That's the Berserk one. I see that all the time. Oh, the curse of the sun. The one that marks him to be killed during the God Hand ritual. It looks like a Blair Witch project, kind of symbol or some shit. The Feast? The Mark of the Feast, I think, or the Berserk. Whatever it is. But all I know is that people online are like, why would you want to get that tattooed on you? Do you even know what that means? What that symbolizes? Have you got a total psychopath? I guess get it. Brand of sacrifice, brand of the sacrifice. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm trying to think right now. I used to just put a ton of random stuff up around my rooms when I was like middle school and high school. And I think the weirdest one I had is when I was a kid, do you remember like junior pro sports? Or was like you played basketball in the summer and stuff like that. No, I don't think so. I played basketball in elementary school and one year I did. I probably still have this somewhere. One year I did junior pro at like the local YMCA or whatever. So it's like a summer basketball league. And we got pictures done for it. It was me when I was like nine years old. And it was like a photo of the team. But then it was just my single photo like full body shot photo shot to be giant behind everyone. Why did you have this? Was this an option? I think I still have this. I think it was like we all took photos almost in like a yearbook style, you know, format or whatever. And this is big. And they're like, oh, you can get posters. And when I was nine, I'm like, yeah, that's cool. So my parents got it and it's framed. I'm pretty sure I still have that. I think it's in the garage or something of a giant nine year old me in front of the basketball team. Yeah. I don't know why they're like, I had that hung up on my wall and I just didn't think about it for years. Do you remember the, do you remember big heads? I do. Yeah. Where you could like take your head and get like the little stick standee things. No, no, no. This was like, it was a brand called Big Head. It was like a, it was like a decal you could put on your wall, but it was a full size cut out of somebody. Oh yeah. I remember this. Or whatever. My friend's dad, he gave him, the dad gave a big head of himself to his son. And he like installed it in his room. See that's good. I was so scared. That's the kind of thing I'm going to do. We were like nine and we would be like, I don't know, playing like Nintendo. And there's just his dad embedded into the wall with like the flickering lights on his face. It was fucking horrifying. And I will say, you know what, I'm doing that. Please. I say please. I will say to end the poster conversation too. I will say the most dastardly thing I ever did in college. I, I got a, I got a Alt J poster for, for the, for the lady folk. And I also bought and I kept sealed a Alt J record. I just left. You like Alt J? That was a big deal back of the day for you. Youngins. Let me tell you that had a stranglehold on art chicks. Remember Alt J. Are you sure how you're like, I don't, I don't, I don't even know what Alt J is. You know that song? It's like that song. I was like, yeah. Man. What is it? It's like that song, Breezer blocks. That was like really popular. Take me out soon out of the way. Right now. The time is how many counts in breeze blocks. Down and down and down. Jamani. Or a. Where that one? Have you heard it? You'd remember it. No, whatever. No. It had a show. It came out. So this song came out 14 years ago when I was 12 years old. Oh, that should have been a perfect time. Did. Yeah. But you have to understand. I was like raised in like the religious setting where I had like sneak to listen to any music. So what I did listen to was spar. So it was like my chemical romance and stuff like that. I see. I see. Very so Rick and Morty poster. Yeah. Rick and Morty poster. Yeah. What this is all about. I grimaced, but agreed to his terms. Relationships were all about compromise after all. So the poster went up and the lava lamp stayed. Illuminating our evenings with psychedelic glow. Settled into our apartment life once our decorations were all squared away. And I started work at the same hospital I was born in while Marcus started his new engineering job. Work. I refuse to believe there's an engineer with a Rick and Morty poster. I could believe it. It's a sci-fi thing. I believe Marcus is they're both educated. Work was mind numbing and my co-workers ended up being a bunch of caddy shrews with nothing better to do than gossip about other people. Some days were okay, but other days I would come home at the end of the day exhausted. Only able to eat, take a shower and stare at my lava lamp before I eventually drifted off to sleep. It was on one of these bad days that a strange thought entered my mind. I was staring at my lava lamp, all undulating smooth wax and gentle light. And I thought about unscrewing the top and downing the whole thing. Like it was just a fancy soda bottle instead of a glass tube full of scalding wax and water. What? I initially dismissed it without thinking about it, but thought would pop up sometimes after that. And frequent, but ever present. I brought it up to Marcus one day when he took me to lunch during my break one day. I don't know. I never think about seriously doing it, but since there's this zoning out at work and it just happens, you know? You rubbed his chin thoughtfully. I kind of know what you mean. I sometimes feel something pretty similar. And he said this pretty strong feeling about around caulk. Like I wanted to stick the nozzle in my mouth and eat it like easy cheese. These are the two weird things. I just want to say, I just want to say, if I was in this break room or if I was like in public and heard this, I would freak the fuck out. I mean, can you imagine hearing this like in passing? What are you two talking about? What kind of a intrusive thought couple is this? What the fuck are you talking about? I understand like having weird intrusive thoughts like that. But to be like, I used to want to stick the nozzle in my mouth and eat it. It's like, I don't know. I mean, like there's been things. I mean, I know what I think I understand what they're getting at where it's like, I don't know, like a weird, like a, like a gel pack or something. Like, oh, I just want to chew on it. It just seems like a weird thing you would chew on. But too, too, too continuously think that much and then have to even bring it up. I don't know. I mean, I think about it, but it's not like I really think about it. The other guy's like, yeah, I like colk. Why don't you like easy cheese? Colk would be delicious. I'd love to have some colk. I snorted into my soda that. Yeah, better not try that unless you want to be visiting me at work in the worst possible way. An excuse to any excuse to see you in those sexy scrubs. He laughed then booped my nose at the fry. We got to really ease up on the millennial shit here did. We know. I mean, this is, I want to say right now, I think this is, we have to mark this as a historic moment that this is the first time we have actually gotten a fucking booped in our, in our, in our reading session. Okay. We have got to, we got to figure some shit out. I just don't think it's anything to worry about. It's something that happens to everyone every now and again. Like thinking about diving into the median on a highway or jumping out of window. What are you talking about? Who's taking me? So that's more, hold on. That's more understandable because it's like the whole call of the boy thing. You think about diving into the median on the highway? Have you ever been standing on at the edge of like a railing or a high up place and you're like, Oh, what if I jumped right now and like you get the chill like, Oh man. I mean, like, no, no, I don't think I've ever, no, I mean, maybe I'm in the, maybe I'm in the, like, the, the, not the wrong, but maybe I'm completely normal. Don't people have it a lot. They talk about with kids, like when they're holding a kid, it's like, Oh, what if I dropped it right now and it gives you like a shiver, like, oh my God, do that. Good Lord. Okay. There's a, there is an argument in psychology that it comes from like prepping for worst case scenario. So the idea when you're standing at a tall place, you're like, well, now I definitely need to not jump. So your brain lays that idea in your mind, like, what if I jumped so that your body is like, okay, stay far away from that. Same with dropping a kid or pulling into the wrong lane of traffic. It almost seems like a satisfying, like painful reaction or something. Like I've heard people, I feel like I've heard people say this about like, if you, if they see like a nail sticking out of a floorboard, they want to step on it. Or something weird. Yeah. It's the exact same thing. It's like, this is definitely the kind of thing that shouldn't happen. So here's the idea planted in your mind. It's called, there's a term that a psychologist coined. It's whatever the French translation is for call of the void. Yeah. Maybe it's just whiplash. I don't know. Things just whiplashed because we went from eating kulk to booping noses with fries and then all of a sudden we're diving into the media. I don't know. La pelle du vide. Yeah. That's the term for the sudden fleeting and intrusive urges to engage in self-destructive or dangerous behaviors. It's just jumping from a high place. We're steering into traffic. Yeah. Well, there it is. This episode sponsored by Lola blankets. 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Just head to Lola blankets.com and use code creepcast. After your purchase, the last we heard about them, please support our show and tell them that we sent you there, please. Lie to them and say that we're the best of all time. Please do that. They're paying us right now. Please, please, please. Thanks guys. I'm sure there's some deep 40 and psychological bullshit behind it all, but as long as you don't actually try it, it's no big deal. Marcus's nonchalance put my mind at ease. I guess I wasn't such a freak after all. There's probably something deep in the human subconscious that made my monkey brain want to do the unthinkable. I pushed it out of the forefront of my mind after that and tried to concentrate on my garbage job. I would have probably stayed nice and safe in my happy routine for a good number of years if it hadn't been for the snack bar. I had to stay at work late one Thursday night. While I'd been lucky enough to get a day shift, our server had gone down and we got ridiculously packed up. I felt bad leaving it all in the night shift to take care of, so I stayed until about 10.30 to help them process everything. I wobbled out on sore feet ahead of a chorus of thank yous feeling fulfilled, but also tired and hungry as hell. A 13 hour shift can do mean things to a body. I texted Marcus to tell him that I'd be late, and then I hopped in my car and started heading home, driving carefully so that I didn't run off the road in my depleted state. I passed a few familiar sights on the way. Chick-fil-A, Chevron gas station, a few cow fields. I got to an intersection that I'd passed a million times before and noticed something new in the darkness. The abandoned storefront sitting across the road from an Episcopal church looks significantly less abandoned than it used to. It was a rundown wooden building with one of those coke signs, usually reserved for old-timey southern general stores or hole-in-the-wall barbecue restaurants. A neon open sign of the window cut through the darkness and nearly burned my eyes with how bright it was. I slowed, curious. It was true that I was dead tired, but my growling stomach convinced me to stop and grab a snack before I drove home and face planted into my bed. I pulled into the empty parking lot and walked up to the door hesitantly. Sign cast enough of a glow for me to see the name of the place, Lucille's late night snack bar. It seemed like a pretty odd place for a snack bar, but it got to point across. Not many places in a small town like this were open late, so I let Taco Bell and Waffle House corner the market. Okay, first of all, we let Waffle House do whatever they want. I'm actually wearing a Waffle House shirt right now, funnily enough. I walked up the creaking water damage steps and pushed open the door. Rush of cold air and the tinkling of a bell greeted me as I stepped inside. The tiny shop was filled with all kinds of snacks from all eras, kind of like the ones at those cracker barrel general stores. I was surprised at just how well stocked and organized the place was. Jars full of twizzlers, licorice and peppermint sticks lined the shelves above stacks and stacks of Reese's Cups, Mary Jane's, and candy cigarettes. Multi-colored gumballs set in their little machines, waiting for the offering of a quarter. Chips and cracker jacks were stuffed onto shelves so tightly that it looked like the ones in front would fall over any minute. A fridge full of a million different kinds of soda hummed in the back of the room, the light inside doing a better job illuminating the snacks that the overhead lights were doing. The flame-haired queen of this bountiful kingdom set at the register, smacking on gum and flipping through a fashion magazine with nails nearly as long as her fingers. She hadn't even looked up when I walked in, so I cruised through the shelves, unmolested. It's an interesting adjective to apply there, but our day- I was about to grab a moon pie and call it a night when I noticed that there was another room. It was separated from the main room by a curtain of multicolored beads that would have looked more at home in a kid's bedroom than a snack shop. Sign outside the door red, midnight snacks enter if you dare. I raised an eyebrow at that. It seemed a little cheesy, but it got my imagination going. My initial thoughts were bongs or porn, but when I pulled back the beads and stuck my head inside, that wasn't what I found at all. The midnight snacks seemed like a jumble of random objects. A few bottles of Fabuloso and Drain Cleaner populated one shelf, while the next held what looked like a few jars of human teeth. I roamed the shelves taking in everything I saw. Legos, different assortments of rocks, play-doh, jars of mud and dirt, detergent and dishwasher pods, bath bombs, makeup, caulk, so on and so forth. I picked up one of the rocks, sedimentary gray and brown type deal and turned it around in my hands for a while. Felt like a rock, but at the same time, not much like one. Almost like I could sink my teeth into it and it would yield. Put it down before I tried it. I moved on instead to the teeth. I reached into one of the jars and pulled one out, expecting it. They had to be fake, but the sheer variety and detail and that someone had spent an awful lot of time crafting these. I started to get the same feeling from the tooth that I did from the rock, so I hurriedly shoved it back into the jar. A freezer with large pictures of different types of ice cream set in the corner, but when I looked inside, I was staring at what looked like human eyes and limbs separated in little containers. I stepped away from it when I saw that the label on one of the white plastic containers said chubby fingers. I started to get really nervous. Was everything in here some kind of edible replica of a non-edible thing? It seemed like a pretty ridiculous business venture. This is fun. I see the similarities between this and the voodoo shop, right, where it's kind of like, whatever your desire is, it feeds into it, but it's for people who want to consume random objects. I was wondering if it's random people or if it's catered to her specifically, like at the store nose, and it's just like a bunch of other shit that we haven't found out yet. Yeah. It's a pica. Pica is that thing where it's like you feel compelled to eat dirt or metal or like non-digestible stuff. If you've looked at like a lava lamp and you're like, man, I want to drink that, you would assume that there's other things of like, almost like just generalized sensations that you feel. There's probably been other random stuff that you've thought about. Yeah. I'm curious if it's interesting because it's almost like a story that would typically be about sex, right? Like it could be about a woman or temptation and stuff like that, but it's about wanting to eat random things. It's interesting. I also like this idea too of it being like a on our way home from work. It feels like it's very much teedering towards the idea of like, she's going to fucking pop in a cup of tea on our way home and like eat a bunch of random shit to where I wonder how it's going to affect. Like by the time she gets home during these things, like does it affect her physically to where even like her partner's like, what the fuck is that? What's been going on? You know what I mean? Yeah. It also kind of makes it feel like like a ghost diner. Like it's just a place that appears when you're tired by yourself and there's no witnesses around. Yeah. I was about to just pay for my moon pie and get out of there when my eyes fell on a tiny shelf at the corner of the room sitting there, much like it had been in that hippie store was an exact replica of my lava lamp. There were a few sitting next to it that had different colors, but my eyes were locked on my purple pink bedside companion reached over and touched the class felt warmed at the touch, not quite hot. It was more like outside of a coffee mug than anything else. Figured I could screw off the top below on the contents a little and I wish I could tell you that I drew my hand back, marched out of that store with my moon pie and never went back to the freakish place again. But instead, a hand that may have been mine reached out and grabbed the lava lamp card that may have been mine paid for it along with my moon pie. A person that may have been mean drove home in silence, moon pie in one hand, steering wheel in the other, hearing my new lava lamp shift around in a brown paper bag, wrapped like it was a bottle of wine instead of tacky home decor. The moon pie was gone by the time I pulled into my driveway. The lamp was all I had left. Again, the phrasing on this is so much like it's a sexual act, right? Like a sin or like a shame that you're carrying with you. And it's all you can think about walking through the door or obsessing over and stuff like that. I think it's a temptation factor that makes it feel that it gives it that. Because we've already, she's already discussed that it's just like, I don't know, I probably shouldn't, but it's actually being tempted at the store and giving in. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It's like the phrasing with it's almost like a teenage boy who's trying to hide a porn mag from his mom, you know, like it's in the bag. I just have to get in the door, move, stuff like that. I shuffled into the house trying to be light on my feet. So I wouldn't wake Marcus. I slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind me praying that he wouldn't wake up anytime soon for his late night pee. I slowly took the lamp out of the bag, stared at it. My hands trembling. Even though it was unplugged, it was still warm. And the globs of wax made their slow journey from one end to the other without the help of electricity. There was something deeply, deeply unnatural going on here. I wanted to question it, to go back to that store and demand some answers. But my desire to do my own experiment was growing by the second. I tried to fight through the urge, but I was tired and loopy. And that moon pie just hadn't done the job. I knew it was stupid, but would it really hurt that much? Just a try? Just have one little taste? What harm could really actually do to me? God. One second I had the lamp in my hand and in the next instant, it was lying on the bathroom floor. Trained of its contents. An incomprehensible flavor lingered on my tongue, grape-like in nature, but so much more than that. The soft texture of the wax that had been so pleasant in my mouth felt even more pleasant nestled in my stomach. I sat there basking in that taste before I looked over at the empty lava lamp and figured I should get rid of the evidence before I got some questions. I washed it out and tossed it in the back of our closet, not wanting to risk Marcus coming across it in the trash. After I brushed my teeth and gargled with listerine about 15 times, who even knows the sugar contents of a drink like that, I crawled into bed beside Marcus. I laid there staring at the ceiling, at taste keeping me just on the edge of sleep till the rising sun bathed the room in a pale yellow glow. I skipped breakfast that morning. As soon as I had decided to riot against what I had done last night, Marcus looked at me with some concern. Are you feeling okay? You usually never skip breakfast on Pancake Day. I am vibing with the story, but Pancake Day is another millennialism. I'm telling you man, we're in it. At least it's consistent. I'll give it that. It is, it is not a temporary guest that it is here to stay. You usually never skip breakfast on Pancake Day. Like alright. I smiled weakly as I grabbed my keys off the counter and pecked him on the cheek. Sorry babe, my stomach was a little upset last night and I don't want to risk anything too heavy. I'll just grab a granola bar before I go to work. He didn't seem placated, but he nodded and tucked into his pancakes as I slipped out the door. My hands, which I had been trying to keep steady in front of Marcus, shook as I put the key into the ignition. Even after my minty exorcism, I could still taste the content of the lamp. Warmth, the grape flavor. All the undertones that somehow made warm grape flavoring not completely gross. The softness of the wax. I shuddered, thinking that maybe a pancake or two might have helped to overpower the taste, but it was too late for that now. I drove to work, blasting the local generic pop station and trying to focus on the day ahead instead of the night prior. Again, it's so well written like a private shame that you have to keep yourself. It's about drinking a lava lamp. Well, kind of like how also tasty a lava lamp sounds too. Like I would not expect any of those ta- you know what I mean? But it's like I believe that it would, you know, it kind of just makes you question- How much money would it take for you to drink a lava lamp? God, you nothing. That's like f- fuck no. If it wasn't for you, it was just wax and water. What, right? Really? That's it? I thought- I don't know why I thought it was chemicals and stuff. The water may have some light chemicals in it for preservation, but it's nothing deadly. You'll probably get a stomach ache, but that'd be it. I don't know why my fat ass did. I'd feel like I would- I'd buckle. I'd buckle under a lava lamp. Now there's a dollar amount. If someone came up and was like, here's a million dollars to drink a lava lamp. I probably showed that in a lava lamp. So that means there's a price between zero and a million. I mean like maybe- Maybe a thousand dollars. That is way closer to zero than a million. My price, you would need to be at least- For me to finish a lava lamp, it needs to be more than 10 grand. I feel like I could see probably hitting it for a thousand. You're not just even a thousand? Not a thousand. No, not a thousand. Ten grand, yes. Not a thousand. I like how it's like, well a million dollars. You know what? One thousand dollars? Well you started a million, I was like, well god damn, yeah, I will, but then I kept thinking about it. I'm like, realistically, also I don't know the size of it, but if someone's like, I have a thousand dollars, do you want to drink this lava lamp for a thousand dollars? I mean, I think a lot of, I think I might, I think I probably could, even if I would be nervous. I'd just be nervous at the wax or whatever would get caught in my throat. And I'd be like, because it's not going to be like a smooth as like an egg yolk. You know what I mean? Even though that's what it looks like. I feel like I'd get like- So I've got a lot of lamp here. And actually looking at the size of it, this is comparable to a large water bottle. You know, they do just have a screw cap on top. What color's your lava lamp? That wax does look pretty- I've never thought about the logistics of eating one of these, but- Oh my god, are you doing it? Isaiah, are you doing it? No, I'm not, no, I'm not going to do it. Oh, okay. I'm just saying, looking at it right now. Well, even if you don't, even if you don't drink the whole thing, would you take a swig? Take a swig on camera for us, would you? No, I feel like it's about, I think I have to break it. This is like a pop cap bottle top instead of a screw. I think I'd have to break it to do that. What chemicals are lava lamps? Lava lamps contain two primary components, a dense colored paraffin wax that surround in liquid, usually water, propylene glycol, or mineral oil. Oh yeah, you'd be fine with all those. You shouldn't take a lot of propylene glycol, but you'd be fine. Solvents. It's used in food preservative and stuff like that. So yeah, you could eat a lava lamp, no problem then. Okay, I need to stop thinking of that. Okay, I'm going to continue, all right. Work was a mess, which I was eternally grateful for. The servers were still acting wonky and the ensuing chaos totally distracted me from any untoward thoughts about lava lamps. I was too busy trying to figure out how to process patient information without my computer, but trained me to be worried about weird urges. I was going to stay put past my shift like last time, but my manager sent me packing, telling me that I looked like hell. I wasn't about to argue. As I drove home, I kept a lookout for that freaky snack place. I saw it just where it had been before. Same rundown building and all. The open sign was off, thank god. Still, there was a little twinge of my gut as I passed it. Like I would have stopped if I could have. It could taste the liquid on my tongue again. My mouth started to water in response. I put my foot on the gas and sped a Chick-fil-A to pick up dinner for me and Marcus. There's nothing quite like the sweet chicken of Jesus to cleanse a tainted palate. After that, that the Jesus chicken thing, that's also millennial code. You know what? Nothing wrong with it, dude. Nothing wrong with it. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying referring to it as Jesus chicken is a millennial beat for sure. After an eight piece nugget mill, some white wine and the affection of a very grateful Marcus, I was feeling more or less myself again. I drifted off comfortably in a light haze of alcohol and pleasure around 11 PM. Didn't you do a Chick-fil-A ranking and you put the fries lower something like that? No, I put Chick-fil-A really high, I'm pretty sure. I think that you expected it to be high. We've done sandwiches. That's what it was. That's what it was. The hunger hit around three. I felt the awful clenching in my stomach before I was even fully awake. I tossed and turned until my eyes snapped awake, forbidden taste of the lava lamp filling my mouth faster than my own drool. Marcus snored next to me, completely oblivious to my torment. I checked the alarm out of the corner of my eye. The number 213 was illuminated with the purple light of the lamp, which was doing nothing to help with my craving. Shit, so much for getting a good night's sleep. I snuck down to the kitchen and opened the fridge. We were well stuck thanks to the convenience of the Kroger right across the street, but nothing in there appealed to me. I knew what I really wanted, but I attempted to silence the urge with a few cookies and a glass of milk. It made me feel okay for a few minutes, but as soon as I climbed back into bed, the craving hit me again at full force. I sat there fighting back tears as a little voice in my head told me what I needed to do. It told me to get inside my car, drive to the snack bar, and get myself a bottle of the good stuff. It was either that or down the lamp by my bedside. I didn't want to. I really, really didn't want to. But at the same time, I just knew that I'd go crazy if I didn't. So I threw on a coat, hopped in my car, took off, peeling out of the neighborhood before I had a chance to change my mind. Even as I was driving, I tried to reason with myself. Still had options, even at this ridiculous hour. I could go to Taco Bell, I could go to a gas station and load up on regular human snacks. Hell, I could even try to hit up one of my friends for late night munchies, although they probably wouldn't have appreciated such a late company. Anything would have been better than pulling up to that store, grabbing an armful of lava lamps, and standing at the register in my pajamas, being judged by that bored red head with the lethal nails. You can guess, of course, which one of these things I actually did. I threw in a Twinkie, like that would make me feel less bad, but instead just made me feel like even more of a weirdo. Started to hustle out of the store with my haul when I nearly bumped into someone on my way out. This episode's sponsored by Tushy. Tushy is the luxury bidet that your bathroom has been missing. 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Startled, I looked up to see a stranger, also in their pajamas. He was flustered and embarrassed as I probably looked. She mumbled something that might have been a greeting, then pushed past me with her head down and made a beeline for the back room. I left the store still feeling sick, but also a little bit vindicated. At least I wasn't the only person in this town with a problem. I drove home to the soft music of the lamps clinking around in their paper bag, almost lulling me to sleep now that my panic had faded. I didn't bother bringing them into the house this time. I gulped them all down, one by one, right there in the car. The taste was absolutely indescribable. Blue, red, green, purple. They all tasted vaguely a fruit, but also something deeper. Like the notes in wine I've heard so much about, never had the palate to taste. And the wax, it was heaven on earth. I finished all four of the lamps and wiped my lips, totally satisfied. Twinkies had abandoned among the empty glasses. The shame that I felt that first night was weirdly absent. The first time had been a curious mistake. This time, it was an act of choice. And I had no other option than to own it. You're talking about this being like a sexual kind of thing, but I keep, it almost keeps reading to me like drug use or something. It's like a drug use or like a food addiction, you know. People who are like, you know, trying to lose weight and they're really big, but they hide food from their family and stuff like that. And they don't eat with the family because they're claiming that they don't have a problem, but then they binge by themselves and stuff like that. It reads like a lot of addiction, like a lot of addiction that derives from pleasure. I shoved the empty lamps in my glove compartment for lack of a better disposal idea, then went upstairs and brushed the taste and smell of their contents out of my mouth. I crawled back into bed with a snoring Marcus and pretty soon I drifted off as he is over. I really wish I could tell you that that was the last time I went, that my curiosity had been sated and I had purged whatever sick urges I'd had for my body with that last binge, but I didn't. I found myself back there again and again, sometimes in my work clothes, sometimes in my pajamas, but always late at night and always, always unbearably thirsty. I veered for my usual snack sometimes just to see what they were like. The flavors of these things were so hard to describe. Every single thing tasted like an approximation of what it would taste like in real life. Dirt was earthy and gritty. The richness of the mineral varying by type and giving each variety a depth of flavor more complex than anything a world famous chef would whip up. Cleaning supplies were acidic with a sharp chemical smell capable of curling your nose hairs, but a milder fruity taste could overpower the less desirable parts of the experience, not unlike strong booze. Legos were horribly bland and only fun to eat because of the colors and sizes. I never knew why those went as quickly as they did. I avoided the teeth entirely, but I could see from the fluctuating level in the jar that they were a popular item. Despite my experimentation, the lava lamps, my sweet, tacky saviors were always my number one go-to. I would walk out of that store with at least a couple of lamps clinking together in my brown paper bag. My satisfaction overpowering my guilt. That line right there drives home that a lot. My satisfaction overpowering my guilt. Yeah. Her also trying all the different stuff is surprising too. I almost thought that she would only stick with the lava lamps, but it's almost like just testing everything now. The addiction has spread so much. It's kind of like what you said about drug addiction. Typically, heavy drug addicts will try whatever they can get their hands on, right? It's weird. What do you think the psychological effect of this story so far is with, because if you just did this story, the psychological effect is I am now looking at my lava lamp in a new line. Yeah. Now I'm like, okay, well, maybe this is good. No, I'm wondering, you can do this story again. And literally, I stopped on the side of the road and I picked up crack. Like you could. That would be, that would be the same story, right? Then you go back to the drug dealer. I was coming back for my nursing shift and I saw the crack bag on the side of the road. Yeah, but you know what I mean. You could replace this immediately with drugs and it would be the same kind of story of hiding it. I wonder what doing it to be like, it's very intentional being like lava lamp going specifically like Fabuloso Legos. I'm wondering, does that disarm the threat of what it is? It's gross, but if it's, do you, is it supposed to be a thing where we're sympathizing with the person of like, well, this is just a weird take. It's not like it's bad. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? I think the addiction metaphor is pretty fitting and I think that's what is being implied by the author. Like, you know, sure, I'm just wondering if the addiction, I'm wondering if the psychological thing though of just making it like normal objects has like, like I was saying, like a psychological effect of like, it makes the viewer not as like, not as, not as judgmental is wrong, but you don't think it's as much of a threat, I guess. Yeah, you see it as something odd instead of something dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Just that was interesting. It's kind of like, I mean, honestly, the way people view food addiction a lot, where it's like, yeah, it's food, you know, like what, what's their problem? Just stop eating as much, but similar to any other addiction, like people would have said that personality types can fall into it and stuff like that. It's easier said than done. Yeah. I wasn't the only one either. I had some company during some of my late night snack runs. Sometimes someone would be ringing out a bottle of fabuloso while another person picked through the rocks to find ones that looked appetizing. Sedimentary was a favorite of one of my neighbors who never acknowledged me whenever we made fleeting eye contact. In fact, no matter how many people were in the store, the place was always dead silent. The regular snacks in the front remained so unpopular, I was sure that some of those wrappers were collecting a fine layering of dust. A tea or a soda would sometimes disappear, presumably to wash whatever horrible junk they had purchased from the back down. But that was the extent of it. Through it all, the cashier with fire engine red hair and scary nails sat impassively at the register, ringing out all us freaks without outward judgment. I had begun to suspect that she was none other than Lucille herself, but I never got the courage to ask. I would just pay for my stuff, get my head in an awkward half-naught and be on my way. There wasn't another customer behind me. Her eyes would follow me all the way to the door. Marcus began to notice the frequency of my late night trips. He didn't say anything outright at first, but I could tell that he was regarding me with a little suspicion and more than a little concern. I wasn't ever gone long enough to justify any worries about an affair, but I was increasingly furtive and distant. I didn't want to hide it from him, but I also didn't want my husband to know I was a lava lamp guzzling weirdo. Still, wait on me, and my guilt seeped through my actions and words. Eventually, he set me down after we had an unusually quiet evening of pizza and game shows. He started and then stopped, looking down at his bare feet. I knew him well enough to know that he'd start and stop and start and stop again whenever he had to talk about something serious, but I didn't have the patience to deal with it. A knot of dull anger was beginning to form in my stomach, right next to where my unusual hunger sat. I know. This is about where I've been going. I snapped. As soon as I said it, I shut my mouth with an audible click, ashamed of my reaction. He looked at me as if I just slapped him. Jesus, babe, calm down. His voice wavering. I've never been the type to get too upset, especially about something like this. I took a deep breath through my nose and blew it out slowly, willing myself to calm down. Sorry, I've just been pulling a lot of long hours at work, just a little on edge. It was technically the truth. I've been leaving later and later, but only because I was distracted and not getting enough work done on time. My manager had yet to say anything about it, probably because I'd seen her at Lucille's to the plastic bag labeled baby cheeks and black sharpie. Jesus. My gosh. The occasional lateness of our paycheck indicated that she was experiencing the same issues I was. So she wasn't about to point the finger. Marga seemed to accept my work explanation, dropped the subject and started talking about his upcoming business trip. I could tell that my outburst, it scared him a little and it tore me up inside to think that I made the love of my life feel that way. There's nothing I could do about it now. I decided to quit going to the store again, back to the addiction thing, hurting family members, your boss, expecting it, but not being able to like call you out, stuff like that. The connections are pretty numerous. I decided to quit going to the store. Consuming whatever the hell was in those lava lamps probably wasn't good for me, physically or mentally. And I didn't want my secret driving a wedge between Marcus and I. I started taking a different route to and from the hospital. So I wouldn't have to pass the store and bought a ton of my favorite snacks from my pre Lucille days. So I would have something to munch on in case I got cravings. I thought that it would be easier like going on a diet for bikini season or drinking a little less coffee. Reality was much, much crueler. First thing to go sleep. Couldn't fall asleep for the life of me. And when I did, I'd only get an hour or two in before I woke up and sweat shaking. I lost focus at work and started making mistake after mistake. Stakes that I took out of my coworkers due to my increased irritability. My skin had started turning dry and dull and my eyes were constantly red. If I had been worried about my relationship with Marcus, cutting out the lamp certainly wasn't helping. We were fighting on a weekly basis about the littlest things and I was always too wrapped up in my own suffering to realize how rational I was being. My breaking point came one day when I was sitting in bed, crying after getting into yet another fight with Marcus. Through my blurred vision, I could see my faithful lava lamp, wax floating gently through the purple glowing water. Without even thinking about it, I grabbed it, started to undo the cap, ready to down it like I had done with so many others like it. If the plug hadn't popped out of the socket and turned the lamp off, I may very well have attempted it. I sat with the hot, dull lamp in my hands, shoulder shuddering as I cried even harder over what had happened to me. Something was really, really wrong with me and I knew who might have some answers. I drove to Lucille's late night snack bar for the first time in weeks, going nearly twice the speed limit. My rage was accelerated by a clear and attainable target and I stormed into that dengy shop buoyed by my righteous fury. My target looked up from her magazine at me, a sort of fear or excitement registering in her eyes. She chewed lazily on what I was beginning to suspect was not gum at all. I walked up to the counter and slay my hands down in front of her. Tell me what the hell you put in those freaking snacks. She looked at me blankly for a second and smiled. I don't know what you mean, honey. Her voice sounded like someone taught a garbage disposal how to talk. It set my teeth on edge and took all the wind out of my sails, trying to collect myself and lay into her again. You know damn well what I mean. She continued to smile but closed her magazine and focused the full front of her gaze on me. I don't make the snack sugar. I just sell them to y'all as is, just at a discount because I'm a generous woman. I'm just trying to make a living just like anyone else, you know what I mean? She smiled wider and I could see what she had between her teeth. Yeah, that was definitely not gum. I swallowed hard and considered going home with my tail between my legs, but I still wanted answers. This stuff, though you've got this stuff though. You have to be lying. It's fucking rocks and poison. No one can eat that. She cocked her head to one side. But you do. But everyone does. I just make it a little easier to swallow with all her smile never wavered as she spoke, even though her voice deteriorated and became less and less easy to understand. The pupils of her eyes distorted until it looked like I was staring down a goat. Her nails extended and retracted like a cat's claws. And I saw the faintest flicker of a forked tongue before I backed away, certain that she wasn't human. And since I had been greedily sucking down whatever she'd been giving me, not so sure I was one anymore. Just before I reached the door, she returned to her normal state and winked at me before returning to her magazine. I climbed back into my car, shaking. When I reached into my purse to grab my keys, I heard a familiar clink. Purple lamp with pink wax sticking slightly out of the paper bag with a note that read, this one's on the house. I didn't question how they got in there. I think that I'd always know there was something not right about that place. But I was too driven by curiosity to listen to my instincts. And now I was paying the price. I drove back in silence, knowing full well what I should do and what I do instead. I like that. Again, it's like a dealer who's like, Oh, no, just take another hit. Just get back into it. Yeah. And it's that last line. I knew what I should do and what I would do. Almost like, uh, I mean, it's like a new way, like a different take on doing a deal with a devil kind of deal. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Like the Fort Tongues obviously devilish, but it also makes me think of that this is some like, uh, like a troll almost or there's some, there's some folklore creature I'm trying to think of that I can't remember right now, but like a shape shifter. Yeah. Some kind of weird. Yeah. Some kind of like not goblin, but some kind of weird folkish demon kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I reached a kind of equilibrium after that night. I was broken. And the best I could do was work around my brokenness the best way I knew how. I resume my nightly snack runs, taking care to be sneakier about it than I used to be. I just down my lamps in the car outside the store in the dead of night, looking for all the world like the attic I'd become. I chuck all the tubes in the dumpster and go on my way, leaving my crimes and my dignity behind me. My mood stabilized and I was back to my normal, agreeable self with a few slight caveats. I had a bevy of excuses ready for my late night trips. Nothing I needed them anymore. Marcus had stopped asking. I thought that he had just let it go. But one night when I pulled up to the store, I saw his car parked outside. Let's get my binge for that night. He never told me. I never asked. We shared the rest of our lives together. We indulged in our shame alone. Our relationship was a ghost of what it had been. We were limping along. That's all we could expect to do. I really like that detail. Yeah. That's a very, yeah. That's, that's tragic. But man, like, like if this is a metaphor for addiction, it's like everyone, like you could imagine everyone in the town visits, visits the store just at different times and they're all ashamed of it, but everyone carries their own private shame. That's really cool. Also, I'm going to talk about also like the, the, the description that it's across the street from a church, right? It feels very much so like the, the heaven or hell, like the duality between the two things, you know, to give in to your last, your temptation or to reject it. Yeah. Right. I tried to tell myself all kinds of things. I wasn't actually doing anything bad to my body. I was perfectly fine. Really. I was in peak physical condition other than my weird sleep schedule and my perpetually shitty mood. Besides, I wasn't like those other freaks buying teeth and other human body parts. My cravings were totally benign. There were days that I could ignore my cravings and that allowed me to pretend I was still in total control. I lied to myself like this until the day it all fell apart. That was the day that Lucille's late night snack bar closed down. I'd gotten off work late and was heading to Lucille's to pick up my usual, but when I pulled into the gravel parking lot, I noticed that the neon open sign wasn't on. Not only was it not on, it wasn't even there. I sat in my car, trying not to panic. Maybe the sign was broken or she was getting a new one. I staggered out of my car and peered through the window. Nothing. The whole store was empty. No jars of twizzlers, no gumball machines, no fridges full of soda, not even a wrapper left on the ground. The whole place was cleared out like nothing was even there. I leaned my forehead against the glass and fogged up the window muttering, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. To myself like that would do anything to help me. I heard footsteps creaking up the stairs behind me and I turned to see Marcus standing there. No doubt here to make his own late night run as well. I opened my mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was a chokesaw. He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tight. I gripped his jacket for dear life. Knowing that without loose heels, it soon slipped away. It didn't take very long for us, the addicts, to start breaking down. We started receiving patients after patients in the hospital suffering from poisonings. They'd ingest common household cleaners and sometimes even drain fluid. Some of them made it, more didn't. I heard whispers of people walking into dentist offices having broken their teeth to try to eat rocks. One report on the news said a dental assistant was arrested for pulling patients' teeth without clearing the procedure with the dentist first and storing them in a jar. The reporters said that they didn't have a motive for such a bizarre crime, but I knew. I knew it from the trembling in my hands, the bags under my eyes, and the glow of the lava lamp that I couldn't bring myself to get rid of. I don't remember how much I needed to. Soon, the children started coming in. You know how your creepy aunt said she wanted to gobble you up when you were a little kid? Apparently Lucille had capitalized on that urge too. Kids with huge bite marks, some with entire chunks of their flesh missing, started to fill up our emergency room. The number of single digit ages I was having to punch in the system was wearing thin on my already threadbare sanity. Eventually, I quit. With little ability, I had left to do my job evaporated after I looked over my desk and saw my manager's catatonic husband holding an infant with half its face gone. Jesus. Oh gosh, just chewed on her child's face. Oh man. I lost Marcus one month after Lucille shut down and one week after I quit. I came home one day to find him lying on the floor of the kitchen and nothing but his boxers, a colt gun clutched in his blue tipped fingers. I called 911 sobbing into the phone, but I knew there was nothing that could be done for him. I was helping to plan his funeral instead of our wedding. By the week's end, he was in the ground and I was alone. Staring into my lava lamp until exhaustion dragged me into sleep, night after night. The only reason I'm still here is because I received a letter in the mail a couple days ago. It was from the Lucille's late night snack bar corporate office. Apparently, despite their closing, business had been a thriving success and they expressed a desire to open more locations in other towns. I had been a loyal customer and since they heard I was recently unemployed, they were wondering if I would give opening a franchise across the state line shot. And of course, I would have access to all the merchandise I wanted free of charge. I read the letter by the light of the lava lamp and stared at the words for a long, long time. You might be driving in your hometown one day and happen to see a Lucille's. It might look like mine that's rickety wooden building and the Coca-Cola sign. It might be in a shell of an abandoned Wendy's. It might look like a bodega or a mall kiosk or whatever unassuming place one can buy cheap snack from. If you do decide to go inside, only buy the items from the front of the store. Never ever go into the back. And if you do go back there out of curiosity, don't pick up anything. If you do pick something up, don't buy it. And if you idiot, throw caution to the wind and buy it, and you see my face staring at you from across the counter, don't blame me. At least I tried to warn you. That was a fun story, man. What a weirdo. That was sick. That impressed me. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, it kind of comes across like, you know what, you know why towards the end, I was like, you know, like, he started to set in a bit, but it's like a fairy tale. It's like a grim fairy tale. Like, I thought it was going to go the route of like the witch who has the house made of gingerbread or whatever, you know, like the handsome Gretel, whatever. But it does read to me like a, like a warning or like a folk tale or a grim fairy tale. It's like trying to teach somebody something of like, you know, this addictive habit or giving it to impulses. But I do like this idea of like very obscure temptations that get hold of you is really, really fun. But that's the fairy tale element, I think works really well. I think I like the end. It's really cute. Like a really cute way to end it. I like the ending too. And it also to go back to the addiction metaphor, it's like they eventually become the dealer, right? They become so sucked in by it and they lose everything else that they had going for him in life. So might as well fully commit over to your addiction, right? So, so quickly tragic to the story was like the they really, they lower your defenses quite a bit with like the millennial lines and stuff. And the Rick and Morty poster mentioned and stuff like that. You also want to throw up from how cute it is, you know, like, oh, like you're booping your snoot with my fry, that kind of thing. But it just, I mean, it really does nose dive into just complete darkness so quick. Yeah. Yeah, it takes all of that. All of the like apprehension we had with like the lightheartedness and is like, this is a story about addiction. And then my husband died of the addiction and blah, blah, blah. Well, I thought, yeah, I thought that was fun was like, it made me throw up from that. But then by the end of it, I was like, Oh, can we go back to that? I'd like you guys to go back to that time. Yeah, it's like, where's the Rick and Morty posters? The idea to that it was the idea that it was affecting the whole community too is not maybe not the whole community, but enough people to warrant that many hospital visits and stuff is particularly interesting. It was a very, I see the connection between this and late night in the voodoo store because it's like, you know, it's it preys on the thing you want to do. And they're just the seller, you know, it's like, well, you ate it. I'm just the person providing the goods. And I like how Lucille might have been like she was at some point and she's Lucille to someone else. Maybe she like, we can't tell because the story is narrating from her perspective, but maybe she's taking on these goblin s qualities becoming the monster in someone else's story down the road. It's really bloody. And of course, obviously the fairy tale thing at the end that if you ever see in your town this place, blah, blah, blah. The, yeah, God, I just I feel that it just kept getting worse and worse. Like, oh my God, do you feel like it's lowest point? And almost immediately, the next paragraph is like, yep, so I kept doing it and it kept getting worse. You're like, oh my God, dude, holy hell, it just was really unrelenting in that way, which was kind of an unexpected turn that I thought that this was going to take because it really is such a I still think that there's something to the idea of just these like weird ticks, like not making it obviously not making it so obvious. Like if it was just literally drugs, and this isn't really much of a horror story, or it isn't kind of weird, it gives it like a weird fantastical, like I said, fantasy or fairy tale kind of quality of almost being like almost, you know, like a house made of candy. But this being like a room full of like obscure treats that are not traditional is just it's a very interesting way to do a addiction story. Just wouldn't have expected that. It's just very, very, very odd. It was fun. Yeah. Yeah, I thought this was fantastic. And it was really a sleeper to me because when it started, I was kind of like, all right, we'll see where this goes. But the metaphor worked really well and I dug it. That was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. So again, everyone wants to check it out. Shesney on Reddit. Shesney. I know you haven't written a story in six years or at least posted one, but get back to it. That was great. Come on, Shesney. I really enjoyed that. Come back to the light, Shesney. Appreciate you. It was a fun one though. Nice little fun, quick story, nice little drive by kind of story, bang bang. And then we're out. You know, it's a fun one. Shesney. They have a bunch of other, like looking at some of their other titles too, they have the night my church burned down. I summoned an angel, an even trade, all of these. I'm down. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I always like when, uh, when a story is called, I summoned an angel, it's, it's, it's never, never good. I would love to read a story. It's like, I summoned an angel and it was awesome. I would love one of those. I summoned an angel. They're my best friend. And now I believe in God and everything's great. Yeah. And then at that point on life was pretty bad ass. The end. But that's our episode this week guys. I'm looking at this lava lamp and it is kind of appetizing. I want you to drink it dude. The next time we see this, it better be empty and your, your lips better be caked and wax. I mean, I get, I like, trust me, I, I, after reading that description, I get it a bit more, but I still wouldn't call this appetizing, especially if the little like wax flakes floating around in there and stuff. I don't know. I, I don't know. I, yeah, especially dude, eating colk, when it's on, when it's on, I get it a lot more, when it's like moving around. Oh, so you're saying whenever the, uh, whenever the yolks are kind of dancing for you, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever they're kind of, you know, they're moving for me a little bit. I got some. Um, okay. Well guys, that's our episode. Thank you so much to, uh, our listeners here, especially you crazy sons of bitches on audio platforms like Spotify and Apple podcasts. We appreciate you and giving us a nice rating there. And of course got to shout out to patrons. Thank you so much. And until next week guys, we will see you in the next one. Stay creeped. Bye. See you in the next one. Um, I can, if someone gives me a thousand dollars, I'll convince Hunter to drink this lava lamp, I think I can probably make that happen.