A Different Kind of Finale ft Se’era Spragley Ricks

Hi there, it's Rachel. I'm very excited to tell you about the multi-award winning podcast, Never Post, the most online show in the Radiotopia family, but not in an annoying way. Have you ever wondered, why is the internet like that? That is the question the folks at Never Post try to answer in each episode. But again, and I cannot overstate this, not in an annoying way more in a loving tailored sonically experimental way but you don't even have to take my word for it because you have heard at least one of the brilliant minds behind never post here on normal gossip Mike Rugnetta was one of the guests for season nine the episode that is titled email with a vampire it's a pretty good episode if I do say so myself the team never posts wonders why the internet and the world because of the internet is the way it is. They cover the news online and provide further analysis of why the deep ideas contained therein are worth exploring. Whether that's new leadism, Etsy witches, AI is the dominant aesthetic of new American fascism. The team talks to journalists, anthropologists, lawyers, theorists, linguists, and more about our current tech and media moment from PRX's Radiotopia, Never Post, a podcast for and about the internet. Episodes every week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. Hello and welcome to Normal Gossip. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton. And in each episode of this podcast, we're going to bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. And as some of you might have guessed from the title of today's episode, today's episode is going to be a little bit different. I will not be telling a gossip story to a guest for reasons that I will be explaining in just a minute, but I know that a substantial amount of y'all will probably be tuning out right now. Hopefully we will see you back here for season 10 Which will be airing sometime over the summer of 2026 And which will feature some old favorites Some new and phenomenal guests And as per usual, some unforgettable gossip Alright, here is where I get personal I don't really think there is a non-dramatic way to tell this story So thank you in advance for sticking around The weekend after Christmas, I had to go to the ER because I was experiencing some symptoms of a stroke. Luckily, as you can maybe tell by the fact that I am recording now and not on like medical leave, I did not have a stroke. But I do want to take a minute to talk about something I learned in the ER, which is the acronym BEFAST. The letters stand for balance, eyes, face, arms, speech, and time to get help. Basically, if you notice symptoms in yourself or someone that include trouble with balance, blurred or double vision, drooping in the face or arm, and trouble with speech, then go to an ER immediately. Time is definitely the essence in the event of a stroke, which those are all symptoms of. What I ended up getting diagnosed with is something called Bell's palsy, which is inflammation of the facial nerve whose symptoms can mimic a stroke. Luckily, my case was fairly mild. I didn't really notice until I was brushing my teeth one night and realized that I couldn't spit properly, which was relatively minor, but also pretty scary. I couldn't taste on one half of my tongue for a while, which was definitely the strangest symptom. But the one that has lasted the longest besides just like exhaustion is a little bit of vertigo because turns out the facial nerve connects to your inner ear. And your girl is sensitive to motion sickness at the best of times. You can ask literally anyone who has driven in a car with me. Basically, since New Year's, I have not been able to read or write for longer than a couple of minutes without getting nauseous. Like, this intro is the longest thing I've written since mid-December, and I had to write it over two days. I'm already feeling leaps and bounds better than I was when I went to the ER. I'm back in the gym. I'm seeing a neurologist at the end of January. But the reason I'm giving y'all maybe a little bit too much information about my health is because there was a point when I got back from the midseason break where I really, really thought I could just muscle through this and deliver the final episode of this season as promised. At this point, I think y'all might have gotten a little bit of an inkling that I am just a little bit of a perfectionist and that I hate disappointing people. Once the ER doctors confirmed I didn't have a stroke, what scared me the most was the thought of returning to work and not being able to perform, which, spoiler alert, is exactly what happened. And luckily, and I keep saying that, but in the aftermath of all this, I actually do feel really lucky and grateful for my family and friends who took care of me, even though I am quite bad at being taken care of. And I feel extremely lucky to work with people who foreground my humanity because they helped me realize that going on like nothing happened, like the very basics of my job, reading and writing didn't actively make me sick to my stomach wasn't fair. it wasn't fair to me which honestly I don't really care about what actually convinced me was realizing that no matter how hard I tried whatever episode I delivered right now just would not be as good as I would want it to be it would be fine like I'm a professional but I know y'all are smart enough to notice when the quality of the show isn't up to our usual standards. And it just didn't feel fair to me to pretend like everything was okay, even as it would be very clear to y'all that it wasn't. So instead of a usual episode, we are doing something a little different today, since I didn't want to leave y'all with nothing. And quite frankly, because we have contract expectations to fulfill. Though I do want to shout out our partners at Radiotopia for their flexibility at a difficult time. So today, I have got a special guest with me here in the virtual studio, a guest that has been an absolute rock as we try to finish out this season under some extraordinary circumstances. That's right. I have somehow convinced my partner and friend and Normal Gossip's lead producer, Sierra Spragley-Ricks, to join me on mic today. Sierra, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here to support my friend and chop it up with you today. I'm so happy you're here, not least because you're kind of always here. So it's nice that everyone else can hear you too, instead of you being the voice in my head. I like being the voice in your head though. I like it too. Today, Sierra and I are going to talk a little bit about what the past year has been like for us at the helm of normal Gossip. I know this is a lot of people's comfort show, so I'm going to warn y'all that we will be talking about what it means for us as two Black women to be making this show under the second Trump administration. If today is your no news day, then feel free to skip to the second part of the episode where Sierra and I will be reacting to some gossip morsels sent to us by y'all that neither one of us have heard. So all of that after a short break. and we're back sierra hello hi so officially we announced the transition in December of 2024. So to the audience, it has been about a year and some change. For us, it's been, I would say, about 16 to 18 months since we knew that this was going to happen. What has surprisingly been one of the more controversial parts of this transition is the way that we talk about it, which is with the phrase peaceful transition of power. I opened up a little bit in our episode with Jasper about why we keep saying that because I was honestly a little taken aback by how many people didn't understand why we kept harping on it but I wanted to hear your thoughts as someone who understands podcasts and the industry far more than me about how transitions like this usually go maybe some of your fears coming into it and then I wanted to know how you feel like our peaceful transition of power has gone um yeah I have witnessed these transitions happen frequently within our industry and it does not happen like this it doesn't happen as smoothly um and as intentional as our uh transition did happen I have friends in the industry that I'm really close with that took over shows that was hosted previously by someone who wasn't a person of color. And when they took over that, you know, the new host who was either a black woman or a person of color, the audience response was really harsh. And at the time, the second Trump administration hadn't like we were in election season. And then when the announcement was made, he had already won and he ran on rhetoric that. Was anti-DEI. And to be frank, I didn't want us to be seen as DEI hires. I didn't want our work and our resumes questioned in a way that made us feel that we weren't worthy enough to take over the show from Kelsey and Alex. I am very understanding that this was their baby that built and cultivated the audience and they gave incredible seasons. but they also chose us to be the ones to continue this new chapter and I was really afraid that in the climate that we were entering into this new chapter that we would not be received well and I think the transition has gone as well as it did is because everyone at Defector was very intentional know about that not happening to us and that meant the world to me yeah I agree I mean the reality is that a lot of people the entire audience formed a relationship with Kelsey and Alex I think something a word that is tossed around a lot is parasocial but before the advent of radio which is relatively recent if you think about it the only voices that you heard were usually people you know like having someone's voice in your ear is actually a pretty intimate form so it makes sense that people formed a very strong connection to Kelsey and I think we both knew when we came in as just fans of other projects that there was gonna be a section of the audience that was just gonna say you know what to me the show is kelsey and i'm done and a lot of those people said we wish you well and i appreciate that so much and that was entirely within i think the realm of expectations but i think something that you just kind of highlighted is the fact that i won't speak for you though i'm sure you've had a similar experience of maybe not being called but definitely made to feel like an affirmative action hire yes or um in college for me like i an affirmative action like admittance and i think we both know both intrinsically and also just sociologically from a data standpoint that what we've had to do to get here just entirely negates the idea of it being easier for us to be here because we're Black, which is basically what affirmative action hire or like DEI hire getting at is the idea that the standards are somehow lowered for us to get in, rather than the fact that for us to even get into the room, we've had to overcome things that our white peers couldn't even imagine. And so I think we both shared that fear. And I think that is a huge reason why we kept highlighting that this transition of power was peaceful because as you pointed out so many of those transitions that happened that left black women or people of color just at the mercy of an audience were neglected yes or just ignored or actively set up to fail by business partners or editorial partners that didn't care to see those black women succeed and didn't understand that by placing a black woman in a position previously held by someone who wasn't a Black woman, you have to proactively manage the expectations of your audience. You have to tell them how to act. Mm-hmm. And a lot of media organizations don't want to do that. And something I forever appreciate about Kelsey and Alex is that they both were like, our audience is going to follow our lead. Yes. And our lead is that we are very happy. And this is something that we wanted to happen. And not only are we happy, these are the best people to take over the show. So I think we keep talking about the peaceful part because it's not just about us. It's about the people around us who have ensured that this transition of power was peaceful. One of the things that I think about and I remember, and I don't even know if I told Alex how that made me feel. But one of the first initial conversations that I had with her about coming on to the show and like essentially taking over her position as a lead producer. I remember we were meeting. That was one of our very first conversations via Zoom. and she is going over the role and talking with me about this position. And I was like, hey, like, okay, so did you want me like, you know, you already see my resume and things, but like, do you want me to do an edit test? Do you need me to do this? I'm naming just because, as you mentioned, Rachel, we are used to going above and beyond to prove our worth that we can do the job a role that is being presented or offered to us And I remember Alex being like Sierra I worked with you before because she was a guest on I See Why Am I when you and I were both there. And she was like, I also have listened to countless episodes that you've produced. So an edit test is not going to show me anything different because I already am familiar with your work and your work is good. and you should be proud of that and confident in that. And that carried on through our time, like the transition. And, you know, she's still the supervisor and producer. So like she'll, you know, give notes on different episodes and things of that nature. And she has affirmed my work and allowed me to feel confident enough to not second guess myself when making editorial decisions. And that I really appreciate. And that's how you be intentional and affirm Black women in the workplace. Right. I think something that we're both kind of pointing out is that our peers and our colleagues have matched our own proactivity. Yes. Like, they are not necessarily waiting for something bad to happen before they put plans in place. Like, they are willing to think through worst case scenarios, which we have for almost everything that's happened this year. And luckily, they haven't happened. But just having those plans in place, I think have made us feel a lot better. And something I want to point out is that they've also been humble enough to admit when they're wrong. I think a lot of white people, I think a lot of non-black people are so afraid of being wrong that they end up not listening to the black person in front of them and no one is born knowing how to do this well and truly the reality of being a human being is that you're gonna fuck up you don't come into this world knowing the boundaries of the people around you and what matters is a non-ternalizing that fuck up as you being a bad person because that's not how fuck-ups work I fuck up doesn't mean that I should go kill myself you know no don't do that Rachel yeah but also being able to recover from those fuck-ups and then carry on and continue to have a good relationship and so I have been very grateful for the environment that we've worked in over the past 18 months, even when it's hard. Like there has never been a moment where I've been like, what I'm experiencing here wouldn't be happening at another company and worse, you know? Right. I guess we've kind of been dancing around this, talking about this, sort of referencing this. But we are recording this episode towards the end of January, which means that for the past few weeks, we have all been trying to process the news and images coming out of Minneapolis, where people are being hunted and assaulted by masked agents of the state. The editor of our show, Justin Ellis, is from Minneapolis and is also a Black man. Actually, at this point, the majority of the core production staff of Normal Gossip is Black. and something I have struggled to contend with this year is making this show which is intentionally entirely separate from the news as the country descends into fascism yes it's incredibly hard because we are human beings, right? We have feelings, we have emotions, we have reactions. And we are somehow expected just as citizens in this country to operate as business as usual. So seeing these flood of images on our timeline, reading the news and like dealing with and contending with the country's descent into fascism but also do our jobs it's really hard um to try to divorce yourself from that reality because we're not supposed to like we're human beings right however I also think about um when we were on tour and this was one of the many stops I don't remember which stop it was and I remember we were doing the meet and greet after the show this woman came up to us and of course like you know we took our pictures and i remember her pulling us to the side and it was like i love your show i listen on my walks and when i take a break from work i'm able to listen to it like escape for a moment and that is what is helping me because like all of us we have something that we escape to right maybe a tv show that we're binge watching rachel was just talking about traders in one of our meetings recently and we rachel and i like texted on the side watching his and hers on netflix and like we all have something to try to escape to um so when working on our show i like go back to that woman's comment and i'm like okay we are creating that for her and although my job isn't on the front lines fighting fascism or any of those things i am providing a safe space and an escape for our listeners to be like okay i because our listeners they're smart they're tuned into the news they are on it and this moment of rest that we give to our listeners they're able to do that refuel themselves and then go back and be engaged citizens so that's the way i look at our work as we're creating through this shit the shit's the one because i'm like i don't even know how to articulate fully what the fuck we're experiencing no it's impossible it is impossible to articulate what is happening not least because quite frankly we don't even fully know what is happening and that is the point no we don't my comfort escape content is trixie mattel videos like i love trixie mattel i when i can't sleep i just put on the i like to watch series katya and trixie where they react to netflix shows so i have seen almost every episode too many times so that is my comfort content and in one of her videos Trixie was saying that she knew that a lot of people watched her content as a sort of reprieve and how she took that responsibility seriously because I think especially as especially as we become more familiar with the terrible ways that Hollywood works um is hard to really empathize with entertainers but I think something I started struggling with pretty early on was trying to maintain the integrity of this space as it was built yeah which is as a reprieve and not necessarily as a timely show not responding to the news cycle i don't want to say that it's apolitical because i don't think that it is i don't think anything is apolitical i definitely don't think gossip is apolitical and quite honestly if you listen to the show closely you can definitely figure out our politics yeah um so i don't want to say it's apolitical but it's not engaging in the news cycle. And I wanted to maintain that. But what that meant for me as the person writing the show and scripting the show is I couldn't engage with the news cycle because it felt impossible for me to switch from reading about the genocide in Gaza to writing a joke quite frankly it felt impossible to go from reading about federal employees being laid off from their dream jobs and the ways that's going to impact everything from our food production to the weather service to wanting to hee hee ha ha about oh euro chip gone wrong and it made me feel like there's no way both of these things can matter there is no world in which both of these things can matter and that's not true but I found that I couldn't care about the stakes in our stories because everything around us had such high stakes and we intentionally choose gossip as low stakes and I was having a really hard time balancing that and I remember going to Kelsey early on and being like how did you do this and she was like well we've never done the show in a Trump administration and I can't say that that's not going to impact what's happening here because obviously bad things happen under every president and you know the Biden presidency had its issues as most do but the constant inundation of news that happens under trump administration is different and that is intentional and she was like i've never made the show under those circumstances but she said you're gonna have to not be online when you're in production for the show you have to pick a specific time to read the news not every day and that is those are your news hours and then you're not online because it is not the human brain just cannot take in the amount of news we're seeing online in general but having to take that in and then also kind of inhabit the world of normal gossip is just too much for one girl and handle and so that means that for a lot of the production I'm not super online and it's both great for my mental health and also makes me feel bad because I'll be in conversations with my friends and they'll be talking about these things that are happening and I'm like I haven't read the news in three days which shouldn't actually be that much time but right now three days is a lot it's a lot babes it's a lot it's definitely a balance i think that i'm still finding um between making this show and caring about the integrity of this show because if i don't care about the stories then why would you guys care about the stories and why would the guests care about the stories and so I have to care it is my job to care about these stories and so creating the conditions under which I as a black woman can care about these stories while the world is falling down around me is definitely something that I'm still finding I think it's like indicative of our culture too um specifically a black culture even when we are under the worst of circumstances we find a way to laugh and i mean again i it's been very hard for me since our last show to be like completely offline because that was our job to be online and i have changed the way in which i've interacted with the internet since then um but even online as we speak there's a train going around like if I was an out how would you say who yeah yeah yeah the Jamaican who or the who of Baltimore there's a Madea who there's a lot of who's out there okay but it's in those moments that I'm reminded that like we are able to find something to just laugh about and just have fun and so as I go into production of the show as I go into editing as we go into recordings I'm reminded of my late grandmother just girl you just gotta laugh yeah and we have to laugh to keep from crying at times. And just to provide laughter and joy to our listeners helps keep me going through these very difficult, to say the least, but deranged at times. And I'm happy to be a part of that for other people. That is actually a perfect transition into the last question I had for this little section which i wanted to end on a slightly lighter note um which is i mean besides the baltimore owl what is giving you hope right now because i think as black women both of us kind of have an understanding that hope is a practice yes and that what our enemies want because yes they are our enemy and I do not feel like we should be shy about saying that what they want is for us to lose hope and to give in to what's happening around us and to forget that other people are worth fighting for yes so what are you doing to remember that I I will say I'm encouraged by seeing others lean in and tap into community that's exactly what i was gonna say yeah what's happening in minneapolis oh my gosh i know it's so what's happening with ice in minneapolis is so like horrific but the community response to it is truly like it's giving me life Yes. In the non-hyperbolic sense. You know, like it is actually giving me life in that people are fighting for their neighbors. And I think something that both of us maybe felt after spending so long covering the internet is that people have forgotten that there are other people on the side of the screen. And seeing the way people in Minneapolis are rallying and creating, following around ice cars and like honking like the way people are showing up even as they're being terrorized is so brave and so just it's beautiful to see it is it is that that gives me hope that we hear this statement a lot that our country is so divided and it is yeah it is like don't even say when was it not when was it ever when was it not divided the closest this country came to falling apart was about the country splitting in half over the question of like who is a human and who is it but to see people as this country is has been who has always been seeing people just rally for one another and comfort and support one another and like oh This is where ice is today y Um do you want me to go get your groceries You want me to go do this this for you that gives me hope and it gives me hope that although there are people who may have thought differently in the past and excuse this inhumane behavior they are waking up I guess and they are realizing that the way in which they were moving before was detrimental to society and they are taking the time to educate themselves and to become proactive and rectifying the harm that has been caused by their actions um yeah i'm seeing it more and more i i am hopeful that this will do what it has in New York. Hell yeah. That's my mayor. The first politician I've ever voted for. That's a lie. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary in 2016. And I was happy about that. But other than that, every time I've cast my vote, I've been like, God damn it. And I'm not even a New Yorker. My ass is in Virginia. But I was happy for that because I feel like there is something brewing. And I'm very, very hopeful that this sentiment spreads and we are able to make significant change and move away from this individualistic and capitalist society that's my hope girl that's all that's all i got right i mean that's huge i was literally just thinking it is a tragedy the horrific things that have had to happen for this to become true but i remember in i'm gonna get the year wrong because time is a flat circle but before i think the 2020 election there were many activists calling to abolish ice yes and so many of their fellow leftists their fellow liberals said that's impossible like don't say that you're gonna lose us votes like we can't push that far i remember when i was in college in 2016 we had a bds campaign to get the school to divest from israel and that was so rancorous I think it's hard for people who are maybe Gen Z or like younger than the age of 25 to understand just how in lockstep the majority of America, the world, Western society was on Israel until very recently, despite the horrific crimes that were committed before the last few years. And the large public sentiment change against Israel, against ICE in the past few years, some terrible things have had to happen. Like unimaginable tragedies have had to happen and they shouldn't have because people have been calling for this for years. But I just remember people saying that it would be an impossibility that we would ever get to a point where a large majority of people would support abolishing ICE or get to a point where a large majority of people support not sending billions of dollars of weapons to Israel while people freeze on the street in America. You know, and we've gotten there. Yeah, we have gotten there. And so I'm just thinking of the things that people say right now that are impossible, that will not seem impossible in a few years. Hopefully, horrific things don't have to happen for those things to come into place. But I think that is what is giving me hope right now is I remember when people were getting literally laughed out of leftist circles for saying we should send her abolishing ICE. right and that's not true anymore and that's like a huge shift it's a huge shift and it it gives me hope that like when my niece is older this is not something that feels impossible to do but it's within like reach like an election within reach not so far off and my hope is that nothing else horrendous happens um i'm not going to comment further or whether i believe that hope will come to fruition listen hope springs eternal you know gotta gotta have some gotta have some some achievable goals and some reach goals you know yeah reach for the sky plan to land among i don't know what the rest of the stars i don't fucking know there you go exactly period babe but yes exactly exactly um i think we are landing on the same place which i think happens so often you guys would not believe um but also i think means that it is time for a short break yeah after which we will be back with some gossip morsels that neither sierra or i have heard our incredible producer Jay Tolviera has really kept it down over the past month like it is it's been it's been a struggle so thank you Jay thank you we love you and thank you Sierra and thank you to all of y'all and we'll be right back and we're back and we've got some gossip morsels are you ready sierra this is your first time being in the audience seat yeah i hate it you know i'm too much a control freak for this shit i want to know uh listen i get it but also there's nothing better than being a little bit shocked a little bit gagged, a little bit goops, you know? So let's see it. Hello, this is Jasper, Defector's business guy. So I went to business school in the mid 2010s, not to generalize too much, but many people at top MBA programs think of business school primarily as like networking opportunities or finishing school or even just an extended vacation from work. And from that mindset comes a really heavy emphasis on traveling. There is a subset of MBA students who are trying to travel internationally as often as possible. And there was someone I went to business school with, let's call him Michael, who seemed to be just jetting off somewhere new every other weekend. So the academic calendar for our school before Thanksgiving did have classes on Monday and Tuesday, but many people just skipped those days of class so they could do some extra travel before going home for Thanksgiving. Now, the Monday, that Monday, I went to school. Probably a quarter of my classmates were not there. That was not surprising at all. What was surprising was that during class, a detective with the local police department came in looking for Michael. Michael's parents had been trying to reach him for several days, but he was not picking up his phone. So they called the police, who went to Michael's apartment building and could not find him. So they sent a detective to school to ask around. And it did not take long for our classmates to realize what had happened, which is Michael was in Cuba. So I went to business school in the exact couple of years where there was a thawing in U.S.-Cuba relations. So it was easier to do tourism there. And a big group of our classmates planned a trip to Cuba. And 10 years ago, maybe still, you couldn't just show up to Cuba and expect your phone with your Verizon wireless plan to work. So people were basically off the grid for a week. And of course, this was well known enough. So surely most people just told their loved ones where they were going. Maybe they left a hotel landline number for emergencies. Except for Michael. Michael did not tell his parents he was going to be unreachable for a whole week. and we later found out the reason for that is Michael had been traveling all over the world without ever telling his parents he was taking trips because he was borrowing money from them to go back to grad school and he didn't want them to think he was being frivolous with his time and their money which uh no comment from me uh so this started a long game of telephone literal telephone because Michael's parents insisted on getting in touch with Michael to confirm that he was safe and presumably yell at him a lot. So lots of people had to mobilize to try to get in touch with like the parents or siblings of other people who had gone on this trip to Cuba, but who had the itinerary and knew how to call the hotel. So this all ended up being a tough look for a, I don't know, like a 28 year old man who considered himself a very cosmopolitan person of the world. Right. But his friend's parents had to be contacted so that his own parents could yell at him. And it all it all ended up being fine. Michael was safe. I would say he did travel noticeably less for the remaining time in school. So I think if there's anyone listening who's applying to get an MBA right now, just remember this story. And if you end up in a similar situation, just tell your parents you're going on a fucking camping trip nearby. Right. There can be other reasons why you wouldn't answer your phone. Just get ahead of it. so true it is just like jasper to give actionable advice at the end of his gossip story um i need to start from the beginning which is realizing that people go to grad school for vacation i'm sorry listen that's another that's another tax bracket that i have not touched no literally i am what do you mean you go to grad school and you spend how do you where are you getting the money to travel internationally this happened i oh god i hate saying this because it's the most pretentious sentence in the world i studied abroad in paris when i was in college i loved it okay paris is incredible sue me but so many of my classmates would travel and again traveling in europe is different is very traveling from america to europe traveling europe is so cheap um not cheap enough that me at 19 was traveling every weekend the way some of my classmates were also i was like we're in paris we have four months in paris right like why are you going to germany every weekend like you're not getting its fucking bergine like or however the fuck you pronounce it uh so that's a um b it is so funny to consider yourself a man of the world and then have your parents be calling every single person you know blowing up your spot because this is exactly what my parents would do and i know that i know that your mom too your mom this is the way that i'm thinking through this if i was on the phone with the cops or friends i'd be like can y'all can i just say what y'all for like a hot no literally no i'm like i don't want to go back had to go to the limits of having not only to like have the police come up to my school um i would be like actually i'm gonna need a police escort back home and again a cab but i'm gonna need a police escort back to the united states because my mother's gonna murder me when she sees i'm alive yeah and i need to stay for a considerable amount of time because i like she she'd be glad don't get me wrong she'd be glad that i know exactly but then she'd be like and you couldn't let me know like no i don't need that type of smoke in my life so no literally my mother made me watch taken before i studied abroad in paris just to let you know the kind of woman my mother is i love her and i'm turning into her but she made me watch taken before i went to paris and i was like what what do you this is not a documentary it would have been like the drama man anyway so that uh michael that's crazy all of this mess is preventable in a way that is so 28 year old boycoded it's like they get a little bit close to 30 and they're like i've got it all figured out and it's like you're dumb he's like look i'm grown grown i get to go on the strip exactly are my parents paying my way yes like listen like i don't want them to think i am being irresponsible but you are well and then he disappeared in cuba like you don't want your parents to think you were okay this is the male brain i don't want my parents to think that i'm being irresponsible with their money so i'm gonna go to cuba and not tell them so that they have to send a police escort and spend how many man hours to track me down which probably costs money definitely time and time is money should they teach you that in your mba program at least make it sound like that you're going on there on assignment for like exactly you know some real world experience in the business realm doing no international business relations something i do in the business realm i'm gonna need you to think it through okay babe use some of that education to figure out your parents manage your parents yes um i love this i thought this was gonna go a different way when jasper was like many people use an nba program as a vacation I was going to say many people use the NBA program to find a husband. That's what I know about NBA programs. But that's a different gossip story. What's the next morsel? Hi. Okay, so when I was around, I must have been age seven or eight. My dad took me to the local, you know, everything store. and I really wanted to go to the toy section. And I kept pulling my dad's arm. And he said, you know, if you keep pulling my arm, you're going to pull it right off. And I did. I pulled my dad's arm off. And I lost my shit. I started sobbing. I lied down on the floor. You know, I was inconsolable. And I remember thinking, I've ruined my dad's life. I have pulled my dad's arm off. Like, I've forever altered his timeline. Come to find out, he was wearing one of those Halloween arms that people put out their trunks. He had one stuffed up his sleeve. So, kind of a treasured memory. Okay. Bye-bye. i'm crying oh my god okay i just want to shout out to our caller for like their remarkable level of like emotional stability the composure the way they told this story i'm just like this is a treasured family memory i was crying i thought i ruined my death life this would be like a a my villain origin like this would be the moment in my life where I turned evil It like I don trust anyone My trust issues after this would be crazy Can you imagine being in the everything store looking at the toy section and then your dad's arms? See, this is what I would imagine. Because the running joke on social media is millennials are the new adults. so yeah this is something i would imagine us doing right like yeah yeah something scarring and traumatic yeah this would definitely end up in a tiktok right now um that is it your dad is diabolical and also funny and i want to hear this can't have been the only this can't have been the only prank you pulled like this over the course of your life if I need to know more can dad like send a voice note can dad know and tell this from his perspective because I'm so also I just want to I guess maybe did he figure this prank out in the store right he did he plan this when he went in or were like you always tugging on him a little too much not trying to make you no you have the victim of the villain you're a seven eight year old you should be pulling on your parents arm it means you're staying close to them like good job seven eight year old you right but like when when did this idea enter your dad's head was he trying to teach you boundaries like I need to understand dad also did he take you to get ice cream afterwards because I feel like you deserve that like I deserve ice cream days all right a month of ice cream because like I thought I like ruined my dad's life like your dad's a hoot and a holler um no but really can you please call her can you just have your dad record a voice like see this is i can't be in the audience like power to our audience because i'm like no i need updates and you're so right y'all are so brave for not knowing the whole story sometimes i really do appreciate that okay last gossip let's turn you back to the year of our lord 2012 there's no tinder there's no hinge my co-worker's like you gotta get out there she takes it upon herself to create me a plenty of fish profile which if you're old you know you know and i read the profile and it's a thousand percent not myself it says things like i like to hike and go to the gym and i eat healthy none of these things are true so i'm finally like there's if there's gonna be a profile circulating with a picture on it i might as well like make it myself i don't take any of this seriously so i'm just like free typing on the thing like a crazy person and i'm like if they don't like it then they don't like me and if they don't then they don't fast forward i go on three terrible dates all of which could be like their own separate movie and i'm like they're all serial killers i will never go on another date from this god forsaken thing again I'm gonna delete this shit but there was one guy I had messaged and I thought he was like really hot and I was like let me just see if he had messaged me back by any chance well he had messaged me that morning and was like so sorry I was on tour with my band but I would love to meet up and like talk so I messaged him and I'm like this has been crazy I'm gonna delete this but if you want to talk like here's my number text he texts me back so we make plans to meet up at a Starbucks as you do and we go on our first date and he's amazing and I'm in love with him and we go on a second date and I'm in actual love with him and it's amazing like not actual love but you know what I mean so we start hanging out and I go to his apartment and for a guy it is the cleanest apartment I've ever been in he lives with his dad so we're dating for a while and I'm finally going to sleep over and you know wink wink so I sleep over and everything and he's great and I fall asleep thinking this was like the best night and I wake up in the morning and something is amiss I got my period a week early in this man's bed on the lightest color of sheets white possible I need to die I need to move to another country I need to fake my death change my name I need to die. I panic. I refuse to move. He wakes up and he's like, oh my God, you're amazing. Everything is amazing. You're perfect. And I am still dying and not moving. And at this time in history, those like reddish purplish vitamin waters are everywhere and everyone's drinking them. They're like the iPhone of drinks. Like everybody has them. And I don't know the flavor. I think it was like dragon fruit or something. And I'm formulating a plan. I tell him that I'm feeling a little hungover can you please get me the vitamin water and he does and he's like handing it to me the vitamin water and he stops and he's like I don't really eat or drink in my room so like please don't spill it I'm like motherfucker he's gonna hate me but I have no options this is it luckily as he's handing me the drink he's like there's a really great breakfast place across the street and I'm gonna get these breakfast sandwiches when I'm hungover and I'm gonna go get us some because there's nothing to eat here anyway and maybe if you eat you'll like feel better and i'm like oh my god thank you so much i'm just gonna lay here and sip on this vitamin water like very carefully while you're gone the minute the millisecond that door closes i take that vitamin water and i dump it all over the bed and these sheets and i feel like it's important to note that his dad was away obviously because like I would never hook up with him in the apartment while his dad was there by the way I go to the bathroom I fix myself I strip the entire bed I fix the laundry room I scrub the sheets I put the laundry up in the record speed before this man comes back he walks in his room and I'm crying not because I'm a great actress but because I feel terrible he looks like oh my god what happened and I was like I'm so sorry I know you told me to be careful and I really didn't feel well and I thought I was gonna throw up and I spilled the vitamin water everywhere and I feel so bad about it and I scrubbed the sheets and they are in the wash right now and I'm so sorry I didn't want to go through all your stuff um so I didn't look to see if you had any more sheets to remake the bed but if you do I will totally remake the bed and I am so sorry and I'm leaving and he's like really pissed and unhappy and he's like holding it together you could tell and he's like it's all right accidents happen yeah you didn't feel good that was so nice you didn't have to wash the sheets I would have done it so then I tried to joke around I'm like well we needed to wash the sheets anyway am I right um I distract him and I'm really apologetic and I don't leave and we eat our egg sandwiches and I'm really guilty but we fast forward to the next year we move in together six months later we get a dog in 2015 we get engaged in 2017 we get married now it's 2020 and it's covid and we're looking at houses but it's 2020 and it's covid so we don't get a house till 2023 at which point i'm pregnant with our first daughter and in may i go in for my induction and it takes forever because the baby's overdue and she's not coming and we're really bored so i'm like is there anything you never told me like this whole time that we've been together you were like afraid to tell me or a funny story or something like you lied about and he he's like no not really you know I'm sure just like the normal things like I didn't like your haircut or I told you I did or something so I tell him the story and I'm like I never told you this and it's really funny actually and I tell him the whole story and he looks at me and he's like I knew something I knew it he's like this asshole I told her not to spill the drink and I was nice about it and he's like why would you just have never told me this whole time and I was like I don't know just like in the beginning i thought you're gonna like break up with me or something and i was embarrassed and then just spiraled and i just like never told you and he's like i am a mature adult male if you can have sex with somebody you can deal with the fact that they have a period and if guys can't be mature enough to deal with a period then they shouldn't be sleeping with women and he couldn't be mad anymore because i pushed out our baby and now it's 2025 and we just had second daughter so people of the world lie lie with everything you have and you just might get a happy ending okay i'm not gonna lie i i was like there's no way this can be true because literally the beginning of the voicemail i heard baby in the background and i was like oh my god baby in the background that's so cute i keep saying this on the subscriber episodes but i literally love when you guys send us voice memos and i can hear what's going on in the background and it makes me feel like I'm like right in the room with you. No, exactly. I'm like, I'll hear the little turn signal come on. And I'm like, that's right. You signal. Pop off, girl. So I heard the baby and I was like, wouldn't it be so crazy if like this guy that she's talking about is the father of her child? And I'm like, well, that can't happen because that would be too good. And it was true. Let me tell you, Plenty of Fish, this is the second success story that i know of from plenty of fish and i can't go too much in detail because it's friend of a friend situation but uh-huh they are married and have a child too okay i think i will say i think plenty of fish in 2012 as with most dating apps is different from plenty of fish in 2026 but also i've been on a dating app uh what's the opposite of a binge fast for i think a year at this point never felt better let me tell you um yeah so i don't know what any of the apps look like right now and that feels so good for my brain but i'm so happy for you girl you found your man on plenty of fish um i love how quickly you thought i love how quickly the listener thought um okay i need a red vitamin water okay and it was i know which one it was it was a blueberry pomegranate because i love the blueberry pomegranate i used to i mean i fucked with the dragon fruit too and it doesn't really have a taste to it but that blueberry pomegranate looks like it could be blood because i know because i spilled that shit on my like white dress one time and i was mad so i wish you said i was like i know which one you're talking about oh my god okay wow again such quick thinking on the caller's part i do have a question which is did it not get into the mattress oh i was thinking the same thing unless it was just like she caught it in time then yeah or maybe there was a mattress protector maybe she's one of god's favorite and is a light flow girl i don't know that i don't know we're really getting personal let's move on i was like wait a minute i forgot we weren't just on the phone okay um okay okay so you get your little vitamin water you spill it you put it in the wash um i'm not gonna lie when you said that he was very obviously pissed i was a little bit just like fuck this man but then i remember that like people are allowed to have emotions and i would also maybe be pissed if I told someone to be careful in my white sheets and then they spilled it all over and importantly he looked pissed but then said it's okay yes which is I think the important part of the story um yes the important the turning point where I was like I'm on this man's side that emotional regulation happening exactly I was on his side when he got the vitamin water and then said i'm gonna go get us some breakfast sandwiches um i love this story so much i love that the caller's um takeaway from this is to lie yeah i love also that you started a little bit of drama while you were getting induced for your baby which like is the point at which i don't think a man can ever say anything to you that it's not like you're so great i i never literally never want to be pregnant um but i do think it's really funny to use that opportunity to be like i'm about to do something that you physically cannot and that you know is gonna suck and that you can't be mad at me you can't be mad at me so what have you hid anything from me and she probably knows this man well enough to know that he does it and then she's like okay well i have the story she's like let me just create some chaos no exactly she's like i'm bored not enough is happening the contractions haven't really settled in yet so let me just tell you and then she said all right time to pop out the baby like i wonder if he even remembers that she told him the story because like i don't know how much i'll remember the conversations i had after like my baby got popped out you know honestly she's a real mvp i love her no literally i think i said this half with you the voice memo i was like i fuck heavy with this girl like she's an icon she's a vibe i love it i'm obsessed so from the morsels today we have learned to let people know that yes you are going somewhere just in case you know you don't want police teams to come searching for you to respect and honor people boundaries um so that way they don't have to teach you a very diabolical lesson and to lie wow um those are definitely the main lessons that we need to take from today sierra thank you so much for coming on mic with me like i know it is not necessarily your favorite thing but you're so great at it and it's so fun having you here and if any of y'all say anything but nice things to my girl i'm gonna come to your home rachel no and i'm gonna throw away one of every pair of your socks so you only have mitch mott socks for the rest of your life Okay, you know what? This is time to wrap. We got to wrap this up. You can't be threatening them. We just said we're going to bring them home. And now you're trying to bring destruction? Like, no, we got to wrap this up, babe. I said if they say anything, they can, they can, it's mutually assured destruction. All right? Don't say anything mean. You can have your socks. All right? All right. That's it. Bye, y'all. I appreciate that. Bye. Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at normalgossip at defector.com. Or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679-GOSSIP. If you love this podcast and want to support us, become a friend or a friend of a friend at supportnormalgossip.com. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at normalgossip. You can follow me on all social media at HeyDenae, H-E-Y-Y-D-N-A-E. This podcast was produced by Sierra Spragley-Ritz and Jay Tolviera. Our audio engineer is Samantha Gatsik. The co-creators and Dowager Queens of Normal Gossip are Kelsey McKinney and Defector's supervising producer Alex Sujong-Loughlin. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector's business guides. Tom Leigh is our editor-in-chief. Dan McLeod runs our merch store, which you can find at normalgossip.store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art. Thank you to Brandi Jensen, David Roth, Catherine Shue, Serena Embler, Chris Thompson, Dave McKenna, Patrick Redford, and Ray Rado for your help on this season. Thank you to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber-based media company. Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton, and remember, you didn't hear this from me. Radiotopia. From PRX. Thank you.