Spooked LIVE: Jen Kober x Glynn Washington

The hallowed halls of an Airbnb house a spirit that can only be seen through sprinkles, spritzes, and sparkles… of air freshener. Queen of Comedy, Jen Kober, shares a story only she could tell. LIVE!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Glynn Washington?

  I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that the Shadow has an odd sense of humor, and when I die, I expect to find her laughing.

• 0:16Glynn Washington?

  You're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:27Glynn Washington?

  Spooksters, you have spoken. We want more spook, you said. We want to support the show, you said. And can we please, for the love of all that is holy, please get rid of those ads? Well, prayers answered. Spooked Plus has risen. Ad-free spook. The entire library, no interruptions, just you and whatever's lurking in the shadows. Exclusive bonus stories every month, fresh nightmares you won't hear anywhere else. The Spooked Plus community, listen together, chat in real time, because no one should face the darkest alone. And,

• 1:08Glynn Washington?

  and, ask me anything for yours truly. If you've got questions, I've got answers. Maybe. And we're just getting started. Spooksters, we are a small team chasing down the big mystery. Your support keeps this flame burning, so come on in. The door is open. Spooked. dot supercast dot com. That's Spooked dot supercast dot com. Spooked Plus. Don't turn out the lights.

• 1:48Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so backstage, at the hallowed halls of L.A.'s haunted Orpheum Theater, over 2,000 Spooksters have gathered, waiting on the other side of that curtain, preparing to summon the Shadow for Spook Live. They think they're gonna get one thing, but friends, y'all about to get something else entirely. I am so excited. A woman who is royalty to this Snap Judgment Enterprise, roll out the red carpet, she's about to step on the spook stage. No! I will never be able to predict the next word out of her mouth, but I promise, I guarantee, you're gonna love the ride.

• 2:29Glynn Washington?

  And dear friend of mine, Snap fan, Jim Culver.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  I just have to say, I didn't know who was on this show. And when you show up to a gig, and there's a CNN correspondent there,

• 3:04Speaker 01

  I was already spooked.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  This can't be good.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  I don't like spooky things. I hate to be s- I have been in a dressing room in the bowels of this building, listening to music. La la la la la la la la. I don't like to be scared. Even as a kid, I didn't ever like scary movies. I'm not really Nightmare on Elm Street, I'm more Ghostbusters. Though I do watch a lot of Dateline. Yeah. Like those slasher kind of movies, that blood and guts, I can't take that. Uh-uh.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Fictionalized horror terrifies me. But actual people dying, I fall asleep to that shit, that's...

• 4:23Speaker 01

  But I've never liked scary movies. I remember at a slumber party when I was eight years old, Betsy Rodriguez got us all into a circle. And she started all that light as a feather, stiff as a board, Bloody Mary, Ouija, voodoo, schmedoodle.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  I don't care for that.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  It scares me.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Uh-uh. Anytime that would start, I would just go to sleep. I would often wake up with my hands in bowls of warm water.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  If you know, you know. If not, we'll move on.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  I never understood it, though. Like, fine, make me pee. It's your sheet.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  It was hard to handle those scary movies. I just couldn't do it. Side note, I don't like scary movies so much that when the movie "I Know What You Did Last Summer" was popular. I was doing a one-woman show at that time that I wanted to title "I Know What You Ate Last Summer." I thought it would be funny. And then I was gonna parody some scene from the movie. So I sat down to watch the movie. Five minutes in, I shut that shit off and changed the name of my one-woman show to "Indiana Jen and the Temple of Food."

• 5:56Speaker 01

  I love Indiana Jones. It's the ringtone on my cellphone.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  So I didn't know what to do, y'all. How am I gonna tell a spooky story when I don't like to be spooked? So I called Glenn. I was like, dude, I don't know what to do. Glenn says, "Jen, it doesn't have to be blood and guts kinda scary. Haven't you ever just been spooked?" I was like, "Ooh, dude." You mean like the time my dog, who is really my grandmother reincarnated, sat at the end of my bed telling me about the presence of extraterrestrials in the greater Los Angeles area?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  All night long, she just kept being like, "I'm telling you, Jennifer, there are space aliens on Wilshire."

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Glenn was like, "That's not quite it."

• 6:54Speaker 01

  I said, "Ooh, what about the time we held a séance for a dead squirrel in Paducah, Kentucky with a voodoo priestess?"

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Closer? I got it! What about the time me and my buddy Jeff D cleared a haunted Airbnb of a ghost that looked like ZZ Top? Glenn said, "Jeffpot."

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Here's what you gotta know about my buddy Jeff D. Jeff D looks like the brother I never had. But he's more like the sister I never wanted.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  He looks just like me and he is very, very, very gay. He loves Rock Hudson and Judy Garland and Leslie Jordan. I often refer to him as the ghost of homosexuals past.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  We've known each other since college and he opens for me all over the country, so we travel together a lot. So one weekend, what had happened was, we found ourselves playing at the Stardome Comedy Club in Hoover, Alabama, right outside of Birmingham. I don't mean to brag, but they have two Walmarts.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  One of them has a brand-new Arby's inside of it.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  So naturally, we had our shows on the weekend, so we had gotten there on Tuesday. We were gonna spend a few days in an Airbnb there in Alabama and get our laundry done and catch up on our TV shows. This is road life glamour. So we get an Airbnb. The homeowner meets us at the address. It's a little bit outside of the city limits, but it's a big ol' house. We get there and the owner meets us. Her name is Celeste.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  And I can't tell if Celeste is a hick or a hippie.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  She's wearing a tie-dye t-shirt. Hippie. But with overalls. Hick.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  She has long gray hair. Hippie. But it's in Willie Nelson braids. Hick.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  She's got her dog with her. Hick.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  But it's a golden doodle named Bailey.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Hippie. Y'all, it's like Hee-Haw meets Woodstock. Or for you millennials, Miley Cyrus.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  I can't tell what's going on with this woman. But she and the dog start showing us around the place. She shows us the washer and the dryer. She's got some environmentally friendly detergent there for us to use. Thank you, Celeste.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Then she shows us the bedrooms. And the dog keeps sniffing around a door. She says, "Oh, that's the equipment closet."

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Equipment? Uh huh, uh, life vests, oars, rackets, that sort of thing, for sports.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  I don't know what about looking at Jeff and I would have made her think to show us the sporting equipment. But I figured it was just part of the tour.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  And then, then she says, "Oh, and be careful, there's spirits in the house, but they're mostly friendly."

• 11:28Speaker 01

  And she laughs, gets into her Subaru Forester,

• 11:35Speaker 01

  and drives away as Jolene blares in the distance.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  So there I am, left with my laundry.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Jeff goes to his room, he says he's gonna watch a movie. I'm gonna get my first load started, I'm separating things there. And Celeste has installed one of those air freshener, the pssst.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Right, and it's on top of the refrigerator, which I thought was precarious placement for air freshener, but, you know, maybe Celeste likes her smell good at eye level, I don't know. I'm not trying to judge anybody, but...

• 12:31Speaker 01

  And the first couple times, it's scared, the pssst, it just comes out of nowhere. So I keep separating my laundry, and then I remember, y'all, I had put a Yoohoo in the fridge when we first got there.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  But I can't find the light, she had shown me the light switches, the lights were on dimmers, right? Finally, the lights come up, I get the lights to come up, and y'all, there's crystals all over this room. And there's a crystal ball in the middle of the room.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  And at first, I'm like, "Let's play Peewee's Big Adventure in the basement."

• 13:19Speaker 01

  I'm getting distracted. I have laundry to do.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  So I dim the lights back down and I go to the refrigerator to get my Yoohoo out. And when I open the fridge and the light of the refrigerator comes on as I grab it and it closes, the "pssst" happens and I see the outline of a fella.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  A tall, white fella.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  So I do one of...

• 13:52Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know any... but I have moves.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Though, to be honest, just doing that, I'm a little out of breath.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Then I start thinking to myself, "This is ridiculous, sending me a male ghost."

• 14:13Speaker 01

  This is bullshit. I am... I am a short-haired woman.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  If you wanna scare me, son, you best bring your A-game. You know what I'm saying? I've been chased by murderers on The Purge. I had bloodthirsty demons trying to eat me on American Horror Story. Droids shooting at me on The Mandalore. You think you gonna come in here, you tall, skinny ZZ Top, and just scare the hell out of me? Damn straight, you did. I was scared shitless. I didn't...

• 14:52Speaker 01

  I just did my... I just did the southern thing and acted like it didn't happen and, uh...

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Kept folding my laundry.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  And a few minutes later, the "pssst", and I see him again. And I felt something near my shoulder, like his beard, like just... Y'all, I freaked out. I go running into Jeff D's room and I tap him on the shoulder and he screams. Right? He loses it. I was like, "Oh, my God, what were you watching?" He was like, "Steel Magnolias. What are you..."

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Shelby was just drinking her juice when you came in.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  So I explained to him, I said, "Dude, every time the thing on top of the refrigerator goes "psst," I see a ghost that looks like ZZ Top." So Jeff gets up out of his bed, goes to the kitchen, grabs the thing off the refrigerator, and smashes it to the floor. He says, "There, I've solved the ghost problem." I said, "You didn't solve the ghost problem, you moron, you just took away the only way I could see it." Apparently, you gotta shoot particles at the ghost so you can see it.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Jeff says, "This is just like poltergeist, girl. We're gonna have to confront this ghost and usher it out of a portal." "A portal? Like a door? Are you saying we gotta get it out the door? Because earlier, I had seen it run out the door, but it didn't run out the door, it ran through the door. That's how it is, it's a ghost." He says, "Come on, you can do it." And then he starts dancing. I said, "What the hell are you doing?"

• 17:04Speaker 01

  He said, "I'm ushering." So the only thing we can do is arm ourselves with things from the sporting equipment closet. I'm not confronting a ghost in my jammies.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  And gay people love costumes. We love costumes. So, we're each wearing a bright orange life vest, and a batting helmet. Jeff's has the little holders for beer cans and straws hanging off of it. He has an oar in one hand and a bat in the other. I'm holding what I later came to find out was a pickleball racket, and my cellphone. And Jeff bravely says, "I'll go outside and check the perimeter of the house." And I'm like, "We're in Alabama.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  The hell does perimeter mean?"

• 18:22Speaker 01

  He says, "I'm gonna check the outside." I said, "What if we lose power or something?" He says, "Don't worry. Even if we lose power, your cellphone will still work. If you see anything, call me." "I can't see anything, fool. You took away the only way I could pssst with the thing at the seeing it."

• 18:42Speaker 01

  So I realize I need something if I'm gonna see the ghost to spray at it.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  And the only thing I have with me is a can of bacon-flavored spray cheese.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  I had meant to buy the American cheese flavor, but somehow bought a bacon-flavored can, so I was not as attached to it as I would normally be. So I was willing to spray some at the ghost in order to see its outline.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  So there I am, pickleball racket in one hand, bacon spray cheese in the other.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  And I see it. I see the shadow of ZZ Top.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  And I call out to him. "You have no place here!"

• 19:39Speaker 01

  "And I have spray cheese!"

• 19:43Speaker 01

  And I start to spray the cheese at where I think he is, over and over. And I can see the form lunge towards me, which makes me back the hell up. I'm not...

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Uh, so I back up, but there's spray cheese on the floor.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  And just then, my cellphone rings.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  It's Jeff, and he says, "I don't see dead people."

• 20:28Speaker 01

  I was like, "I got him right here." "I'm spraying the cheese. I'm gonna usher him to the door."

• 20:39Speaker 01

  I spray more cheese. I lunge again. And now I'm headed towards him, when all of a sudden, the spray cheese gets the best of me. I flip. I go up six feet in the air. I come down. The crystal ball follows me. I take down the curtains with me. I hit the ground, and I wake up inside the TV.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  I'm kidding, look at this guy.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  He's like, "Is she serious right now?"

• 21:21Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know what happened once I hit my head. But I hit my head and I woke up the next day to Celeste opening the door, to the scene that lay before her.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Curtains down, crystal ball shattered, spray cheese everywhere. Jeff and I still wearing life vests.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  I am still gripping a pickleball racket for dear life.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  And the dog is licking spray cheese off of everything.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  And Celeste just looks at me and says, "What happened?" I said, "Girl,

• 22:15Speaker 01

  we seen ZZ Top.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  He was here. I think he had a message for us." And that's when the dog said, "Did he mention the aliens on Wilshire?"

• 23:06Glynn Washington?

  This episode is sponsored by Vinted. Imagine opening my closet, looking for a shirt, and I see that jacket. That jacket, that jacket I got for that party I never went to three years ago. That jacket, it's still there. It's still mocking me. Well, it was still there.

• 23:27Glynn Washington?

  Because then I stopped and I reached for my phone because Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes that you no longer wear. Listing on Vinted is quick and simple. Once an item sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And Vinted has no seller fees, meaning you keep every dollar you earn. And I could get a little more room in my closet, you know, for that next jacket. Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing. No seller fees, so you keep everything you earn.

• 24:24Glynn Washington?

  Right now, a special story from Spook Live and yours truly.

• 24:43Glynn Washington?

  As a kid, I loved going to my grandmother's church. There's singing, there's dancing. If you're lucky, somebody's gonna kiss the Holy Ghost. It's fabulous. My parents' church, not a lot of music, no dance and no Holy Ghost. I don't dig it as much. At my granny's church, my grandmother, she wins the unofficial old lady church contest each and every week

• 25:25Glynn Washington?

  with the biggest, most outrageous hat on her head that you ever did see. If you sit behind my grandmother, you ain't gonna see jack. Nothing. And you better not say nothing neither. She gives you one of these here. Huh?

• 25:48Glynn Washington?

  At the church, we go back to my grandmother's place. And usually, there's already a line. Because my grandmother's special. People come from miles around to seek her advice.

• 26:08Glynn Washington?

  And because I am her second favorite grandchild,

• 26:14Glynn Washington?

  I'm special too.

• 26:17Glynn Washington?

  After Granny gets her relax on, actually has a glass of lemonade, after she gives me that look, I have a job. My job as a little kid is to go out to the sidewalk, and escort a grown person up the porch,

• 26:46Glynn Washington?

  in the living room, through the kitchen,

• 26:51Glynn Washington?

  back out to the stoop.

• 26:54Glynn Washington?

  My grandmother waits.

• 26:57Glynn Washington?

  See,

• 27:00Glynn Washington?

  if the doctors run out of options,

• 27:05Glynn Washington?

  if your preacher's got no answers, if you have nowhere else left to turn, the last place people go is my grandmother. And on this day, the woman, she says, "Mrs., Mrs." I always call her either Mrs. or ma'am. "Mrs., my man done left me."

• 27:34Glynn Washington?

  "I know your man. You should thank your lucky stars."

• 27:41Glynn Washington?

  No, Mrs. Sometimes he just runs with the wrong crowd. He is the wrong crowd. Mrs., I need him back home. I need him back with me. Well, you bring a picture like I told you? Yes.

• 27:58Glynn Washington?

  She takes this picture out of her billfold.

• 28:03Glynn Washington?

  My grandmother snatches it up. She takes a match and lights it on fire.

• 28:11Glynn Washington?

  She collects the ash in this square of aluminum foil. And then she adds a dash of High John the Conqueror oil and a pinch of Queen Elizabeth root. Boy, what'd I do that for? Uh, the oil for the power, the root for the heart. That's my baby grand boy, right there.

• 28:42Glynn Washington?

  She ties it off with twine and hands it back to the woman.

• 28:49Glynn Washington?

  Put that under his pillow. He'll be back in three days. But don't blame me for what happened after that.

• 28:57Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Mrs. Thank you, Mrs. I go back out, and this time, I get this big fella. He's in this work suit. He's got boots on. I take him back. Ma'am, ma'am, my partner's stealing money up the till. Did you bring a dollar from the register? Yes.

• 29:21Glynn Washington?

  He hands it over, and she sets it down in front of her. Boy, go get me some of those sweet potatoes off the stove.

• 29:32Glynn Washington?

  I put it on the fine china. I bring it out to her, and she sets it on top of the dollar. She pours whiskey on top of that, and she pushes it like she's having company for dinner.

• 29:51Glynn Washington?

  She closes her eyes, listens, listens.

• 30:02Glynn Washington?

  Your partner, your partner's going on a long trip.

• 30:08Glynn Washington?

  He won't be bad. Thank you, Mrs. Thank you.

• 30:14Glynn Washington?

  I go back out and I see this skinny man, tall, and he's got this blue suit on. He goes to shake my hand. I don't want to shake his hand. I lead him back through the house and he's looking all around. Take him back to my grandmother and I know I have to watch him. To watch him close around my granny. Instead of sitting down, he's looking everywhere, standing up really, really close next to my grandmother. And then finally, he bends down and he whispers in our ear.

• 31:02Glynn Washington?

  She looks up at him. "I'm sorry, I can't help you today."

• 31:10Glynn Washington?

  And it, it looks like,

• 31:15Glynn Washington?

  like he's just been barely holding it together. And when she says that, he can't do it anymore. He goes boneless. "Please, please, ma'am, please. I'm sorry, please.

• 31:34Glynn Washington?

  I can't do anything for you." I take him back out and he's pale. His eyes blank.

• 31:49Glynn Washington?

  I take this grown man outside of our house. And when I close the door, he said, "Let me just go talk to her one more time. Let me just explain something to her." Uh, granny says she can't help you.

• 32:06Glynn Washington?

  Granny says she can't help you.

• 32:10Glynn Washington?

  He walks to the sidewalk,

• 32:15Glynn Washington?

  turns around, spits.

• 32:24Glynn Washington?

  Witch!

• 32:30Glynn Washington?

  They often use that word.

• 32:33Glynn Washington?

  The one she can't help.

• 32:37Glynn Washington?

  And the one she can.

• 32:42Glynn Washington?

  She sets me to work later on with a feather duster, dusting that place, and um, she has these candles that I've seen since I was tiny, tiny. The Apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each of them, their faces turned upwards toward glory. And I'm dusting them, and I notice for the first time that there's some other candles behind these ones.

• 33:15Glynn Washington?

  And they've got faces I've never seen before. And instead of looking up, they're looking straight ahead. Some of them are holding weapons, others are holding herbs. They've got color on their face. Granny? Granny, who this?

• 33:35Glynn Washington?

  "Oh, baby.

• 33:38Glynn Washington?

  Jesus is love, but you know.

• 33:42Glynn Washington?

  Jesus works for free. Jesus give you everything you want, but Jesus takes his sweet time."

• 33:53Glynn Washington?

  These here,

• 33:55Glynn Washington?

  they come quick in a hurry. But baby, you got to pay.

• 34:03Glynn Washington?

  Later, I'm at church, my parents' church, next to Pops. And the preacher's building up a head of steam. "Brethren, brethren, some of y'all think we playing games here. Some of y'all think you gonna have it both ways.

• 34:23Glynn Washington?

  You think you're gonna have your, your Ouija boards and your tarot cards. And you're gonna come into God's church and sit down like you ain't done nothing with the devil.

• 34:35Glynn Washington?

  Well, I got some news for you."

• 34:38Glynn Washington?

  I got some news for you right now. Lord don't appreciate it. The Lord sees, the Lord knows, and you say, preacher, preacher ain't going too far. Ain't you seeing things that aren't so?

• 34:53Glynn Washington?

  Well brethren,

• 34:55Glynn Washington?

  I speak for the Lord. I speak for the Lord because I know the Lord's book and I want you to know it too. Turn, if you will,

• 35:05Glynn Washington?

  to Exodus 22:18. Pops is quick on the draw, he knows his Bible. I want to read it real slow so you just can hear it in the back.

• 35:18Glynn Washington?

  "That shall not suffer

• 35:23Glynn Washington?

  a witch to live." You hear me?

• 35:32Glynn Washington?

  Pops looks at me like, "I told you so."

• 35:37Glynn Washington?

  I can barely breathe.

• 36:03Glynn Washington?

  When I next see my grandmother,

• 36:08Glynn Washington?

  I just ask her,

• 36:11Glynn Washington?

  "Granny,

• 36:14Glynn Washington?

  are you a witch?"

• 36:18Glynn Washington?

  She looks me a long time.

• 36:21Glynn Washington?

  "Ain't no such things as witches." Well, mama and daddy say, your mama and daddy say a lot of things.

• 36:30Glynn Washington?

  But you gotta understand something. Boy, you are far too young to have secrets, but you gotta keep some secrets.

• 36:39Glynn Washington?

  You see, you can't tell everybody everything you see. You can't tell everybody everything you know. You understand me?

• 36:49Glynn Washington?

  Boy, you understand me?

• 36:53Glynn Washington?

  Yes.

• 36:57Glynn Washington?

  When I go to sleep,

• 37:00Glynn Washington?

  folks don't know I hear him argue with my auntie. "'Cause he's my boy, that's why."

• 37:08Glynn Washington?

  I know what they arguing about.

• 37:12Glynn Washington?

  I'm husking corn with my... at Granny's. I got me some more questions.

• 37:21Glynn Washington?

  Granny?

• 37:25Glynn Washington?

  Granny?

• 37:29Glynn Washington?

  Why you help that man?

• 37:33Glynn Washington?

  Boy, you saw it plain as I do. You know good and well why I didn't help that man.

• 37:41Glynn Washington?

  Nah, I didn't see... Tell me what you saw. I didn't see... Tell me what you saw.

• 37:53Glynn Washington?

  I wasn't supposed to see what I saw.

• 37:58Glynn Washington?

  You better tell me.

• 38:09Glynn Washington?

  I saw a monster.

• 38:14Glynn Washington?

  Foulin' him.

• 38:19Glynn Washington?

  Eating him.

• 38:24Glynn Washington?

  And I wanted to tell me, "No. You're wrong. Is that what you saw?"

• 38:34Glynn Washington?

  Instead, she nods.

• 38:39Glynn Washington?

  "But Granny?

• 38:42Glynn Washington?

  Granny, why couldn't you help him?"

• 38:45Glynn Washington?

  And...

• 38:48Glynn Washington?

  For the first time ever,

• 38:52Glynn Washington?

  she looks... Small.

• 38:58Glynn Washington?

  Tired. Shrunkin'.

• 39:04Glynn Washington?

  I don't know what that man did or who he did it to, baby.

• 39:13Glynn Washington?

  But some things you can't fix.

• 39:22Glynn Washington?

  It's a beautiful summer morning.

• 39:30Glynn Washington?

  And my parents tell me, "Pack it up. Move away to the deep country, 200 miles away."

• 39:42Glynn Washington?

  And it makes me sad.

• 39:45Glynn Washington?

  It makes me sad, and I tell them, I say,

• 39:50Glynn Washington?

  "You know, um, I love you. And I'm gonna miss you."

• 40:03Glynn Washington?

  "Boy, you coming with us."

• 40:11Glynn Washington?

  And I think, "Huh, that don't make no kind of sense." "I don't think, I don't think Granny gonna want me to move to the country 200 mi-" Granny ain't coming. You is.

• 40:29Glynn Washington?

  And I do.

• 40:33Glynn Washington?

  I move to the middle of nowhere, Michigan.

• 40:38Glynn Washington?

  And don't get to see Granny much. Don't get to hear the songs, don't get to hear the stories.

• 40:49Glynn Washington?

  One night, I go to bed. And then, right at the foot of my bed, I see my granny sitting there. "Boy, how you doing?" "I'm good." "You talk to the plants like I told you?" "Yes, sir." "Now, talk to the plants, ask them. They do for you." "Mm-hmm." She tells me stories about the coyote, about the fox, about the moon. She tells me that certain things skip a generation.

• 41:25Glynn Washington?

  She tells me that sometimes you gotta look deep, deep inside to find out what's out there. "Uh-huh." I said, "Well, Granny said, "Well, I got to go now." "Where you going?" "Got a couple more stops to make." "All right." "Okay, then."

• 41:49Glynn Washington?

  In the morning,

• 41:53Glynn Washington?

  I sit on the side of the bed,

• 41:58Glynn Washington?

  weeping.

• 42:02Glynn Washington?

  My father comes in, in the dark,

• 42:07Glynn Washington?

  and he tells me that he got a call from my auntie.

• 42:13Glynn Washington?

  In the middle of the night, my grandmother, 200 miles away,

• 42:18Glynn Washington?

  she passed away.

• 42:22Glynn Washington?

  I tell him,

• 42:27Glynn Washington?

  "I know."

• 42:31Glynn Washington?

  And the look, the shock, of horror, when I say it, I know I've made a big mistake. She told me a million times, "Never tell what you know,

• 42:50Glynn Washington?

  what you understand." And I know what he's thinking.

• 42:58Glynn Washington?

  He's thinking Exodus 22:18.

• 43:04Glynn Washington?

  I think maybe he's right.

• 43:08Glynn Washington?

  He didn't ask for this.

• 43:13Glynn Washington?

  Kid who

• 43:15Glynn Washington?

  talks to things that couldn't be there.

• 43:22Glynn Washington?

  Chases after bumps in the night.

• 43:31Glynn Washington?

  There's only one person,

• 43:35Glynn Washington?

  one person I could speak to,

• 43:40Glynn Washington?

  one person I could tell the truth.

• 43:50Glynn Washington?

  You can tell that sometimes,

• 43:58Glynn Washington?

  sometimes I see monsters.

• 44:05Glynn Washington?

  And, uh,

• 44:08Glynn Washington?

  he's backing away,

• 44:12Glynn Washington?

  towards the door.

• 44:18Glynn Washington?

  And I know he's gonna walk out.

• 44:24Glynn Washington?

  But instead, he stops.

• 44:30Glynn Washington?

  He pulls himself up, he walks over to me.

• 44:36Glynn Washington?

  He bends down, eye level.

• 44:41Glynn Washington?

  Boy,

• 44:45Glynn Washington?

  you know the stuff you talk to your granny about?

• 44:52Glynn Washington?

  You could talk to me.

• 45:00Glynn Washington?

  And this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard

• 45:04Glynn Washington?

  in my life.

• 45:07Glynn Washington?

  But,

• 45:11Glynn Washington?

  I appreciate it.

• 45:15Glynn Washington?

  I appreciate it because

• 45:19Glynn Washington?

  it feels like, like he's bending

• 45:25Glynn Washington?

  a little bit.

• 45:28Glynn Washington?

  Like to say,

• 45:31Glynn Washington?

  "I have to walk this way, I have to walk my path, but I understand,

• 45:40Glynn Washington?

  I understand a little bit,

• 45:47Glynn Washington?

  that you're gonna have to walk yours."

• 46:16Glynn Washington?

  I want to thank the LAS team for welcoming Spooked, John Kohn, Rebecca Stume, Kristen Payne, the Orpheum team. What a beautiful theater. Ryan Davis and Sarah Rose Leonard at KQED. And thank you Jen Coburn. Jen Coburn, she's always doing something awesome. Comedy, TV, you name it. Jen tours. Find the link to all things Jen in our show notes. The original live score for this story was by Doug Stewart and Praveen Murphy. The recording was mixed by Miles Lassie. Now, did you go on a cruise ship and have a life-changing supernatural experience? Of course you didn't.

• 47:01Glynn Washington?

  That would be absurd. But if it happens anywhere else, I would sure love to know about it. Spooked at snapjudgment.org. Because there's nothing better than a Spooked story from a Spooked listener. Spooked at snapjudgment.org. When Spooked emerges in the dark of night from underground crypts at K3D Studios, don't seek to find the way in. That's the way in seeks to find you. Spooked is brought to you by the team that uses the Ghostbuster movies as instructional videos, except of course for Mark Ristich. You can scream at him till you're hoarse. He's still trying to cross streams.

• 47:42Glynn Washington?

  There's Davy Kim, Zoe Fergno, Eric Yanez, Elliot Lightfoot, Marissa Dodge, Taylor Decot, Miles Lassie, and Doug Stewart. We've got the special incantation from Spook Legal. It reads that no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. Take that! The team Spooked, the union-represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers, are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIL Local 51. The Spook theme song is by Pat Mesiti Miller. I know it's from Washington. And they say the Shadowlands are scary.

• 48:28Glynn Washington?

  And I'm gonna guess that's true, I'm gonna guess as well that the lands of shadow are other things. That they are beautiful, curious, compelling, horrifying, even funny. Really? You might ask me, bold, plain, based on what? I'll tell you what it's based on. It's based on the idea that it is us, and us is it. Wherever we go, there we are. Run as far as you want, cross as many planes of existence as you wish. Wherever we are, it is as well. And as a reminder of this fundamental tenet, one thing I like to tell the kids

• 49:15Glynn Washington?

  is to never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever, never, never, never, never, ever, never, turn out the lights.