Captain's Orders (Criminal+)

This episode is unlocked and available for everyone to listen to! Phoebe tells a story about an uncooperative plane passenger. Plus, Lauren and Phoebe discuss what embarrasses Phoebe the most, the intentional vagueness of Criminal episode descriptions, and whether or not Phoebe is a "finger princess." If you enjoyed listening to today's Criminal Plus episode and you'd like more - join us on Patreon. We put these episodes with Phoebe and Lauren out twice a month - plus you'll have access to behind-the-scenes videos with Phoebe and Criminal producers, chat rooms, live events, and more. Right now, you can use the promo code "PLUS25" for 25% off of an annual membership. Thank you for supporting our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Hi, it's Phoebe. Today, we're sharing this week's new episode of Criminal Plus with all of our listeners. We put these out twice a month, and our Criminal Plus members seem to really enjoy them. They're very different than our regular criminal episodes, but we hope you'll enjoy listening in. And if you'd like to sign up and get these episodes, plus support all of the work that we do here on Criminal, we hope you'll join us at patreon.com/criminal. There's a link in the show notes, too. And right now, you can use special promo code PLUS25 to get 25% off an annual membership. Again, the place to sign up is patreon.com/criminal. Okay, here we go.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Welcome to Criminal Plus. I'm Phoebe Judge. I'm Lauren Sporer. And Lauren, I have been wearing a jacket and long underwear all day today. In North Carolina. The heat has been broken in my house for the past five days. I don't think that I have, my body temperature has gotten above 72 in a week. Freezing cold. Where's the repair? It's, you know, I feel like when a state that isn't prepared for cold weather has a spell of cold weather, crisis and chaos pops up at every, at every corner. And to get someone here, it's like you're asking someone to build the Empire State Building.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  We're trying to get someone here, but it is freezing cold, which is why I have been wearing a jacket for a week. Lauren, I can't believe I didn't tell you about this story. I believe that I did document this in kind of real time as it was happening, when I was on the airplane, but I never actually got to tell you what happened. No, I never heard. We have been hearing, I would say, since the end of the pandemic, about airline passengers getting unruly in ways that I had never heard before. Do you agree? Yes. Brawls. Dragged off. Brawls, breaking out.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  On airplanes. And I hadn't, I hadn't really seen any of this behavior until a couple of weeks ago. I was sitting on an airplane and I really couldn't afford for the plane to take off too late. So I was trying to get somewhere and if the plane was going to be too late, I might as well just scrap the whole trip. So I'm sitting on an airplane and just like you, I am at all attention at all times during a flight. You are at a, your, your attention is peaked for another reason, which is just complete

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Keeps the plane in the air.

• 2:43Speaker 00

  Keep the plane, fear and panic. Mine is just curiosity. I want to know what's going on. Because you and I travel an awful lot and I have been a Delta loyalist for 25 years. A very high status on Delta, diamond status, which

• 3:02Speaker 01

  You are not diamond.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  I have been diamond since 2023.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  But I'm not anymore. I just got kicked down to platinum. That's a whole other story. But anyway, so I'm diamond status and if you have a high status on

• 3:14Speaker 01

  What are the perks?

• 3:16Speaker 00

  Upgrades.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Diamond.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Free upgrades, the diamonds, yes, you just get buckets of diamonds.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  No, really, what do you get? Free upgrades? So you buy whatever ticket and if you're diamond, you're very likely to get upgraded no matter what?

• 3:28Speaker 00

  You are almost certain to get Delta Comfort upgraded? You are very likely to get upgraded to first class.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  I think that's a perk of living in North Carolina that people don't think about is that if we lived in New York City, we would not be, we would not have any status. But because, how many people are flying from RDU to Boston at 6am? And so the likelihood of getting upgraded is higher.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  Right. I mean, if you were trying to go to Atlanta, you rare, I never get upgraded. But if I'm trying to go somewhere like Chicago, Bos-

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Jalous.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Memphis, you know, very good chance I'm going to get, anyway. So I'd been upgraded. So I was sitting in the first row, which is why I was so privy-

• 4:06Speaker 01

  My favorite seat.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, one, I was in one seat.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  So I'm there on the aisle and all of the sudden, uh, the, one of the flight attendants comes past me, the boarding door is still open and the flight attendant says to the other, this is a female flight attendant says to the male flight attendant, "We have a problem." And immediately my ears just, I am at attention. And she said, "There's a man in the exit row who will not give me verbal confirmation that he is agreeing to, to participate." No. You know, when you sit in the exit row, the flight attendants come to you and they say, "Can I have everyone's attention?" And you are supposed to look at them and then give verbal confirmation. "Are you willing and able to assist?" And you're supposed to say, "Yes, I will." This man, apparently, so she said this, and I, she said, "He's refusing to take his headphones

• 4:56Speaker 00

  off. He won't look at me and he will not give me verbal confirmation that he is willing and able to assist in the event of emergency." And she said, "I don't know what to do, but he's gonna have to move. He's gonna have to move. He can't sit there." And the other flight attendant, the male flight attendant, who had been at the front, who I think was maybe the lead, the lead flight attendant, said, "Okay, let's just put him in another seat." And she said, "Well, I would, I would really like if someone else could go and talk to him because he's just like not, he is not listening to me. He's refusing to move to another seat. He's just not. And I can't have him sit there. He's not complying." Which I think, as we've heard about, there are air marshals and there are secret, um, Delta representatives, airline representatives, sometimes fly on planes. And I can imagine

• 5:39Speaker 00

  that that would be a requirement and if you would want to make sure that everyone had complied. So another man, another flight attendant says, "I'll go talk to him moving seats." Now, in the meantime, uh, the captain had come out of the cockpit. He was going to use the bathroom and said to the- I don't like it when they do that. Once they go in there and close the door, I want them to stay in there. Well, the boarding door is still open. So the, the captain had come out and said, "What's going on?" And the lead flight attendant said, "We have a problem with a passenger who will not comply with exit row instructions." Oh, my God. And, uh, the pa, the, the pilot said, "Well, then he's off the plane."

• 6:19Speaker 00

  And I heard the pilot say this, and I thought, something is, this is gonna, what? This is actually gonna happen on a flight I'm on. So the flight attendant who had gone back to kind of say to the man, "You're gonna have to move seats. You can't sit there, or you're gonna have to get off the plane," agreed unwillingly. He came and he moved two rows behind me, where there was an open seat.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Wait, so they were like, "Sir, even though you're creating a huge problem, we're gonna move you to first class?"

• 6:49Speaker 00

  He, I think, decided to pick his own empty seat. He, you know, he, yes, he did. I mean, but it wasn't-

• 6:56Speaker 01

  So he got like a present.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  I don't think they said what seat you could choose to. I think they said, "You're gonna have to move to an empty seat." And he just said, "Well, then I'm going right here," you know? He kept saying, "I paid for an extra room seat," which was exit row, you know, you pay for preferred. So he sits down, and the flight attendant comes back to the lead flight attendant and says, "Okay, he's moved seats." And the lead flight attendant says to this other flight attendant, "The captain says he's off the flight." And the flight attendant says, "Well, he's already moved, like, he's not gonna get off the flight." And the lead flight attendant says, "Well, if he won't get off the flight, then we'll have to call the police." And then, the gate agent comes on the plane, and the gate agent says, "Well, you know, if we call the police, we have to deboard the whole entire plane." The minute the cops come onto the plane, everyone has to get off.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  And I'm thinking, this is, what do I do? So they go back to the man, and they say, "Excuse me, sir, you actually have to get off the plane. Like, you can't take this flight." The man comes right up to the front there, you know, the little area, and says, "I'm not leaving. I paid for this. Let me..." He said, "Let me talk to the pilot. I wanna talk to the pilot." And I am right there. I'm one seat. I'm right there. And I'm thinking, this is maybe a little wild to me, but I'm thinking, if things do start getting heated, I could get an elbow in the eye. I didn't know what to think. I was ready. So I think he's gonna kind of storm the cockpit now. The pilot comes out, is very, he's a Austrian-

• 8:19Speaker 01

  The pilot agrees to speak with him. Fascinating.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  He's this Australian, young Australian man, the pilot, and says, he said, you tell, the man said, you tell me why I have to get off. I bought this ticket. I'm not getting off this plane. I am not getting off this plane. And the pilot said, I'm very sorry, sir, but that's my decision and you, we need people to comply and that is my decision. You're gonna have to leave the flight.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Did you know the pilots had this kind of power?

• 8:41Speaker 00

  I didn't, but it was very interesting.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  I didn't.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Because the, the way that the lead flight attendant said it to the other flight, said, the pilot says he's off.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Fascinating.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  No, and, and once the pilot says that, he's off. So, the guy's not going anywhere. He's not going anywhere. He's demanding, he's getting confrontational with the pilot. And the pilot says, you can either get off this plane, or I'm gonna, or we're calling the police. And the man says, call the police.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  And I'm thinking to myself, now that's not the decision I would make. I would just take it up with Delta representatives, 1-800, and get off the plane. And I'm also thinking, if he doesn't get off this plane and the cops come, I'm screwed, totally screwed. And what is gonna happen? Are they gonna take him away in handcuffs? So he's standing right there. And then the gate agent, this, I don't know what the gate agent does. The gate agent, who's kicking in the mix, says, sir, why don't, why don't we just talk right, right here? That's fine. Why don't we just talk right here? And the man, slowly, like, just, the gate agent is talking to him and the man's following, gets him to the jet bridge, right in, and the flight attendant slammed the door shut.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Shut up.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  I'm not kidding you. They slammed the door shut. And they say, we're, the pilot says, we're going. Isn't that interesting?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Did they make any kind of announcement?

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Not one announcement.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Was the mood sort of chuckling or angry? What was the mood?

• 10:09Speaker 00

  The fascinating thing was that the men all around me had their headphones on and were not paying attention. It seemed to me like I was the only one documenting this wild, people back in 23 had no idea what was going on. It was a really, but it was just-

• 10:24Speaker 01

  I would've, I still would've known if I was in 23.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  Yes, your radar would be up. But, but the interesting thing was to learn that the pilot does have that total, like, total authority to say, you're out of here. And that the gate agent, that they didn't even have to do any formal documentation. All the gate agent had to do was lure him off the plane and they-

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Slowly walk backwards.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Yep. And they slammed that big front door shut and we were gone, on our way to Chicago.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Well, I received some text messages, but I had no idea that that was the originating incident.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  That was the full, I mean, I might, my text messages, knowing me, they could have been.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  They were a little dramatic, but I knew that. I knew that, I knew who I was dealing with as a storyteller, so I was able to sort of filter it through that.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  Your favorite storyteller, Anna.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  That's right, and you also did send some photos.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  I took a video.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Have you seen these videos online, these like sort of comedy videos of people's eagerness, like people holding their trash on an airplane, like eagerly waiting their turn to like politely instant, hand it so efficiently and quickly to the flight attendant, that I, I can relate to that when I am sitting in an emergency exit row and I'm waiting

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  for them to make eye contact with me, so I can immediately and efficiently give my verbal consent.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, nodding.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, headphones off, fully respectful listening. So the idea, even, can you imagine being one of the people sitting next to that guy?

• 11:48Speaker 00

  I know. Lauren, we, I was also thinking in the middle of the night last night about something that we were trying out, which I was initially worried about.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Because it's something we've never done before.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  You mean telling everyone what's coming up?

• 12:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  So this is a post on Patreon where we describe all of the criminal episodes, all of the love episodes, giving subscribers a look at the whole month ahead, everything that's coming out on all the shows.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  I mean, for so long, the fun thing about both of these shows and having these anthology shows is that, you know, we, we get to surprise listeners, right? Every week, you don't know if it's going to be a story from 1800s or 2015, a man, a woman, funny, serious, that's always felt like a fun thing to me. And so, yeah, I did wonder if we were, if that would be a bummer to let people know what was coming up.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  But I don't think it's so spoilerish. It's more just like, hey, thank you for your support, you know, here's all the ways in which we're going to make really good on it this month, here's everything coming up.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Well, let us know. If you are kind of closing your eyes and not looking at those emails and those posts which are telling you what's coming up, please let me know because I'm kind of in your camp that I don't really want to. I mean, I really do know.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  We talked about we could do it as a look back, or we could do it mid-month to split the difference. So it's in progress. Remember, we asked in a previous episode, do people like our episodes being, our episode descriptions being a little bit vague, or would they like to have, you know, a lot more concrete info about what's in this episode? And overwhelmingly, their response was, "We love it vague. We love it." But then some people did say that after they lucked the surprise of listening to the episode, having no idea what's coming, but that then when they want to go back and find something from years later, they sort of wish that there was, they could have it both ways, that there would be like a more concrete way to search, which frankly, there is now that we have really, really up-to-date transcripts. So you could search for something more concrete. You could also always just email us. We're really fast about saying, "Oh, you're thinking of this one. Here's the link."

• 13:48Speaker 00

  I get that. I get a text from friends a lot, saying, "Wait, was there, was there an episode about a school bus? Someone stole a school bus?" What one was that? That happens to me a couple of times a week.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Last episode, we inaugurated a new reading group. We started with a Hemingway short story, which was, this was born out of controversy that I said, "Haven't we all heard enough about Ernest Hemingway?" And you challenged me to read a short story, and we put it up for everyone on Patreon. We read the story. We read a short story, a very, very short story called "Indian Camp" by Ernest Hemingway. And Phoebe, I have to hand it to you, you were right.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  About?

• 14:31Speaker 01

  It is very good.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  This is the story of a, well, this is one of the Nick Adams stories. So it's a young-

• 14:40Speaker 01

  It's the first Nick Adams story.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  It's a young- Boy traveling with his father and an uncle, his father's a doctor, to in the middle of the night, to an Indian camp where there's a woman who's struggling to give birth. And it's kind of what happens in this room. While Nick is looking at the scene, you know, something, a little boy watching a woman really struggling to deliver a baby. And that's pretty much, I mean, it's a very quiet story.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  I think it, I was surprised. It was, I felt sort of like such a cliche because I was so surprised how many times it would move, it would just move away from the action. And I thought that was very, very sad and very good. And I was like, oh, right. This is the whole thing that made him so famous.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  Here's what I think. Just keep a little book of those short stories near you, Lauren, and just open it up, you know, and pick a story every once in a while. You might be surprised.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  I was, I have to admit, I was really surprised. So what's the next one that I should read?

• 15:46Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't want, no, no, you, you're gonna tell us a short story to read. I mean, what I want-

• 15:49Speaker 01

  No, I mean, the next Hemingway. I thought it was a very, I thought it was a real, real whole emotional experience for so few pages. I really have to hand it to you.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  The Short Happy Life of Frances May Comer?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna say that's an upper, but A Big Chorded River, I love that. And that's one, that's one I'm gonna recommend, and I'm gonna think you're gonna come back and say, that one didn't, that didn't do it for me, Phoebe, but maybe. There is, I know you're gonna recommend a short story, but I think we've talked about this before. You and I both have a hard time talking about this specific short story, which is the saddest thing I have read, and that's Miss Brill, the Catherine Mansfield short story.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we should just make that the next pick.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  You and I both-

• 16:40Speaker 01

  I haven't read it in a long time. I would really like to read it again.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  And we both love it.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Should we do that? So, okay, so I've picked-

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Okay. I've picked Indian Camp Hemingway. Now, we'll pick one that both Phoebe and Lauren do come together on, that we have discussed this short story for years now. And it's one-

• 16:59Speaker 01

  What year was, what year was Indian Camp? Like 1939?

• 17:02Speaker 00

  No, earlier.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  Oh, yes, 1919.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  1924, wow. Okay, Indian Camp was 1924, and Miss Brill is from 1920.

• 17:13Speaker 00

  Get ready to have some sort of an experience. I'm not going to tell you what type of experience you're going to have reading Miss Brill. But there's no, there's nothing I've read that has given me more compassion for people, I think. Do you, there's something about it that is pretty heartbreaking.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  It's for you in particular, I feel like you, it's really like a touch point for you.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  You're not the most emotional person.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  A lot of times in my life, um, I'll reference Miss Brill. And I have to you before, you know, I said that it's, I can't, it's Miss Brill. And the reason is because there is a woman who, who I used to see with my sister Chloe, who reminded me of a Miss Brill character. And, um, she was always at the Cultural Center in Chicago where my mother worked. And so when things are too much, too sad, too lonely, remind me too much of times when I've been lonely or tried too hard and no one cared, I say that's Cultural Center. And that's kind of the inside lingo for, I can't talk about it, it's too much, it's too Miss Brill. Anyway, okay.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  So that'll be our next and then, and then you'll pick the next one.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  All right. Miss Brill.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Phoebe, in the last episode, you referred to your daily smoothie. And we got a note from a listener named Jessica, asking for the recipe.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Oh, very simple. Uh, three scoops of, well, I'm not, a serving of your protein powder of choice. I use one, um, because it has no flavor. It's made with mung beans. I hate artificially sweet protein powder or flavored protein powder. So I use this one called one, but you could, I think they also make the fake eggs, which I kind of like. But you could use any protein powder of your choice. I'm going to recommend that you go, you know, for a higher protein without added sugar. I then, one scoop of creatine, leave it out or not. One tablespoon of flaxseed. One tablespoon of chia seed.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  You're doing all this measuring first thing in the morning?

• 19:24Speaker 00

  Uh, I know it pretty well, back of my hand now. Yeah, it's pretty simple. And then I put in about a cup of, uh, maybe sometimes a cup and a half if I'm feeling wild, of frozen wild Maine blueberries. This is key. It can't be just organic blueberries. Wild Maine blueberries. Canada's okay also. Uh, I get the bag at Costco, but Wyman's makes one that you can make. Trader Joe's has a wild Maine, uh, I think it's a wild blueberry from Canada. Uh, but that's the key, key component. Um, about two tablespoons of Greek yogurt, zero percent fat Greek yogurt, which I use that F A, is it F A G E?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Is it pronounced like feya?

• 20:08Speaker 00

  Feya. Use the only one you want. But again, plain, unflavored, no sugar. And about a quarter of a banana. And then I used to put in coconut water, but I don't anymore. I just fill it up with some filtered water right to the top, and you blend it up, and that's the smoothie.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  You do drink it every single day?

• 20:25Speaker 00

  Every single day. Yeah, every single day.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Thank you, Jessica. Um, Phoebe, also, on the subject of Miss Brill and Cultural Center, I wanted to ask you three questions from the New York Times Artist series. Are you ready?

• 20:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Question number one, what embarrasses you?

• 20:43Speaker 00

  Dancing.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Ooh, karaoke?

• 20:48Speaker 00

  Anything performative like that.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Which is so funny, because you stand on a stage, holding a microphone.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's, that's different.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Dancing. What about, uh, what if you needed to do formal dancing? Could you enjoy that?

• 21:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, if I was following a pattern, I could do line dancing. You know, people do, no, I could, because it's following something. Do this, do that. It's more, um, kind of a, you know, feeling the spirit of something and dance. Like, the idea of ecstatic dancing makes me want to have a heart attack. You know, it's that type of a situation.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  All right. Question number two, what are you reading?

• 21:27Speaker 00

  Well, I, boy, I just finished that wonderful book about the winter. I am reading, which I haven't gotten to talk to you about yet, which is kind of a giveaway because I really am thinking we should do this for Criminal. I am reading a book about murders in Greensboro, North Carolina called Bitter Blood.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  The crimes we've never talked about before?

• 21:48Speaker 00

  We've never talked about them before. This is a book that came out in 1988 by a newspaper reporter in Greensboro, North Carolina, Jerry Bledsoe, and it's detailing this rash of murders in wealthy southern families. I have no idea why we haven't come across this. The book is about 1,000 pages long, and I have been told that it is riveting and the writing is fantastic, and I just started it last night.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Where did you get it?

• 22:16Speaker 00

  A friend brought it over. He had read it, he had a cold and read it in three days. It's kind of, I think it's out of print, and brought it over, and I just thought it looked interesting. I picked it up.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  This is what we need. We need to return to our roots of basing episodes on old out-of-print books.

• 22:35Speaker 00

  Well, I got-

• 22:36Speaker 01

  We did a lot of that at the beginning. I remember I used to volunteer at the library, and all the old ladies would set aside the most terrifying crime books and give them to me, and we would usually not use them, but sometimes we did.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  I, I'm back. I've got one for you. It's 1,000 pages, but I'm really, it's a little, sometimes around here, we use the, we say Cultural Center, but we also say, it's a little people.com. You know what I mean?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  It's a little people.com, in a good way. So that is what I mean.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  The thing is, everything that's people.com doesn't have to be done-

• 23:08Speaker 00

  Like people.com.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  As people.com.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  All right. Question number three. Whose work makes you the most jealous?

• 23:15Speaker 00

  Lauren Spore.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Oh, Phoebe. Wow, I didn't even miss a beat.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  Tip of my tongue. I think everyone's work makes me jealous. I feel like I'm constantly thinking, how did they do that? In everything. Every little thing, writing and music and-

• 23:37Speaker 00

  Films, and I always think to that, how did they do that? Boy, isn't that good? So I can't tell you because I think about it all the time.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Well, I was gonna say, someone's work who didn't make me jealous was The Night Manager, season two.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  Boy, I finished the last episode. What was that wild shot of Olivia Colman?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  I was upset. I was frustrated by the end of the season and I was really enjoying it. And I thought the finale was terrible. It was so violent and there was no even kernel of curiosity for us. I thought it was horrible.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Dicky wins again.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  I mean, I was like, what are we meant to read into the son's facial expression? Like, I was like, where is the gravity of this? Why are you subjecting us to this with no, nothing of interest? I didn't think.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Well, he's just a monster, right? Just a monster guy character.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Well, no, but that's not good enough.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  I know. Listen, I didn't like it either. I was thinking though, and I was realizing that, you know, there's this big fad about the show The Pit.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  I can't watch it because I don't like blood.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Well, I do like blood. I do like the show. And when I was growing up, we were only allowed to watch one television program a week during the weekdays, and it was ER.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  How did you agree? Three children.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  It was, there was no need for agreement. I mean, we were just all on the same page. It was a very clear. Oh, absolutely. Very clear choice. But I realized that this show, they're doing something different. They're not putting them all out at the same time. They're putting them out once a week. And I realized they put this show out Thursdays at 9:00 PM. It comes every week. It's the same exact time that ER was put out, was aired. Nine o'clock Central, so 10 o'clock Eastern, every Thursday night it would come out. For years, that's when ER came out. And now that's what the pit is doing too. Nine o'clock Thursday nights. I thought that was kind of a nice. I mean, maybe I'm making this up that that isn't a that it's just a coincidence, but I don't think so.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  It's weirding me out that during our childhoods, our time, our destination television watching times would not have been the same.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  I know. I always thought to myself, isn't that people on the East Coast? Isn't that odd? Like, they have to stay up so late. It was always. And now that I live on the East Coast and I'm East Coast time, it is very strange. I still think about that. You know what also dated, maybe you and me? We were in a pitch meeting the other day. And I brought up, I've been thinking about the Tylenol murders and how we wanted to do that story forever. And that the the crime was interesting, I guess. But what was really interesting was the panic and how people changed people's, you know, shopping habits, changed how pill bottles, everything. The fallout of the crime.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  And I started thinking about Jack in the Box. Do you remember the Jack in the Box? Okay, the outbreak, the E. coli, that many people died. And we were in this meeting, pitch meeting, and I said, I think it'd be really interesting to do something about Jack in the Box. And how even to this day, I would never go to Jack in the Box. And I was shocked at how few people in the team knew about Jack in the Box.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  You mean, knew about the brand at all?

• 27:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, or just the big Jack in the Box terror, the story, which I feel is like seared into my mind to this day, don't you?

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. It also just what a terrible brand. Like, sort of nightmarish.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, yes, I've never been, so I don't know how the food is. But I, but I'm, I think we may try to do a Jack in the Box story, again, focusing on, yes, the cover up that the company tried to do, but also the fallout that happened. You think about, people just stopped going to this major, major chain because they didn't know, and they didn't know. And the mystery of why people were getting sick.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  When was that? Nineteen, okay, wait, let me see. 1993, a major corporate crisis from an E. coli outbreak. Wow, the largest and deadliest food crisis associated with restaurants to this day. It resulted in the deaths of four children and it made more than 700 people sick in multiple states.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  I think we're going to do the story. I think there's so many different, interesting angles for that story. So we haven't recorded no interviews for that. And I just brought it up in a pitch meeting yesterday, but I would like to do some research and digging on Jack in the Box.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  I mean, the panic, I feel if I open a, any kind of sealed food package and it seems like it's even slightly damaged or like the seal is in some way imperfect.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  How about this wild panic that happens to me often? It happened to me yesterday. You get into the car and you have your water bottle there and your water bottle is open and there's a sip gone. And you, but not a big sip. And you can't remember if you took a sip or if this is full of chemicals. This is poison.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  I-

• 28:45Speaker 01

  But why does that happen when you get into the car? What are you talking about? Like you left it in the car?

• 28:49Speaker 00

  Like I took a little bottle. The storm was happening, so we had some extra bottled water. I'm trying to drink through it. That's how, and so I grabbed it and maybe I took a sip as I was leaving the house, getting into the car. Or maybe someone else took a sip. And I was telling you the story, another airplane story, the time I was sitting on a Delta flight. And they give you these little bottles of water. And I was sitting next to a man and I took a sip of, of the little bottle of water and realized that it was his.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  And then what? Had he already taken a sip?

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Yes. Taken a sip? And I didn't know what, I just thought to myself, what, what happens now? Pneumonia, bubonic plague? I just had this, yeah, I played it, yeah, of course I, what, yeah, I played it straight. What was I going to do? Make a big deal of it?

• 29:40Speaker 01

  You could have said to him, I'm so sorry, I think I just took a sip of your water. So he wouldn't drink after you. No, you didn't do that. You did nothing. In our last episode, I said I wanted to inaugurate a new feature, which is called Headlines with Lauren, where I tell you some news that you might appreciate and you might have missed. So last time I told you that. Since 2013, Costco has had Pepsi in the food court, but now they are returning to having Coke. And frankly, we got a lot of response from other people who were all so excited about that. So I was happy to share. So I have some more Headlines with Lauren for you today. First object is a term I saw online called finger princess. And I'm not trying to drag you, but I think that you might be one. Do you know what this is?

• 30:20Speaker 00

  No.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  It's Korean slang for someone who will not look something up that is very obvious.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  So if you're in a group, if you're in like a group chat and someone says like, let's meet at the restaurant at seven, and then like three messages later, someone will say, when and where are we meeting? Like then that, so like basically it's the friend who wants other people to do the research for them, even if it's something simple. I think this is you.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  A finger princess?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Yes, you will say, what was the name of that episode? Even though you're just as capable of any of us, as any of us of Googling it.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Oh, I will, okay. So instead of me going back and looking, I'll just say, Lauren, we, uh, 100% true. Katie Bishop can tell.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  You'll be like, what time is the meeting? And I'm like, well, you also have a calendar. We're on the same invitation.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  Katie Bishop, every single month, uh, we're doing expense reports and some are on mine and some are on hers. And every month I say to her, you know, Katie, I, can you tell me the New Yorker, the New York, can you tell me the New York Times login again?

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then maybe if she doesn't respond to you fast enough, you'll text me and say, what's the password for the criminal New York Times account? But we all have access to the same place. We, we can all get it from the exact same place with the same amount of effort. So you, Phoebe Judge, are a finger princess.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  I, yeah, okay.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Headline number two, did you know that there was a new planet that was found that is quite similar to Earth? It is the same radius and it moves at a, at a similar speed around a star. So they're saying that it is the earthiest planet yet.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  Not surprised.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  This is the first planet candidate with an Earth-like radius and orbital properties. And so they're saying it is going to, it is bright enough and it is worthy of substantial follow-up observations, same size as Earth. It has, it orbits a nice orange star in one year, give or take, and it's in a habitable zone, although they said like at the far, far edge of what's a habitable zone. I thought that was really exciting news, 146 light years away.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  What country has the most lakes on Earth?

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Can I have a clue?

• 32:40Speaker 00

  You wouldn't expect it.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Greenland.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  In the right-ish area.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Iceland, Canada.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  You and I went to a museum that overlooked this country across a body of water.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Sweden?

• 33:00Speaker 00

  Sweden.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Fascinating. We went to a beautiful museum called Louisiana in Denmark, but from the museum you can see Sweden. That was a good clue.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Thank you. Well, Lauren, I have been enjoying Headlines with Lauren. I hope that you bring some next time.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Great, thank you. And what about three favorite things? What have you been enjoying lately?

• 33:19Speaker 00

  Um.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  I can start. If you, I'll say a show I was enjoying and I'm no longer enjoying was The Night Manager. I, with all due respect to the creators, but that didn't work for me. So then afterwards, I just really needed something that was going to be upbeat. So something I've been enjoying lately is The Studio. Have you watched this, the Seth Rogen comedy?

• 33:37Speaker 00

  I tried.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  And what happened?

• 33:40Speaker 00

  Didn't like it.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  I mean, after that finale of The Night Manager, this is exactly the speed that I am looking for. It has tons of celebrities playing themselves, making fun of themselves. It moves really fast. The costumes are really funny. Like it's sort of, the costumes sort of make it look, his costumes make it look like it's set in the 70s, but it's not. And then Catherine Hahn is the brightest light of that show, and she, her performance is exquisite. It's really, it's really difficult to watch Seth Rogen be so bad at his job, but very, very funny and well done, I think. But that show was a pick-me-up.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  The first thing that I've been enjoying lately is watching not just the televised, best-in-group Westminster dog show, but you can go online and type in any dog breed and watch the breed judging as well. You know what I'm saying? So if you had a special interest, for me, black Russian terriers, I would, could go and type 2026 Westminster Dog Show, black Russian Terrier judging, and I get to see the group judging as well, which is really, really interesting to see dogs that look so similar and to figure out why the one that was picked was picked.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Do you know what I'm saying?

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Because are you saying the dog show itself is edited? And so you can sort of see the outtakes that might be of interest to you?

• 35:12Speaker 00

  Well, what you can see is, you know, let's say you have the working group, which I have an interest in the working group. Every breed of the, let's say, 30 breeds that are comprised of the working group has a winner. So there is a black Russian terrier and there's a Tibetan Mastiff and everything else.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't think I realized that.

• 35:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, they have won earlier that day in a group of 20 other black Russian terriers. Do you know what I'm saying? They were deemed the best of their breed and now their breed is going to try to be the best of the working group. So you can go back and put in a little Chihuahuas, any dog you like, Dalmatians, and just get to see which of these. And I think that's kind of fun.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Okay, that's a great, that's a good one. My number two is a natural deodorant and I'll not go, I won't go into too much detail here, but I've tried them all and I thought it was a lost cause, but I'm enjoying one. It's called, the brand is called Nala, N-A-L-A. And the one I got is Sandalwood and Bergamot, and I think it works.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  I have strong opinions on deodorant and I have been a loyalist to one for many years.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  I know, I like it too.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  It's not cheap.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  The smell of that one is pretty strong.

• 36:24Speaker 00

  In a good way.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  It is, it is a great smell. And I have myself asked you, what perfume are you wearing? And the answer is the Aesop deodorant. Aesop? I forgot. What is it again?

• 36:34Speaker 00

  I say Aesop.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  That's not right, though.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  I'm just going to keep saying Aesop.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Anyway, it does smell great, but that is strong. It smells too strong sometimes. Like you're getting in your car and you're like, I can't breathe.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  My number two is a new development in my life, which I'm not going to say is going to be practical for many of the people maybe listening to this who are living in apartments or in cities or don't have an interest that would want them to buy one of these. I have recently become the new owner of something called a green egg.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Oh, the grill.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  The grill. This was given to us by people who are moving who couldn't take it. And so I've been intimidated by this thing. It looks like a gigantic ceramic egg. It's green and it does things like it acts like a grill, but also like a smoker in an oven. And I was very intimidated by it. But I decided in the middle of the snowstorm last weekend, which was really a non-event, that, but I was grilling in the snow, which I love to do, that I would take my time and try to do it right. And I smoked a spatchcocked chicken.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  And I had a-

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Our lives are just so different.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  And I had a great time and I took my time and I did it slowly and I did it right. I didn't rush. I rushed through everything and make a mess of things a lot. But I took, and I thought it turned out really well. So I have been enjoying learning how to use a green egg. And this is a plug for grilling outside in cold weather. It's one of my favorite things. Make yourself some sort of summer barbecue outside, a meal that you would usually have in the summer. Do it this weekend, even if it's cold. Bring it in and you'll, you'll just be happy.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  I was very surprised as we had two recent snowstorms in North Carolina, the sort of emphasis in the local news on not bringing your grill indoors. And I was like, God, I just don't, that would never have occurred to me. Apparently there, it's the cause of major asphyxiation every year and house fires. But because people think they can do two things at once, warm their house and cook their dinner. Anyway, my number three is a book by Marilynne Robinson called The Givenness of Things. It's a book of essays and her, she has a sort of thesis that we're living in a time of what she calls joyless urgency, where we are obsessed with being busy and freaking out all the time. Constant anxious busyness, obsession with productivity and a lack of personal fulfillment. And so far, I think the book is really beautifully written. So it's my number three.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  The third thing that I feel like I'm recommending things and you're gonna think I'm just kind of a supplement nut, you know, I talked about, but is a vitamin, or maybe it's supplement, it's called L-theanine.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Have you heard about it?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Well, I know that it's naturally found in green tea and it's supposed to be why green tea promotes a feeling of well-being or like helps with anxiety.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  And sleep. And so I've been taking L-theanine and I highly recommend it.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  What's the, what's the, a pill?

• 39:47Speaker 00

  Uh, it's a pill. It, I did have a dream the other night that I was at a Dave Matthews concert by myself.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Now that is cultural center.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, um, I

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Were you dancing?

• 40:05Speaker 00

  Uh, I wasn't really, I wasn't really dancing, but no, I wasn't dancing. I was loitering, but I, God knows how I got to a Dave Matthews concert by myself. And I think it might be the L-theanine. I don't know how I could have gotten there.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Wow. I mean, that's great. Have you ever been to a Dave Matthews concert?

• 40:24Speaker 00

  No, absolutely not.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  I attended one when I was 15 years old in West Palm Beach, Florida, and it was wonderful.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  You know, I see pictures of people who go to these Dave Matthews, and they seem to be in a happier place.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I remember. I remember people literally like collaboratively tossing a beach ball in the air with like palm trees everywhere. It was an outdoor concert.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  It's, it's, it's, it's, is it Grateful Dead, Fish Light? You know, it's in that same realm of

• 40:53Speaker 01

  It's a little bit more, um, it has like an overtone of sports that I don't think we get. I think it's a little bit more ultimate frisbee infused.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  Not a care in the world. Uh, well, thank you all very much for listening. Again, you can always get in touch with us, hello at thisiscriminal.com, 833-822-7850. Um, we love to hear from you and, um, Great news, just got a text. What? The heating man is on his way. There you go, there you go. Bye bye.