Pod Insights Normal Gossip The Couch and the Fuckboy with Scaachi Koul About this episode Welcome to season EIGHT of Normal Gossip! We're kicking off the season with Scaachi Koul and a story about the lengths you would go for a coveted couch. Order Scaachi’s book, Sucker Punch, here https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250270504/suckerpunch/ and follow her on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/scaachi/?hl=en.
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Transcript 0:06 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome to Normal Gossip. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton, and in each episode of this podcast, we're gonna bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. Y'all, we're back. You're listening to the very first episode of season eight, and I might be biased, but I feel like this season is shaping up to be pretty damn good. If you haven't tuned in in a while, you might be thinking, "This bitch doesn't sound like Kelsey," and you would be right. I am very much not Kelsey. At the end of season seven, Normal Gossip underwent a peaceful transition of power, and well, I'm the captain now. If you'd like more details on the transition and our feelings around them, go listen to the finale of season seven.
0:51 Speaker 00 I'm gonna be so briefly vulnerable here, since I know a lot of you skipped this part, and I'm gonna say that stepping into the host chair of Normal Gossip is literally a dream come true for me. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit nervous. I've been a fan of this show since it launched, which means I know I have got some big and very cute shoes to fill. I am eternally grateful, not just to Kelsey and Alex and the whole Normal Gossip team for giving me this opportunity. I'm also so, so grateful to y'all, the audience, for giving me a chance. I have a feeling we're gonna have a good time together. If you wanna have an even better time together, we have a newsletter and subscriber episodes.
1:35 Speaker 00 If you upgrade your subscription to friend or friend of a friend, in the subscriber episodes, you get exclusive bits of gossip. They're all pretty good. Now, if you've been tuning in and are now thinking, "I know all of this already, give me the gossip," well, you're in luck, cuz I'm done with my little spiel, and I'm now ready to introduce the very first guest of season eight of Normal Gossip. I am so thrilled to be joined by none other than Scaachi Cole. Scaachi is a senior writer at Slate and the author of two books, Her Most recent book, Sucker Punch, just came out in March and it is a beautiful collection of essays. Scaachi also produced the documentary Girls Gone Wild,
2:19 Speaker 00 The Untold Story, and she is a co-host of the Scamfluencers podcast. Scaachi, welcome. Um, my first question is, do you consider yourself a gossip?
2:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think anybody who says they're not is a liar. Actually, those people are lying the most. People who are like, I really don't like gossip, liar. Those are the people who say gossip under the sheen of faux concern, and that's worse.
2:40 Speaker 00 It is.
2:41 Speaker 01 Like, I don't want like dramatic bad gossip. I don't like it when it's like people are gossiping about like an awful breakup or a terrible, like terrible stuff like that sucks. But like, ooh, mild work conflict at a place that I don't work? Yum yum delicious. Snacky for snacky. I must eat. So, uh, yeah, I love hearing about things that don't really involve me. I don't believe all of it. I don't believe all of it.
3:06 Speaker 00 And that's what makes you a good journalist.
3:09 Speaker 01 Thank you. But it is interesting, even when it's false, it is interesting to think about what falsities we invent about each other or about ourselves and why we do it. So I even think then it's still interesting.
3:19 Speaker 00 It's very revealing. This is the same way I feel about reality television, where people say because it's produced that it doesn't say anything real. And I'm like, no, the invisible hand of the production and what they think we want to see is actually very, very instructive.
3:32 Speaker 01 And, and the people on those shows often know that and what they choose to feed into and what they choose not to feed into, they're pretty savvy. So that's, I mean, no decision is a decision.
3:42 Speaker 00 I mean, I have to ask, now that we're here, Scaachi, what is your relationship to gossip?
3:49 Speaker 01 You know, I was thinking this the other day, that when I started like my divorce process and when I was starting the separation, I was really mad and offended that people weren't telling me that I was the subject of more gossip. Like, I would call my friends and be like, hey, has anybody asked like, what's going on?
4:08 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:09 Speaker 01 Like, I deleted a lot of photos on Instagram. I'm posting like a mentally ill person. Surely somebody has been like, hey, what's going on with, with Scaachi and her marriage? And all my friends, and they wouldn't lie to me because they do not care, uh, were like, oh yeah, no one's asked. And I was like, why not?
4:29 Speaker 00 What the fuck?
4:30 Speaker 01 And I'm, I'm still a little offended about that, frankly. So I love gossip. I think there's lots of gradations of it and layers of it. I think it's all good and I like it and I want gossip. And I also, I want this on the record, that for this show, you guys do a pre-interview and you asked me to bring a piece of gossip, which I did, and it was deemed too hot to air. And I would like to discuss that. I just want to be told that I have some credit for somehow bringing a morrisel, too hot to air by the gossip show? I have to talk to God.
5:11 Speaker 00 You should definitely get credit for that, to be clear.
5:16 Speaker 01 Thank you.
5:16 Speaker 00 Um, unfortunately, we go through a rigorous legal process.
5:20 Speaker 01 It was impossible. I didn't, I was like, there's no way. I, I told you guys, and then as I hung up, laughed for 100 years. I was like, there's no way they're gonna be able to air that. There's no way to anonymize it. Everybody would know immediately. And by the way, when I say everyone would know, I mean, conservatively, 500 people would immediately know who this one person was. And I loved the thought of one of you having a phone call with a lawyer being like...
5:53 Speaker 00 We got a piece of gossip.
5:54 Speaker 01 On the note of gossip, one of my private joys is knowing that I have said something that gets back to a lawyer who then, like, the heavy sigh. Every time a lawyer sighs because of something I've said, my ass gets a little bit fatter. And I feel it. Like, I knew, I was like, oh, they called the lawyer. I look thick.
6:15 Speaker 00 You wake up in the morning, you're like, I look particularly stacked today. What lawyer heard my name?
6:21 Speaker 01 Six lawyers, six lawyers at AT&T are currently screaming my name into the sky.
6:26 Speaker 00 What AT&T?
6:28 Speaker 01 I just picked a telecommunications company I don't work for.
6:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, you have the rare honor of giving us a piece of gossip that we could not air. But a little Brady told me that you have some airable gossip for me.
6:42 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a story about my own flagellation, certainly. Yeah.
6:49 Speaker 01 Okay, so when you write a book, they give you an advanced version of it. I have one. It's just like a little loose paperback that they give you so that you can give it to people, whatever else. So I received one from my publisher and I went to my office to go pick it up because that's where I had it sent for safekeeping. And I was like, walking through Brooklyn and having like a really nice day and looking at it and being like, wow, I did it. How exciting. And then I got on the train and I'm still looking at the book. I'm by myself. I'm living in peace. Right? And I have it open. I'm like looking at a random page and I have it open and I just hear,
7:29 Speaker 01 Scaachi? And I like slowly lower the book with my name on it, as if like I can't read, like a billboard. The book could have been a mask of my own face, holding it up. And it's you.
7:47 Speaker 01 And you're, and I haven't seen you in months. And you're like, hey, are you reading your own book on the subway?
7:58 Speaker 01 And I had to be like, yeah, but not like that. I was just checking that it was my book.
8:04 Speaker 00 It's real.
8:05 Speaker 01 What if they put like the different book in the same cover? Sometimes that happens, you know, like you buy, I don't know when that would happen. I like, it was like a, like a bottom two experience. And then I had to, and then, and then we had to go to different places. So I talked to you for a few seconds and then you got off the train to go to, you were going to the gym, I think.
8:23 Speaker 00 I was, yeah.
8:24 Speaker 01 And I had to sit on the fucking train.
8:28 Speaker 01 And there were people, there were other people who watched this interaction and then like looked at me and they were like, oh, you wrote a book, huh? And I'm like, yeah, it's, um, it's this one that I was reading on the subway.
8:41 Speaker 00 It's out in March that I'm holding right now.
8:45 Speaker 00 Um, can I tell you my experience of this moment?
8:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:49 Speaker 00 So I get on the train. It's very early for me. I know this is a morning workout based on how out of it I was. I look up and I'm pretty sure I'd already seen your cover on Instagram. And so I saw the book first and I was just like, oh my God, someone has a galley of Scaachi's book already. The street team is really out here. That's incredible. And then I look up further and I'm like, oh my God, it's Scaachi. I haven't seen her in months. And then I thought, this is gonna be hilarious.
9:22 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, and I like, it was funny because for some reason, earlier in the day, I was thinking about how I never run into anybody, despite the fact that like, we live in the same neighborhood and there's a lot of people I know who live around here and I just never see anybody. And not that I'm willing this into, but clearly I did. And so I was thinking of it. And then there you fucking are. I have to do the face off operation and change my name and go into witness protection. It was so embarrassing. And then when I got my physical copy, I went to go pick that up and I was on the train. I was like, I'm not fucking taking this goddamn book out. You couldn't pay me. I'm going to read it in the dark alone, as God intended.
10:06 Speaker 00 You could have summoned me. I feel like whenever you hold your book in public and you're reading it, I'll just
10:11 Speaker 01 No, I worry, but I'm worried. I'm worried. It's not that. I'm worried. It's something embarrassing. Like, my pants are gonna fall off and then you're gonna be there. Like, it's not, I don't know that it's the book. I'm worried that it's like, I'm gonna do something self-effacing and like, simultaneously so narcissistic and like belittling at the same time. So made me feel so small and yet so big. Like, that's what I'm worried about. Oh, my God.
10:39 Speaker 00 I was like, this is exactly what I would do if I had just gotten the galley of my book. I would also be reading it on the train.
10:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're more generous than me. And I will tell you this, if I ever catch you on the subway reading your own book, I would have not, you were nice enough to say my name. So I looked up. I would have taken a thousand photos of it. And I wouldn't have said anything to you. I would have left and just posted them, tagged you and been like, looks like someone learned how to read. I would be way meaner about it. That's what was making me so crazy. I was like, this is simultaneously so embarrassing and a huge missed opportunity for her. She's too nice. She's never gonna do it, but a real, a real monster like myself would have done something with this.
11:21 Speaker 00 The thing is, you did do it. You posted about it on Instagram.
11:24 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
11:26 Speaker 00 You outed yourself.
11:29 Speaker 01 I, yeah, I, because I remember thinking, I was like, this is a total missed opportunity. If only an asshole ran into me like this, they could really make a meal out of it. And instead, it was like you and you were being so genteel. You were like, oh, are you going to the gym? I'm like, I have to go figure out a plan. I have to get my estate in order because I have to die.
11:48 Speaker 00 I have to go into witness protection. Yeah, I love that conversation being like, I can't wait to get a Galia Saji's book and we're gonna go work out together.
11:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I'm like, Gilletteen.
11:58 Speaker 00 And you're like, I want to die.
11:59 Speaker 01 I have to die. It's time to die. Yeah, we were having very different days.
12:04 Speaker 00 That was beautiful. I love that gossip. I love that I was privy to that gossip.
12:08 Speaker 01 Yeah. Oh, great.
12:11 Speaker 00 Are you ready to hear some gossip from me?
12:14 Speaker 01 Yes, yes.
12:15 Speaker 00 All right, here we go.
12:23 Speaker 00 We've been cooking up a fun, special holiday project for y'all over here at Normal Gossip. And usually when work gets crazy, I kind of just try to continue my life like nothing's happening. But recently, thanks to therapy, this time around, I was like, what if I did not try to pour from an empty cup? And that is what growing feels like. If you've been thinking about starting therapy, then I think you should check out today's sponsor, Growth Therapy. Growth Therapy is built for therapy that actually feels like care. You can find therapy based on what matters most to you, like insurance taken, mental health specialties,
13:04 Speaker 00 identity, or night and weekend availability if you're working a lot. Book your first. First session in minutes and you can start in as little as two days. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on your insurance plan. Prepare for holiday glimmers instead of holiday stress. Visit growtherapie.com/gossip to get started today. That is growtherapie.com/gossip. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
13:35 Speaker 00 Y'all, for months I have been in search of just a simple black crew neck cardigan. And I finally found exactly what I was looking for. I should have just gone to Quince as soon as I started thinking of this, but for some reason I didn't. Well, Quince had exactly what I wanted. Their Mongolian cashmere cropped crew cardigan is in fact so cute and their reviews are so good that despite the fact that I went in saying, I need a black cardigan to wear with everything. I took 15 minutes to decide what color I was getting. Do I need a red cardigan? Maybe. I can't promise I'm not gonna buy it later, but I did get the black one.
14:19 Speaker 00 Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Normal Gossip. It's the best way to support the show. I'm gonna admit something embarrassing, I know, shocker. I have not had a bedside lamp for an undisclosed amount of months. Long enough that I basically haven't read before bed for a really long time. And I only realized this because I'm hosting a friend and I was like, wow. They deserve to have a light by their bed at night. I don't.
14:59 Speaker 00 But this finally inspired me to find the perfect bedside lamp and I had a vision in mind. Wayfair, they had exactly what I need, which is one of those library style lights with like the green lampshade and little pull cord. I have been having this image in my mind of having one and now I have one because Of course Wayfair had it. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home so you can host and celebrate without distress. When refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.
15:39 Speaker 02 Wayfair, every style, every home.
15:50 Speaker 00 Our story today takes place in the late aughts. Think the beginning of the Obama era. Think Electric Feel by MGMT, playing at every party. Parties where the girls are wearing knee-high boots and shirts with vertical stripes.
16:04 Speaker 01 Why are you saying this? Like, you're talking about pioneers in their covered wagons. Like, they crossed the Oregon Trail. They ate the whole buffalo, tip to tail.
16:17 Speaker 00 It's almost 20 years ago, babe.
16:19 Speaker 01 Okay, that hurts my feelings, but go on.
16:23 Speaker 00 These are parties where the boys have all made Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character in 500 Days of Summer their entire personality without realizing that he is the villain in that movie. Think, like, American Apparel, Chunky Bangs, Shutter Shades, worn unironically. Are you with me?
16:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:42 Speaker 00 It looks like you're having some flashbacks. Where were you during this era?
16:46 Speaker 01 Oh, God. This was a terrifying, heady time of me, like, just turning 18 and being in, like, early university. I had just moved to Toronto. I thought I knew everything. I had cut all my hair off into this fuck-ass bob. It looked so bad. I loved it. And I was having the time of my life.
17:06 Speaker 00 That is a very important element.
17:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:10 Speaker 00 The early aughts.
17:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
17:12 Speaker 00 So, our friend of a friend, Morgan, is in college during this era at a liberal arts university in the Pacific Northwest. It's the sort of school where there is no football team, but on any given night, you could find between five and 10 shady little bands doing Mumford and Sons cosplay in the basement of a coffee shop. Luckily for our girl Morgan, she loves Mumford and Sons. She loves mod cloth. She loves wearing huge headbands over her hair. She's the kind of girl who might start an aesthetic Tumblr dedicated to the color blue that low key becomes a little famous in the aesthetic Tumblr blog community.
17:48 Speaker 01 Is that a thing?
17:49 Speaker 00 It is.
17:50 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
17:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah. Our story begins at the end of Morgan's sophomore year of college and our girl is ready for summer. She has a sweet internship lined up for a digital publication that would collapse 10 years later.
18:10 Speaker 01 The funny thing about that is it's like, well, which one?
18:13 Speaker 00 Exactly.
18:17 Speaker 01 That could be anybody.
18:19 Speaker 00 So many choices.
18:20 Speaker 01 That could be anybody, anywhere, anytime. Okay.
18:24 Speaker 00 But we're not there yet. We're in the late aughts when people felt lucky to get an unpaid internship at Mike.com and dreamed of working for BuzzFeed. No one had ever heard the words pivot to video.
18:38 Speaker 00 So Morgan's coasting high. She's done with her finals and in a few hours she will be putting the finishing touches on this year's final edition of the student newspaper where she has just been named the incoming deputy editor. We are both graduates of journalism school, which means I'm sure we both have strong opinions on student publications. Please hold forth. What was the publishing ecosystem of your college like?
19:05 Speaker 01 I was an editor for like the socialist newspaper.
19:10 Speaker 00 You can't see me, but I'm pumping this right now.
19:14 Speaker 01 They had like a personal essay and like culture section and I was one of the editors and I would write for it. But I didn't do any of the other ones because I thought all those guys were weird. They were so weird and so like proprietary over the student paper. And you're like, we're 20 and you are running around trying to write a story about like the muffin prices in the canteen. Like, what do you mean? Get a job, like, get a job. You're a taxpayer. What are you talking about? You're 20. Like, in six years, you're gonna get kicked off your parents' insurance. What are you talking about? I just found it so weird and white and, like, restrictive and funny, and I didn't do it. So I went and worked for the socialist paper, barely met anybody who worked on it,
19:59 Speaker 01 which was exactly how I wanted to operate. Had a good time, really loved it, and graduated.
20:05 Speaker 00 This is very similar to the kind of school that Morgan is at. They have just the biggest media scene you could possibly have. Just in print, there's the campus magazine, there's two dueling arts and culture magazines, there's a fashion magazine, which is, of course, separate from the women's magazine. There's a local student radio station, and then there's the blogs, just dozens of them, each more niche than the last. But Morgan doesn't really give a shit about any of those, because to her, like, a real newspaper kid, the only real game in town is the student newspaper. And it's true that the newspaper is the campus's longest-running publication, but that's not why Morgan joined the paper. She joined the paper because of all the school's various publications,
20:50 Speaker 00 the paper throws the best parties. And that's because one of the established duties of the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper is to preside over the weekly parties after close. So at the school, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper is always a senior, and all this campus seniors typically had the sweetest housing deals. And this year's editor-in-chief, Grant, had the sweetest housing deal of them all. Grant is tall with that kind of, like, floppy hair that made everyone's heart go pitter-patter. He's still dating his high school sweetheart, and everyone on the paper calls them mom and dad. Because Grant has family money, the townhouse he rented was not only decently upkept, but for a college senior, it was also extremely well furnished.
21:35 Speaker 00 Like, there were multiple rugs.
21:37 Speaker 01 Oh.
21:37 Speaker 00 The chairs at the dining table, which was made of real wood, by the way, all matched. Morgan had even heard that Grant had a headboard and a nightstand.
21:48 Speaker 01 Wow. I still don't have a nightstand. I'm using a windowsill.
21:54 Speaker 00 Satya, get a nightstand.
21:56 Speaker 01 Then I gotta move things. I'm busy.
21:58 Speaker 00 That's true. You're very busy. Nothing impressed Morgan more in Grant's apartment, though, than the couch. Satya, tell me about your first couch.
22:07 Speaker 01 I was in like residency when I was in university and then I had like a little shitty student apartment. I had a really bad futon that my parents gave me. And then I lived with a friend and she had a couch and then I moved in with my ex and we had this awful blue sectional. I hated it.
22:23 Speaker 00 When did you realize how expensive couches were?
22:26 Speaker 01 When I got divorced, I was like, oh, I get to pick all of this furniture. And so I got a custom pink velvet couch that pulls out into a queen bed, which is pretty comfortable.
22:39 Speaker 00 Yeah.
22:41 Speaker 01 And it's like a crushed, it's like a light pink. It's crushed velvet and my cat really likes it.
22:46 Speaker 00 That sounds so comfortable. Custom furniture is so chic.
22:51 Speaker 01 It's fun.
22:52 Speaker 00 Oh, my god.
22:53 Speaker 01 You can do it. It's actually about the same price as a regular couch now because couches are so expensive.
22:59 Speaker 00 Listen.
23:00 Speaker 01 You can get a shitty couch for $220. It will fall apart. It will hold you in a stress position if you try to sleep on it. It's the worst night of your life. But if you want one that like is kind of comfortable and I needed a second bed in case I had visitors, like, yeah, it's thousands of dollars.
23:18 Speaker 00 Yeah. So I didn't know that until a few years after college when I was considering replacing the couch that my parents gave me for free. And I was just like, I've had this for so long. It's like 10 years old. I should get a new one. And then I looked at couch prices and I was like, never mind. I will not be getting a new one. But our girl Morgan is precocious because she's spent so much time on aesthetic Tumblr. She has a real eye for furniture and she also knows just how expensive it is, which is why when she sees Grant's couch for the first time, she almost cries. It's big and velvet and marine blue and it's so, so, so comfortable. It's the kind of couch where sitting on it immediately puts you at ease. And Morgan knows this very well because at every single
24:02 Speaker 00 party for the last year, she has spent the whole night glued to Grant's couch, which is also exactly how I operate at a party. I will be locating a place to sit down and I will be holding court from there all night long.
24:14 Speaker 01 Correct. Correct. This is why I never see. Parties, we're both sitting at opposite ends of the room and we're both like, I'm not getting up. I'll see you later.
24:22 Speaker 00 Yeah, exactly. I will salute you from across the room.
24:25 Speaker 01 Yep.
24:26 Speaker 00 Morgan's love for this couch is so clear that halfway through the school year, when Morgan finally gives up the courage to ask Grant what he plans to do with it, Grant bequeaths the couch to her, which means that for every single Friday night for the past four months, when Morgan has been sitting down on that big blue couch, she has done so with the knowledge that she was gonna own it one day. It's this knowledge that carries her through finals and the last close of the newspaper, which was particularly torturous because of Kobe. Scaachi, if you had to describe the typical white man in media, how would you?
25:04 Speaker 01 Okay, uh, he's got little glasses on that I would love to break in half. He has family money, but he pretends he doesn't and says that they were comfortable. They're always saying they were comfortable. I don't know what that means. They're always calling themselves disruptors.
25:20 Speaker 00 Okay, so now imagine that, that image that you just had in your head.
25:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:26 Speaker 00 Imagine that with an undeveloped prefrontal cortex. Yeah. So Kobe is Grant's roommate, which is maybe the only reason why anyone still talks to him. He's the newspaper's sports reporter. And because the school basically has no sports, Kobe has way too much time on his hands, which means his pieces are always 600 words too long. And since it's in print, that still matters.
25:49 Speaker 01 Yes.
25:50 Speaker 00 He also does that specific white man in media thing, where because he feels so strongly about objectivity and bias, he always has to cover both sides. What that means in practice is that whenever he covers women's sports, he interviews someone who thinks women's sports should be defunded.
26:07 Speaker 01 Oh, boy.
26:08 Speaker 00 One of his very first op-eds argued that for clarity's sake, white journalists shouldn't censor themselves when discussing the N-word, because there's obviously a different N-word than the one we're all thinking of, that it could be confused for, you know? For clarity's sake.
26:22 Speaker 01 What?
26:23 Speaker 00 The outcry over that op-ed is what got Kobe moved on to sports, where he can terrorize the campus's minority jock population.
26:32 Speaker 00 And the thing is, Kobe's not just a terror during work hours. How do you think this kind of guy behaves at parties?
26:41 Speaker 01 I think he's probably a dream.
26:45 Speaker 01 I'm sure everyone's really excited when he shows up and I'm sure no one feels a sense of throbbing unsafety around him.
26:54 Speaker 00 Never, not once.
26:55 Speaker 01 Great.
26:56 Speaker 00 Kobe never contributes anything to the parties, even though he lives with Grant. He always brings random extra people without telling anyone and no one can leave their four local around him because he'll just steal it. He's a real four local fiend. Everyone's waiting for Grant to graduate so they can just stop hanging out with Kobe, including Morgan, though Morgan has her own reasons. You see, in a moment of weakness, she hooked up with Kobe last year.
27:26 Speaker 01 Come on, are you fucking for real? Oh ladies, we are not going to win this war.
27:37 Speaker 00 So Morgan had her moment of weakness last year, which is how she found out that at night Kobe goes up on the elevated train tracks near campus to write really shitty poetry. Once her friends on the newspaper found out that Morgan and Kobe hooked up, they took out an anonymous ad in the lost and found section of the paper that read "Lost Dignity", with Morgan's dorm address listed next to it.
28:03 Speaker 01 Oh my God, oh my God.
28:06 Speaker 00 This is the beginning.
28:08 Speaker 01 This is the beginning?
28:09 Speaker 00 This is the beginning.
28:11 Speaker 01 Okay.
28:12 Speaker 00 So, we're at the end of Morgan's sophomore year and even though Kobe's sports column had come in 200 words too long, without a lead or a kicker or a point at all, really, Morgan is entering the last closed party of the school year on a high. She has, you know, a bright future in the extremely stable digital media industry ahead of her. She's gonna get her couch, she'll never have to step foot into Kobe's apartment again. Everything is coming up Morgan. Do you remember this point in college where it felt like you were kind of like on the cusp of something?
28:46 Speaker 01 Oh yeah.
28:49 Speaker 00 That like you, you just lit a cigarette?
28:53 Speaker 01 That was the last time I felt like that. Like, yeah, I remember it. Like, it's like, do you remember the last time you would hope? Absolutely. As I heat up the pipe. Like, just trying to get a grip on whatever's happening right now. Yes, I remember that.
29:09 Speaker 00 So Morgan's full of hope, which can tend to make you a little bit reckless. Um, so towards the end of this last closed party, she gets a chance to talk to Grant for the first time. Grant has a fellowship at Mother Jones lined up. It's even paid, so she congratulates him. And then she's like, so when should I pick up my couch? And at first, Grant looks confused and then a little sheepish. And Morgan is an observant bitch, so she is immediately like, what's wrong? Grant's like, Morgan, I'm so sorry. And Morgan feels her eye twitch before she responds, sorry for what? And that's when Grant tells her that he completely forgot that he had promised her the couch.
29:52 Speaker 01 Oh.
29:52 Speaker 00 And that when Kobe, his roommate, asked if he could keep it, Grant said yes. Tonight is the couch's last night in Grant's care. Morgan's trying not to freak out, but she is devastated. She had so many plans for the big blue couch. She knew exactly where it was gonna go in her very first off-campus apartment, right underneath the big picture window with southern exposure. So every day she'd wake up to the couch bathed in beautiful morning light. Kobe would not appreciate the couch like she would. Kobe had once told Morgan that there wasn't a difference between turquoise and cerulean.
30:27 Speaker 01 Oh, boy.
30:28 Speaker 00 He wouldn't know that the couch was the most perfect shade of ultramarine blue. Grant does that, you know, drunk white man thing and mumbles an apology before kind of just patting her shoulder and ambling off. It's very clear that he is washing his hands of this whole couch business. He's basically graduated. Not his circus, not his monkeys. How are you feeling, Scaachi? What do you do now? The couch that has been promised to you is soon gonna be in the possession of one of your greatest enemies?
30:57 Speaker 01 I would set the couch on fire.
31:01 Speaker 01 I would damage the couch. I would do something monstrous to the couch. And I would make sure everybody saw that I did it. I would want everyone to know, like, we had a deal. And you reneged on the deal. And that's why I'm putting all these knives into this couch.
31:20 Speaker 00 If I can't have the couch, no one can.
31:22 Speaker 01 I don't see why anybody should have anything I don't have.
31:24 Speaker 00 Especially Kobe.
31:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm real stressed out about all of this. Honestly.
31:30 Speaker 00 That's exactly where you should be. Morgan does not set the couch on fire. She loves the couch too much. But Morgan also has to leave for her unpaid internship in Brooklyn the next day. So she can't really do anything. She spends the whole summer doing her little menial task and spending way too much money in Williamsburg, spending far too much time at Union Pool. She's figuring out the G train. She loves Manhattan Hens. She's having a great time.
31:55 Speaker 01 Beautiful.
31:56 Speaker 00 And in between all of that, she's plotting. She's scheming. So then when she lands back in town in the fall, she's much broker than when she left, but she also has a plan. First action item, find couch.
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33:30 Speaker 00 Morgan, she's a journalist. She's an investigator. She watched a lot of Criminal Minds growing up, so she's prepared to do some like backroom dealing. Over the course of the week, she methodically works her way through every single member of the student newspaper under the guise of checking in as the incoming deputy editor. And somehow in every check-in conversation, she's like, remember that really nice couch that Grant had last year? It's such a shame that no one knows where it's at. Do you know where it's at? Luckily for her, everyone on the paper was obsessed with the couch, so they are all down to muse about its current location. No one has seen Kobe's new place. And in fact, it's not until Morgan's third day of check-ins
34:14 Speaker 00 that she finds out that Kobe doesn't even have a new place. Instead, the copy chief tells Morgan that Kobe is apparently living with the managing editor of this shittier arts and culture magazine, the one that loved to publish unverified blind items about students on campus. What do you do with this information?
34:31 Speaker 01 I mean, I would just have a confrontation. As you know, I love to fight. So I mean, I would just like have a fight. Like, for me, from the beginning of this, the day that I asked Grant, can I have your couch when it's over? I would have a contract ratified.
34:46 Speaker 00 That's smart.
34:47 Speaker 01 I guess I would have to find now his roommate, this person who works at the shittier publication, if I don't want to talk to him.
34:54 Speaker 00 She's not sure about Kobe's new boo. Morgan continues her little check-ins. She has a chat with the features editor to see if she can maybe find the address of Kobe's new girlfriend. If she may be considering some breaking and entering. It's not important. And the features editor doesn't know anything. On the last day of her check-in, she talks to Robbie, the paper's managing editor and her roommate. Now Morgan and Robbie have been best friends since freshman year when they bonded over their mutual love of True Blood. She loves Robbie and that's why she saved the best conversation for last. Robbie also got back into town a little bit later than everyone else, so this is really just their first time to chat. Robbie and Morgan are cooking dinner. Morgan's checking in.
35:35 Speaker 00 She's asking Robbie what his goals are for the paper this year, asking how he feels about the new crop of freshman reporters, asking how he thinks this year's parties will measure up to last year's. There's no way they can be as good, right? Because the couch isn't there. And then finally Morgan's like, there's no way the new editor in chief will have as comfortable a couch. What a shame. And then Robbie says something that surprises Morgan. He says, that fucking couch? And Morgan's like, how can anyone have anything but positive things to say about this couch? It's perfect. Externally, she says, oh, I didn't realize you didn't like the couch. And Robbie's like, I like the couch just fine, but my parents are really on my ass about it. And Morgan's like, what? Why?
36:18 Speaker 00 And that's when Robbie reveals that in the final weeks of the last school year, after Morgan had left campus, Kobe had somehow talked Robbie into storing the couch at Robbie's parents' house over the summer since Robbie lived a half hour away from campus. How would you feel if you were Morgan? You finally located your white whale. What do you do?
36:38 Speaker 01 I would be so mad. I would, that would make me crazy. But what, oh, because he's living with this girl, so he couldn't bring the couch there. But he wanted to keep the couch?
36:49 Speaker 00 Morgan also feels crazy. Morgan feels like an idiot because this whole time, the couch has been right under her nose. She had never thought to ask Robbie about Kobe because Robbie has spent the last week bitching about Kobe on the editors' listserv. Kobe has not only somehow already missed a deadline, but he's refusing to answer texts. So Robbie has already had to find someone else to cover the junior girls' handball game. Morgan's mind is spinning. She very quickly decides honesty is the best policy. Robbie already seems pissed off, so he seems like an ally and he's her roommate. So she would have to bring him into any planned couch stealing activities at some point. So she tells him the whole sordid tale, how Grant had promised her the couch,
37:33 Speaker 00 the dream she had of the couch, had she had chosen their apartment specifically because it was big enough to house the couch, and then how Grant had reneged on his promise before skipping town like a bandit in the night. And now Morgan says, well, now we have an incredible opportunity. And Robbie's like, but what happens when Kobe wants his couch back? He's gonna get dumped. We all know that's gonna happen.
37:57 Speaker 01 Right.
37:59 Speaker 00 And Morgan's like, that's future Morgan's problem.
38:01 Speaker 01 Correct.
38:02 Speaker 00 Current Morgan wants couch.
38:04 Speaker 01 Correct.
38:06 Speaker 00 And Robbie, Robbie is like most college age kids and will do literally anything to get his parents off his back. So they devise a heist. And by heist, I mean they rent a U-Haul and tell Robbie's parents that there's been a little miscommunication at the couch is actually hers and not Kobe's. Do you see any problems with this plan?
38:26 Speaker 01 No.
38:27 Speaker 00 Robbie's parents don't give a single fuck. They're planning on buying a new car and want full use of their garage back. So when Robbie and Morgan pull up in the U-Haul, Robbie's parents send them off with the couch, a six pack of beer and $50 in cash so they can get pizza that night. They're like, adios, muchachos, thank you so much. Morgan's just like a little bit nervous when they first get to Robbie's house because she's like, I haven't seen this couch in months. What if it's not as beautiful as I thought it was? What if Kobe fucked something up when he moved it into storage? What if it's been, I don't know, taken over by termites? But then Robbie pulls the moving blanket off the couch and as soon as she sees it, she knows she had no reason to fear because the couch is still the most perfect shade
39:11 Speaker 00 of ultramarine blue that she has ever seen in her life. And that night, as she's lying on her perfect blue couch, under her big picture window with southern exposure, full of pizza and beer, high on her heist, Morgan thinks life can't get any better than this. How are you feeling so far?
39:29 Speaker 01 I'm very concerned about what is in the couch.
39:37 Speaker 01 Like I'm worried, like I'm scared about like what is in it spiritually.
39:43 Speaker 01 And then also, yeah, and then also like, what is in it literally?
39:48 Speaker 00 For a whole semester, the couch is completely fine. Morgan's feeling incredible, so incredible that as weeks pass and Kobe never comes by to claim the couch or text Robbie about it, Morgan starts telling people how she came by this couch.
40:03 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. This is a rookie move. This happens all the time on Scamplancers, where somebody will like just start telling people what they did. Don't tell people that you did a crime. I can talk about how I would set the couch on fire because I didn't set the couch on fire. If I have set a couch on fire, I'm not gonna go on a podcast and be like, guess what I did?
40:24 Speaker 00 I set the couch on fire.
40:25 Speaker 01 Like, don't tell people when you did crime. Just do crime quietly.
40:30 Speaker 00 And you're right. And the thing is, at first, it's just close friends because they noticed the couch in her place and they're like, this is such a nice couch. You're not rich? Where'd this come from? And Morgan's like, well, and then suddenly somehow the whole newspaper knows that she has the couch.
40:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, because all of her friends are professional gossips. Yes.
40:54 Speaker 00 You think this is a smart idea? Seems like no.
40:57 Speaker 01 No, I think it's really dumb. Never tell a journalist anything.
41:01 Speaker 00 Except us.
41:02 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. No, tell me things. I'm involved.
41:07 Speaker 00 I'm safe.
41:08 Speaker 01 But, uh, don't tell anybody else.
41:10 Speaker 00 Morgan might be concerned about this making its way back to Kobe, except no one on the paper has seen Kobe in months. Since he started hooking up with the art girly, he has completely abandoned his role on the newspaper. At one point, Morgan had to send a movie critic to cover the women's water polo tournament. So everyone's pretty peeved at Kobe. And he seems to know this because he has fully stopped coming to parties. All of that changes, though, at the beginning of the winter semester. Within a few days of returning to campus after winter break, Morgan starts hearing rumors through the grapevine that Kobe got dumped by his girlfriend over Christmas.
41:50 Speaker 00 That is confirmed when one day Kobe texts Robbie, without acknowledging any of the many unanswered texts Robbie had sent to Kobe over the past semester. Kobe texts, "Hey dude, hope you had a good break. When can I come pick up my couch? What do you do?"
42:07 Speaker 01 I say, "What couch?" And then I pretend like I have no idea what he's talking about for the rest of our lives.
42:12 Speaker 00 You and Morgan are on the same wavelength.
42:18 Speaker 00 Robbie freaks the fuck out.
42:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:20 Speaker 00 He's like, "Morgan, what do we do? What do I tell him?" And Morgan, well, Morgan, before anyone had ever heard the phrase "gaslight girl boss gatekeep", is ready to do all three.
42:32 Speaker 01 Right.
42:33 Speaker 00 She tells Robbie, "Pull yourself together." And then she tells him to lie. "Remember," she tells him, "you're in the right. That asshole left a whole couch at your parents' house for months without a word or a storage fee." And Robbie's like, "Right, right, you're right, uh huh." And he texts Kobe back like, "I don't know, dude. I thought you picked it up from my parents' house months ago." Kobe's like, "Why would you think that?" And Robbie's like, "Because I asked you to multiple times." Three dots appear, and then they disappear, and then they reappear, and they finally disappear for good. Kobe seems to have gotten the message that he did fuck up in this regard. Morgan knows this isn't the last that they'll hear from Kobe. Everyone knows how much she loved that couch last year.
43:19 Speaker 00 If anyone was gonna steal it, it would be her. Morgan is starting to feel an emotion familiar to any blabbermouth, which is regret. She is fairly certain that the people she knows wouldn't tell Kobe, but what if they told someone else who told Kobe?
43:33 Speaker 01 Yes.
43:35 Speaker 00 We're almost at the end of the story. How are you feeling?
43:37 Speaker 01 I'm so stressed about what is inside the couch.
43:42 Speaker 00 I love that you're like, it's full of bedbugs.
43:44 Speaker 01 Like, I know, I don't even think it's bedbugs. I think there's like, he puts something in the pillow. And I don't, I don't know why. I'm just, there's something amiss.
43:54 Speaker 00 So Morgan starts whipping votes. She calls everyone on the newspaper to ensure their loyalty to her if Kobe comes asking about the couch. She's going conclave mode, Loki. She's like, I will control the narrative. Which it turns out she was right to do because a few days later Kobe texts Robbie and Morgan in a group chat like, I know you're keeping something from me, which is a very ominous message to send.
44:22 Speaker 01 I gotta say, it's great. Very, very spooky. Power move. I like it. I'm gonna start doing it.
44:27 Speaker 00 How would you respond?
44:29 Speaker 01 I would say, who is this? How'd you get this number? Over and over again, even when they tell me who they are.
44:35 Speaker 00 Who?
44:36 Speaker 01 Who?
44:36 Speaker 00 Yeah. And we never met.
44:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:38 Speaker 00 Robbie is like, I don't know what you're talking about. And Morgan's like, Kobe, we hooked up two years ago. Why are you still obsessed with me?
44:48 Speaker 01 Oh, that's right. Excellent. Everybody in the story is nuts.
44:54 Speaker 00 Kobe's like, quit bullshitting me. I know you have the couch. Morgan's like, prove it. And then she instructs Robbie to stop responding. Kobe continues to harangue them. The newspaper receives an anonymous tip about an on-campus couch thief that everyone has a good time laughing about during that week's close, which by the way, is one of the roughest ones that Morgan has ever seen. The freshman reporters still haven't quite nailed the concept of like interviewing or semicolons or punctuation in general.
45:24 Speaker 00 It's the kind of close where Morgan and Robbie and the rest of the editors are cracking open Mike's Hard Lemonade in the newspaper offices before proofreading even begins. And to top it off, the editor in chief can't host the close party that week because their parents are in town. So Morgan and Robbie get roped into offering up their apartment at the last minute. So as soon as the paper is shipped, Morgan and Robbie run home to get ready. They started drinking early enough that they're both in great moods by the time the party officially starts and they're importantly, young enough that Mike's Hard Lemonade doesn't give them an immediate hangover. So by the time it's in a full swing, a few hours later, Morgan has basically all but forgotten about the improper punctuation she
46:06 Speaker 00 just had to deal with. And everyone's having a great time. They're all enjoying the big boot couch, someone brought edibles, the beer pong game has just reached deathmatch territory, and Morgan's favorite party song, Your Love Is My Drug by Kesha, has just come on.
46:23 Speaker 00 And then a hush falls over the room. Just as Kesha is singing, Do I Make Your Heart Beat Like An 808 Drum, into the party walks none other than Kobe, who was very much not invited.
46:38 Speaker 01 I would just start screaming.
46:42 Speaker 01 Like, I would like, full-throated, like, screaming, like, there's a, they're like, there's a man in my house, like that. And just see what people do.
46:51 Speaker 00 Just cause chaos.
46:52 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then while everyone's panicking, that's when I start the fire on the couch and then.
46:57 Speaker 00 Set the couch on fire.
47:00 Speaker 01 It's my plan for kind of everything.
47:02 Speaker 00 Yeah, clearly, I'm, I'm, I'm getting a theme.
47:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, I just think most things can be solved by a cleansing fire.
47:09 Speaker 00 You know, maybe your pyromania is calling you in a different life.
47:12 Speaker 01 I think so.
47:13 Speaker 00 But Morgan doesn't.
47:15 Speaker 01 Okay.
47:15 Speaker 00 Morgan doesn't even really have a chance to think of what she would do because Kobe immediately just beelines towards her, shoves a bottle of two buck chuck at her as like a housewarming gift, and then says, I fucking knew you had my couch. Morgan starts like sputtering out a sentence that's halfway between, I don't know what you're talking about, and what are you doing here? But before she can get a fully coherent sentence out, Kobe storms across the apartment, through the living room with the big picture window with southern exposure. Right past the big blue couch and right into Morgan's bedroom.
47:53 Speaker 01 What?
47:55 Speaker 00 So, one thing I forgot to mention about Morgan Robbie's apartment is that Morgan has not just one couch, but two couches. She has a little floral patterned love seat in a corner of her room and Morgan has had this since she was a child. So when she sees Kobe pointing at her love seat with this smug expression of triumph on his face, it takes a moment for her to comprehend what exactly is going on here. And what exactly is happening is Kobe making a fool of himself because despite how adamant he was about the return of his couch, Kobe clearly has no idea what the couch that he owns looked like, despite it being in his living room for a whole school year.
48:39 Speaker 01 And he thinks the little patterned love seat is the couch? Why would he assume that one?
48:45 Speaker 00 Morgan starts laughing so loudly that everyone at the party who had been pretending not to watch this scene turns around and fully stops pretending to not watch this scene. And through laughter, Morgan's like, Kobe, you're an idiot. And Kobe's like, and you're a thief. That's my couch. Morgan's like, I've had this love seat since I was a child. You can check the bottom of the cushion. It says property of Morgan in my childhood handwriting. And so Kobe checks the bottom of the cushion and he's like, you planted that. You knew I was coming. And at this point, Morgan's head is just like starting to hurt from holding in her laughter as she just watches Kobe like pull the love seat away from the wall, like just inspect every single element of this love seat to
49:30 Speaker 00 ascertain his ownership of it. And meanwhile, all of her friends have piled onto the actual couch in the living room so that Kobe can see as little of it as possible. Robbie is hiding in a corner somewhere so that his face won't give it away. What do you do now? This man is adamant that this love seat is his.
49:50 Speaker 01 He needs to get out of the apartment ASAP. She, this is so stressful.
49:54 Speaker 00 Morgan is waiting for Kobe's attention to finally turn towards the couch that she actually did steal. But it never does because Kobe is like dead set to rights that this love seat is the missing couch in question, so much so that he refuses to leave until Morgan furnishes proof of her longtime ownership of the love seat, which she finally does after digging through like a photo album, which contains a photo of her childhood bedroom that shows the love seat. At this point, Morgan's like, get the fuck out of my apartment, bozo. And Kobe looks a little mutinous. He looks like he's gonna put up a fight. But then other members of the newspaper start sort of like quietly chiming in like, dude, come on, you're ruining the vibe. You're ruining the vibe.
50:38 Speaker 01 [laughing]
50:39 Speaker 00 And in his heart, Kobe is a coward. And so with the sort of mumble, this isn't the last you'll hear from me, he takes back his two buck chuck from Morgan and leaves the party. Scaachi, that's basically the end of our story. How are you feeling? Who do you think is the bigger criminal here? Morgan, who actually stole something or Kobe, who's just sucked and has a really bad memory?
51:00 Speaker 01 You know how I feel about women's wrongs.
51:03 Speaker 00 I do.
51:04 Speaker 01 I love them. Honestly, if you can steal something like that from someone and get away with it, I don't think you're the criminal. And I think leaving a couch at your friend's parents' house is crazy.
51:17 Speaker 00 For months.
51:18 Speaker 01 Too many degrees of separation. Yeah, outrageous. No, I hate Kobe so much.
51:23 Speaker 00 I thought you might. Well, I do have a couple of follow ups from my friend of a friend who submitted this story. Do you want to hear them?
51:29 Speaker 01 Yes, yes, yes, yes.
51:31 Speaker 00 They wrote that around six months after Kobe did his big couch inspection, he was caught cheating on his new girlfriend with her best friend.
51:41 Speaker 01 Oh.
51:42 Speaker 00 And Morgan sends him one single text to the effect of, heard you got caught banging so and so on a couch. Too bad it wasn't your couch, which is in my living room, you piece of shit.
51:54 Speaker 01 [laughing]
51:59 Speaker 00 No jury would prosecute.
52:01 Speaker 01 [laughing]
52:03 Speaker 00 Clean hit. Clean hit. Yeah. I'm sorry, she's the president.
52:11 Speaker 00 Madam President, we salute.
52:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, she's the president. That's crazy.
52:17 Speaker 00 They also told us that the big, beautiful couch has remained an important part of the decor at the student newspaper, where it now resides in the little office space where they are closing the newspaper. So now it is low-key a biohazard. So the couch does end up becoming scary, which you expected from the beginning.
52:34 Speaker 01 Right. And see, this is why I said, burn it.
52:37 Speaker 00 Scaachi, that's the end of our story.
52:40 Speaker 01 That was-
52:40 Speaker 00 How do you feel?
52:42 Speaker 01 Horrifying.
52:45 Speaker 01 I like, I'm, I like, that makes me feel itchy. Like, I don't, like, I feel like he came to my apartment. I was actually, honestly, the whole time you were telling me that, I was like, is he gonna pee on the couch? I was so afraid of him peeing on the couch. Anytime there's like a story about a man and furniture, I'm like, what is he gonna do? Is he gonna pee on it? So I'm relieved in that way. This is really impressive. To steal a couch-
53:10 Speaker 00 And get away with it.
53:11 Speaker 01 That should be the next Ocean's movie.
53:13 Speaker 00 So true.
53:17 Speaker 00 Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at [email protected] , 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 Normal Gossip. You can follow me on all social media at HeyDnA, H-E-Y-Y-D-N-A-E. This podcast was produced by Sierra Spragley-Ricks and Jay Tolvier. The co-creators and dowager queens of Normal Gossip are Alex SuJong Loflin and Kelsey McKinney. Justin Ellis is Defector's
53:58 Speaker 00 projects editor. Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector's business guys. Alex SuJong Loflin is Defector's supervising producer. Tom Lay is our editor in chief. Dan McQuade runs our merch store, which you can find in normalgossip.store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art. Thank you to Catherine Chu, Brandy Jensen, Louise Paez-Pumar, Chris Thompson, Jasper- Wang, Sabrina Imbler, Dave McKenna, Patrick Redford, and Ray Rado for your help on this season. Thanks 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.
54:42 Speaker 04 Radiotopia.
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