Prank Sinatra with Jenée Desmond-Harris and Joel Anderson

We're BACK for season TEN and more than ready to be petty! We brought Jenée Desmond Harris back, along with her husband Joel Anderson, for some gossip about a mom who just can't quit pranks. We are now on YouTube. Be sure to follow us on there at @DefectorMedia https://www.youtube.com/@DefectorMedia where you can watch today’s episode. Subscribe to our newsletter for writing from Rachelle, Se'era, Jae, Alex, and Kelsey, plus blog recommendations and secrets! https://defector.com/normal-gossip-podcast You can support Normal Gossip directly by buying merch https://defectorstore.com/collections/normal-gossip or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend at supportnormalgossip.com https://defector.com/products/normalgossip. You can also find all kinds of info about us and how to submit gossip on our Komi page:https://normalgossip.komi.io/ Episode transcript here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A_9cTT3R8PZ7j_xUOGy2b7booMz9SiQvW-iKKB8KC2o/edit?usp=sharing. Follow the show on Instagram@normalgossip https://www.instagram.com/normalgossip/, and if you have gossip, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 26-79-GOSSIP. Normal Gossip is hosted by Rachelle Hampton (@heyydnae https://www.instagram.com/heyydnae/?hl=en) and produced by Se'era Spragley Ricks (@seera_sharae https://www.instagram.com/seera_sharae/?hl=en) and Jae Towle Vieira (@jaetowlevieira https://instagram.com/jaetowlevieira?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==). Our audio engineer is Samantha Gattsek. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Show art by Tara Jacoby. Theme music composed by Hrishikesh Hirway. Normal Gossip is a proud member ofRadiotopia https://www.radiotopia.fm/. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Oh my god. What? Oh my god.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Oh wow. Oh my god.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Oh my god. What? Oh my gosh.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  What?

• 0:12Speaker 02

  Hello and welcome to season 10 of 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. That's right, y'all, we are back, baby, and better than ever. I cannot believe how long it's been since I've communed with y'all, my little flock of gossip birds. I've missed being in the gossip kitchen whipping up fresh treats for all of us to enjoy, and look, I'm already back to mixing metaphors. Didn't you miss me? Before we get into today's lovely little gossip treat, we've got some major announcements. As you just heard me say, today's episode marks the beginning of the 10th season of Normal Gossip. This season felt so far away when I took over back in December of 2024,

• 0:55Speaker 02

  but somehow we're here and we couldn't not mark the occasion. For a while now, we've been thinking of this as our All-Star season, a season where we not only bring you some of the wildest gossip to grace our inbox, but we also bring back some of our favorite guests, along with some new friends that y'all have been requesting for ages. So buckle the fuck up. You might have already noticed one of the ways we've chosen to celebrate our All-Star season. Last year, our friends over at Radiotopia put on this event called the Radiotopia Mixtote, which was kind of like a little White Rabbit situation where we composed a little audio love letter to one of our fellow Radiotopia shows. Season seven guest Rishi Kesh Hirway, and host of Song Exploder, chose Normal Gossip

• 1:36Speaker 02

  and he did us the huge honor of composing the new theme song you just heard. I was obsessed from the moment I first heard it, and I'm truly so, so, so grateful to Rishi for not only making the song, but for allowing us to use it this season. So everyone say, "Thank you, Rishi." And finally, the last major change for this season is that Normal Gossip is now doing video. Yes, we have finally decided to join y'all in the modern world. So if you would like to watch this episode, head on over to youtube.com/defectormedia and check us out. This isn't necessarily- My first video rodeo, but I am very much still learning. So please bear with me as I learn to like actually look at the camera.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  And speaking of bearing with me, I do want to take just a short little moment to thank every single one of y'all for your kindness and grace while I was recovering these past few months. If you listen to last year's finale, you'll know that I was diagnosed with Bell's palsy in the week between Christmas and New Year's, which definitely forced us to adjust the end of our production schedule. More importantly, it forced me to actually reckon with what I need to make this work sustainable for me and for the normal gossip team. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate y'all giving us the space and time to do that. Just know that if you reached out over the past few months, I saw it and it meant the world to me. Okay, that is enough housekeeping for today. Let's get into the motherfucking gossip.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  To kick things off right, I'd like to introduce the very first guest of the season, Janaye Desmond Harris and Joel Anderson. Janaye Desmond Harris is a Slate staff writer and editor. She writes the Dear Prudence advice column and previously worked at the New York Times. You might remember her from the season seven episode of Normal Gossip, Romancing the Stone. Joel Anderson is a senior staff writer at The Ringer and a co-host of The Press Box and Ringer Tailgate. He most recently worked at Slate where he hosted seasons three, six, and eight of the award-winning Slow Burn narrative podcast series. And in addition to being lovely and talented individually, y'all should probably also know that Janaye and Joel are married, which makes them our very first guests that are a couple. Janaye, Joel, welcome.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  Man. It's so good to see you. This is like a Slate reunion, like, you know, meeting in the, what was that, a kitchen in the Brooklyn office?

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:49Speaker 03

  I would see you in there. I'd be getting my oatmeal or something and you'd be in there doing your thing. So, yeah.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  I was always so excited to see you.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, likewise.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Well, usually I ask my guests what their relationship to gossip is, but you guys are actually the first married couple that we have had on the show.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Wow. Really? Crazy.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  Really?

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. But you guys' presence made me want to ask, do you feel like being married to each other has changed your relationship to gossip at all?

• 4:18Speaker 04

  One thing is you have someone who always has to give you the gossip they have.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  With like some exceptions. Joel's pretty good about not telling stuff about his friends. I can like see it in his eyes when he's holding something back, but I respect it.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  You gotta respect your bros, right?

• 4:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 03

  You can't do that. That's not respectful.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  But he's not good at lying. Or, I mean, no, no, there's nothing to say. And it's like, his eyes are really big. But in general, I credit it to us both being Geminis. We love to talk and analyze things, especially just kind of going deep on the emotional side of things. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking headline gossip.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 04

  But we're good for a lot of, oh, is she still like that? How do you think she feels? And we can kind of go off something like that for a while.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  We always, we're just fascinated at people and how they interact with the world. And I think that that's where the gossip comes from. It's just like, wait, that person, they're no longer posting their husband on Instagram. Like, what do you think's going on there? You know, and they posted him in six months. What's happening? You know, that kind of stuff.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  And he's probably better than most. You know how men are stereotypically like?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Not good at gossip.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  And they say, my friend is getting divorced. And you're like, why? I don't know. I didn't ask any questions. He generally has like, he has pretty good information, although I sometimes have to prod to get a little more reporting.

• 5:40Speaker 03

  So I actually am a friend, when my friends get divorced, they call me to talk about it. I will keep the information that needs to be under lock and key, under lock and key.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Oh, so maybe that's what's behind some of the I don't knows. You actually do know.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't need to say everything about everything, but you know, like the broad strokes, you know, I'll tell you, like if somebody cried while they were talking to me or whatever. So, yeah, I'm that person in my friend's life.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Probably because you're a man who actually asks follow-up questions, which is hard to find these days.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  That's right. You know what? I'll take that, man. I remember in seventh grade, and this man, this guy ended up becoming a prominent person, so I can't even say his name here. But he he was struggling, man, and he would like come to me and just talk about all this. Probably like, so like, I always used to say in college I had friendly on my forehead. I felt like people would unburden themselves.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  And so I do, I possess a lot of gossip that I never tell, but if I do have some stuff, I'm taking it to Janae. I mean, Janae would have been a psychologist in another life.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  I could see that.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  I would have loved to, but I don't think that's a healthy approach to being a psychologist. You don't want to be a psychologist because you're like, I can't wait to hear all the bad, weird stuff. That would have been my motivation. That would have been wrong.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Well, you know, speaking of gossip, a little birdie told me that you have some gossip for me.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  And I'm so excited to hear it.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  I've been on here once before.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  And what is similar about this gossip and the gossip I shared then?

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Is that it's a little bit less gossip and more a report on someone just having a lot of nerve and audacity. That's a kind of gossip, right?

• 7:18Speaker 02

  That is definitely a kind of gossip.

• 7:20Speaker 04

  Joel and I have two kids, and this story takes place when we were getting ready to have our first kid. After a pretty long journey with like IVF and what have you, like a lot of medical intervention. And we were really wanting to just do everything right, you know, dot all the i's, cross all the t's. So even though it was going to be a planned C-section, we took all our friends' advice, who said we would need a doula.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  And I was like, sure. I mean, before you have a kid, you don't know any, if someone tells you, you're gonna be tired and miserable and confused, and this person will make it better. You're like, okay, yes.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Sign me up.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  And Joel decided to take on the task of finding the doula.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  If you read like Reddit threads on moms or expected moms, men are fucking up, doc. You know, like, and so I just always wonder, I don't want my wife to be the, like, well, my husband did do nothing, you know, he didn't do. And so I was really big into like the division of emotional labor and all that other stuff.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  He read like one too many Atlantic articles about this. Not one too many. He read the right amount. And Joel is also very competitive. So his orientation toward being a new father was like being in competition.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  With all the other fathers?

• 8:30Speaker 03

  I love in one help and also I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  So like, I wanted to like, you know, read up and be a part of it.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  This is my footnote is that Joel is someone who loves to hire a guy, gender neutral.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  He doesn't want to just go on Yelp or something. He wants like a hookup from his Twitter followers. He wants it to feel like a special connection and like he's found the very best person.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  It's a network. You gotta work your network.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, he wants to work his network to find the person.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  If I need something done, like, why am I just gonna accept whatever the algorithm shows me?

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  With the doula, I had a therapist in Oakland, a black woman. You know, she knew about all my concerns about being an expectant father. So she sent me this website where you could find all these doulas. And so I picked out, you know, five names, something like that. And just, you know, started calling and trying to reach out to people. And so I'll throw it back to you now, baby.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  And so we're getting closer and closer to the due date. And he tells me that he's found someone and gives me the rundown of like her basic qualifications, which we don't know. The qualifications are she's a doula who lives near us.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  And she is a person of color, which was also important.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Um, you hear all these things about black maternal health and let's get someone in the room.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 9:46Speaker 04

  Not gonna perpetuate that.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  And he's like, well, I've found her, but you should have a Zoom call with her to make sure that you like her.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Makes sense.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  I called her and I'm talking to this woman. I'm like, oh, we're vibing.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  I felt like, oh, like this is a person, if she's gonna come into our house in a really sensitive time, this is the kind of person I would want to be here. Like, she was cool.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  So I log into my Zoom appointment at the agreed upon time. So she's like, hi, hi, I'm, I'm not gonna say her name. However, nice to meet you. And we go over the due date and any concerns I have. And she shares a little bit about her general philosophy, which again, all sounds the same.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  There were a couple of moments where I thought she came across a little forceful. For example, somehow the issue of Vaseline came up. I assume it had to do with like moisturizing the baby's skin or maybe like circumcision healing.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:37Speaker 04

  And her eyes like narrowed and she was like, that is poison. You're putting petroleum on your baby? And I was kind of, again, I didn't have a lot of confidence and

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  I'm open to the more woo woo, earthy side of things.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  I was like, okay, well, I'm happy to use Shea butter, whatever it is instead. Again, I thought, whatever, I'll do what you tell me to. I just want to have this baby and keep it alive.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Important.

• 11:01Speaker 04

  But she's starting, as I'm looking at her to look familiar. And I'm asking myself, do I, is she my high school classmate? Do I know her from somewhere? And I text Joel and I'm like, make sure you actually look at the screen because I think we know her. And so he comes on, oh, hey, and he says hi to her and he gets a look at her face. We wrap up the call with her and as we get off, we put together her image with her name. And we have a revelation that this is a famous person. Anyone in our age range would know her from

• 11:33Speaker 02

  The way I'm going to be asking who this is after this recording is over.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're going to tell you, but again, I don't want you to have a defamation suit on your hands.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Thank you so much and I appreciate that. Okay, but it sounds like you guys did not end up going with this doula.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  We did.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Oh, incredible.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  I mean, who are we to deny her the opportunity for a second career, right?

• 11:53Speaker 02

  And you're right.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  You can't be on your whole life.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was years ago too, at this point.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  You know, we'd looked at her website and it was like, I have such and such doula certification and such and such childcare. We didn't look at the details, but it sounded like a good paragraph of, you know.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  And she came through my, you know, through a hookup through my

• 12:12Speaker 04

  We still need to ask about that, but we did decide to still go with her. She still seemed reasonable. We still like, obviously are busy trying to get every, put the curve together. We don't have time to go start from square one and do another doula search.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she, yeah, we vibe, like, it was like, she was cool and it was like, all right.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 04

  So the due date gets closer and closer.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 12:32Speaker 04

  She's told us that she's going to come see us at our home and get to know us. Then she will meet us at the hospital on the C-section date. Then she will come to our house the day we get sent home from the hospital and do whatever she does with her Vaseline alternative moisturizers. I think she said, we haven't signed the contract yet because there's something going on with like the PDF situation on her end, but she said, we have an agreement, right?

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, we have an agreement.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  I'll be there, we have an agreement, I'm so excited to work with you. Things are getting closer and closer. We're hearing from her less and she has not made the visit to our home.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  I'm getting nervous.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  And we would text her to kind of check in. Oh, we haven't had like the conversation about the, the plan, the birth plan, C-section birth plan, um, or any of the other stuff, but let us know. And we heard back from her once, like, I'm out of birth. You know, it was an emergency birth. And what can you say?

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Literally nothing.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  And then the big day comes. We go to the hospital at 4:30 a.m. or whatever it was. Keep in mind, we have a plus two, cause it's still kind of COVID era. We can have two other adults come. My mom is one and we have a spot for her. She's on the list.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  We were already at the point where I was like, man, I feel like I'm bothering her. You know what I mean? It's like, cause it's like, the more that you reach out to them, it's like, it's like, oh, you don't trust me?

• 13:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  You know, what's, what's, what's the deal? So I was just kind of like.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  And then there's a layer of like, is this because she's famous? And she thinks we're just trying to get more attention from her? So we're in, you know, getting prepped or whatever. I'm like, can you text her and tell, ask her when she's coming? So he texts her and then I'm sedated or busy.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  I'm having a C-section and didn't get an update until I had the baby in my arms and there's no doula. Um, and of course, we're both very tired, very overwhelmed, very emotional.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  She's not the first thing on our mind, but she is the person who's supposed to be there to help us manage everything, right?

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  I think we probably waited another like 12 to 24 hours before texting her again, just because the nurses were so wonderful, right?

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  There wasn't a huge unmet need.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  But where was she?

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Especially as we got closer to, oh, it's almost nighttime.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  Which is really scary because I'm like, man, you know, I've never done this before. I don't want to be, you know, whatever out of it. And so I'm thinking, well, she'll be here for this part, right?

• 14:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  Once we got home, I was like, she'll just come to the house. Cause that's when we won't have the nurses anymore. And that's when we'll really need her to figure out like, how the hell we take care of this kid. I remember getting home, sitting on the recliner, having the baby and being like, can you text her again? Nothing.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  She didn't even say congratulations, man.

• 15:02Speaker 04

  No congratulations, no acknowledgement, no nothing. We never heard from her again.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  That was it.

• 15:10Speaker 04

  We never heard.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  She ghosted us.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  You got ghosted by your doula?

• 15:15Speaker 04

  We got ghosted by a [BLEEP]. Doula, anything could have happened. Luckily, everything was fine.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Everything's fine.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  But then we went and looked a little more into like her website and Yelp reviews, like, once we'd had a bit of sleep and everything. And she lied about everything. I look back at that paragraph that talked about her 25 years of childcare experience. That's impossible. She's been on a million spinoffs of shows. She cannot have been doing doula work that whole time.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  I think she counted her childcare experience, starting from when her daughter was born.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  Or maybe, or maybe taking care of siblings or something like that.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. It's like the first time she babysat.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Well, I'm a doula as the older sister of a brother who was born when I was nine.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. And to be fair, it didn't say she had 25 years of doula experience. It was like childcare experience. And then the kind of like certifications she mentioned were not legit things, right? Like the water birth.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Special certification, yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  These weren't like professional bodies. And then her Yelp reviews, she's done this to other people.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  She's ghosted multiple families.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  At least two other times.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, guys. That is an incredible story. I'm so sorry that happened. I'm so glad that everything turned out well.

• 16:30Speaker 04

  You know, we turned it okay. And for our second child, we did not hire a doula. No doula.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  And you know what? That's real. Okay, well, now I have some gossip for you.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Okay. That does involve children.

• 16:47Speaker 05

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• 17:17Speaker 02

  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. But uh, 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.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  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. Wayfair, every style, every home. 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 kinda 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?

• 18:44Speaker 02

  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, identity, or night and weekend availability if you're working a lot. Book your 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 growtherapy.com/gossip to get started today. That is growtherapy.com/gossip.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Today's story is about a prank. And because it's normal gossip, I'm sure you will not be surprised to learn that it's about a prank gone wrong.

• 19:49Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  But before we get into today's hijinks, I want to know, what are your opinions on pranks? I feel like I have a vibe that Joel is maybe a bit of a prank apologist, but please let me know if I'm wrong.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  I don't feel like you do, you don't do a lot of pranks.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  No, that shit annoyed me.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Really?

• 20:08Speaker 03

  I didn't like that foolishness. So I didn't pledge a frack because I didn't want to have to be out in the woods naked with honey on my body trying to get out.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  And you know what?

• 20:17Speaker 03

  Trying to get beat up. No disrespect.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 03

  The craziest things that ever happened in my house. I had my homeboy come and stay with me when I lived in Oklahoma City. It was two of them. And I'm in the bathroom. I don't know if I was taking a shower or if I was just, you know, having a moment. And all of a sudden, a bucket of ice comes over the top and it's just dropped on me.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  While you're in the shower?

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I was so pissed. I was like, I was like, man, I'm too old for this shit, dog. I was like, I was like 24, but I was like, bro, what are we, what are we doing here, man? Putting toothpaste in people's ear, that kind of, I don't, I'm not, I'm not with that. So no, I'm not a prank person.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  No, it's too much.

• 20:55Speaker 04

  I have a couple of pranks that I'm proud of.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  Hmm. Oh.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  So when I was a lawyer at a big law firm in DC, there were a lot of people who I didn't like, mostly because I didn't like the work and I just resented being there. But in particular, I worked for one partner who was probably 60 something. And between the partner and me was a more senior associate, guy who was just a jerk, just always giving me assignments at the last minute, not explaining things, blaming me for things.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 04

  And I did decide I was leaving the firm to go pursue journalism, media, what have you.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  In that period where I had a foot out the door and I didn't care about them anymore, I really enjoyed myself.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Oh, hell, yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 04

  April Fool's Day came up and I just decided to play a joke on the senior associate who I hated because he was wound up so tight and his whole thing was always like. Wanting to please the partner he worked for and throwing me under the bus to make that happen.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  So I went to his office and I was like, let's say his name was George. Jim told me to get you. And Jim was the partner we both worked for. And he's like, why? What is it? What is it? And I said, oh, the underprivileged children are downstairs in the conference room and you're going to be giving them a speech on how to become a lawyer. And he like, I got lied. He completely, he's turned red. He started sweating. And I let him sweat it out for like, a good five to seven minutes before I told him April Fools.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  But I just really enjoyed seeing that. So I guess I like a prank that someone deserves.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Okay, so you're the prank apologist.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  In this couple. Okay, I love that. I don't have that prank dog in me. I really, it's not an aversion, it's more that I simply never think that far ahead.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. Also, you don't want to see people suffer.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, well, I wouldn't go that far. I host the show.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Okay. That's true, fair point, fair point.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Well, this is not today's friend of a friend, whose name is Nina. And Nina's love affair with pranks began when she was just six years old on the most auspicious day of the prank calendar.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  April Fools.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  April Fools Day, exactly. When her older brother gave her what looked to be just like a simple plastic whistle, which are, as I understand, the nightmare of parents in general.

• 23:12Speaker 04

  Because of the noise.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Anything making a noise.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, this whistle was special because instead of a piercing note, it let loose the sound of an outrageous fart.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  That's kind of cool. I kind of fuck with that.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Is, you know, the funniest sound possible to any child under the age of like 13. And also Joel.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I fuck with that, that's cool, I like that.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  So for weeks, Nina terrorized her family. Anytime someone would sit down, there she was with the whistle and a fart and a gleeful shriek of April Fools. Fart, April Fools. How many days before this fart whistle goes missing in your household if one of your children gets one?

• 23:52Speaker 04

  I'd probably let him have it for a good two days and get tired of it, or they would get tired of it first.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  I think he'd bring it in the house, use it, then I'd try to hide it. I don't want to deal with that no more.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, Nina's parents lasted like two and a half weeks.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  Good for them.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Alright, tolerance.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then they explained that April Fool's jokes had a time limit.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  Usually a day.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  That's funny, that's true.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it was too late. The prank was out of the bag. Nina was infected by the prank bug. And Spencer, her older brother, was thrilled to have someone to share in this particular mental illness with him. So the year after the fart whistle, Nina and Spencer learned how to peel labels off of canned goods and like replace them.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  What this meant is that for months Nina and Spencer's mom Gloria would be like opening a can of black beans for taco night and end up with a can of clam chowder.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  I was, oh man, I was thinking about how frustrated that would be. Oh my god.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  This one actually kind of backfires on Spencer, uh, who as the oldest is usually the one who is blamed for ring leading. Um, to this day Spencer still shudders when he remembers the night his mom made him eat clam chowder tacos.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  Oh wow.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  As the baby of the family, Nina had it really good though. And I gotta say, as a younger sister, there's nothing better than blaming something on your older brother. My older brother remembers to this day a time when I drew on the wall in his bedroom and he took the blame for it. So I wouldn't get in trouble, which is very sweet. Shout out to you DJ.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Your brother took the charge for you, for real?

• 25:25Speaker 02

  He did. He still talks about it.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  That's amazing.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  I don't do this like that. I want to, he won't be like that, but it would be nice if he would.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  I was gonna ask you guys, I feel like your kids are a little young to be pulling pranks at this age. So this is a hypothetical, but as parents, do you think you'd be able to tell when one child was taking the fall for the other?

• 25:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  Well, I don't know. Dez hasn't gotten to the age where he's ever tried to lie yet. He doesn't know how.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 04

  That's so cute.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  I imagine he would love to do pranks.

• 25:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, he would.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  He's gonna love pranks.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  I mean, speaking of pranks, he has a whoopee cushion.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 04

  Where he like, he puts it on the ground and says, mommy, is it okay if I sit right there? And I have to say yes and act like I don't see it and then act surprised when there's a fart sound.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  It's like, oh, my God, where'd that come from? Well, this dynamic between Nina and Spencer reaches its apex when they're in high school at the prestigious Sweetbrier Academy, which, like, if you're imagining the high school rivals of like a ragtag group of misfits from a 1990s high school movie, that's what Sweetbrier is giving. Nina and Spencer's family, the St. Clouds, are actually black sheep at Sweetbrier because their money is not generational, their new money. Papa St. Cloud is a partner at a big fancy law firm, but his dad worked on the factory floor. All of this means that once Nina and Spencer enter high school, the focus of their prank war shifts from their parents to their hoity-toity school and all of its stuck-up inhabitants.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  But you can only get away with listing the school for sale on Craigslist for so long.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good one, too. Maybe I'm a prank apologist.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  That's what I guessed when I came in here, but you know, we'll know by the end of this episode. The night before swim meet against Crestwood Prep, also known as the Battle in Toads, Spencer and Nina pooled their allowances and bought hundreds and hundreds of plastic frogs that they released into the school's Olympic-sized pool.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  But they didn't just stop there. They put plastic frogs in the drinking fountains, they put plastic frogs in the toilets, and even in the sink in the faculty lounge. Would you be impressed if your kids pulled this off?

• 27:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's funny because it's like a really good joke, but in this day and age with like all the cops in schools, it's either a joke or it's a felony conviction.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  Internally, I'd be like, y'all kind of showed up, man, I'm probably appreciate that. But publicly, I'd have to be like, y'all really can't do that, man.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  You just don't know how it'll be received. But it is, I think I would like the personality of a kid who wanted to do that.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and these kids were convinced that they would get away like scot-free. They were like, the other school's gonna be blamed for it. It's gonna be completely fine.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  Oh, cuz the frogs were the other schools.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  And they even scoped out the school. They know that the school is rich, so they're like, they're gonna have cameras. We know where the cameras are at. These are prank professionals. They had it all planned. Except they missed a camera. And it was one that wasn't even really supposed to be there. Someone had been stealing lunches out of the faculty fridge. So one of the teachers had set up a little nanny cam, and this is how Spencer gets caught.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  And he is the only one caught on tape because Nina was waiting in the hallway. So once again, Spencer takes the fall.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  The morning of the swim meet against the battling toads, Spencer has to clean up every single frog on campus, all three hundred and fifty of them. He is suspended for two weeks. And the principal swears that if he ever sees the name Saint Cloud on anything except the honor roll or diploma, there will be hell to pay. Do you think this is an appropriate punishment?

• 29:08Speaker 04

  I think suspension is dumb.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Say more.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  I mean, you've done something at school, so you're gonna go sit at home unsupervised and not get an education. Cleaning up the frogs, sure, but yeah, not the suspension. And I don't think the principal should threaten to retaliate later. Like, let it be done, let it be over, you know?

• 29:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, you would have to talk to me about that. Like, hold on, bro. What'd you say to my kids? At Catholic school, the punishment, you had to sit, basically like in school suspension. They call it penance hall. I got penance hall during a Saturday penance hall.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  So you were already there for penance hall, and then you got another one?

• 29:41Speaker 03

  R I P brother Casey. But I don't like the way he was talking to me.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  We were sweeping under the stadium. I threw the broom. I didn't like the way he was talking to me. I was like, oh, fuck, I'm not doing this shit, man. So I got P H. My high school experience is that I got ten P Hs as a sophomore. And up to my senior year, I got like thirty. It didn't get better for me.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  I didn't know you were that bad.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. My parents, I mean, you guys, my mama, she was saying, she was like, she's saying, I had to go up there.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  She had to go up to the school.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Well, Nina and Spencer. Managed to finish out their high school careers without any more incidents after this. Like, under the threat of expulsion, they're like, you know what? We're OK on this. And, once they graduate, they both swear that they will never be caught dead on sweet, bright grounds ever again. So, for about fifteen years, Nina's love affair with pranks is dormant. It helps that she goes into a field that is not really known for its prankishness, um, data science.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  OK.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  And, as the daughter of an epidemiologist, I'm allowed to say that statisticians are not known for their fifteen-minute tight-five routine.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  I would thought they would need a release, to be honest, but maybe not.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  They're doing Sudoku for release, Joel. It's really, it's a problem.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, OK.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  This is how Nina ends up meeting her husband Liam, who is also a data scientist. They're set up by a mutual friend who's like, you guys are the only stats nerds I know who are actually funny. So, you guys should get along well. Liam's humor is more on the dad joke side of the spectrum, but this means that Liam and Nina have like a beautiful Venn diagram, and like, right in the middle is physical comedy. So, they spend a lot of time watching compilation videos of people falling down.

• 31:24Speaker 04

  So, not funny to me.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I tried to get her to watch this video, these two guys jumping off a house into a table.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  She's not with it, man.

• 31:32Speaker 04

  That, and like, what do you still, like, people fighting animals? Like, people fighting like a kangaroo?

• 31:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I love that kind of stuff.

• 31:37Speaker 04

  I don't get it. I just don't.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  OK, so this dynamic of having different kinds of humor is familiar. I want to ask a kind of controversial question, which is, who is the funny one in your household?

• 31:50Speaker 04

  Oh, Joel's the funny one.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  No.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  No.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Of course, it's OK to say that. It's not sexist to say that. You're the funny one. I know when things are funny. I'm not necessarily the person, like, producing the comedy, but I can identify something hilarious.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  I see, I think your humor is good if it's mean. If she can be cruel, or something, say something mean. No, no, no. What I'm saying, if you're gonna make fun of somebody that deserves it.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  It kind of lines up with my prank philosophy. Like, I wanted to hurt that guy. I wanted to make him uncomfortable.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, she can really do it. I'm a lot more.

• 32:20Speaker 04

  Generous?

• 32:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, than that.

• 32:22Speaker 04

  Good-natured?

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, I would say not. No, I'm just saying, but I don't.

• 32:25Speaker 04

  Goofy.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Goofy.

• 32:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  I like Anchorman. I like Talladega Nights.

• 32:30Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  I like Napoleon Dynamite.

• 32:33Speaker 04

  Oh, God. Oh, Lord, I hated that movie. Oh, my God.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  I'll never get to watch Napoleon Dynamite again.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  I mean, you can watch it whenever you want, but I don't understand any of that stuff.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Well, at the time that our story takes place, Nina is in her late 30s and she has two children of her own. And I think if there is one thing children do, it is surprise their parents.

• 32:52Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Or at least this is what Nina is thinking one day, when her sweet daughters, who have not an ounce of prankishness in their tiny little bodies and who are in fact very businesslike, they sit her and Liam down. They present a color-coded slideshow arguing in favor of their one most desperate wish in the world, which is to attend none other than Sweetbrier Academy.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  Wow. What?

• 33:17Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  I have complicated feelings about every school that I went to, which is why I'm not a parent.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  But would you feel any type of way about your kids wanting to attend any of the schools that you went to?

• 33:29Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, I desperately want my kids to go to Howard, desperately. But I won't say it because if I make too big a thing of it, then they won't.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  If my kids wanted to go to my high school, I would, that would actually disappoint me. I feel like I emerged from the experience without a fun school experience, but like it hardened me. It made me smarter. You know, I had to learn, but I wouldn't want my kids to do that. I like the way that Janey describes her school experiences. Like, I want them to have that.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  The reality is that the options for middle and high school in Nina's town are kind of mediocre. So Sweetbrier is the best option. So assuming money is not an issue here, would you let your children go to the hoity-toity school that you hated?

• 34:07Speaker 04

  Well, this is a very broad statement. I'm sure I would have lots of exceptions to it in my own life. But in general, I'd lean toward a kid going to high school where they want to go.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  It's such an important time of life and like happiness is so fragile and friendship is so important. And it's tough. And if you can be in a physical environment, a social environment that for whatever reason you like, sure.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. Know your kid. And this is like, yeah, if you, if this is what you really want to do, then I'm not going to stop you.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Nina is on the same page. Which is how she finds herself sitting through her own personal hell. The annual Sweetbrier Academy School fundraiser.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  You might be asking, what could a school as prestigious as Sweetbrier Academy possibly need money for? They have so many high-earning alumni, none of which have ever been investigated by the SEC or mentioned in indictments with words like money laundering or the Cayman Islands. The year that our story takes place is the same year that Sweetbrier decided to build out their marine biology program.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  Cause every teenager and younger wants to be a marine biologist.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. Is Sweetbrier located in a state that is entirely landlocked? With no coast to speak of, not even a peninsula or a great lake? Yes, that doesn't matter, though.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  They can build their own.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  Exactly. At this fundraiser, Sweetbrier's principal says to the room of parents, "You can't put a price tag on your children's future, ladies and gentlemen."

• 35:29Speaker 04

  Convincing.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  It is. It speaks to your soul.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  And then he proceeds to go through a PowerPoint presentation that labeled the cost of the aquarium, the fish being flown in from Australia and New Zealand, even the artificial seawater treatment plant. Something important to note is that this story takes place in the world where QR codes have taken over all of our lives. So instead of using a checkbook to donate, Sweetbrier, parents and alumni are encouraged to go to this QR code to donate.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  I'll just interrupt and say, I'm impressed that Nina was even at the fundraiser.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  No, it's true. She could have skipped.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  She wants to be involved.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  She loves her kids.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  And now she's an alumnus. So now you can kind of work shit and bend shit to your favor, you know what I'm saying?

• 36:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 04

  You gotta have a seat at the table if you want to change things.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  As you might be able to guess, Sweetbrier Academy attracts a specific kind of parent. The one who says that money talks, but wealth whispers. And this is why there is a second screen in the auditorium that is purely dedicated to donating the donation amount. So with every new donation for the marine biology program, there is a name and a donation amount that gets displayed because it's such a quiet little whisper of wealth. And amid all these quiet little whispers of wealth, Nina feels a familiar urge starts to rise. One that has been dormant for over a decade now. She's feeling an urge to pull a prank.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Nina's like, wouldn't it be so funny to do a donation under a fake name? And it does not take long for Liam to be right there with her. He is immediately like, oh, like Hugh G. Rexion?

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Don't pretend you don't like that kind of camera.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  I don't. I mean, it's a courtesy laugh. It was a courtesy laugh. I get it. I'm just acknowledging that I get what he was going for. Yeah.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Nina's like, exactly, babe. I love where you're going with that. We gotta be smarter than that, though, because she's like, this prank cannot be connected to me. We have children now. I simply cannot be a ringleader. And Liam's like, you're right. We can't donate from our own phones, so we have to find someone to call. We have to find an accomplice who's willing to do this for us. And in the end, Nina's like, there's only one person I would want to take the fall for me. And it is her brother, Spencer.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Spencer, that's right.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  In the years since the plastic frog prank, Spencer has translated his love of goofs and physical mischief into a career as a rock climbing instructor. This maybe helps explain why, when Nina calls him from the Sweet Brier fundraiser, he is immediately down to clown, though not before asking what's in it for him. Nina's like, $25 and revenge served cold, which is more than enough for Spencer. Is that enough for you guys? Would you do this for Nina?

• 38:26Speaker 04

  I'm too scared of technology and making mistakes with technology.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  I wouldn't trust myself to do anything involving a QR code, a phone. I would think it would be, like, traceable. This is not the path I would choose.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  It's just, I need to know how close I am to my... It sounds like they have a lovely brother-sister relationship. And so that probably would nudge me in the end. If you, if it's like, this is, how important is this to you? Okay. But my thought is, there's so many ways things can go wrong that you don't even think of.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  That it scares me from doing stuff.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Well, Nina returns to the auditorium. She tells Liam that Spencer is in, so all they have to do is wait. So they wait, and they wait through donations from, like, the Kensington family and the Wickham Stokes family and whatever the fuck is going on. And then, there it is. A $100 donation from your mom, right up there on the big screen for the entire Sweet Brier auditorium to see.

• 39:19Speaker 04

  That's what he chose, your mom.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  The room erupts in laughter and Nina feels the familiar thrill of like a perfectly executed prank. The Sweetbrier principal, who is still talking about like the importance of a strong childhood foundation in marine science, is like, okay, I think we've had our fun here, ladies and gentlemen. And Nina's like, I sure the hell hope not. And her dreams are fulfilled because a few minutes later, a hundred dollar donation to the school from OnlyFans rolls across the screen.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  That's a better one.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  That's a good one.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  This one does not go over nearly as well. Nina hears a small child ask, mommy, what's OnlyFans? Nina is like ecstatic. This dopamine hit is gonna last for at least three weeks. And best of all, she got off clean. She's like, there's nothing to link back to me. She sends Spencer his money and she texts him a thumbs up, like, best $25 I ever spent. You guys kind of already told me what you think of this prank, but I kind of feel like donating like $300, $275 for a prank is a lot.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  They still got my money.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  They still got the money, yeah.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  They got my money, man. It was temporary embarrassment. And I gave you money on top of the money I'm giving you again.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  What would have been funny would to pretend to be a big donor to the school, set up a meeting with the principal, and then the link goes to OnlyFans instead of Zoom. And they now have that on their work computer and have to answer for it.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  The OnlyFans was good. I was also thinking like the Central Tennessee Abortion Fund.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Something like that.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  I mean, the important thing is that she felt resolution. She closed the loop on this whole experience. And I bet going forward, she felt better about being a part of that school community because the score had been even to her.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. She spends the next few days just like writing this sweet dopamine hit. She's just giggling about, mommy, what's OnlyFans? As she's like cleaning up data sets. But then one day Spencer calls her and it is very clear that he is not happy. Spencer is like, Nina, how did you manage to get me in trouble again?

• 41:24Speaker 04

  I knew it was traceable.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Spencer's like, they emailed me at my job about your dumb prank. And he explains that he had received an email from none other than Sweetbrier Administration about an inappropriate donation. I'm not gonna read the whole email. But the most important part is the last paragraph, which reads, Furthermore, our staff and administration are aware of your history of disruptive behavior and damage to the reputation of this community and its student body.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  Oh, what?

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Your past and current actions demonstrate a shocking lack of morals that are not becoming of a Sweetbriar alumnus. Should we find any more evidence of your wrongdoings, we will refer the matter to local law enforcement.

• 42:07Speaker 03

  Wow. Man, that's some-

• 42:09Speaker 04

  That's what I was afraid of in the beginning.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  That's some ho shit, man.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Before I get to Nina's response, any immediate thoughts or feelings about this email besides that's some ho shit?

• 42:20Speaker 04

  What did they do? Google his name? I mean, how did they trace him back to the other incident? Have they remembered this the whole time?

• 42:26Speaker 03

  You know what it was? These schools are small communities.

• 42:29Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  And those names, it's like somebody that went to school there was a teacher that works in, you know, administration now. And they're like, man, is that Spencer? That family, they're, you know, they're full of shit. Yeah. So that's what happened, I bet.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  Well, all Nina can think is sucks to suck loser. Because not only was her name not mentioned a single time in the email, but her married name, Jefferson, means that she cannot be connected in any way to her idiot brother. So Spencer's like, what if I get fired over this? And Nina is like, from your job at the climbing gym? But instead of that, she says, that's rough, Spence. And then she's like, how did they even find your phone number? Because remember Spencer donated over a QR code on his phone?

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  And Spencer's quiet for a moment before he's like, isn't that normal to have your phone number public on your LinkedIn?

• 43:15Speaker 03

  What?

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Nina's like, make that private? Also, why do you have a LinkedIn? You're a climbing instructor?

• 43:23Speaker 03

  Also, I'm just like, your phone number on LinkedIn? That's crazy. Because I have a hard time finding emails on LinkedIn.

• 43:30Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Like your phone-

• 43:31Speaker 04

  Where would he even put it? There's not, I don't think there's even a space for it.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  No, he had to add it in somewhere.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  It's in his bio.

• 43:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Well, Nina reassures her brother that it is not an actual crime to make dick and ball jokes in a PowerPoint presentation for rich parents. But I kind of want to turn this into a Dear Prudence question.

• 43:49Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  So imagine someone writes in, Dear Prudy, I decided to pull a prank at a fundraiser for my children's school by donating under the name Your Mom and OnlyFans. I think this is totally harmless. Still, I made sure to get my brother to send a donation so my name wouldn't be attached. But then the school emailed him at his job about it. Should I come clean? Should I let my brother fall on the sword? Or should I carry this secret to the grave?

• 44:15Speaker 04

  I think we have to wait and see what happens with the local law enforcement part of things. Because if nothing is actually going to happen to the brother, then you just owe him a nice dinner out, a gift, more money.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  The copays for his therapy sessions, whatever, to make up for the emotional toll of this.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 04

  But nothing really bad has happened to him. So it doesn't make sense for her to take the hit if he's not actually going to suffer as a result or have a really serious legal problem. Because then, you know, they're going to kick her daughter out of school.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 44:48Speaker 04

  And she really cares about their experience and they're innocent here, right?

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 04

  So I think like, right up until the point where her brother is served with some kind of legal paperwork, there's no reason to come clean.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  Well, a few weeks pass and no one gets any more threatening emails. All seems well. Nina's starting to feel good. She's maybe even planning another prank. When, one day, her mom Gloria is waiting for the girls in the Sweetbrier pickup line and Gloria sees a UPS man come out the admin building. And he is like visibly freaking out because the Sweetbrier parents have blocked the UPS man into the loading dock with their cars and my man has got packages to deliver. For most people, the response to this would be, not my problem. But not for Ms. Gloria. She pulls her car out to make space. She encourages the other parents waiting in the pickup line to make just enough space for this UPS driver to back his truck out. Gloria's like, my good deed is done for the day. Until later that afternoon,

• 45:44Speaker 02

  when she notices a small streak of brown paint on her otherwise pristine silver Mercedes.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  A Mercedes that she had spent years talking about buying in retirement. So Ms. Gloria does what any sensible woman does with the Mercedes, which is alert the proper authorities. In this case, the police, her insurance company, UPS headquarters, and the principal's office at Sweetbrier, in that order.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  That's definitely somebody's mama.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Nina doesn't learn about any of this until she arrives home later and her mom is recounting the story to her. Gloria is telling Nina that she alerted the school. And at this, Nina feels the blood drain from her face. She's like, what do you mean you called the school? And Gloria is like, do you want some reckless UPS drive around your kids? I don't, and I minded the security footage for my insurance. But Nina is only concerned about one thing. She's like, Mom, did you give Sweetbrier your last name? And Gloria is like, of course I did. And Nina feels her heart sink because if they know Gloria's last name, they know Nina's maiden name, which connects her to Spencer.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  So, your Nina, your prank web might be unraveling. What do you do?

• 46:58Speaker 04

  Again, wait and see if they put it all together.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  Because you never know if the admin who answers the phone has the information on the OnlyFans donation, the last names.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 04

  They could, because like we were saying, I guess it's a small community and they talk a lot. But I wouldn't assume a catastrophe is about to happen.

• 47:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, and this is fairly harmless.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:18Speaker 03

  Like, it's like, you know, you wouldn't think anything bad would come of it or whatever, just because of that. I understand her anxiety about it, but I'm just kind of like, eh, they're busy people too. It's not gonna happen after this.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Nina comes clean to her mom. She spills the beans about everything immediately. She does not have the ability to keep a secret at this point. She's like, ah, here are the donations, the OnlyFans, here's the email Spencer got, here is everything that happened in the past two weeks. And after asking Nina what exactly in OnlyFans is, all Gloria can do is shake her head. She's like, wasn't it enough when Spencer nearly got expelled when you guys were kids? And Nina's like, it was all going perfectly until you told them your name. Gloria is like, Nina, you did not graduate from there in the Stone Ages. They know who you are. A week passes after this, a week where Nina feels her heart drop every time she checks her email.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  And she has just managed to convince herself that everything is fine when she gets a certified letter. It's from Sweetbrier Academy, which is not that crazy. They get mail from the school all the time, but this letter is different. The return address is the school's charitable organization, and on the envelope is two names. "To Nina Jefferson", it says. And under that, it says, "AKA Nina St. Cloud."

• 48:36Speaker 04

  Oh, no. Oh, no.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Nina's hands are shaking so much she can't open the envelope, so it's Liam who has to pull out the letter, which is very long and on fancy, heavy stationery. And in bold letters at the top of the letter, it says, "Incident Report: Donation Board Sabotage." Once again, cannot read you the whole document, but this letter calls into question a troubling breach of decorum that sullied the image of Sweetbrier, a lewd and undignified act that required a comprehensive forensic audit of attendees' social media accounts. At the end of this letter, it reads, "Our findings indicate that you attempted to perpetuate fraud through an accomplice, your brother, Mr. Spencer St. Cloud, an individual with

• 49:23Speaker 02

  a known record of vandalism and malicious intent against Sweetbrier Academy."

• 49:28Speaker 03

  Man, look, this is the Karen shit. These are super Karens. Yeah.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  Well, the letter ends with a request to join a Zoom meeting at 7:00 a.m. the next Monday morning to discuss restitution to Sweetbrier and its students, and steps to settle the case outside of court.

• 49:44Speaker 04

  They're throwing around all this legal adjacent terminology, but it's not official. They're just saying things that sound really threatening. There's no case.

• 49:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, they want them to be scared.

• 49:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're really trying to scare them. I'm sure it worked.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  Well, what are you doing if you receive this letter? Are you going to the 7:00 a.m. Zoom meeting?

• 50:00Speaker 04

  No, give me a subpoena.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  But if you get on there, you don't have to say nothing, right?

• 50:04Speaker 04

  I guess you wouldn't have to.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm curious, what is this about? And then they start asking questions like, "Meh, you can talk to my attorney."

• 50:11Speaker 04

  That or not go at all.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Next time I get a scary legal letter, I'm gonna send it to you guys.

• 50:18Speaker 04

  So you can tell me what to do.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  You mean, they probably used AI to write that too.

• 50:23Speaker 04

  Oh, they totally did.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, make it seem more litigious.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  It probably has layers like, and honestly, what you did was really bad.

• 50:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Well, Nina immediately calls Spencer, who sure enough had received the exact same letter. And the two of them decide that they don't really have much choice. They feel like they have to do something they've never done up to that point, which is face the music together. Nina is like simmering with rage at being caught red handed over something so stupid as a marine biology program in a landlocked state. Meanwhile, Spencer is kind of happy that his sister is finally gonna get in trouble because he's been taking the fall for their entire relationship. The day of the Zoom meeting, Nina makes sure to put on her best show. She puts on a little Brooks Brothers crew neck and some pearls. She texts Spencer repeatedly to make sure that he is ready and not taking the call from the climbing gym.

• 51:17Speaker 04

  Did they prepare their story together?

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Well, when the time comes, Nina goes to the Zoom link. She sits in the waiting room and she sits. And just as she's wondering if she got the time right, she sees Spencer pop up on screen. And he's thankfully not at the climbing gym. He is wearing a bow tie for some reason. But then someone else joins the call. And it's not the principal like Nina expected, or even the president of the Sweetbrier charitable organization. It's Gloria. Nina is like, oh my God, how could this get any worse? They called my mom? She and Spencer are stunned. Spencer's like, Mom, what are you doing here? Did Sweetbrier call you? And then Gloria is like, it doesn't feel so good, does it?

• 52:01Speaker 04

  She got him. I knew it. She got him.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 52:04Speaker 04

  That was good. Gloria, we forgive you for using ChatGPT to write the letter.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 04

  It worked.

• 52:10Speaker 03

  Oh, that, that got him. Oh, that's so good.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  She's like, my sweet stupid children. I sent her a letter, a whole lifetime of pranks, and I am sick of it. Your life is yours to fuck up, but you are not gonna jeopardize my grandchildren's education.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  That's really good.

• 52:29Speaker 03

  Would you take that off, Mimi? Talking to you like that?

• 52:32Speaker 04

  I'd like to say I would. Yeah, I think I would know I deserved it in this situation. Yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Well, so the first email that Spencer received from the school actually was real. But once Nina confessed to her mom what was going on, Ms. Gloria decided she had had enough. So she actually conscripted her granddaughters into helping her. They borrowed some stationery from the school and they set up a Zoom link. Cause lord knows Ms. Gloria was not gonna be able to set up a Zoom link on her own. Honestly, the hardest part was convincing the girls that pulling a prank on their parents would be fun. And to this day, they're still like, pranks are stupid, but at least we get to go to school in peace.

• 53:08Speaker 04

  They have better things to do.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Exactly. They have marine biology to study.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  Right. Hopefully in a new lab.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  And that is basically the end of our story. I have exactly one update, but before I get to it, do you think there are any villains in this story?

• 53:23Speaker 04

  The principal.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:25Speaker 04

  For holding that grudge and for just taking things to another level with being upset about this stuff.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's real.

• 53:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, and creating a culture of exclusion and snobbery and letting it exist for so many years.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  That's from the top down.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  I agree with that. Yeah, I mean, there's no villains. I mean, the one thing I'd be with Nina is like, I mean, it's time to move on now.

• 53:44Speaker 04

  Well, also Nina, like next time you feel motivated to do a prank, take 24 hours, sit with it and workshop it with someone. And think about the potential pitfalls. Don't just do it in the spirit. You can't be a good prankster if you're not like doing a little bit of planning and forethought.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  Janaye is really good at talking people out of doing stuff or whatever. Like she's, I mean, there's a bunch of tweets and stuff in my life.

• 54:07Speaker 02

  Well. Speaking of, that's actually kind of a perfect segue into the update that I think Joel might love.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  So this update came actually after we emailed our friend of a friend to tell them that we chose their story. When we told them that we anonymized the prank donation name to OnlyFans, their response was, quote, "I might use that at the next fundraiser. I have a list going. An out-of-state friend will be donating, and I may add that."

• 54:38Speaker 04

  Oh, my god. Let's come up with something better.

• 54:42Speaker 03

  She's a person that's got to get get back, man. She's scared because she'll hold something forever.

• 54:46Speaker 04

  I would tell her, don't just keep coming up with more weird, raunchy names. Wait until a moment where you can do something that's actually really good. If you're going to risk them calling the cops on you again.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  You said, "Step your prank game up, Nina. Think bigger."

• 55:00Speaker 04

  A little, to make it worth it.

• 55:01Speaker 03

  You don't understand that kind of comedy, though, so you're not a good judge of it.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  I think I understand it, but I don't appreciate it.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  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 2679Gossip. 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 HeyDanae. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at Defector Media to watch today's episode. Normal Gossip is written by me, Rachel Hampton, and Jay Tolviera. This podcast was produced by Sierra Spragley-Ricks and Jay Tolviera. Our audio engineer is Samantha Gatzick. Emily Cherish is our video editor. Theme music composed by Rishi Kesh Hirway.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  The co-creators and dowager queens of Normal Gossip are Kelsey McKinney and Defector's supervising producer Alex Tujong Loughlin. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Jasper Wang is Defector's business guy. Tom Lay is our editor-in-chief. This season was made in memory of Dan McQuade, who ran our merch store, which you can find at normalgossip.store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art. Thank you to Brandy Jensen, David Roth, Catherine Shu, Sabrina Embler, Chris Thompson, Dave McKenna, Patrick Redford, and Ray Rado for your help with this season. Thank you to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber-based media company. Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton, and remember, you didn't hear this from me.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Radiotopia.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  From PRX.