Forks Out with Tracy Clayton

You know we had to find a special story to celebrate the return of Tracy Clayton! This week's tale involves a big family, a cabin in the woods, and the mysterious disappearance of a sweet potato pie. 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. If you want to read Ice Planet Barbarians along with us, you can pick up a copy here https://bookshop.org/p/books/ice-planet-barbarians-ruby-dixon/6ad8654024f1bef7?aid=79623. 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/1u_Rb9LHsmvRfFiOMyOn8NyiydRSgX3THr9yKqqd5UyI/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==). Alex Sujong Laughlin (@alexlaughs https://www.instagram.com/alexlaughs/) is our Supervising Producer. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Show art by Tara Jacoby. Normal Gossip is a proud member ofRadiotopia https://www.radiotopia.fm/. Support Radiotopia's fall fundraiser here http://radiotopia.fm/donate. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

• 0:07Speaker 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. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate. And by celebrate, I mean eat a lot of carbs while surrounded by loved ones, which is the true meaning of the holidays, because I will not be engaging with the historical fact of what happened. Before we get into the gossip, I wanted to remind y'all that over the past year, Ciara and I and the Normal Gossip team have been working hard to revamp our subscriber feed. And not to brag, but if I didn't make it, I would definitely pay for it. Like, some of the

• 0:49Speaker 00

  new offerings in the feed are so fucking good, including these exclusive tidbits that are like, cutting room floor tape that we can't put in the episode, because we record for two hours most of the time. And I know some of y'all want a two hour episode, but you don't. But, we will be giving you more that gets cut from the episode in the subscriber feed. We have one incredible exclusive tidbit from Malala in the feed right now that I'm obsessed with. We are also doing a quarterly book club for the subscriber feed. It is our boozy book club, because we will all be vibing something. For next month's book club, I made my defector comrades read the first Ice Planet Barbarians book. And if

• 1:33Speaker 00

  you are not familiar with Ice Planet Barbarians, I would recommend turning on incognito mode before you Google it. And then, of course, we've got exclusive gossip sent via voicemail that I and some of your favorite guests react to. I've learned a lot about the human body from some of the morsels we've gotten over there, okay? Now that we've gotten the subscriber feed relaunched, we will be looking towards incorporating more subscriber exclusive perks over on Instagram, too. So let us know what you would like to see from us over there. Keep in mind, Ciara and I are not influencers or video editors. So let's, let's be realistic with our expectations. More Q and As? More cat photos?

• 2:16Speaker 00

  Let us know what you want within the realm of possibility. And please consider subscribing at the friend or the friend of a friend level, not just to support normal gossip, but to hear me talk about seven foot tall aliens who,

• 2:30Speaker 00

  what is the safer work version of this? Are extremely giving. And is that not what the holiday season is about? Giving? Anyway, on to the reason you're really here. The gossip. Today's guest, joining me at my bountiful cornucopia of gossip is none other than Tracy Clayton. Tracy Clayton is a host, comedian and writer. She is the host of several well-known podcasts and gained national visibility as one of the hosts of BuzzFeed's award-winning podcast, Another Round. Before we welcome Tracy, I do want to briefly mention that we taped this during Mercury Retrograde, which means we experienced some tech difficulties.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  And unfortunately, we did lose Tracy's beautiful crispy studio quality audio. So what you'll be hearing today is Zoom audio. Hopefully, the gossip and the company make it worth it. Without further ado, Tracy, welcome back to the show.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me once again. It is always such a pleasure and an honor and an adventure, and I'm so excited.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  I'm so excited. It has been, I just realized this before we got on to Zoom. It's been exactly a month since we saw each other in Minneapolis.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Exactly. It feels like a year. You've been gone from me too long. I don't like it.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Well, I was thinking back on our lovely, what? 20 hours in Minneapolis together.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Certainly less than 24. Specifically, though, I have been thinking about the gossip you told me that night, which our Minneapolis audience has already heard, but I personally feel like everyone needs to hear. Plus, a little birdie told me that there's been an update to this gossip.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  There is an update. I did run into the culprit of said story.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  Literally shoulder shaking right now as we see.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  The shoulder shake of excitement.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Okay, so what happened was, this was this year, Valentine's Day is approaching. I am untethered, right? So she's out in the world, she's free, but I want to go on a date.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  I want to be like doted on and catered to a little bit, you know? But I'm out, I'm at what was then one of my favorite bars and, you know, minding my business. I am my own best, most favorite company, so I tend to do that a lot. I'll take me a little book, little computer, do a little work.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Do a little sipping, you know, so I'm, I'm in my zone, I'm minding my business. I'm not necessarily looking for conversation, but as somebody who would talk to a statue for hours, you know, I definitely don't turn it away when it approaches, right? So there is a guy who is either sitting next to me or he approaches me at the bar, one of the two. And he says something and my ears perk. I'm like, oh my God. And that reason is because he sounds like, minus, he didn't really have a heavy accent, but the sound of his voice sounded just like Andre 3000. And if you know anything about me, you know that I'm, that's my husband. He doesn't know it yet.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  He will know it. It's called manifesting.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  That's what it is. But it was uncanny, the sound of this man's voice. And I just kept saying to him, you sound just like Andre 3000. Oh my God, oh my God. So this was the week of Valentine's Day. I want to say we were a few days before. And he's like, oh, you know, trying to go out, Valentine's Day, yada, yada, blah, blah. I'm like, yes, I would love that. I have not had an official Valentine's Day date in quite a while. Also, the whole time, I'm going to get to pretend that I'm out on a date with Andre 3000. I'm ready. So the day comes, I had a, a hard out at like nine o'clock or so, right? Because I don't really know this dude. So I had planned to meet a few of my girlfriends at this bar around the corner from the restaurant that me and Andre No Thousands went to.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Which is now how I, how I reference him in my life. And you know, let him know, he's like, okay, yeah, that's cool. Important information, I do not drive. So me and Andre No Thousand are at this restaurant that I really, really like. He's paying, so I'm eating and it's great, right? Wasn't a terrible time, we didn't have a fight. He didn't say anything so stupid that I was like, you know, we need to fight about this now, whatever. It's time to go, I'm like, oh, my girlfriends are around the corner and it's February, right? So it had gotten dark early and it was a little chilly. I was gonna just like walk around the corner, whatever. Also, a thing to know about me is I have no sense of direction.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Same.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  So he offers, this is an important part of the story. He offers to drive me to the bar, which again, right around the corner, like you could probably see it from the restaurant that we were at, right? I'm like, okay, cool, it is a little chilly. So we're in the car, he's asking me, where is it, which way to go? We just learned about me that I don't know. Nor does my phone, we have no idea. And so I gave him a couple of wrong turns. I want to say it was one wrong turn, but I'm gonna be generous here and say it was a couple of wrong turns, right? And granted, these wrong turns didn't take us to another part of the city. We are still around the block.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  In a stone's throw of where I'm trying to get to. But second wrong time, like, oh, my bad, I meant, we were supposed to go, the map is supposed to go this way. And he says, sweetheart, I don't have time to be driving you all around the city like this. Another thing to know about me is that I am very sensitive to feeling like a burden. It's hard for me to ask for assistance from anybody in the moment that you make me feel like I am impeding on you. My new life goal is to show you that I don't need you for nothing.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  So I very quickly say, oh, if it's about all that, you can pull over and let me out. And he's like, okay.

• 8:13Speaker 00

  Crazy.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  He pulls over and just lets me out of the car. There are no pedestrians because it's a car-based city. There are no pedestrians walking on the street. I'm the only one, nine o'clock at night, in the dark, in the cold, just confused and just steaming, right? The good news is that my girlfriends were there waiting for me and I was like, y'all, I got a story for you.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  I tell him that Andre no thousands and now he put me out on a semi highway. So one of my friends is like, you know what we should do? One of us should call him on the phone and pretend to be like a detective. And tell him that he needs to come down to the office because Tracy is missing. Nobody's seen her. You were the last person seen with her. We've got, we've got your car on, on CCTV, whatever they call it. And we just need to come, need to have you come down and talk to us, answer a few questions. And of course, I'm like, this is the best idea I've ever heard in my life because I'm also a true crime girlie. And I'm like, he deserves it.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  And he does.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  But I'm like, no, we can't do that. You know, it's probably a crime. I'm not trying to go back to jail, especially since I've never been to jail.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  I was like, that too?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  But I'm like, it's still a really good idea, right? So the idea has stuck with me. The next week I have my therapy appointment. Tell her what happened and I told her what my friend said about calling and pretending to be the police. And she was like, do it. And I was like, wait a second.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  You are a licensed mental health professional and you were telling me to impersonate a police officer.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  And I was like, I don't think I don't, I should do that. She was like, no, you should actually do it. Like, I was waiting for her to like laugh or be like, just kidding. She wanted me to like actually do it. And I was like, I know we would have been best friends outside of this professional relationship. Now, this is the part of the story where I must cast a little shade of mystery here. Because in the event that such a phone call did take place, I'm certain that that would count as impersonating a police officer. And like I said, not trying to go back to jail for the first time.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Maybe we did it, maybe we didn't. No one knows.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Who could say?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Who can say? Little, no one but God.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  Life needs to have her little mysteries.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  And here's the update to that situation. When was this? Last weekend? Weekend before? Like, this is hella recent. I remember texting Ciara like you're not gonna believe who I am out with, right? So what happened was, again, I'm out in the world. I'm at this same bar where no thousands and I met. And I pass this group of like three or four dudes outside and my ears perk. And I'm like, chances are it's not Andre 3000, so it must be. Andre with the negative thousands. He's in the negative thousands at this point.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Negative three thousand.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  I go in, I sit at the bar, my favorite bartender's there, you know, minding my business as I was the first time he inserted himself into my life, right? And behind me, I hear, hey, how you doing? And it's, it's Andre, no thousands. I turn around and I'm sure I said, hey, how you doing or something, right? But I'm just like lost in the ponderance of where men find this surplus of audacity and where they carry it on their person, right? Yeah, I don't have purses, you don't have bags. I'm just, I am a gog. I am aghast. I'm like, I know he's not talking to me, right?

• 11:54Speaker 00

  That's crazy. My jaw literally dropped.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  I still can't believe it. Like nothing had ever happened, right? So he just say, how you doing? Oh, I'm good, right? I'm good. I mean, I don't think I said like, how are you? He's like, yeah, you know, well, you know, last time we saw each other. And now he proceeds to tell me his version of what happened that night in the car, right?

• 12:16Speaker 00

  What's his version?

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Great question. So glad you asked. So he's like, yeah, you know, last time we saw each other, you know, like we had gone out or whatever. And, you know, he was leaving and you had kind of wanted to go all these different places. And, you know, like, I just couldn't do that, you know? So, and then you had wanted to get out and so, you know? But, uh, yeah, that's, that's, you know, it's just how things happen. And, uh, you know, I'm glad to see you doing okay. I hold my tongue. How did I do it?

• 12:44Speaker 00

  That's so impressive.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Someone or something else took over my body, possibly keeping me out of prison. Cause that's how I would have ended up in jail, not impersonating a police officer. Putting my hands on this man who is just like,

• 13:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  The quickness to gaslight is just like, it should be studied.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  I feel like they must keep the audacity where the rest of us keep common sense. Because they don't seem to have a whole lot of that. Also, there are many things about this story that give me a lot of pause. But one of the many things that give me pause is that.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  The bare minimum I expect from a man in the South is like, a little bit of manners.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Like a teaspoon.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  A little bit of your mama raised you, right?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Uh, there was none. I don't know what is up with this man. And he came back twice that night to like, explain himself, which to me says, you know, you was wrong.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  And you know I've told all my friends about you, but you still can't just be like, I'm sorry.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  The way, like the words, "I'm sorry," I think must be a poison pill to some men.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  I think some appendage of their body might fall off if they say, "I'm sorry."

• 14:01Speaker 00

  And not, "I'm sorry that you felt that way," or "I'm sorry if," it's just a pure apology. I think it might make their dick shrivel up and die because that is the only explanation for why it is so hard.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  There is no other reason, no other reason at all.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Oh my God.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  I know, it was a ride. It was a lot.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  Well, it's time for another ride. We have more rides to go on today.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  I'm buckled in, I'm suited up, I'm ready.

• 14:36Speaker 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, identity, or night and weekend availability if you're working a lot.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  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. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  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 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.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  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.

• 16:52Speaker 02

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• 17:28Speaker 00

  Today's story is about a heist.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Dun dun dun, like a money heist, like a jewelry heist?

• 17:35Speaker 00

  It is a holiday heist. So the year is 2011. It is the week of Thanksgiving. Our friend of a friend today is named Lex, and this is her first holiday with her boyfriend's family.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, I'm nervous.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  I'm nervous Lex.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  You already had a reaction. Have you experienced this vibe of this situation of meeting your partner's family for the first time or being invited to a holiday?

• 18:00Speaker 01

  I have not, actually, as I think about it. I think I'm just reacting to the anticipatory anxiety because that is a situation where I would just like freak completely out. Like it's just, there's just so much that can go wrong. I'm nervous.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  Our girl Lex is also nervous, like appropriately nervous. She's not panicking because she's been dating her boyfriend Tyler for two years now. So she's already met most of his family and they all love her. Like she texts Tyler's sister about reality television all the time. What Lex is actually nervous about is spending five days in a cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with people that she likes, but realistically, she doesn't actually know that well.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Okay. So this is a horror movie now at this point. Cause you're like up off in the Ozarks. Something about it being in a cabin is just like, this just got a whole lot more serious.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  And I mean, we've all seen what the holidays can do to people that we do know, let alone people we don't. But Lex is also excited because the cabin has a hot tub.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  Tyler's mom is a really, really good cook. And then there is the pie.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Oh, you got a patty pie?

• 19:23Speaker 00

  Are there any famous recipes in your family?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Yes, my grandmother's yellow cake with caramel icing all made from scratch is the thing that she was always asked to bring to each and every family function. I miss it so much. Nobody else thinks that this particular pie is famous, but I do. It's a chest pie. Are you familiar with chest pie?

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Oh, I think so.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  So a chest pie is just a pie made out of eggs and butter and sugar and vanilla and sugar.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  And butter, maybe milk, but definitely more sugar and butter and.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Vanilla, yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  So in Tyler's family, this family recipe is also a pie. And it is for a maple sweet potato pie.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm listening.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  This recipe has been passed down from generation to generation. And it is so closely guarded that traditionally in Tyler's family, only one woman per generation is allowed to have the recipe.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Oh, that's serious, serious.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, this was a sweet potato pie that won every single church baking contest it was entered in. This was the pie that, according to family lore, secured no less than four engagements.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, so this, this is a heavyweight pie. This pie has a resume.

• 20:36Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Mm hmm, a long CV.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, when Tyler's mom Linda finally got the recipe, it was a huge fucking deal. And to keep it a huge fucking deal, Linda only makes this pie for the holidays or other special occasions. Because Linda is a busy woman. She does not have time to making pie crusts from scratch all the time.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  So the maple sweet potato pie becomes like a fixture of the holidays for Tyler's family. Not least because this pie plays a very pivotal role in an important piece of family lore in Tyler's family. So Tyler tells Lex this lore while they're waiting to board their plane to Michigan. So first, some context you need for the story. Tyler has two siblings who are both younger than him. There's the sister that Lex texts about reality television. She's the baby of the family. Her name is Amber.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  And then there's Tyler's brother, Jordan, who is the middle child.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:39Speaker 00

  Do you believe the stereotypes about middle children?

• 21:43Speaker 01

  I do because I don't have any like personal anecdotes or experiences. My mom has two kids, so there's not really a middle. And then my dad has two kids, including me. I've not known a middle child in my own, like, normal life, but I feel like. The lore of middle children always seems to line up. Sometimes, like, sometimes somebody will be talking, I'm just like, are you a middle child? They're like, yeah, like, mm, I knew it, I knew it. So I, I believe, I do believe in it. I'm, I've bought into the, the middle childness theory.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  What would you describe as middle childness?

• 22:20Speaker 01

  They seem to be very, um, attention starved. A little, um, a little overlooked. Just kind of nebulous, I think. And that sort of gives them a variety of complexes about their personage, personhood, being seen, being heard, taken seriously. Kind of makes you act out sometimes when you are born thinking, oh, nobody sees me, loves me, understands me, hears me, you know? It can make you act out.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Um, well, I'm a middle child, so.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't mean any of that, girl.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  I thought you were an only child. I mean, not in the sweet way. Okay, let's get back to the story.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  It's not like the, okay.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  I think I just got hacked. I was hacked. Did you see that?

• 23:15Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 23:16Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I'm a middle child. I can't speak to any of the things that you just said. Um, and Jordan is also a middle child.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  And this piece of lore is mostly about him. But it begins with the pie. So one Thanksgiving in the late eighties, when Amber, Jordan, and Tyler are all kids, their mom makes the pie. And it's really important to know that this pie is fairly labor intensive. Like, the crust has to chill for hours and then be rolled out and then chilled again. The filling has to be roasted and then blended and then sieve through a fine mesh strainer and then chill too. So Linda only makes one pie per occasion. It's a really big pie, though, so that everyone can have two slices. She uses the same massive baking dish from Williams Sonoma every year. It's, it's a whole thing.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  It's a fancy dish.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  It's fancy. Mm-hmm. So this Thanksgiving in the late eighties, everyone's eating their pie. And in case it's not obvious yet, this pie fucking slaps. So almost everyone in the family just like houses their two slices immediately.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  Except for Jordan. Ever since he was little, he would always take his time and he would savor his first slice of pie and then he would save the other one for later. And so on this Thanksgiving, when Jordan was on eight or nine, he did just that. He's savoring his first slice when his whole family decides to start doing what families do to middle children. Um, it is my belief that middle children are made, not born. And this is one of those moments that makes Jordan.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is our villain story.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  Who could say?

• 24:57Speaker 00

  Jordan's entire family starts teasing him about how slowly he's eating his pie. And it's mostly because they all just want a bite of his pie because it's the last slice left. And obviously they couldn't just ask, why would they do that?

• 25:13Speaker 00

  So instead they're teasing Jordan and at this point, Jordan is just a baby. He's eight and he can't take this. And this teasing distresses him so much that he gets up from the table and goes back to his room. And it's while he's in his room, self-regulating that his family eats the rest of his pie.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  That's not right. Okay, at this point I am team Jordan because why would you? You bullied a child out of his food and then you took that food out of his mouth during the holidays.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  During the holidays.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Monsters.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  When Jordan returns to his empty plate, he bursts into tears before vowing revenge on his entire family.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Oh dear.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  I mean, I get it, but like, I hope it's gonna be like, not like the murderous kind of revenge. Because it's kind of what it feels.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  This is normal gossip. You don't do murders.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Okay, true, true, true, true. Okay, so no, no family members died in the making of this?

• 26:05Speaker 00

  No, no family members died in the course of the story.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Good to know.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  If your boyfriend told you this story, how would you react?

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Okay, so if I like my boyfriend?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  I would be like, oh, y'all shouldn't have done that. You know, it's not very nice, but if I did, and I'd just be like, what is wrong with y'all? Is this why you are the way that you are? Because you kind of got some tendencies too. And sometimes like this kind of like lighthearted toxicity can like plant a seed deep in somebody's psyche. And that's why you are as messed up as you are, and I want a divorce. So it all depends on the boyfriend.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  And you know what? That's so real. Tyler cannot contain his laughter as he's telling this story. Which, to be fair, the image of an eight-year-old child vowing revenge is also pretty funny to me. I can't lie.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  His little fist balled up like, I'll get you.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  Oh, what are you gonna do?

• 27:02Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, Lex is like, I don't know, man. This seems like something I would hold a grudge about.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  Tyler's like, no, don't worry. We tell this story every time someone new joins the family and Jordan always laughs. Jordan is just too chill to hold the grudge.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Those are the ones you gotta look out for. Those are the ones.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  And at the time of our story, Jordan is already 30. So everyone's like, he's obviously already over it. It's been two decades and he hasn't done anything.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  That you know of. You don't know what he's putting in your water when you leave the room. You have no idea.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  Do you believe Jordan is over it?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  No, and here's why. I am not a middle child. I am the baby in both of my parents' lives. There are individual sets of children. And I grew up with my mom and brother. And he was a relentless tease. Like, I'm talking about like, he knew that I was afraid of like scary Halloween masks. And there is this one Halloween, I remember I'm in the living room by myself, minding my little eight, nine, 10-year-old business.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  This is too young, I'm already scared.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  See, I had gone trick or treating and it went great. That year, there were some kids down the street who had been scaring me with this Halloween mask. And so my mom, of course, she's like, give me the mask, leave my baby alone. Right, so she takes the mask from them. My brother finds the mask, creeps up on me in a dark house as I'm minding my business, knowing my fear. And just scars me. I thought I was going to die. I thought I was gonna be eaten by a werewolf in my mama's house and that was it. That was it. I am forty three, he just turned fifty one, I think, you know, like we've cleared the air about this stuff. But I still have it tattooed onto my brain, not because I'm just like, I need to hold on to this memory, but this this stuff can scar you.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Am I over it? I don't know. I'm getting a little worked up right now. Maybe I'm not, you know?

• 29:00Speaker 00

  Your brain is so squishy at that age that just everything immediately imprints onto it and it's the smallest things.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Just stay forever. Lex is also skeptical that Jordan is over it. But the first day at the cabin goes really well. The cabin is absolutely gorgeous. Lex wasn't entirely sure what to expect when she heard cabin in the woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Um, mostly she expected a lot of snow and there is a lot of snow. But the actual cabin is both massive and stunning. There's like a giant family room in the basement that has its own mini bar and a pool table and the biggest TV Lex has ever seen. The kitchen looks straight out of a Nancy Meyers movie. The cabin has three bedrooms, so obviously Tyler's parents, Linda and Marcus, have their own room,

• 29:47Speaker 00

  which left two rooms and the couch in the basement, which to be fair, looks extremely comfortable. Lex has sisters, so she definitely expects the room situation to cause a fight as to who's getting a room and who's getting the couch. Just like out of sibling principle, like it has to be a fight.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  But when she mentions this to Tyler, he's like, oh, don't worry, Jordan's sleeping on the couch.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  I don't like how they do it with me and Jordan. I don't like it. So far, I'm team Jordan.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  Well, it only makes sense because Lex isn't the only newcomer this year. Tyler's sister Amber has also brought her girlfriend.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  And her girlfriend has brought her giant Great Dane named Rufus.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Oh, I love Rufus.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  Rufus did cause a lot of drama.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  To be clear. Um, Linda, our matriarch, was already not necessarily thrilled about both Tyler and Amber bringing partners, because it really throws off the pie ratio, you know? Like, it's a lot of work. She's used to cutting in a specific way.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  But also Linda really does not fuck with pets. She never has. The closest Tyler and Amber and Jordan had come to having a pet as children was the time a squirrel got into the attic of the cabin.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  Amber knows her mother, so she hadn't even asked to bring Rufus.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  And she didn't ask, then her mom couldn't say no.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  See, at this point, if I'm mom, I'm like, you don't get any pie. That's it. Because how dare you? You don't take this choice away from me. This is a holiday. Also, for somebody who doesn't do pets or dogs, you're gonna bring the biggest one you can find? They're slobbery and they can knock and stuff over. No, no pie. No pie for Amber.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Is this not, like, no offense, the biggest baby of the family energy possible to just not ask?

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. But it's the whole, the whole, don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness thing.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. When Amber had pulled up to the cabin with her girlfriend and Rufus in tow, Linda had screamed.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  Before blocking the entry to the cabin with her body until some ground rules had been agreed to.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Yes, Linda. Team Linda.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  So Rufus was not to touch a single piece of furniture. He will not be on the couch. Rufus's poop was not to be left in the backyard, nor was it to be brought in the cabin. Linda did not care how cold it was. The trash cans are on the side of the cabin. And if Rufus had any accident in the house or on the deck, well, prepare to hear from Linda's accountant.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  The accountant.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  You will be receiving a bill.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  And you will have 30 days to pay it, otherwise.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Otherwise, you'll be hearing from Linda's lawyer.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, Lex had watched this entire scene from inside the cabin with Jordan and Tyler, who were both deeply unfazed by it. And to be fair, after Linda got over the dog, things went pretty smoothly. Like Lex and Amber immediately start binging a new season of Survivor on the massive TV in the basement, while Jordan and Tyler and their dad just play pool. Everyone spends the evening drinking in the hot tub. It's a pretty sweet deal until the day before Thanksgiving.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  This is the day that Linda makes the sweet potato pie. And as soon as she starts making it, Lex starts to understand why it is such a big deal. There is so much butter in the crust that this whole massive cabin smells like butter and cinnamon for hours.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that sounds lovely.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  Lex's mouth is already watering and the pie won't even be ready until tomorrow because it has to be chilled overnight and then reheated. So the pie is cooling down to room temp on the counter. Everyone starts helping to make dinner for the night or prepping for the big Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. They're like dicing onions and celery. They're cooking cornbread for dressing. Lex can't stop sneaking looks at the pie because like in its giant fancy glass dish, it looks like something out of like a Ralph Lauren holiday spread. How do you feel about whodunnits? Like murder on the Orient Express type locked room antics?

• 34:17Speaker 01

  I literally just watched Death on the Nile last night with my family for Sunday Family Movie Day. So I love a whodunit. I love a locked door mystery. I love Agatha Christie and Poirot. I'm into it.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Wow, you were right on the vibe for today's story.

• 34:38Speaker 00

  After everything's been prepped and everyone's eaten dinner, they all sort of go their separate ways in the cabin. Like Amber and her girlfriend head out to the hot tub. Jordan leaves the charge downstairs to the basement to continue the pool marathon. Lex is pretty sure she heard someone mention cornhole because this is the Midwest.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  What matters here is that no one is really in the kitchen for a couple of hours. But also, everyone is coming in and out of the kitchen in these hours for like beers and snacks and seltzers. This is very important because it is during these couple of hours that the sweet potato pie goes missing.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  No one notices until it's almost time for bed. Like Linda's getting ready to put the pie in the fridge to chill overnight. And she notices the pie isn't where she left it, cooling on the counter. Linda's like, y'all, I can't find the pie. Has anyone seen it? And at first, no one, except for Lex and Amber's girlfriend. Everyone else there knows Linda. And one thing about Ms. Linda is that she is like me and just continually leaves things in places that just are not quite right. Like her kids grew up finding jars of pickles in the sink or bottles of honey in the fridge, where it's like, I see what you were trying to do, but also how did this happen?

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Right. That's not productive.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  So at first, everyone's just like, lol, mom, where'd you put the pies? Is it on top of the washing machine?

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Drag her.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  Linda's looking high and low and she cannot find the pie. And as it takes her longer and longer, everyone starts to join in on the hunt. How long would you have to look for something before you decided something was amiss?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  I think it depends on what the something is. Like my keys, it could take a couple of days for me to find keys, you know? But a pie, 15 minutes? And then I'm like, family meeting, one of y'all did something weird with the pie. And we gotta figure it out because pies don't grow legs and walk away. What do y'all eat the pie?

• 36:44Speaker 00

  After about half an hour of searching, Linda officially declares the pie is missing.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Looking for a pie for 30 minutes is so benoodles to me.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  Linda declares the pie is missing and you would expect her to be upset about this because she's spent so long making the pie. And she is, like, she's clearly upset. But it's also pretty easy to tell that as this search goes on and on, that Linda is getting kind of excited. Because Ms. Linda loves Murder She Wrote. She lives for Perry Mason and Matlock. So she immediately straps in for an investigation.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Get the serial killer board with the thread ready.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Exactly. The whole family is also locked in, even Lex's. Because 40% of why Lex came on this trip was to taste this pie. And when Lex had suggested that they just make another pie, Linda had shot her a look that very clearly communicated that that was not happening.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Not even an option. Why would you?

• 37:48Speaker 00

  We're not doing that. So our friend of a friend Lex knows her only chance of tasting this famous pie is finding the one that went missing. Everyone quickly determines that the snatch and grab had to have happened after dinner. Because it couldn't have happened when everyone was in the kitchen. Someone surely would have noticed. So it must have happened after everyone sort of like scattered to the wind after dinner. How would you go about solving this mystery? What's your first step?

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Okay, so it's a fragrant pie, right? Like smell everybody's breath? Like, do you smell like pie or no? You know, but I mean, there are ways around that, right? You know, brush teeth, drink some, been alcoholic, you know? Bad idea, Trace.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  Listen, you got to throw all the ideas out.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Right. The dog, look at the dog's paws. Maybe there's some pie placed somewhere on that seven-foot-tall dog that's in the house. He could definitely reach a pie.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  That's true. The first thing our intrepid detectives do is try to eliminate suspects.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Very logical. All right.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, so Linda clearly having too much fun with this. Like, she has found an old hotel notepad in a junk drawer and she's making everyone account for their whereabouts. And they all have to do it separately so they can't conspire. So they're like filing in and out of the kitchen one at a time. And for some reason, Linda has suddenly started saying indubitably a lot.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I love Linda so much, so very much.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  When Linda's done questioning them all separately, she gathers them in the kitchen and she's looking at her notes. She's like, okay, here's what I've got. After dinner, in the hours, we've all agreed the pie must have gone missing. Tyler played one game of cornhole with Lex and Dad, where Tyler specifies that he whipped ass.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Indubitably.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Indubitably.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  Tyler then joined Jordan in the basement, where Jordan was in the middle of a game of pool against me, Mom.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, Lex and Dad continued to play cornhole, where they saw Amber's girlfriend walking Rufus. They also had eyes on Amber in the hot tub. She was later joined by her girlfriend. Everyone is accounted for, Linda says. Everyone, except the dog.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Dun, dun, dun. Rufus? Oh, Rufus.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  Amber's girlfriend looks like she's been shot.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Not my baby, my baby.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  I don't know if you know anything about 20 something girls and their dogs, but to Amber's girlfriend, this is the equivalent of a murder accusation.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  Amber's girlfriend is like, what are you talking about? You just said you saw me walking him. And Linda like strokes her chin

• 40:51Speaker 00

  before saying, yes, but what about after the walk? When you were in the hot tub?

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  No one else could remember seeing him.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  I feel like you would notice the dog in the hot tub. He was not in the hot tub.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Certainly that dog.

• 41:08Speaker 00

  Amber's girlfriend is like, Rufus did not eat that pie. He doesn't even like sweet potatoes. You can ask Amber.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Wait a minute.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  Amber's like, Mom, chill. She's right. Rufus doesn't like sweet potatoes. He only likes butter and a squash.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  This is crazy.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  And this is when Amber's girlfriend is like, I think you just don't like my dog.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Oh, now it's getting personal.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  And Linda says, you're right. I don't like your dog. He's not even really a dog. He's a horse. Linda's like, this is the first year we've had a dog here for Thanksgiving and for the first time the pie goes missing. Coincidence?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  I think not.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Indubitably, Linda.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Indubitably.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Amber's like, Mom, Rufus was outside the whole time. I could see him from the hot tub. And Linda's like, of course you would say that. You didn't even warn me he was coming.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Hmm, got him.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Your allegiance has been commandeered. Can't trust it. Uh huh, uh huh. I'm with it.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  And this is when Amber's girlfriend decides to say to Linda, you know what? I don't remember you telling us about your whereabouts.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  When the pie went missing.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  How do we know you didn't take the pie? You've had a grudge against Rufus since you saw him.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Now she set up Rufus.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  But wait though, our girl Linda, she likes this stuff. This is her cup of tea. She could have staged the whole thing. Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  And you know what? I would do something similar if I was Linda, because why not? Everybody else covered and having fun, just bringing dogs and horses all crazy. Let's have some fun then. Pie dog.

• 42:59Speaker 00

  You said you want to have fun. Let's have some fun.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Y'all want to play? Let's play.

• 43:06Speaker 00

  At this accusation, it is Linda's turn to look like she has been shot.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  She's like, my whereabouts don't need to be accounted for because why would I waste eight hours baking this pie? If all I wanted was to get rid of that beast.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Oh, oh. Linda does have it out for Rufus though. Linda, you're not helping your case, ma'am.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  Linda's like, I didn't even have to let you in. You could have gone home.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Fair point. Touche, Linda. Touche. Indubitably.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  Finally, this is when Jordan intercedes because as the middle child, he is used to being the peacemaker. He's like, alright, I think this is getting a little too heated. It's a pie and I'm sure it'll turn up in the morning. Why don't we all just go to sleep? And so this is what they do. They all go to sleep. Um, who is your primary suspect so far?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Okay, so I'm ruling Rufus out.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Oh, he doesn't like sweet potatoes.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Allegedly. He probably doesn't like sweet potatoes. He likes butter and sugar and cinnamon. You know?

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Rufus would have ate the pie, but I feel like if Rufus did eat the pie, where's he gonna hide the dish? Right?

• 44:21Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  He would have made a mess. He's a big old sloppy dog, all legs, all akimbo and whatnot. The dish would have been in the kitchen and he would have been in a corner somewhere looking very guilty. As dogs, I want to do so. It was not Rufus. I hope it was Linda because it just sounds fun.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Like I now want to recreate this with my own family, but do I think it was Linda? I do not.

• 44:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  The only truly, truly logical explanation to me, given the family background and history, said it was Jordan, but it's too obvious. So it probably wasn't Jordan. I don't know. This is why I'm not a detective because I'm too, way too indecisive.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  Well, as soon as Lex and Tyler get back to their room that night, Lex is like, Tyler, I promise I won't tell anyone if you took the pie, but please put it back. I have to try it.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Eyes on the prize. She's focused. She's like, yeah, your family issues, whatever. I need this pie.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  Lex is like, also, your mom's a little scary. So put it back if you took it.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Tyler's like, I wish I had taken it. This is brilliant.

• 45:39Speaker 00

  And he looks legitimately jealous enough of whoever did this that for a moment, Lex puts her suspicion down. And so she's like, okay, I think it's Jordan. He has the strongest motive.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  At this, Tyler just laughs. And he's like, it couldn't be Jordan. You saw how he calmed everyone down. Like, that's just not his vibe. And Tyler's like, I think Amber's girlfriend might be on to something. Mom is a little too into this whole thing.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  So the next morning is Thanksgiving Day. It starts bright and early when the whole house is woken up by the sound of Linda screaming. It's not to the get downstairs that they realize she's screaming out of excitement and not from like being murdered or something.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Great news.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  Tyler is like, Mom, what the fuck?

• 46:33Speaker 00

  And Linda just points to the fridge where on a shelf is the missing pie.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Except something is different about the pie. Someone or something has cut a perfectly round circle right out of the middle of the pie.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I love it.

• 46:52Speaker 00

  I personally find this deeply unsettling.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  But how would you react if you were in this cabin in the woods and this pie turns up with a perfectly round circle cut out the middle of it?

• 47:07Speaker 01

  My first thought would probably be, oh, my God, it's a ghost. And why is it so evil and hungry? Like, can ghosts even eat? Would a ghost like maple sweet potato pie? Lots of questions on that end. In this particular case, I would feel like, Mom, I would just be so into it. This is the movie that I've always wanted to star in. Like, it keeps getting richer. And there's just more and more evidence to consider. And now y'all are just being weird. Also, truly not Rufus. Dogs are not great at the whole cutting a circular piece of pie apart. You know, but lack of thumbs is a reason. I would be very, very hype. I would be like on what Linda is on. That's where I'd be.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  Amber's girlfriend is like, I told you Rufus would never do something like this.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Justice for Rufus.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Innocent.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, everyone else is like jumping up and down. They're buzzing with excitement and also just like a little bit of actual fear because like, what the fuck is going on?

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's getting weird.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  It's getting weird, but there are no further clues to be found. So at a certain point, everyone's like, okay, I guess we just gotta get on with the holiday.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, do you eat the pie? You don't know what took the circle out of the pie. Is the pie contaminated now? Is it even the same pie?

• 48:33Speaker 00

  That's a question I was gonna ask you. Would you eat the pie that has a perfectly round circle cut out of it?

• 48:39Speaker 01

  If I have never had a piece of this pie and I have been all hyped up and just like ready for some pie, had my mouth all ready for some pie, as the ancestors would say, I would, but I would have somebody else eat some pie first. Wait like thirty, forty-five minutes, and if they're okay, I would sample a piece of pie that had a perfectly round hole cut out of it.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  I also would. Sierra said that she wouldn't.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 49:08Speaker 00

  No, exactly. And I'm like that, and that does make sense. However, I will be trying the pie. Because like, I really feel like to get a perfectly round circle, the method you use is like pretty clean, you know?

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Also, the perfect circle-ness of said piece missing from the pie, I would count that as more evidence towards Linda, who is the baker, right? Who else could extract a perfectly circular circle without disturbing the rest of the pie? I couldn't.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  No, same, literally. All day, everyone is trading theories. They're coming up with their little hypotheses. But it's not until dinner that the speculating really starts.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  The table is set. The decor is immaculate. There is a beautiful autumnal spread with tiny little pumpkins on the table. Linda's even made placards for people.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Aww.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  Everyone sits and then the accusations start in earnest.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Tyler now thinks that it's Amber, his sister, and that she only gave the pie back because Linda was accusing her girlfriend's dog. This is all it takes for Amber to think that the culprit is Tyler. And this is how it goes all through dinner. Everyone has their turn in the hot seat. Even Lex is accused by none other than Linda, who is still a little peeved about the pie ratio.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  Linda's like, why did Lex suggest baking another pie so quickly after the pie went missing? Because she already knew it was gone.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Now, Miss Linda, I don't, I can't follow this line of, of logic. What's the opposite of indubitably?

• 50:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Dubitably. I am dubitable.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, Lex is like, that doesn't even make sense.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Great.

• 50:57Speaker 00

  Besides, Lex is like, it's obviously Jordan. She's like, Tyler told me about the time everyone ate his pie. I would hold a grudge over that.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 51:06Speaker 00

  And this is when Jordan sort of cocks his head to the side.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  And then he's like, Tyler told you everyone ate my pie? Lex looks at Tyler, who suddenly looks really, really sheepish.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 51:21Speaker 00

  And Lex is like, yeah, that's what he told me. And Jordan starts laughing.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Oh, Tyler, what have you done?

• 51:33Speaker 00

  Jordan's like, I guess that's technically right, but it was Tyler that took the first bite.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Mmm, throwing rocks and hiding your hands. Eating pie and hiding your hands.

• 51:46Speaker 00

  Lex's jaw drops. She's like, how well do I know my boyfriend?

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  I've been dating him for two years.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Who even are you?

• 51:55Speaker 00

  She's like, is this the reason he's so sure that Jordan didn't take the pie? Is it because he took it?

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Of course he did.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Amber, his sister, is on the exact same wavelength. Amber's like, it has to be Tyler, because Tyler took the first bite all those years ago. And what's missing from the pie but a sort of first bite?

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Indubitably. Indeed. Huh, okay, alright, okay, okay.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  And on and on these people go, all the way up until dessert.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  We are almost at the end of our Thanksgiving dinner, and thus our story.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 52:35Speaker 00

  Do you have any final answers that you want to lock in as to who you think stole this pie?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Okay, examining the new evidence, right? We have this information about Tyler. And the true story of the initial pie eating moment, right? Credibility is down the drain. Can't trust you as far as I can throw you. Tyler also seems to have been sort of like in the background, kind of just like watching everything happen, watching the puppets dance.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  You can't discount that. So my top two.

• 53:06Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Let me do that. Again, terrible detective.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Sheriff Tracy, do you know who did it? Yes, one of two people.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  I think that Tyler looks the best for this. And it really is just like his credibility being just torn down by his willingness to be dishonest in the first place. Also, his willingness to lead the charge in eating this poor eight-year-old boy's pie. Like, you've got that tendency in you, right? Or it's Jordan. And I kind of hope it is, because Jordan deserves justice. And just like little Tracy deserves justice for that Halloween mask thirty years ago. Okay, final two answers, one or the two.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  I love these choices. At this point, our friend of a friend Lex does not even care that much. She's like, all I want to do is taste this goddamn pie. I don't care about the mystery. I don't care about this kind of unsettling hole in the middle of the pie. I just need to taste this pie.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  So she, along with everyone else, is crowding around as Linda takes the pie out the oven. Mouths are watering. Linda's cutting the pie. She's drilling out slices and she gets to Jordan. And Linda's like, Jordan, are you ready for your piece? Where's your plate? And this is when Jordan is like, oh, I already have my piece. Everyone's head whips around, like, what the fuck is he talking about? And this is when everyone sees Jordan at the head of the table, his fingers

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  Like a villain in an Austin Powers movie. And in front of him, on a plate in a perfect circle, is the missing piece of sweet potato pie.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Jordan. This has healed me somehow. This has healed me. Amazing. Oh.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 55:09Speaker 00

  Everyone's jaw drops, except for Lex, who's like, I fucking knew it.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  And Jordan's like, have any of you ever heard the expression that revenge, like pie, is served cold?

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Oh, so good. It's so good.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  For years, I bided my time, Jordan says. All of you thought I'd gotten over it. Meanwhile, year after year, I planned and I plotted. I stole the pie right out from under your nose. You thought I went to the basement to play pool, but I was hiding the pie in the mini fridge. Tyler almost caught me, but he was too busy gloating over his cornhole business. The rest of you didn't even notice for hours. And then what did you do? Overlooked me again. You ruled me out, even if I left you such an obvious clue. The middle of the pie for the middle child.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  Oh, this is too good. I want to watch this movie.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  I need this movie like tomorrow.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Everyone's jaws are agape, except for Lex, who's just gloating at being right at her first family holiday. Everyone watches as Jordan takes a bite out of the little circle of pie. He's like, great pie this year, Mom.

• 56:31Speaker 00

  And that's the end of our story.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  This is the most fun I've ever had in my life. I have to say, this really is cinematic. Like, I can see this. Like, okay, casting. Mom is Nia Long, and honestly, that's the only casting I have right now.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  We can build out from Nia Long is the thing. That's enough. I love the idea of Nia Long getting really excited over a little mystery.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. She's got her little notepad and notebook.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. She's making people come in and out of the room separately.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  No talking to each other. They're not gonna corroborate stories here.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  No, literally, literally, exactly.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:08Speaker 00

  Do you think there's a villain here?

• 57:10Speaker 01

  Yes. The villain is everybody who ate Jordan's pie all those years ago. You kind of brought it on yourself.

• 57:19Speaker 00

  And then keep telling that story every year like it's funny.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. That part. Like, okay, we still laughing about it, huh? All right, okay. What a wholesome case of revenge.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  I would have only liked it better if Jordan, like, framed Tyler specifically.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  So that Tyler gets to know what it's like to have nobody listen to him and believe him, and he gets to feel that helplessness that he imposed on poor Jordan as an eight-year-old. Jordan was just minding his business on Halloween, trying to look through his candy. Oh, sorry, that's my story. Sorry.

• 57:58Speaker 00

  I was like, Halloween.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  I'm seeing myself a little too clearly in this story.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  That's beautiful. You and Jordan.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would love to shake Jordan's hand.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Indubitably, sir. Indubitably.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  Indubitably.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  So I do have some small updates.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  Ooh, okay.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  Lex did confirm that this pie is as good as everyone made it out to be. Amber and her girlfriend broke up a few months after this whole fiasco. They apparently couldn't come back from all the accusing that was done. Amber's girlfriend was like, my dog was traumatized by these events.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  I mean, I get it. Justice for Rufus.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  Um, Lex does end up marrying Tyler despite finding out that he lied about this family story. Though, she always makes sure to corroborate any family story he tells her with Jordan.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Smart.

• 58:55Speaker 00

  And Tyler's never allowed to tell the story of the maple sweet potato pie, which Lex tells us is still told every single year, except now Jordan gets to tell it because the ending has obviously been updated and revenge is pretty fucking sweet.

• 59:18Speaker 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 Ciara Spragley-Ritz and Jay Tolbierra. Our audio engineer is Samantha Gatzick. The co-creators and dowager queens of Normal Gossip are Kelsey McKinney and Defector's supervising producer Alex Hujan-Lowthlin. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector's business guys. Tom Lay is our editor in chief. Dan McQuaid runs our merch store, which you can find at normalgossip.store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art. Thank you to Brandy Jensen, David Raw, Catherine Shu, Serena Imbler, Chris Thompson, Dave McKenna, Patrick Redford, and Ray Rado for your help on this season. Thank you to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber-based media company. Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton, and remember, you didn't hear this from me.