Transcript
Derek Hayes (0:00)
VRBO Last minute deals make chasing fresh.
Commercial Announcer (0:02)
Mountain powder incredibly easy. With thousands of homes close to the slopes, you can easily get epic pow freshies, first tracks and more. No need for months of planning. In fact, you can't even plan.
Kelly (0:14)
Pow Pow is on its own schedule. Thankfully, somewhere in the world it's always snowing.
Derek Hayes (0:21)
All you have to do is use the last minute filter on the app.
Commercial Announcer (0:24)
To book a last minute deal on a sloped site. Private rental home book now@vrbo.com did you know you can opt out of winter with VRBO? Save up to 1500 dollars for booking a month long stay with thousands of sunny homes. Why subject yourself to the cold? Just filter your search by monthly stays and save up to fifteen hundred dollars. Book now at vrbo.com.
Producer/Assistant (0:56)
Sam.
Derek Hayes (1:28)
Foreign.
Derek Hayes (Host/Narrator) (1:37)
Good evening and welcome to Monsters Among Us. I'm your guide, Derek Hayes. Welcome back to part two of this year's Best of Years in Special and it's a pleasure to have you with us here tonight. And just as I did on Tuesday, I have an amazing program slated for tonight, the best of the best, or at least our most favorite calls of the year. And just like I did with Tuesday's effort, I have a lot to get through here this evening. So let's just jump right back into it and why not start on an unsettling note, please welcome Tyler from season 19, episode 46 in the Golden State of California.
Tyler (Caller) (2:31)
Hey Derek, it's me, Tai again from la, longtime listener and frequent caller. So this would be around 2018, and this involves a person at that time who I'd known for about 10 years. We met back in 2008. We worked at an office building in Beverly Hills since I met him and we were having a conversation one day and I know much about his past and his childhood. You know, he told me he had a very difficult childhood. Parents weren't around much. Long story short, he would tell me that he relied, he just called it the dark side. Didn't give it a name or anything, but he would just tell me that he relied on or called on the dark side from his late teen years all the way until now or currently at the time for things that he needed. And just to preface this for a second with myself, I'm not religious. I don't belong to religion. I don't judge anybody who does. I've just never been that way myself. Sort of a skeptic. And just like I say, I do believe in good and bad, but beyond that, I really don't give it much thought so we're having a talk like we normally do about this. And again, I don't usually interject much. I just listen. But when we get off the phone, I thought, well, you know, for the heck of it, I mean, at this point I was kind of needing some financial help and I thought, you know, for the heck of it, I'm just going to kind of humor myself. I was kind of laughing to myself. I'm going to humor myself and I'm going to call up this dark side and ask if I can get some assistance, money wise, right? So I just kind of, I wouldn't really even call it a prayer. I just kind of said, look, you know, whoever you are, whatever you are is the dark side, you know, I need some financial help. If you could help me, I would much appreciate that. If you could manifest that, you know, thank you. That was basically it didn't give it much thought. Fast forward about three days later, I'm at my favorite restaurant in the Valley in la. And let me kind of set up the layout of this restaurant. So the way this restaurant is is that you open the front door and you probably walk about 20ft straight ahead and there's a counter where you place your order. I'm saying this for a reason, because as I'm walking in here, first of all, this is about 2 o' clock in the afternoon on a weekday. So this is that lull period after lunch. So there's literally only one other customer in the restaurant and he's on a completely different side of the restaurant. So nobody else in the restaurant. So again, as they open the door and as I'm walking up this 20ft, nothing, just basically tables on both sides of this aisle. So I'm walking up to the counter and they all know me there. So when the woman comes up, we kind of chatted for about a minute or two. And then I was starting to place my order and she interrupts me and she says, hey, is that your money? And I said, huh? And she's pointing behind me, she goes, is that your money? I turn around and there's a bunch of dollar bills on the floor probably about 10ft in back of me. Again, this is the very aisle that I just walked up, but there was nothing there. I don't carry much cash on me. I carry maybe five or ten bucks on me and the rest I just use, you know, credit or debit cards. And that was still in the wallet. So I know it wasn't for me. So I'm kind of shocked. So I said, Excuse me for a second. And I go over there and I scoop up all these bills, and it was about a hundred and probably called about 113 or 14 bucks in cash. I said, oh, my God. So I scoop it up, put it in my wallet again, because there was nobody in that section of the restaurant, so it could not have been anybody else's. So I grabbed it, place my order, and, you know, finished out my day. Didn't think much about it. About three days later, I was on a bus to Glendale. And as often happens sometimes, you know, I doze off. I missed my stop. When I woke up, I realized that. So I got off the bus, and it meant that I would now have to cross the street and catch the opposite bus going back the other way. So as I'm walking to this bus stop, and this is Glendale, so it's kind of a fancy bus stop, or actually a bus shelter. As I walk into the bus stop, it's got one of these, like. I guess I would almost call it like a bulletin board where people can pin things up, things like that, put up notices or whatever. And there's just a little note there. The note just simply said, because you are you. And somebody had pinned a 50 bill to this note to this bulletin board. And my guess is probably just for, I suppose, you know, first come, first serve, I suppose, just for whoever came along first. So that was me. So I took down the $50 bill, took the note and put it in my pocket. And so this is great. Again, waited for my bus and, you know, went on. Didn't give it much thought. About four days later. @ the time, I was taking management classes at Pasadena City College in la. And as such, I was getting financial aid. And the way this usually works is this is like a semester school, so they break it up in two parts. So generally what will happen is the first, about a month before the semester starts, you'll get half of it, and then about a month or two in, you get the other half. Well, these classes I was taking, I was already about halfway in. So I had already gotten both of my allotments for financial aid, so I was not owed anymore. So one day I'm at school, and there's an app that we use to kind of manage your, you know, financial aid account. And on this app, I got notification that I had some more money available. And I thought, well, that's kind of strange. I thought, there's no way I should have any money available. But anyway, I. Since the office is on campus, I went to the office. And I inquired about it and the woman looked me up and did some checking. And she says, no, no. She says, it looks like they did some accounting errors and you're owed some money. And I said, well, how much is it? She said, it's almost seventeen hundred dollars. And I almost fell off my chair. I was like, oh, good lord. So she says, you want to accept? I said, yeah, yeah, I definitely accept. Thank you. Thank you. So as you can imagine, I was beyond shocked that it never happens. And so I remember as I left the office, though, you know, the gears in my head started turning and I kept thinking, you know, this is great. And I thought, you know, I have a feeling the amounts of money are going to increase. I said, but just the way I am as a skeptic, there's no free lunch, so to speak, right? I just kind of get the feeling at some point I'm going to owe somebody or something. Something or some things eventually that this isn't just for free. So basically I went and found a little quiet place on the campus and just kind of said, look, I reached out to this dark side or whatever it was, just kind of said, look, hey, listen, thank you. I appreciate all that you've done. This has been a great help. I said, but I think at this point I'm going to have to call up this little experiment and just kind of end it here. I do. Thank you. Hope I didn't waste your time. Thanks a lot. Basically. Bye. And that was kind of what I said. And I noticed after that, you know, the excess money cut off, I mean, whatever that was, wherever that was from, I don't know. But I do know that after that, that was 2018, this is now 2025, and I have not gotten any more surprises like that. So whatever it's worth, I just thought I would pass it on. As always, great show. Keep it up.
