Secret Santa By Andrew Shaffer | Mrs. P's Book Club | Too Many Tabs Podcast

Summary

Episode Summary: "Secret Santa" by Andrew Shaffer | Mrs. P's Book Club | Too Many Tabs Podcast

Introduction

Timestamp: [00:28] – [00:58]

Lucy Meyer and Fabian Nightingale, the dynamic husband and wife duo behind Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500, kick off the episode by discussing their recent focus on reading books. They highlight the show's premise: each week, one of them researches a topic (in this case, books) and shares their findings, often leading to amusing misunderstandings since one might not fully grasp what the other is referring to.

Overview of "Secret Santa"

Timestamp: [06:18] – [10:38]

Fabian introduces the chosen book, Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer, a horror-themed Christmas novel set in the 1980s. Lucy and Fabian delve into the book's prologue, which sets the stage in post-World War II Germany, hinting at supernatural elements and the dark history surrounding the mysterious Perkton doll. The hosts provide a detailed recount of the prologue, emphasizing the eerie atmosphere and the tragic events that unfold.

Discussion on Book Plot and Characters

Timestamp: [10:38] – [33:08]

Lucy and Fabian navigate through the initial chapters of Secret Santa, exploring the protagonist Lucy's tumultuous first weeks at Blackwood Publishing. They discuss key plot points, including Lucy's challenging interview with Mr. Blackwood, the introduction of the ominous Perky doll, and the peculiar behaviors of her colleagues. Notable interactions, such as the tense relationship between Lucy and the ruthless Raven (Mary Beth Wilderson), are examined.

Notable Quotes:

• Fabian: "People that read books. They gotta tell each other. And one of us has no idea what the other one's talking about." [00:50]
• Lucy: "I love a scary Christmas." [07:15]

Themes and Insights

Timestamp: [33:08] – [60:00]

The conversation shifts to broader themes presented in the book, such as workplace toxicity, the pressures of the publishing industry, and the intersection of supernatural lore with real-world fears. Lucy and Fabian reflect on the 1980s setting, discussing how technology limitations amplify the horror elements and the nostalgic portrayal of New York City during that era.

Notable Quotes:

• Lucy: "I think that AI should be shot out of a can." [34:56]
• Fabian: "Sloppy Joe. We are which really okay, but we have to be back with new episod season three." [02:13]

Humorous Banter and Personal Reflections

Throughout the episode, Lucy and Fabian interject humorous commentary and personal anecdotes, enhancing the engaging and relatable nature of their discussion. They joke about the challenges of pronouncing German words, the absurdity of certain plot devices, and share light-hearted insights into their own lives, such as their experiences with technology and workplace norms.

Notable Quotes:

• Lucy: "Have you ever gone to the doctor about maybe schizophrenia? Like, he's like, yeah, girl." [39:07]
• Fabian: "I'm trying to make too many mistakes. Too many tabs." [43:08]

Conclusion and Shout-Outs

Timestamp: [133:54] – End

As the episode wraps up, Lucy and Fabian provide their personal ratings for Secret Santa, offering constructive feedback and highlighting aspects they enjoyed or felt could be improved. They transition into a series of playful shout-outs to their listeners, emphasizing community engagement and encouraging audience participation through comments and Patreon support.

Notable Quotes:

• Lucy: "Justice for Fabian. He's my favorite character." [140:02]
• Fabian: "If you're buying gifts for somebody, buy books from a local bookstore, not Barnes and Noble." [143:46]

Final Remarks

Timestamp: [144:23] – End

In their final moments, Lucy and Fabian reinforce the show's community-driven approach, thanking listeners for their support and hinting at future content. They maintain their signature blend of humor, wit, and insightful commentary, leaving the audience anticipating the next episode.

Notable Quotes:

• Lucy: "Thank you to all the Pearl Maniacs. Thank you so much for a wonderful, incredible year and we will see you in 2025." [145:06]
• Fabian: "You're gonna ride that bear right up Wall Street until you yourself have millions of dollars." [32:02]

Key Takeaways:

• Secret Santa intertwines horror with Christmas traditions, set against the backdrop of 1980s New York.
• The book explores themes of supernatural influence in the publishing industry, workplace dynamics, and personal resilience.
• Lucy and Fabian's engaging discussion provides both a summary and critical analysis, enriched with personal humor and relatable insights.

Recommended for Listeners: If you're a fan of horror novels with a festive twist and enjoy in-depth discussions with a humorous flair, Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500 is the perfect podcast for you. Dive into Secret Santa alongside Lucy and Fabian to uncover the dark secrets lurking within the festive pages.

Transcript

[AT&T Representative]

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[Lucy Meyer]

CT mobile.com welcome to Too Many Tabs, a podcast where a husband and wife sit across from each other at a desk. And usually, I swear, usually each month one of them does topics and they research something each week. Each week. I know, but this month we've been reading a lot of books. It feels like we're the kind of.

[Fabian Nightingale]

People that read books.

[Lucy Meyer]

We read books, we go to libraries, we enjoy things. And then we tell each other about it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

They gotta tell each other.

[Lucy Meyer]

And one of us has no idea what the other one's talking about.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

Which is where the fun comes. That's the basis of the show. That's what makes the show fun. But before you start the show, you have to do the intro. And then after you do the intro, you do the announcements and then you get into the show. So let's get into the show. Too many frauds and too many scammers.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That we wish weren't real.

[Lucy Meyer]

Too many cons and too many spammers and we're starting to feel like we've got job.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Too many T opens.

[Lucy Meyer]

Too many times. Remember to smile.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Are you smiling?

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm smiling.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's a good smile.

[Lucy Meyer]

We're back. It's our season finale. This is our season two finale.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We're closing on a Mrs. Peas book club. We go hard around here.

[Lucy Meyer]

But. But, but to be fair, we're closing differently than we closed last year.

[Fabian Nightingale]

How's that?

[Lucy Meyer]

Last year we had a baby. Close the show.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We still have a baby.

[Lucy Meyer]

We still have a baby. We're not having another baby.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, no.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's just we've decided and this is what we think it makes the most sense.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Which is? We take a couple weeks off at the end of the year. One baby's birthday, two cremas Christmas. Three New Year's Yep. And also this way we can all kind of readjust as we go into 2025.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yup.

[Lucy Meyer]

The year that is definitely gonna be awesome. Sure. Definitely going to be a year. But with that, we have just a couple announcements just to remind everybody. Just kind of what we're closing out here. If you were Hearing this on 12 15, when we drop the episode, you have a couple days, if you're in the Philadelphia region, to come see me perform my last show of the year. I'm going to be opening for my friend Doogie Horner. It is going to be a live comedy special taping for Doogie. I might be recording something myself. We might figure out how we will distribute that. We don't know.

[Fabian Nightingale]

There's a lot super fun.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's going to be a lot of fun. It's at Underground Arts, the link in the show notes. Also the day after that, on Friday, December 20, we are going to release on Patreon a new Vibing out with the Food Moron.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's right. We're doing it again. We got a lot of positive feedback. People loved Vibing with the Food Morons Learn how to make deviled eggs.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep. And this time they're going to learn how to make something more holiday.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, we're going to go a little.

[Lucy Meyer]

Holiday themed and it's going to be fun. Yeah, we're about to. We're going to sit down and record that soon. So that is.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I like how that implies that deviled eggs aren't holiday food. They're just an everyday.

[Lucy Meyer]

They are an everyday thing. They are definitely on Thanksgiving defin. And also you can also remember if you're still looking for a really good deviled egg recipe, we got one. The recipe is free at pearlmania500.net you just have to scroll down to go find it. However, if you want a detailed explanation from Mrs. Pearlmania, as a man who knows nothing about cooking asks every possible question that you could ever think of, you should listen to Vibing out with a Food Moron, which you can find exclusively at Pearlmania500 or patreon.com Pearlmania500 and join us at a 5, a 10 or a $30 tier. With that being said, we also have gift links. If you are already a Patreon member and you have a friend of yours who listens to the show and they're always complaining about things like ads or they just really wish they could listen to it through a different app, specifically.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Like Patreon, maybe what's going on in that warmup I want to hear it.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, I want to hear about the warmup or I want to hear the full vibing out with the food more and all those things. Or you're just looking for a gift for a friend of yours who lives somewhere else in the world.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I got a gift for you.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yes.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The gift of the Tee Hee Hees.

[Lucy Meyer]

The tee. You can go to our show notes down below and click that gift link and then you can send. You can buy a couple months for a friend of their friend of yours on Patreon.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Or family.

[Lucy Meyer]

Or family.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Or someone you don't like.

[Lucy Meyer]

You know what? Send us to your enemies. That's a good way to do it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Say somebody you don't like.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, send them. Be like, here's. Listen, listen to these two. Here's some yapping. Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You want to hear some fun stuff?

[Lucy Meyer]

We give you the gift of the.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, they're going to talk to you about libraries.

[Lucy Meyer]

But I think with that, that being said, we're going to. We're going to try to be. Our aim is to be back with new episod season three.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Season three, baby. We're doing it again on January 5th, only getting better. Aging like fine wine.

[Lucy Meyer]

We're aging. So. But it's gonna be season three of the podcast, which, technically speaking, is season two of Too Many Tabs because we are keeping the name. We're not gonna.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We're definitely not changing.

[Lucy Meyer]

We're not changing the name. It's a great name. It's a name so good, other people.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Keep trying to steal it.

[Lucy Meyer]

Arguing with a German about a website. All right, so with that, we are very. We're very excited.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You ready to get going?

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm ready to get going.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We gotta get into this.

[Lucy Meyer]

And so we're gonna take a. We're gonna do our first one. First little break. First little break. And you're gonna hear the little bumper. And then we're gonna come back because this week we are doing a book.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And that book is called Secret Santa. Ooh.

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[Fabian Nightingale]

Are you ready?

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm ready.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, my God. Buckle up. We've got a book.

[Lucy Meyer]

Secret Santa. And who is it by?

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's by this guy, Andrew Schafer.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

S H A F F E R. Schaffer. Schaffer.

[Lucy Meyer]

It'll be in the show notes.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He's the guy that wrote that Joe Biden Obama book. Remember that one where they were like on a little mystery adventure together?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, it's like a murder mystery in Wilmington. On the train.

[Fabian Nightingale]

On the train.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He's the guy that wrote that book.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, got it. Okay, so he's. He's an accomplished author.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, exactly.

[Lucy Meyer]

He's wrote. There's two of those books.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Exactly.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So this is.

[Lucy Meyer]

Didn't age as well as us.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Well, we're looking great. It's all the Botox.

[Lucy Meyer]

If you want to know what that reference is about, listen to the warm up. As we should warm up talking about the Botox.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So, okay, this. I picked this book obviously, because I want to do a holiday book and Secret Santa is a horror book. It's a horror Christmas book.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Meeting of all the best things.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Holiday, fun Christmas.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Adventures. And we're gonna have a good time.

[Lucy Meyer]

You do. You do love a scary Christmas.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I love a scary. Oh, my God. Krampus. That's my guy.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep. And then that. What was that? Murder one. We. Not Jingle Bells Jingle all the Way.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, no.

[Lucy Meyer]

Jingle all the Way is a horror movie. It was the one with the. We always do this every year.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's the guy from Stranger Things.

[Lucy Meyer]

The guy from Stranger Things. That's Santa Claus in one of the.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You mean Luigi.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, okay. All right. Yes.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So here's something I need to tell you before we start this book is. When I picked out Secret Santa book, I thought, oh, a fun horror book. It's set in the 80s and I'm reading in the back of it. I'm like, this is going to be great. And then I open the book and I read the prologue. I don't usually read you the prologue or the epilogues because sometimes they're not really that important to what I'm trying to explain to you.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But I open this prologue and I go, holy. This prologue means there's something we can't do. And I'm going to read you this prologue and you're going to know exactly what I'm talking about. And it won't take you long either. Prologue. Merkers, Germany, December 25, 1945. Xavier Blackwood, MP of the 3rd Infantry army, wasn't lucky enough to be one of the ones getting sent home right away. The War Department had created a point system for demobilization, and it favored those with families and children. Him and his buddy Duluth are out in the woods behind the barracks. They're drunk, and they're trying to find a Christmas tree to bring back to the fellas to cheer him up. They find a tree, and they go to chop it down. But the fire axes holding, like the metal iron part of the axe falls off, and he goes to try to find it. And while he's out there, he sees it, and he's, like, putting. Pulling the snow away from it, snowing out. And he realizes that it's not the axe. It's the rounded edge of a landmine. And then Duluth, who. They're both drunk, Duluth, drunk ass falls on top of him, pinning him onto the landmine. And Xavier rolls off, grabs his helmet, and he's hoping, like, with all the hope, that the shrapnel will take pity on him so he can go home, because he wants to go back to America to work in the library where he works.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, he's a library guy. Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He opens his eyes and sees that it's not a landmine after all, but it's the rounded edge of a boot. They dust off the snow and find a corpse of a man with a red armband. They see that the man has no face, only a black hole. And it's. His skull is caved in like a jack o lantern that's been outside too long. And there's a wooden box next to the man, and it has an iron padlock on it. Xavier uses the axe top, which he did find, to slam the padlock. And then he shines his flashlight into the box, and he has no idea what he's looking at. But as he picked it up, he felt that he didn't need to know because he felt a rush of warmth through his body. Terrifying, warm, and thrilling. Duluth is like, hey, man, what. What's going on? Your flashlight's blinking. Let me grab you a battery out of my rucksack. And he goes and gets a battery. And as he turns around, Xavier takes the ash and bashes Duluth on the head from behind and murders him.

[Lucy Meyer]

So it's a Nazi box. We're starting off with it, so I can't.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We're opening with a Nazi box, so.

[Lucy Meyer]

I can't hit the. No Nazi guarantee.

[Fabian Nightingale]

This is a. There's no Nazi guarantee on this Episod.

[Lucy Meyer]

There's no. No Nazi guarantee.

[Fabian Nightingale]

A double negative on that.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So that's how this Christmas book is starting.

[Lucy Meyer]

All right. We're starting with the end of World War II in Nazi Germany. Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Okay. But that's just the prologue.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay. Let's get back this. The story really starts in New York City, December 1, 1986.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

A great time.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

People were having. I was like 2 years old. I was living.

[Lucy Meyer]

Technology was right at the right level.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Teddy Rock spins all around.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep. No, there was no AI. Yeah. It was just good.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So our main character, her name is Lucy. They spell it L, U, S, S. I. I hate it.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's actually Lussie.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I'm saying Lucy. And there's.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm telling you, though, I'm saying if I was to read that. Okay. You know. Okay. Do you know the dog Lassie?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

How do you spell that?

[Fabian Nightingale]

L, A, S, S, I, E. Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lassie. A lot. Lassie. I hate that. I just want to call her Lucy.

[Lucy Meyer]

You can call her Lucy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I called her Lucy the whole book when I was reading it. So I'm not saying that name.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's fine. I'm telling you, to me, that reads as Lucy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, God. So lust call her Luigi. Lucy is walking up to the Blackwood Publishing building in the East Village in New York. The four story brownstone is black, solid black, and also has wrought iron bars on all the windows. Not just the street level, but all four levels up. And it looks like an crazy Victorian insane asylum. Right. And she loves it immediately. Goth aesthetic. She's in, right? She's like, this building is so cool. Across from the building is Thompson Square Park. And it's like, you know, inner city park right across the street, but it's been taken over by a homeless camp.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And through the tents, there's people standing around barrels with fires in them. And she sees this guy in the distance with a fedora, and he's staring at her.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. Immediately, no, I don't like a guy in a fedora.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't like a guy in a fedora staring at me.

[Lucy Meyer]

Especially if I'm a woman. Yeah, that's. It's terrible.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Ding, ding, ding.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, that's like every box right there.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Well, Nazi box.

[Lucy Meyer]

Nazi box.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She adjusts her stirrup leggings and her biggest scrunchie.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And then she hits the buzzer and a voice comes through and is like, do you have an appointment? And she's like, my name is Lucy Meyer and I have an interview today. And the lady hits open the. The door lock button. Like the buzzer.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she hears it click. And she shows up in the door, but it's still a whole closed. And the lady's like, you have to wait. And then six more locks get undone. It's like, click, click. And she, like, sees, like, the whirring of all these different locks. Like crazy.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so the door is also super heavy. So she's having trouble, like, opening. It's like this huge, almost iron door.

[Lucy Meyer]

Meanwhile, a man in a fedora is watching her.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, it's not good. So she gets the front desk, and she's like, I have an 11:30 with Mr. Blackwood. And the receptionist directs her to the fourth floor. She's like, going up. He's up there. She has to take the stairs because it's an old building.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The building is gorgeous inside. And the whole time Lucy's walking through, she's like, this is gorgina. Tarnished brass, marble, carved wood accents, warm lighting, like a vibe. And as she's walking through, she sees one of those, like, cork boards where, like, you have to put up the. The required safety regulations and the minimum wage posters. I think the minimum age might have been the same. And it was.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, it was. It was a little bit long. It was about a quarter long.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But she. She sees on those posters there's a handwritten note pinned to the cork board that says it has information about their upcoming Secret Santa.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, oh. So the staff is like, they're. They're chill with each other. They have a Secret Santa. Must be a good place to work, Right? So she gets to the top floor, and she opens the door, and there's another receptionist. This one's much older, has blue hair. Her name's Agnes. And she shows Lucy into Mr. Blackwood's office.

[Lucy Meyer]

Agnes is a name. We don't name people anymore. Is it?

[Fabian Nightingale]

No. But it would be cute to have a little tiny baby named Agnes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Little baby Aggie.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Aggie.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Maybe.

[Lucy Meyer]

I feel like Agnes, though. It has been just very. That's very much an old, like, I'm Agnes. I'm from Duluth. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't think they make people into Duluth anymore.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't.

[Lucy Meyer]

If they do, they only make Agnes'so.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She showed it to Mr. Blackwood's office.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she finds that he's sitting in, like, a huge leather chair, and he's got, like, one of those big mahogany desks that has the green leather top on it. And he is super old. Like, this dude is old. And he doesn't stand up to shake her hand. He motions for her, kind of, like, blandly, to take a seat.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's like, Ms. Meyer. And his voice is, like, nice, but kind of rude at the same time. And he's like, this won't take long. I can already tell you won't do. And she's like, I'm sorry. I think I misheard you. I've. And he's like, I've already interviewed 10 of you to make Agnes happy, But I'm afraid I've already chosen my new editor, and he's very qualified. No need to prolong the inevitable. You may go. And so she's shocked. She's pissed. She spent the last of her money to get her bangs trimmed, okay? So she's like, no, bangs are the thing on the front of your face.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know what a bang is. I know what a bang is. It's the 80s.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's the 80s.

[Lucy Meyer]

Why did you. You just gave me like. I was just listening.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Looked at me like, you look confused. I said, baby, he has no bang.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, I'm just listening. I'm just being nice and listening. That's it. This is. You told me it's a short book. And I'm just like, listen. I'm like, there's a lot of setup for a page or chapter one.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know. That's why I gotta. I gotta get y'all.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know. And I'm letting you go. I'm just go.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I just did enough, you know, things.

[Lucy Meyer]

Where, you know, I know what bangs are because I've asked you so many times whether I should do them. And every time you go, ew, no.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You look like Wendy from Wendy's.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, shut up. I would look like a babysitter says.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know what I'm saying.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm holding it. No. Now I'm mad.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay, you stay mad. That's where. When you're at your best, she says, Mr. Blackwood, forgive me, but you're making a big mistake. And now he's looking at her like. Like, who the fuck do you think you are, bitch? Right?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, when was the last time Blackwood Patterson books hit the New York Times best selling list? She's like, I know. It was August 1984, two years ago, and it was only there for one week before dropping an off. Now, I don't know about my competition, but during the last five years, I've had 13 New York Times bestsellers.

[Lucy Meyer]

Right.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he sizes, he sighs heavily. And he's like, let me see your resume. And he looks at it, but like he's not really looking at it. And he's like, oh, the Kitchen Demon, Satan's Lament. These are ugh, paperbacks. This is horror genre.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, I'm sorry, you don't want to make money? Yeah, get out of here. Oh, I'm sorry, we want to make money.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You know what I mean?

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm saying I'm gonna make money.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's like, why don't you just go back to your current publisher if you're so successful? And she's like, I can't. Harper acquired them and they cut half the editorial staff. And he says, what even makes you think you are remotely qualified for this position? And like, she didn't even want to apply here. She was like running out of options. And she knew that they were snooty and only published depressing fiction books about like middle aged dudes who jerk off and cry. And this is like her last resort. But because he's talking on her genre, she's like, pissed off, right?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's like, cat got your tongue, Ms. Meyer? And she's like, she's like, how dare you? Right? Horror is the hottest genre in the industry. Stephen King, Straub, Anne Rice are in a three way competition to see who can kill more trees. Like, okay, so like.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

What are you talking about?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. And yeah, talking in the 80s on horror. Like while Stephen King is right there.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Just coked out of his head too. Like Stephen King was doing like rock star level drugs to the point where he doesn't remember writing some of his most famous books.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's what cocaine does.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, but he still moved them fingies.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, we don't want to do her.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't do her. And he's like, I don't need to read that garbage to know it's garbage.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she like, why don't you read.

[Lucy Meyer]

This unemployment line then, bitch? And she, why don't you read a bankruptcy notice then, bitch? Like, listen, we all know I'm not into horror, but what sells with sells. Okay, what sells with sells? Number one thing you gotta say when you own a business like this is just be like, show me the numbers.

[Fabian Nightingale]

What's the.

[Lucy Meyer]

Let me see the analytics.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep. And so she's like, you wouldn't know a good book if it walked in your office and bit out your cold dead heart. Oh, right. She's like, fuck you, bitch. And so she gets Up. She's like scooting out of this leather chair because he's got that big ass chair.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And then she's sitting and she actually gets her foot caught on the area rug and she trips. She falls into the bookcase next to the desk.

[Lucy Meyer]

Like in like a. Like the Last girl in an 80s horror movie.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Exactly. So she trips and falls over a rug.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Great.

[Lucy Meyer]

Does she.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Rug has one job.

[Lucy Meyer]

Does she drop her keys? Do they slide across and she's reaching for her cleaves and her glasses at the same time.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, but in order to try to, like, temper her fall, she grabs at the bookshelf to try to like.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, and this is New York, so it's not attached to the wall because they aren't using safe earthquake standards.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Actually, it is. It's a input bookshelf. Come on, People are rich. This is an Victorian. This is rich. Okay. The. The bookshelf is in there.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But when she grabs the shelf, everything falls down. Right. So like all the books. Baba. And she. She sits up and she's humiliated. And. But of all the things that fell down, a small black box falls and she turns it over and, like, kind of squeals with delight when she sees what's inside. She's like, wow. And she picks up. It's a little leather doll. Like leather furry doll kind of thing. And she's like, I had one of these as a kid. It was my grandmother's. She brought it with her from Germany. They're supposed to ward off evil spirits. Right. And the doll had a torso made of an animal pelt, Gray black fur, a devil face carved out of wood, and two horns made of polished bone. Okay, so it looked like a little crazy Krampus.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's what I was picturing. I was picturing a little crazy cramp.

[Fabian Nightingale]

A little crazy cramps.

[Lucy Meyer]

I was picturing one. Yeah. It's definitely not one, though. That's like, you would want to buy. No, you know what I mean? Like, I bought you a couple of, like, cute little stuffed krampuses that we have around the house right now.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, they're cute, though.

[Lucy Meyer]

They're cute. They're very cute. They're like squishmallows and stuff. Yeah. But, like, what you're describing to me is a.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Is a nightmare, a horror animal pelt.

[Lucy Meyer]

Maybe bones, that's possibly found in a trench during World War I.

[Fabian Nightingale]

World War II.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know, but I'm saying it was made during World War I.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And the guy. And the guy. Blackstone. Is like warding off evil is one of its many unusual properties of the. It's called perkton. Perkton. P E R C H T E N. But when I looked up how they say it in German, it's like, perk 10. Perkton.

[Lucy Meyer]

P E R C H T E N T. Okay. Oh, you gotta say ladies.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she says, we used to call my grandma's one Perky.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. That's much nicer.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And I used to make him marry Skipper because Barbie had Ken, but Skipper had no one. So Skipper had to marry Perky.

[Lucy Meyer]

Perky. Okay, that works.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's like, the pair of ten are not toys. Blackwood says, ripping it out of her hands. He stuffed the doll back in a box and put it on a high shelf where she couldn't reach.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because she's short. And she starts apologizing about the mess and, like, you know, her bad attitude and his bad dude. And he's just like, leave.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, then we know I would have said it. Maybe your insurance company should talk to you about how you set up your rugs next time.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Oops, my back hurts.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, my neck.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, my neck.

[Lucy Meyer]

And then it turns into that scene in Fight Club where the guy just throwing himself through walls. You assaulted me.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Yeah. And he's just like, leave. And she notices that he's, like, trembling. And she thinks at first that he's just so mad at her that he's, like, shaking with rage. But he also starts taking really sharp breaths. And he's like, my pills, my pills. And so she, like, runs past him to his desk and opens his desk drawers real quick. And she sees an orange bottle of nitroglycerin. She pops the bottle open and she gets one of the pills in his mouth. And she's like, do you need a glass of water? And he's like, don't leave me alone. And she's like, I won't. I'll wait till the ambulance gets here. And he's like, don't leave me alone with it. And his eyes are filled with terror, and it's real crazy. And that's the end of that chapter.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, that's chapter one.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's chapter one.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The next day, Lucy decides she's going to go visit Mr. Blackwood at the hospital. And immediately I'm like, why?

[Lucy Meyer]

Because that's. Or else you wouldn't story.

[Fabian Nightingale]

There's no story. But at the same time, I'm not going to visit that guy.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, I mean, I would have had a. If I'm Just going to go visit him at the hospital. I would have written a passage of maybe he said something nice to you in the ambulance.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

You know what I mean? Or like, you had. She had to be there or something. Like, you have to have it, like some other exposition because, what, he was a total dick to her.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Insulted everything about her.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Then nearly died in front of her. And then you're gonna go visit him again? Like, no, you almost got what you want, which is for this man to be dead.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Whoa. So the next station.

[Lucy Meyer]

Where was his office? Sixth Avenue. In Manhattan?

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, I told you, it was in Soho. No, it's. It's.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm making a joke.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, I'm sorry. I.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's a Luigi joke because it was on 6th Avenue.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she goes. And as soon as she steps off the elevator to go to, like, his room, she's like, this is a mistake. What am I doing here? And she decides to get back on the. She turns around, she just, like, spins, and she's like, let me hit down. Let me not do it.

[Lucy Meyer]

I need to go trim my band banks again.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Let me. I gotta get out of here.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm wearing the wrong scrunchie.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she presses down, and as she's waiting for the elevator to come back, there's a man, kind of like, next to her in the peripheral, who puts out his cigarette on the ashtray that's on top of the trash can. Yeah, I wrote that down. Just so we could remember that we used to smoke in hospital hospitals.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And our trash cans had ashtrays on the top of them because you would just dump them.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know. The reason why. The reason why some trash cans have a lid is solely to put an ashtray in them.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's. I know. It's just. It's so crazy. And they were those big brown ones, and they had, like, pebble, like, gravel on the side. Remember they'd have, like, gravel on the side of them.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

God, we used to live at such a better time. And then what happened? Oh, did we get too woke? No, we just banned all the fun.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Band like smoking in hospitals. I know people who actually got wrong medical answers to testing.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because the smoke in the hospital was so thick that the laser that was supposed to be doing the analysis was picking up more actual tar and nicotine in the air than what it was supposed to be transmitted through.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Incredible. What a ton.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. And that was the year 2003.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So that guy that's standing in her peripheral, Right. He has a. He's yelling into his cellular phone. Size of a shoe. And he's like, I can't believe it. Yeah, Dad's dead. Had a heart attack. What am I supposed to do? I haven't read a book since college. Stop crying, mother. We gotta focus here. And so she turns because she's like, oh, I think I know that must be his son. And so she decides to follow him down the hall so she can give him consolences.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And the whole time I'm just picturing.

[Lucy Meyer]

This guy screaming into a shoebox sized phone. Ah, come on, Mom, Dad's dead. Yeah, like that's the thing too, because back in the day, anyone talking on a cell phone was an asshole.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

Now you have to have it on speaker.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And that if you're walking around talking with it on speaker, we're yapping. Oh no. Yeah, the guy that's on the phone, he sounds like a real asshole from like the outside perspective.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's the 80s and he has a cell phone.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, exactly. And he's like, can't you handle the funeral, mom? I have a lot of my plate right now.

[Lucy Meyer]

Cocaine. I have a lot of cocaine on my plate right now, mom.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So after he hangs up the phone, she's like, Mr. Blackwood, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for your loss. And he thinks that she's like a journalist or paparazzi and is like, get out of here. And she's like, no, no. My name's Lucy Meyer. I'm a book editor. I was at your father's office when he took ill. And his name's Digby. D I G B y Digby.

[Lucy Meyer]

This guy's name is Digby.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Digby.

[Lucy Meyer]

What was the publishing company again? Blackwood.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Blackwood and Patterson.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, Blackwood who? Where's Patterson?

[Fabian Nightingale]

I cannot tell you. It drove me nuts the whole time. I don't know who Patterson is.

[Lucy Meyer]

Baby. Patterson died or got forced out of the company.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because the thing Blackwood and Patterson like Blackwood as a also perfect horror publishing company name. It's called Blackwood. A new book from Blackwood.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, perfect.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So anyway, Digby, he's like, oh yeah, you're the one that was interviewing with him right before he had the heart attack.

[Lucy Meyer]

And why am I thinking Digby, what.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Am I saying is like, yeah, we had like a nice chat and he's like, a nice chat? That doesn't sound like my dad. And she's like, well, we talked about the books I had edited and they're pretty popular and he's like, what kind of books? And she tells them, and he's like, my dad like to break people, but you don't seem broken. And there was some weird, intense eye contact. And she thought about how, like, this guy is, like, kind of handsome if it wasn't for the bags under his eyes and the dried blood under his left nostril.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

From all the cocaine.

[Lucy Meyer]

Cocaine. He had a lot on his plate.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's what I'm saying.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Also, he smells a lot. Like, he puts way too much Calvin Klein Obsession cologne on. She says that repeatedly.

[Lucy Meyer]

She says repeatedly. Calvin Klein Obsession.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, Calvin Klein Obsession.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. Was that a very popular clone in the 80s?

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's incredibly popular.

[Lucy Meyer]

This feels. This starts to feel a little bit like. And then he pulled out his Sony Walkman. Remember those?

[Fabian Nightingale]

That sometimes that very much happened. There is a Walkman situation.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. No, but saying. No, it's like. But they have to say, like, the specific brand that is, like, the iconic 80s Vert. You know what I mean? Like, and then he went to his RCA television and turned the knob. You know what I like, it's just like, we're really trying to remind you it's the 80s. The other thing is, with horror in general, I know a lot of it, much like Stranger Things is being said in the 80s now.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

So there's less technology. So we don't have answers as easily. Because, again, if we're like, oh, yeah, it's a. It's a perk 10 doll. Oh, Siri, what's a perk 10 doll? Done. You know what I mean? Like, hey, there's this, like, there's a saying.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Siri ruined horror book.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm saying, Siri is listening to me talk right now.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, my God. The phone just turned on.

[Lucy Meyer]

The phone just turned on. I did not mean for that. I thought I had that turn.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's why I don't keep Siri on my phone. I deleted that bitch. Yeah. So he's like, also real quick. Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's just because I keep thinking about it. It's a perk 10.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Perk 10.

[Lucy Meyer]

A perk 10?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Percocet 10. Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's perk. Perk, Perk, Perks.

[Lucy Meyer]

The man's like, my perks.

[Fabian Nightingale]

My perks.

[Lucy Meyer]

I dropped my Perk dolls. What if he just had a little doll made out of Percocet?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Like, who? Well, that.

[Lucy Meyer]

And then he wouldn't work in books.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He'd be working in roofing as a roofing joke. Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Maybe carpentry.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So. And she's like, he's like, how is the interview, Bubba? And she's like, it was brutal. He was so awful and mean, and he didn't take me seriously because he didn't think that the books that I edited were good enough because they're all about werewolves and vampires and stuff and sexy werewolves. And he's like. He's like, listen, I'll hire you if you can find me the next Stephen King. This. I don't. My. This company. I need to find the next big thing. And if you can find me the next big Stephen King, I will, you know, give you a full salary. Ba. Ba. And so they. They have a deal that happens in the hospital where her job is to find the next Stephen King book by the end. By the end of the year. So she has 30 days.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

To find a really good book.

[Lucy Meyer]

You said it's very early December. Yeah, it's like literally, like right now.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, right now.

[Lucy Meyer]

Wait, that's. That. That does sound like a cokehead sons idea, though. Yeah, yeah. You go. You listen. You figure out by New Year's. You got it. New Years, though. At midnight, when that ball drops, so does your chances.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he says, we'll just pay you, I don't know, whatever you make at your current job, plus 10%. Just let the payroll director know, I'll introduce you to the staff on Monday. You have until the end of the month. And she's panicking because usually it takes 18 months to find these type of, like, contracts and books and do all the research.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But should. Same time, she's like, I need a job. So she's like, I'll see you at 9:00am yeah, what's.

[Lucy Meyer]

What's the worst thing to have?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Actually, he says, quote, I'll see you at 9am sharp or whenever publishing starts. So he's gonna be a great boss.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. I feel like. I feel like Digby the Nepo bit. I want to write it down. Dig me and I'll put a little dash. Nepo baby. Yeah, Nepo baby. Got it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Digby, is. Is. Is he important for the rest of the book?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, good.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Digby the Nepo baby.

[Lucy Meyer]

It does annoy me sometimes when we do book clubs and I write somebody's name down and then they're never brought up again.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Damn it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Damn. I'm sorry that you were wasting brain space.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, it's just. It's ink.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So the Monday comes. It's our first day. Also, I forgot she negotiated in that moment to be a senior editor, not just regular editor.

[Lucy Meyer]

Good for Her.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he also was like, I don't know what that difference is. Fine. And so she just got this senior editor every.

[Lucy Meyer]

Every time I've ever gotten a title.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

The only way I've ever gotten a title is just lying to somebody who has no idea. And I'm being like, yeah, I looked it up on LinkedIn. It's more important if I have director in front of.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, exactly. So she's like, I'm a senior editor, so she's getting dressed in.

[Lucy Meyer]

I was a facilities director. That meant I was a janitor.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, change. Like.

[Lucy Meyer]

But you know what? Put a facilities director on a resume.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Director.

[Lucy Meyer]

Also, real quick.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Hey, everybody listening. If you want to get a promotion, just add director to the end of something.

[Lucy Meyer]

Hey, listen to everyone listening. Just lie.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, just lie.

[Lucy Meyer]

Lie on everything.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Who cares?

[Lucy Meyer]

Unless. Listen, if there's an actual technical certification that you need to have, don't lie about that.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Don't you maybe get that?

[Lucy Meyer]

You know what I mean? But for the most part, if it's just like a job where your job is answering email, just lie.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, yeah, fuck that.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, it doesn't matter. It just fucking lie. And then here's the other thing I'm gonna tell you real quick about just the business world, because they couldn't do this in the 80s.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

Couldn't do this in the 80s. Google it. It's true.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Watch YouTube video.

[Lucy Meyer]

Just Google it. Watch YouTube video. And then feel like. And also just have the. Have confidence with whatever it is you're saying. Even if you're wrong. They won't say it Friday in the meeting.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Nobody will know.

[Lucy Meyer]

You'll know immediately the type, personality. If I'm in the room and I know you're lying, I might call you on it. But Mrs. P wouldn't. No, Mrs. B. Like, get that bag. We're all just here. We're all just trying to get through the day.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I've lied my way into quite a few jobs.

[Lucy Meyer]

Listen, so many.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Getting out of the restaurant industry was a. A couple lies deep.

[Lucy Meyer]

I just want to point. Listen, okay, I. I feel like some of y'all are sitting there listening to this with your imposter syndrome at your job, debating whether or not to ask your boss for a race raise or whether or not you should apply for that new job.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

I just want to throw this out there. I want you to. I want you to pull up on your computer that you're working on right now or on your phone that you're listening to us on, and I just want you to look at the resumes of everyone who is currently about to join the Trump administration. Why the fuck do you have imposter syndrome? You're not only are you smarter than them, you're a better person. Yeah, I. Listen, we're gonna. We're pivoting right now from a book club episode. This is now self help. You are gonna actualize yourself right now. You are going to take the. You're going to grab the horns of capitalism and you're going to ride that bear right up Wall street until you yourself have millions of dollars.

[Fabian Nightingale]

What are you going to do with.

[Lucy Meyer]

Those millions of dollars? I don't give a shit. Whatever you want.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You want to help people, Invest in your community.

[Lucy Meyer]

Whatever. Invest in your community. Get fucking surgery.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't give a fuck.

[Lucy Meyer]

All right? But I feel it. I can feel it coming through right now. The recording on the opposite end of this that you yourself are feeling, that you cannot lie and call yourself a senior editor. You can. You should. And in fact, somebody with less experience than you is going to step in and they're going to get a role that is above yours.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And the only reason why is because they. They know someone. Somebody who else works at the company or they happen to be there while somebody with your boss knew exactly how to pour a mixed drink at the right time.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Google a company that went out of business. You work that name as a reference.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Make up a title. Get your best friend's phone number on there as your director.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Bing bang, boom. You used to do job A's bz.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yes.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And there they're gonna be a reference. And they can't check because that company went out of business. HR doesn't exist anymore.

[Lucy Meyer]

And also. Also sprinkle in there. I'm not gonna give you the promo code, but you can look into it. You can look into certain companies, like ones that I partnered with, like delete me. And you can have some of your background information removed from some of these companies.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, we're not gonna do that.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm not gonna do a there. But just letting you know this is all possible.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Let's get back to the book, because.

[Lucy Meyer]

Back home, real quick, Real quick. Because back in the 80s, we didn't have this much goddamn paperwork. People used to just move.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

When they up in a town, they could move. Now it follows you around the world.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Credit reports at this point, they didn't.

[Lucy Meyer]

Show up until 1987.

[Fabian Nightingale]

See, one year, this person is living in a life without a credit report.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yes. Ugh. The goals she has bangs And a scrunchie.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. And leggings.

[Lucy Meyer]

No credit report.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Living. Monday comes, she's wearing her. Her best little outfit. She's wearing all dark colors because she's like, everybody's gonna be in mourning, so I don't want to be too much. She doesn't aquanet up her bang. She wears them kind of down. So she's kind of like a little morose. Right. And she looks in the mirror. She's leaving and she looks really tired because she didn't sleep a wink. She was up all night making her grandmother stolen, which is a fruitcake. She didn't want to go to the all staff meeting empty handed. She wanted to make a good impression.

[Lucy Meyer]

So she brings fruitcake.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she brought a fruitcake.

[Lucy Meyer]

Which, like, famously, in the 80s, people used to make fun of.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's just like I.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But it's also a Christmas thing.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, I understand.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And a German Christmas thing.

[Lucy Meyer]

I've never actually had fruitcake because so many. Like Pee Wee's Playhouse, there was a Muppets Christmas special. All these different things Used to talk so much on fruitcake.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And we just didn't have it in my family, so I just always assume I've had it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's pretty good. It's.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's just cake with the fruits in it, right?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Sometimes they're candied fruits, like the candied cherries or orange.

[Lucy Meyer]

I don't like that.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Sometimes there's raisins. It really depends. It just tastes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Stop putting raisins and stuff.

[Fabian Nightingale]

People like raisins, you know.

[Lucy Meyer]

Stop putting it in stuff. I like raisins.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I think the reason that people used to talk shit is ageism because older people like fruitcake. And they were like, old people are lame. That's like very 80s, you know?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. No, that's very true. We were twisting in the worlds of the Pepsi generation.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Like, old people don't get it. They're not cool. And I'm like, it's just cake.

[Lucy Meyer]

But remember, this is also during a time when the boomers were in their 30s and slowly starting to take over the world. So they were trying their back on all traditions.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Up every ladder I can find. Yep. So she wanted to make a good impression on the editor in chief. Her name is Mary Beth Wilderson. However, everyone in the industry, the publishing industry, calls her the Raven because she has a reputation for being one of the hardest nose editors in the business.

[Lucy Meyer]

The Raven.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The Raven. Okay. The idea to make the traditional Stalin bread have popped into her head after she saw the Perk did in Mr. Blackwood's office. So like she just thought about her grandma and she had all these nice warm feelings and she's like, you know what? This feels kismet. I'm gonna make this cake. Because that's what my grandma used to do. However, she had forgotten that this cake is a multi day recipe and she attempted to cram it all into one day. And so by the time she pulled the loaf out of the oven, it was four in the morning.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she's going into her first day. No sleep with a cake that might not be good. That might not be good. Might not be set properly. She's walking to the Blackwood Publishing building.

[Lucy Meyer]

You know, it sounds like to me, but it sounds like she should have listened to an episode of Vibing out with the Food, which you can Hear on Friday, December 20, it won't be about fruitcakes, but it will be about a holiday themed thing and why you need to take the time.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Take time.

[Lucy Meyer]

Why you need to take the time. Take time and actually follow the instructions.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Even if some of the instructions aren't there. But I'm gonna talk to you about that later. Yeah. So she, she gets there, she gets introduced to the front receptionist again. This time the lady's giving her a tour of the building, Right?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because she's new hire and they stop at the break room. She puts the fruitcake in the fridge and then they go down the hall where there's a door covered in comics and the reception is like, this is the art department. If this door is closed, it means Stanley doesn't want to be disturbed. Leave him alone. Eventually they make it to the door of her new office, which is old and smelly and just has the basics like a desk, a chair, a bookshelf. The end. Yeah. Her office has a nice view of the park across the street where all of the homeless people are. And she turns to ask Gail where the ladies room is. Her name's Gail. Where the ladies room is. But she's gone. Yeah. So she decides she's gonna find out where the company keeps their bathroom and their submissions. And so she gets started working and I think this is where we take a break.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's a good place to take a break. I will say just real quick for everybody out there who's a Little Bit Younger, 1986 in New York was a very different time.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

So when she's saying about like looking out of the park and then it's like seeing all the homeless people and all that different Stuff. This is the height of Reagan's America. This is also during a time of big transition for all of the major urban areas. You had a lot of white flight in the late 60s and the 70s where everyone moved to the suburbs and the city centers were abandoned. Especially with New York. You don't see the kind of revitalization in New York until the late 90s under Giuliani.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And there's a lot of changes in that if you want a good movie. Actually I always like to point to like what the 80s were like actually. Is batteries not included.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, absolutely. I was going to say batteries just.

[Lucy Meyer]

Like those rundown type of buildings and all those different things. But like when I think of New York in the 80s, at least there's that, that's the Wall street side of it. But there's another side of it of like barrel fires where they have a big metal barrel with holes poked in it and just guys just standing over it with their hands.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

That they lose. The Hooverville's are the 30s.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, but I'm saying it's like the same idea.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, it's kind of the same parks. Yeah, but there's that. But it's also 1986 too, which is also the beginning of the crack epidemic.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

So there's like a little bit of all this stuff being sprinkled in right there. A little bit of crack.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Just a little.

[Lucy Meyer]

So with that, now we remind you about a little bit of crack. If you're on Patreon, you're not going to hear anything. But if you aren't, we're going to tell you about one of our sponsors, AT T Mobile.

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[Lucy Meyer]

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[Fabian Nightingale]

So we're back with crack. No, I'm just kidding. So she goes. She goes to this walking down the hall, and she sees an office with some guys in it. She goes in. She introduced herself, some guy. His name's Joe. They call him Sloppy Joe. We learned. This is very funny. We learned that he left a comma out of a novel in 1963, and that's why he gets called Sloppy Joe, because he made one mistake.

[Lucy Meyer]

That sounds about right. That said, I know exactly the type of person this is. He's made one mistake his entire life make. Oh, that's another thing. This is. We're gonna use this whole episode for life advice. Make mistakes regularly.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And. And here's the thing. You apologize for them. Fine, Whatever. But, like, sprinkle out a few. Because if you're spotless and you make one mistake again, you're defined by that one.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. You make a lot of mistakes. People are just like this. She's just who she is, man.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm looking around right now. When you look at somebody like our incoming president, and you're looking around, you're like, how does he survive all these scandals, all these horrible things? I'll tell you how. There's too many of them. Nobody can pick one.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And it's. That's the thing. It's the reason why you'll.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So I'm trying to make too many mistakes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Too many tabs.

[Lucy Meyer]

Too many tabs. Too many mistakes.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So there's this thing in publishing called a slush pile. A slush pile is when people just kind of cold call, but with books and manuscripts.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

They just send in their manuscript to a publisher and they hope that someone reads it.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And usually interns end up doing that, reading through, seeing if anything's good.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. And so that's how you get a lot of manifestos.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So she.

[Lucy Meyer]

This was only 262 words.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's like, hey, Joe, number one, where's the bathroom? Number two, where is the slush pile? Because she needs to find a manuscript in 30 days or less.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she wants to get down to wherever it is. Right. And so he's like, oh, it's the slush piles in the basement, but nobody reads those. And I don't think anybody's been down there since we had an intern and that was so long ago, but they're piling up in the basement. And he's like, if you go down there, bring a flashlight because it's real spooky down there. And so she, you know, finds the bathroom and then she goes downstairs, she heads down the stairs because again, everything is stairs based until you get to the first floor and then there's like a service elevator, but it's broken. So she's like another set of stairs. Gotcha. So she goes down there. The stairs are wonky, almost broken. A super dark and weird. There's like one overhead light with a little change thing. You know the one?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, I know.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so she gets.

[Lucy Meyer]

We have it in our basement.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So she gets down there where I'm looking for Jill Stein or Stanley Tucci or Stanley. And so she. She turns a little light on and there's. The whole room is kind of filled with these 10 by 10 cages. Kind of like when you live in an apartment complex and you get those little storage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, those things.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So the whole basement is full of those cages that have like the chain link fences on each side.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And they're all brimming from floor to ceiling with manuscripts. They're full stocked and so she.

[Lucy Meyer]

Some of them have to be rotted.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Moldy, gross. Full of bugs.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Water.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

City, basement, water.

[Lucy Meyer]

Honestly, that's also one of those situations too where you walk in there, you immediately have to poop.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, just like when you walk into Borders, you're like, oh, I got a poop, I got a boop.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Did you say Borders?

[Lucy Meyer]

Sorry. Barnes and Noble.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I was like, borders?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, listen, it's. I work.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Library's got a nice bedroom.

[Lucy Meyer]

You know what's weird is I don't ever get that in the library.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Really?

[Lucy Meyer]

Library. I don't get it. But when I walk into Barnes and Noble, it's always like within 10 minutes of being in Barnes and Noble, I'm like, I got a shit. I don't know what it is, Maybe it's the mix of the coffee.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You got to go to that Marshalls home goods or a bookstore.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Get some stuff moving.

[Lucy Meyer]

Well, you know, it's funny. It's because I think Barnes and Noble, the one by us, they put the bat. You have to go through the kids section into the bathroom. And I always feel so bad because I'm just, like. Just tooting up a kid section.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

I was, like, walking through and I'm.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Just like, I'm going to.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm just over here.

[Fabian Nightingale]

This whole side of the building, I.

[Lucy Meyer]

Just cropped up, dusted so many Legos, just trying to get to the poop town.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she walks into one of the cages to start digging through manuscripts.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And as soon as she lets the door swing closed, it, like, slams behind her sharply, like it's springed.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. She starts reading through and finds a few horror manuscripts. And she puts them aside, and she quickly realizes she has, like, a decent sized pile, but she's not gonna be able to carry them up the rickety steps.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she's like, I guess I'm just gonna grab the ones I can carry and head to the stairs. Right. And as she's, like, turning around in the cage, the lights go out in the basement. And she didn't bring a flashlight. Like, Sloppy Joe told her God looks at Sloppy Joe. When sloppy Joe tells you to do something, you do it. You take a suggestion. So she yells and she's like, I'm down here, right? No response. She's like, please turn the lights back on. No response. And she's like, oh, they must be, like, hazing me. Like, they know I'm down here. They're trying to scare the new girl, blah, blah. And so she's. Her eyes adjust to the darkness because there's always, like, a little window. There's a window from the basement for the outside to the sidewalk. So there's a little bit of light.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. It's got. It has those weird, like, bar room glass.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because it's. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she's like, calming herself down by calming, counting backwards and letting her eyes adjust. And she's trying to open the cage door, but it's stuck. It won't open. And the thing is, she's, like, feeling around and there's no lock. Like, there's no reason it should be stuck. There's no lock, there's no latch, nothing. And as she's like, she's starting to panic a little because she can't get out of the Cage. She's in the dark and she starts hearing a whispering voice. And it sounds like it's kind of like taking up the whole room. And it's just saying one word. Hunger. Hunger. She just keeps hearing the word hunger. Hunger. Hunger. And so she starts like kind of yelling out because she thinks there's someone at the top of the stairs to turn the light out. And she's like, are you hungry? I don't understand who's hungry? And then she hears the sound of the door being ripped off the cage right next to her. So the, the other cage, the wooden cage door just gets ripped off and flies across the room. And to her horror, there's a glowing white figure hovering mid air in the cage next next to her, Right? And she screams so loud. And as she. In that moment where she screams so loud, the lights come back on and she like panics and she kicks the door and the cage door splinters and she falls forward. And as she's laying on the ground, she looks over where that ghost was and it's actually just like a Halloween ghost that you put in your front yard. Like one of those. It's just like on a, a table kind of. So it's like propped up.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But it's just a Halloween decoration that they have.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so it scared her. And Digby, real quick timeout.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because again, this is why you said it in the 80s.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because if it was set today, like, like hold on. Flashlight.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

You just hold up your phone and just go flashlight.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Or you just push the button. Like I always have a flashlight. The other day I was doing something in our basement.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And I actually didn't have my phone with me because I left it upstairs. I was using the flashlight upstairs to look at something.

[Fabian Nightingale]

There you go.

[Lucy Meyer]

Before it'll go back down to the basement to get the other side.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And I'm like down there. I was like, oh, fuck. I was like, this is the one time my life I haven't had a flashlight on me.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

But now like everyone, we carry the.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Internet and flashlights and cameras with us. It's insane.

[Lucy Meyer]

We all are just marching around with the answer to every horror movie.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So Digby's coming down the stairs and like around, and he's like on his phone again. He's like, listen, I gotta call you back. And he looks at Lucy and the broken door and the paper everywhere and he's like, so how's your first day going? Right. We find out that Digby fired Agnes. That was the secretary for his dad. And Lucy is shocked because she seemed like the kind of lady who like knew everything about a company. So like you wouldn't get rid of her because she knows where all the bodies are?

[Lucy Meyer]

Not immediately, no.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And Digby saw the look on her face of like, why would you fire her? And he's like, don't worry, my father set her up for life. She'll live out the rest of her life in a palatial Mesquipa estate, Massapequa Mesopequest living far better than the rest of us. And she's like, okay, that's weird thing to say. So she just kind of like nods and like.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because my dad was having an affair with her.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, basically. And so she runs upstairs, she gets outstairs and she sees some ladies entering the conference room and she checks her watch and it's 11 on the dot. And she needs to get to that all staff meeting where she's going to get introduced to everybody. And so because she. She realizes she was in the basement for an hour and she doesn't realize like how that was a whole hour she was down there.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But she doesn't have time to go get the fruitcake out of the fridge. Okay. And this is a big problem. But so she heads over to the conference room and at the head of the table is this striking woman who has a blonde buzz cut. It's the Raven. Yeah, the boss. Yeah, boss lady, editor in chief. And she's looking around the staff and they're definitely a cast of characters. Like the way they're described is very like Tim Burton Y like they're all very detailed characters. The way they look and dress.

[Lucy Meyer]

I picture There's Deep Space Nine episode where they are set in the 60s where they're working for a sci fi magazine. I'm kind of picturing that. Yeah, that's kind of where like everyone has their different thing like, oh, this one over here does sci fi. This one over here does this. And that's the art guy. And this is this thing. And so very. Yeah, much that cast of character characters.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So everyone in the room is super quiet. They're all just staring at her.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because they're like, who the are you? They don't know that.

[Lucy Meyer]

Like our boss died.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, our boss died and you showed up and who hired you? The. The son, the Nepo baby. Yeah, he didn't tell us. Did you interview like whatever. And so they're all staring at her and so she's just like, hi, I'm Lucy. And the somebody from across the room's like, hey, you got a spider in your hair. And so she kind of like flips out, flips her hair over, and she has, like, a big daddy long leg that was in her hair from the basement.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, I do horror books. I covered in spiders.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's very funny on brand.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. So I hope in my mouth that all my teeth fell out.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's a bad, bad dream. Yeah. So while she's like, her hair flipped over to get rid of spider outright, she sees a pencil on the floor, a mechanical pencil. So she grabs it and she's like, didn't someone drop this? And the man sitting next to her snatched out of her hand without saying anything. And she's like, okay, then. Anyway, my name is Lucy, and I'm the new senior editor. And everyone glances nervously from her to the Raven.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And they're like. Because we all know the Raven had nothing to do about this, right? She's like, how did this get senior editor? Who is she?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so they're like, we're gonna go around the room and introduce everybody because it's like a welcome meeting. Hate that.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

What's one fun fact about you type of shit?

[Lucy Meyer]

Icebreakers.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Icebreakers. So they all go around and she.

[Lucy Meyer]

Realizes, my fun fact is, I hate icebreakers.

[Fabian Nightingale]

If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?

[Lucy Meyer]

Fox.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, yeah. That's true. Sneaky.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, because I like to jump at things like this, that's why. No, I always just say fox just because of the orange. Orange. Orange, yeah. That's just the easy one. And then people go, oh, because he's sly. And I'm like, no, not really. I'm really not that sly. I mean, I would say, don't think about it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We gotta. We gotta keep going.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, but would it be a bird?

[Fabian Nightingale]

You would be a bird. You love birds.

[AT&T Representative]

I do.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Like, you'd be a tufty boy.

[Lucy Meyer]

I would be a tufty boy. A titmouse.

[Fabian Nightingale]

A titmouse.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's just fun to say.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So the get cut up by as they go. As they go around the room, she realizes she's the only person with a senior title, right? So, like, she jumped ahead of everybody in the room other than the editor in chief. You know what I mean? So the guy next to her who grabbed the pencil, his name is Stanley. He's the art director.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, okay. That makes sense.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And our guys are weird.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, they can be definitely weird because they're just, like, looking around. Everyone else just get shows up and they give Them like, I need this by tomorrow. It's like, you need a what?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So this actually is exactly what happens. They're passing around, they're all having a discussion about one of the books that's going out.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And Stanley has prepared some art for it for the COVID And it's going around. They're all talking about all the editors and they're. And the boss, the Raven's like, Lucy, what do you think? In like a really snotty tone. And she looks at it and she's like, oh. Like, I think like this maybe like, is a picture of a wheelbarrow. And she's like, maybe like some dirt on it so it looks like it's been used. Or like a skull in the dirt in the wheelbarrow. Because it's a book about like murder or something. And they're like, stanley, go get this done, Bubba. And like, they send Stanley out to go make the adjustments. Right? Because like, they all kind of like, no, that's actually kind of a good idea. And like, Raven's pissed, clearly that it is like a really good idea.

[Lucy Meyer]

But also it's one of those things again. It's, it's. It's that they have. They have such terrible timelines to get like this done. I've been thinking, actually, ever since I joined Blue Sky, I actually found a bunch of like sci fi and fantasy artists who did books in the 80s.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh.

[Lucy Meyer]

And like, you always forget because you see like the novels and again, it would seem as paperbacks.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

These like beautiful art on them. But like, these are like, like four by eight massive hand paintings.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

But they're like, yeah, this thing and whatever. And I want some book, they pay me like 50 bucks. What the fuck? I mean, we have the Wyeth Museum near us where it's again, for like Treasure Island.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

The paintings are massive. And they had to be so that way they could reprint them. That was how you could match the pixelation. It's so weird. So, yeah, when I said that they're weird, I don't mean that they're weird because of the like, because of compared to the timelines. Everyone else is dealing with respect art.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And we want more artists to get paid for their work.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yes. And that's why we think that AI should be shot out of a can.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Like, so we go to the next chapter. Next chapter opens. Guess where we are? At the shopping mall under the World Trade Center.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, no. Wow. No.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oopsie daisy.

[Lucy Meyer]

Whoa. That'll be a bad place in about 15 years.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's super Christmassy down there. She isn't there to shop, though. She's going to a bookstore to meet one of her friends who's an author of a. Of books from her previous job. His name is Fabian Nightingale.

[Lucy Meyer]

Do I need to write this down?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yes, Fabian Nightingale. It's a great name.

[Lucy Meyer]

It is a great name, but it's very on the nail on the nose.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She goes to see him, he's having a book signing at the bookstore down there. That's total bust.

[Lucy Meyer]

I've never met anyone with the last name Nightingale. I just want to throw that out there. I've heard of people with last name Nightingale. I've never met one, and I feel like I've been.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I think it's a last name you have to choose. You have to pay to have that last name. So you can change it to that.

[Lucy Meyer]

You think so?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

What if I change my last name to Nightingale then? Okay, then you'd be Mrs. Nightingale.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That'd be crazy.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know. I feel pretentious already. So we'd have the baby having her son's last name be night again. Like, what the.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We don't want him to get bullied that bad.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, no, but he'll be. His first name would be Fabian.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, we're going full.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, listen, I'm going full. Just full Fabian Nightingale.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she tells him about her new job and he's like, oh, you got to be careful. I heard that guy that runs that place, Xavier, is a bit too flirty with the gals that work there. And there's a lot of weird rumors about what happens in that building. I'm senior editor, and we find out in this whole thing that Fabian is British and he's very flamboyant and they hang out and he gives her. He's like, hey, can I give you a copy of my new manuscript that I'm working on to read? And she's like, yeah. He's like, it's gonna be my masterpiece. Anyway, they end up getting really drunk together on absence.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Really drunk. Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

But it's the 80s, so it's not good absinthe.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so the next day, she's heading back to work on the Staten island ferry. Hungover as.

[Lucy Meyer]

Wait, so she lives in Staten Island?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, and she's commuting.

[Lucy Meyer]

She got hammered into the World Trade center and then got on a ferry to go to Staten Island.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, she's in her 20s, baby. You can do that when you're young, by the way.

[Lucy Meyer]

I just really want to point out if she's in her 20s. She is a boomer.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

This is a young boomer. That's the thing we want to keep in mind. Everything set in the 80s. When you're seeing somebody who's in, like, their 20s or 30s and it's set in the 80s, you're looking at a boomer.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

But they're just like me. Are they or are they a boomer?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Gift this podcast to a boomer, you know? Yeah. She's. She's happy that she's going into work with. She's not happy to go to work today because she's had a hungover, but she knows that today's a Christmas party, so it won't be that bad.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because everybody knows on the day of the holiday party at work, nothing gets done. You don't get anything done. I'm not answering one email or one phone call. Today's the Christmas party. It starts at 2pm I'm not doing shit till then.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she's like, whatever. She gets to her office, and the door is open to crack, and she's like, I definitely locked my door last night. And she goes inside, and there's a young man named Cal, and he's her new intern. And he's like this super preppy young guy, and he's got his feet up on her desk, and she admonishes him immediately. And she's like, this is in a dorm room. Get your feet off my desk. And she's like, how long have you been here? And he's like, I've been here for, like, an hour. I was just reading through some books on your shelves. And she looks at him, and she looks at the pile of manuscripts on her desk, and she's like, why wouldn't you read those? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, if you're a job or you're interned, why would you read my books? You read the manuscripts. That's your job. Yeah, but so immediately she's just kind of like, ugh, like, little. You know, she already hates him. Little dummy.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, but is he handsome?

[Fabian Nightingale]

You know what? We don't. I don't remember if he's handsome or not. I didn't write it down, so he must not have been okay. And so she's like, listen, you got to start reading through these manuscripts. And then once we get through some of these together, I'll have you go down the basement to bring more up. She's like, I'm delegating that.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she turns around to, like, do something, and she turns Back. And his feet are back up on her desk while he's reading a manuscript. And so she rolls up a manuscript, and she swats it at his leg and hits him on the shin. And he, like, yelps and he's like. She's like, oh, stop being a baby. It's not like I broke it, but if you do it again, I might. Right? And we find out that Digby had hired this guy from the film program at City College. And so he isn't even a book kid. Like, he's not a guy who wants to be in publishing. He's just a guy who needs an internship.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So, like, he doesn't.

[Lucy Meyer]

A Nepo baby's Nepo baby.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Exactly.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So then she's sitting there talking.

[Lucy Meyer]

Business is going to last a long time.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He's super good at business.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So they're sitting there, and all of a sudden, she smells something really gross. And she looks on the floor, and she had stepped in a pile of poop that was on the floor in her office. There's poop in the floor?

[Lucy Meyer]

Why is there poop on the floor?

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't know. So she goes to the bathroom to clean the poop off her shoe. And while she's in the bathroom, the Raven, the boss lady, comes in, looks at her, gives her a dirty look, goes into one of the stalls, closes the door, lights a spliff, and just starts smoking pot with the door closed.

[Lucy Meyer]

Fuck, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I was like, how are you framing this lady as the bad guy?

[Lucy Meyer]

Raven is cool.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Raven is the coolest ye. So we find out that Raven's talking to her through the door like, what are you doing? Oh, you got shit on your shoes. Blah. Like, whatever. But the whole time, she's just in the door, like, so she's not sharing this.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's like, I'm taking a moment for myself before fucking ripping this fucking joint.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Okay. Supposed to go on a walk with your cousin for that, baby.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She said I'm a boss.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Like, she could do it in her office, stunting on this girl.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. So I'm gonna do some narcotics in front of you in 1986. So I can go to prison for 10 years for this.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But we do find out that the Raven didn't know that Rigby hired a new intern. So she's again, Lisa, like, why are you hiring but not telling me? The editor in chief is supposed to be privy to all this stuff, right? So she's pissed. Immediately she finds out, yeah. Next chapter, baby, it's the office Christmas Party. Let's fucking go.

[Lucy Meyer]

Let's photocopy our butt.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Talking about Scrooge, one of the best Christmas movies all time.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so she goes to the. What's it called? Where we eat our lunch.

[Lucy Meyer]

The little cafeteria.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The little. Yeah, the cafeteria area. To get the fruitcake out of the fridge. Yeah. Just go in the break room. And she opens the fridge to get the fruitcake. It's gone. Somebody stole her fruitcake. And she was like, I'm gonna bring it to this party, but someone stole it. Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you something.

[Lucy Meyer]

The raven got high and ate the cake.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No. Maybe. But no. When they had that all staff meeting.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

They like made an announcement that was like, oh, don't forget to put the gifts under the tree for the Secret Santa. And Lucy raised her hand, was like, hey, like, did you already like pick out names? And they're like, yeah, we picked about two weeks ago and your name wasn't on the list. And then one of the ladies was like, actually, there is a gift under the tree that says Lucy on it. And she was like, wait, what? So like there is a gift for her under the tree that nobody knows where it came from.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she assumes is a gag gift because again, the lights in the basement, people are like leaving poop in her office. So she's like, these people are with me. It's probably some up. So the party starts and it's basically like any office party where you don't know anyone. She's like in the corner to someone to talk to. Nobody wants to talk to her. Yeah, they're all getting a little drunk though. They're getting seriously 80s and the author's drunk and they go around the whole room and they're doing the Secret Santa and she's last. They're like, you have to be last because you're the newest person.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Right. And also we don't give you a gift. But she opens. Digby, by the way, is sitting with her because she's the only person that she knows. And also the whole entire staff, it doesn't show up till the end. But the whole staff thinks she's sleeping with him.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because how else did she get this job?

[Lucy Meyer]

I would assume. I'm just. Listen, I would have just always assumed that of just like this person shows up.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

With the. The boss's Nepo son, I would assume. Just sleeping. But I just like that there's some sort of relationship there.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

There's something extracurricular.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. How did you guys become fast Friends.

[Lucy Meyer]

I would assume they were either coke buddies or that they were cuddle buddies or that she's blackmailing him. That's another option.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Should have done that one. So what am I saying? So he's sitting next to her, and she. They're like, oh, it's your turn. And she opens this. This big box. Well, not too big, but as a green and wrap with a big bow inside on outside. And she opens it up, and she looks inside, and there's the paraket doll in there in the box from Mr. Blackwell's office. And Digby, who's sitting next to her, is looking inside the box, and he's like, what is that thing? Like, the. Is that. And she was like, don't you recognize it? It was your father.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's like, I have never seen that thing before. That looks fucking gross.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And everyone in the room is staring at her like, what the fuck is in there? And she's like, oh, it's just an empty box, you guys. Nice prank. Next time, Santa should give me at least some coal. Right. Because she doesn't even give them the thrill of having, like, bullied her. So she just says, the box is empty. Right.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's good.

[Fabian Nightingale]

There's an awkward laugh, and everybody just goes back to drinking because nobody gives a fuck.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And Lucy's like, this is so high school. Who the fuck is trying to bully me? Why are they giving me this weird doll?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Now I got three hours to get hammered.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. And. But the thing is, she's like, maybe this little dude can ward off these bad spirits that are trying to bully me.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay. And she's like. She starts, like, talking to the doll. She's like, you'll help me out, little Perky. Because she leaves, she decides to name it Perky. She goes to her office with it because she wants to get away from these people.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. She already had one named Perky, though.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know. She just names it Perky again.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's. There's a whole thing about how, like, every time she has a pet, she just names it the same thing.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, really?

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's had, like, seven hamsters, and they all had the same name.

[Lucy Meyer]

I. Okay, I get that. I do get that. Solely because we're bad at titles.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Okay. Except for asking for titles when you want a promotion or a raise. Get that title, baby.

[Lucy Meyer]

Get that title, baby.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she's in her office, and she, like, squeezes the doll's tummy a little bit.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And it crunches super weird. Like, it's full of crunchy bugs or something. And so it freaks her out and she drops it and then she picks it back up and she touches the stomach again and squishy like it's full of cotton. And she's like, this is weird. I don't like that. So she puts it up on the bookshelf and is like.

[Lucy Meyer]

Like the world's most menacing elf on the shelf.

[Fabian Nightingale]

This elf in the shelf is really starting some trouble.

[Lucy Meyer]

Perky on a searchie. What?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Perky on a turkey. And at that moment, someone knocks on her door and it like startles her.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, I'm not here. And in pops Fabian.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, Fabian.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Dressed in a big fur coat with big coiffed hair, looking like Elton John.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, Right.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Looking great.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because he's like, I'm gay and British. Yes, okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Exactly. Yeah. And she's like, what are you doing here? And he's like, you invited me last night.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's like, I don't remember because of the absence.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, also, I brought my new manuscript to read. It's called Transylvanian Dirt, and I swear to God, Transylvanian dirt. And she flips through the prologue and it's set in Nazi Germany. And she's like, who would do that? And that's very funny because this book's prologue was set in Nazi Germany.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's like, it's a vampire.

[Lucy Meyer]

We love a self referential king.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, it's a van. He's like, it's a vampire novel and vampires are going to be the next big thing.

[Lucy Meyer]

Well, he's not wrong.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He's not wrong.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, he's not wrong.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he spots the weird doll on the shelf immediately because again, she doesn't have anything on the shelf except for this weird doll. Like two books.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's like, the is that. And she's like, it was my secret Santa gift. It's called a perk. And Fabian is looking around her office and like admiring the view and like what he's seeing in the park. And he notices the iron window grates. And he's like, you know, iron is often used to keep evil spirits at bay. What do you think this old man was afraid of if he needed to have a doll to ward off evil spirits? And iron bars on the windows. Yeah, right. This guy is really scared of something. Anyway, Fabian leaves. I'm pretty sure he spikes the punch before he goes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Good for him.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Just partying up. And she is like, where the hell is my Intern.

[Lucy Meyer]

She didn't so funny, by the way. Spiking punch was such. It wasn't like, socially acceptable, but it was just like a thing that we all were like, especially immediate. They're like, yeah, it's fine. It happens. It's a thing that happens at parties is like, somebody will talk something in the punch. And I'm like, you're drugging people.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Now we're like, very much like, you're a monster.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, don't.

[Lucy Meyer]

But back then, it was like a fun little thing that they would know.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, we got you drunk.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, no. We put some LSD in the punch. And now you think Christmas is real.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh. So she goes to find Fabian. He was never at the party. And so she's like, I wonder if you went to the basement to get more manuscripts for me. And so she's like, I'll go down and check. And she gets a flashlight this time.

[Lucy Meyer]

Hey, we're learning.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And heads down to the basement to see if Cal's there. Okay. When she goes down there, she hears some, like, really weird noises.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, like.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Like just like really weird noises.

[Lucy Meyer]

Squelching?

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, but like, Like a whimpering. And she comes across with her flashlight. There's Digby sitting on the floor, drunk and crying.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's holding some green and white balance sheets, and he's crying that the company hasn't turned a profit in 40 years. And how could his father have done this to him? He willed this company to me as a droid, as an evil man. He should have left this to his tramp, Agnes. The hate for Agnes is eternal with Ricky. Digby. Digby.

[Lucy Meyer]

Now you keep saying Rigby.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know. I mean, it's a weird name. Okay, so. But yeah, she finds him down there drunk and crying, and he, like, passes out and she's like, let him sleep it off. It's his building. He owns it. He'll be fine. You know, just leave him in the basement.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she hears another noise, and this one also sounds like an animal in pain. And she follows this noise and ends up at one of the cages full of the manuscripts. And there's a huge pile of manuscripts, but it's like toppled over, kind of like an avalanche, like that slide. And in the middle is a blue loafer sticking out. Dun, dun, dun. Should we take a break?

[Lucy Meyer]

We should take a break. Right there.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, right there.

[Lucy Meyer]

Right. It's a very good search. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I use super good at podcasting.

[Lucy Meyer]

We'll be right back.

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[Lucy Meyer]

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[Fabian Nightingale]

I have to say that factor has been a lifesaver during the holiday season. Obviously I'm cooking a lot of stuff for big family events, but a small or medium sized meal, that's quick and easy. While I'm doing all that prep, factor has come in and saved the day.

[Lucy Meyer]

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[Fabian Nightingale]

We're back. And guess what?

[Lucy Meyer]

What?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy is going back to the hospital. She is visiting Cal at the er.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because remember we just saw his loafer sticking out from the pile of books.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, the pile of manuscripts.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, manuscripts.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he turns out he has a fractured tibia, bruised rubes ribs and a concussion.

[Lucy Meyer]

Which. What's the tibia?

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's like your shin.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

So I was thinking clavicle.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's your, your shoulder.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, that's the one right here.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You want to break that? That's a bummer.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know it's a bummer, but that's just the one I always think of. But tibia's yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So he has no memory of what happened, but he was apparently lying in the pile for a long time. And when they pulled him out of the books, they could see a little piece of his shin poking through the skin. Ah. I knew I was gonna gross you.

[Lucy Meyer]

I don't like body horror.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's why I left it in there. Just to make you do that.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. I hate that.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Anyway, he's fine. She has a weekend back to Monday. We're going back to work. We don't hear about her weekends. Okay. We don't care about her cat. And she's on her way back to work, and it's snowing outside.

[Lucy Meyer]

Y.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's city walking down the street, which is very important when you're city walking. It means you're avoiding eye contact.

[Lucy Meyer]

Y.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Your shoulders are up. You're kind of, like, hustling through. You don't talk to nobody.

[Lucy Meyer]

Hustling and bustling.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And also, it's windy and snowing, so you're, like, really kind of hunched over.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's walking towards the end.

[Lucy Meyer]

You have a coat that covers your butt.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You have to have a coat that covers your butt.

[Lucy Meyer]

You have to. Because you have a cold butt.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You can listen. A cold butt. And then you sit on the subway, and these cold seat.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's how we can tell the difference. By the way, just so you know, when Mrs. P and I are out and about, we can tell who lives in a city versus who lives in the suburbs.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Based on whether or not their coat covers their butt.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because when you're in your car, you want it to not cover your butt because it makes sitting weird.

[Lucy Meyer]

It makes sitting weird. When. Especially when you're driving. If you're driving everywhere, you typically get a coat that is tapered around the waist area.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

And then your butts out because you want to sit. Pop right into the car. And you don't want to take your coat off. Maybe you can leave your coat on. But if you're in the city and you're taking public transport or you're walking a lot, you want a longer coat.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Wearing a sleeping bag out there most of the time.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's a sleeping bag, and it's nice.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay. So she's walking. City walking.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And as she's, like, walking up to the office, the building where she works, a tall man with a fedora walks up behind up, walks up in front of her and says, are you Ms. Myers? And she's like, do I know you? And he introduces himself as Peter Farber Faber. Peter Faber and shows a brass badge, and he's an OSHA inspector.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I was hoping we could chat. He says, when I tell you I screamed at the idea of an OSHA inspector out here in a fedora with a badge.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, I like this. It's a little bit like the health inspectors from Bob's Burgers.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, exactly.

[Lucy Meyer]

But also, was he the osha? Was he the same guy in the fedora?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yes, he's the fedora guy from across the way. The creepy fedora staring at her. And she's like, why? Why are you asking me? Is this about Cal? And he's like, who is Cal? And she's like, okay, what is this about? And he's like, every workplace injury is required by law to be filed with osha. When an employee is hospitalized or killed or an accidental amputation or whatever it has to be, you have to file with osha. And there's been a string of accidents at Blackwood Patterson. And we have documents dating back to the early 70s, and it could go back longer, but that's when the requirements were in place.

[Lucy Meyer]

Timeout.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Again, we have foreign listeners, we have international audiences. OSHA stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It is part of the federal government. Some also. There are. Are some state agencies as well. And their job is to make sure that working conditions are safe.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Safe.

[Lucy Meyer]

They're supposed to be there to make sure that people are wearing hard hats, that, you know, the railing isn't. Isn't deficient.

[Fabian Nightingale]

There's proper lighting.

[Lucy Meyer]

There's proper lighting, clean water, all these different things to make sure that the ground isn't too slick, et cetera, et cetera. So that's what OSHA is there for. Now, do they typically dress like men in black? No.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, I don't think they have badges.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, I don't think. I don't know if they have badges.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't think. Because I. I mean, I've called OSHA a few times. You know me, I call some osha.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I was thinking of when I was working in catering, and we did. We had. We had to, like, go to different venues for weddings and stuff. And I went and did this one wedding, and the people that owned this facility, it was a farm that they turned into a wedding place. So you could have farm weddings, right? Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Lucy Meyer]

I remember which one you're talking about.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so we had to drive there. We weren't allowed to park on the premises, so we. They. We had to take a shuttle bus, which was actually an old school bus over to the place where the thing was. And then we had, like, where the staff set up, like, a little tent, but there was no running water. And they were like, we're like, we're in. We have food service.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We need to wash our hands.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I'm like, oh, well, we can bring a hose extension, and you can, like. We can double up the hose, and you can use the hose water. And I was like, okay, maybe fine for washing hands, right?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But we're filling up water pitchers for people to drink out of. You want us to use hose water?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I mean, are they boomers? Talking about how they look?

[Lucy Meyer]

Are they Gen X?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Gen X. We used to drink from the hose, and so they. That was one thing. And then all of the pathways that we had to use to walk around the whole landscape of the place to, like, serve hors d'oeuvres and stuff were, like, these terrible stones that were, like. Like, rocky and slippery and offset. Because realistically, what happened was two or three people got together and like, we're gonna buy this venue and do weddings here. And they didn't want to update.

[Lucy Meyer]

They bought a farm.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, they bought a farm. We're like, we're gonna do weddings, and people are.

[Lucy Meyer]

Mason jar wedding.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Exactly. Like, it's gonna be so aesthetic.

[Lucy Meyer]

Tea lights.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And they didn't do anything to prep it for actually having a wedding there. There was also a pool that had no safety around it. So all these drunk people at a certain point were like. Like, falling into the pool. There was no. When the lights. When it got dark out and we were still trying to serve hors d'oeuvres, there was no lighting on any of those slippy, rocky walkways. And then, like, there was no lighting to get to the back areas. Like, it was crazy. And I could have let all of it go.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But they were so mean to the person who owned that catering company, and she's a goddamn angel.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Who's a sweetheart. We both worked for that catering company at different times, and she's amazing. And someday, hopefully, we can have her on an episode.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

But. Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so anyway, I got really mad that they were mean to her and the facility was bad, and so I called osha.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And I left a lot of complaints about the safety.

[Lucy Meyer]

And, in fact, I actually have it up here right now. If you're in the United States and you do end up in a situation where you're at a workplace and it's dangerous or there's something having to do with your workers rights or other things. Go to osha.govworkers, file-complaint or just type in osha.gov and just start following the stuff there on Google. It is part of the US Department of Labor. Yeah, this is. This is one of the things that we want to see.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Wild.

[Lucy Meyer]

Listen, we've. We've ended up with a lot of workers rights on this episode.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We always do.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know when people are like, well, is your podcast political? I mean, everything I do is political.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's just who we are.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I just. All we talk about.

[Lucy Meyer]

Listen, all I'm saying is when Cal, the unpaid Internet ended up under a stack of poorly filed manuscripts while the owner of the company weeped feet from him, by the way.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

The owner is drunk, weeping on the floor that the business has never made money while a. A college student drowns. Literally drowns in paperwork in an. A poorly lit basement.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she's like, I don't know why you're asking me. I just started here. I don't think I can help you with this. This. Like, you need to talk to the upper management, like, Digby or whatever. And he's like, no, I. I don't want you to help me. I want to help you. I'm trying to warn you. I think you're in danger. Yeah, right. And she gets in. She, like, kind of, like, gets away from. Because this is weird. This guy's weird. This is a weird thing. So she kind of shuffles in the door as quickly as possible. Again, big, heavy door. And she gets the giant door open, and again, it's snowing. She's been walking fast, and Gail's at the front desk, and she's like, is everything okay? Because, like, she's breathing heavy. She's weird. And Lucy's like, yeah, there's just, like, this man. And before she even gets the words out, Gail has pulled out a piece from underneath her desk. And it's this huge silver handgun, size of her forearm and thick with a scope, right? Gail just, like, pops this piece out. And I was like, what? There's just some. What's. There's a guy. What are you talking about? And Lucy's like, whoa, whoa. Hey, listen, I just had a question. Did, like, we submit an OSHA report for the accident with. With Kale Cal? And she's like, yeah, we do it. Required within 24 hours. Don't worry. It's an old building. Accidents happen, and our insurance covers it. And then, like, she says, Lucy Says something else to Gail, and Gail is just excited to have her gun out, and she just shoots into the air and hits the Christmas tree.

[Lucy Meyer]

Gail just shoots a gun? You know, but you're describing, like, a.44 Magnum, too.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, she calls it like the. The. The Desert Eagle. Or she has a cool name for it too.

[Lucy Meyer]

Well, no, no, a Desert Eagle is a specific type of gun that shoots 50 caliber bullets. Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She shoots the Christmas tree with it.

[Lucy Meyer]

She pulls out a deagle.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Point in point.

[Lucy Meyer]

She pulls out a deagle and shoots the Christmas tree.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Gail.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know, I know, I know. Who she mains on counter strike. That is crazy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So Lucy leaves the situation. She's like, gail's wild. I gotta go. Okay. She gets up to her office, doors open again, even though she locked it this time. Digby is sitting in her chair, and we find out that he's been waiting for her. And he stepped in some more shit in her office. And he's like, why is there in the floor of your office? And she's like, yeah, like, I don't know what's going on. I tried to talk to the Raven about it.

[Lucy Meyer]

Is it human poop?

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, it's smaller than human poop.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The whole book, she's trying to figure out what it is. I think it's raccoon poop. I think there's a raccoon loose in.

[Lucy Meyer]

The place and that just poops in her office, I think.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I think maybe the maintenance man's letting the raccoon in there on purpose.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. Got it. I. Can I tell you something?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

The other day I went to Pax Unplugged, my absolute favorite convention. Yep. And I was walking with a buddy of mine who's popular. I just did. Called Save youe Game. It's a very fun podcast. You should go check it out. But he and I cut through an alleyway because of where I parked to go to the Pennsylvania Convention center in Philadelphia. And I. We lived in Philly, downtown Philly, for 10 years.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

I have never seen so much human poop.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And dead rats in one alley as I did between. I think it was 12th street and Broad.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Like right where I was at a 12th and arch to Broad. And I was like, oh, that's a lot. I was like, oh, that's a lot of poop. Ah, that's it. I was like, that is not dog. And he was like, no, that is human poop. Mm. And it was just this one alley. They went crazy with it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Must be a Nice quiet alley.

[Lucy Meyer]

I think it was right near that one clinic.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So he is like, yeah, I stepped in some shit that was in your office. And I had cow go wash off my shoes for me.

[Lucy Meyer]

I do love the fact that he never actually answered what this is. It's just. This are just constantly.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I think at the end of the book, they do. And it's like a raccoon.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But I was like, it's not even that important.

[Lucy Meyer]

Gotcha.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The plot device is that now Cal is back. And she's like, why? Why is Cal here? He has a broken leg. And he's like, yeah, but he has crutches. It's fine. He just went to do it. So he has the unpaid intern hobbling across.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The place to go wash his shoes for him.

[Lucy Meyer]

Which is very reminiscent of the lady. Remember the standards and Practices lady from Scrooge?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, yes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Who's constantly, like, every.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's the ocean lady.

[Lucy Meyer]

She's the ocean. But, Joe, she standards and practices. So she's constantly, like, getting a head injury. All this different stuff throughout the entire movie. Okay. I like that.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We find out that the funeral for Xavier Blackwell, his dad, is tomorrow, and it's being held at Carnegie Hall.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he asks. He asks her how her search for the next Stephen King is going. And they're talking, and she notices that Perky is missing from the wall. First the fruitcake and now this. People are stealing her. After Digby leaves, Raven comes in and she kind of steals the Internet. She's like, you're gonna come help me now. And so she takes the unpaid intern on crutches with a broken leg to go do stuff.

[Lucy Meyer]

Well, to be fair, Lucy broke him.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

So give him to the Raven.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

Nevermore.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy goes back to the basement after lunch to get more into that slush pile. And as she's leaving the basement, she kicks something in the dark, and she looks down, and it's Perky. She's like, did I bring him down here yesterday from the Christmas party? And she's like, no, I think someone's playing jokes on me again. Real jerks. She goes upstairs to the break room to get a cup of coffee with her weird doll in tow. While she's in there, she notices there's a cold breeze and that the fire escape door is open. And we learned that, like, they're constantly leaving the fire escape door open because they like to go smoke out in the fire escape.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

Meanwhile, Raven's just getting high in the bathroom.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, she's the ball. She's doing. Yeah, but she's like, if you guys are gonna smoke, you have to do it out here.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Also, it's just nice to smoke outside sometimes, remember? No, I'm just kidding. Smoking is bad for you. And we're all excited that you quit smoking. So she goes and closes it. She's going to close it because it's cold.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And snowing out. And while she, like, walks up to the door, she can see through the building almost and see the window to the conference room. And there's a meeting going on. And all the staff is in there, Even Cal. They're all in there. And not her. She's the only one not in there. And she's like, why the fuck are they having an all staff meeting without me? Yeah, why didn't I get, you know, a message? Because they don't have emails. So, like, why did. Why didn't anyone tell me? Yeah, so she's pissed off.

[Lucy Meyer]

God, Life before emails, right?

[Fabian Nightingale]

There's no. There was no teams meeting.

[Lucy Meyer]

They lived in heaven, those fucks.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

No teams. Ding.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

You have to wiggle your mouse every five minutes to make sure your screen doesn't close.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Wiggle your mouse right now. If you're listening, I will high reach for the house. Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Everybody wiggle your mouse right now.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yay. She goes and closed door. She's in there. She's storming off back to her office. She's pissed off. As she's going back, she passes Stanley the arch guy's office, which his door is open and the office is empty. So her being her, I guess, decides she's gonna go inside and look at. At the mock cups, right? And while she's in there, Stanley comes in from behind and he's like, what did you do with Norma? You stole Norma? And we find out that Stanley might be, like, a Vietnam vet, and he has, like, PTSD rage stuff. So he's like, screaming at her, demanding to know where Norma is. And the Raven shows up after. As she walks by, she's like, what did you do to Stanley? And Lucy's like, I don't know. He just keeps screaming that I stole Norma. And the Raven hands him a mechanical pencil. And she's like, you left this in the conference room. And Raven is like, why are you bugging him? Like, you should apologize for going to his office. Like, you shouldn't have done that. And she's like, everybody always goes into my office. Everyone's in my office all the time. And then she, like, offhandly, she's like, I'll apologize to him. And I'm gonna stick the pencil where the sun doesn't shine because the pencil's name is Norma.

[Lucy Meyer]

Gotcha.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. And Raven's slightly amused. And she's like, this isn't the first time it happened. Just give him some time to calm down.

[Lucy Meyer]

Broken stare.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy asks Raven about the meeting where they all were, where Cal is. And she's like. She's kind of like, whatever. Like, you didn't need to be there. You don't need to be there. Right. And then she's like, well, where's Cal? Where's my Internet? And Raven's like, oh, I sent him to midtown to pick up a manuscript for me. And Lucy's like, he has a broken leg. And Raven goes, he has crutches and excellent upper body strength. He'll be fine.

[Lucy Meyer]

Wow.

[Fabian Nightingale]

They're free laboring the out of Cal right now.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. And he's a film major.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. He doesn't want to do publishing.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy goes back to her office.

[Lucy Meyer]

They'll teach him for putting his leg up on that desk, though, I'm saying.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So she realized that all the hubbub in. All the hubbub, she left Perky in the art director's office. It's in Stanley's office.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so she's in her office alone. She's remembering she did that. And she's just kind of like, this job sucks. These people suck. They're all so weird. Is this even worth it? She's so mad and stressed out, and then she ends up pulling Fabian's manuscript out.

[Lucy Meyer]

Out.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because, remember, he brought her the manuscript.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he starts reading at the Transylvanian Dirt, or whatever it's called. And she loves it.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She spends her whole shift basically reading this book until, like, 5:00. End of scene. Next chapter, right. Next morning, whole staff's back at the office. They're all in the lobby. It's the day of the funeral. They're all meeting there to then leave to go to Carnegie Hall. And Lucy isn't excited per se, but everyone in publishing in New York is going to be there. Editors, agents, everybody in the know of publishing in books is going to be there. So, like, this is going to be an event. And the staff is all getting ready to head over. And I think Gail and somebody else are like, has anybody seen Stanley? And another staff member is like, no. Like, he hates riding public transit down here. So he probably went right from home to the hall so he doesn't have to stop here. And Raven at. So then Raven pulls Lucy aside and is like, can you actually stay behind? We're getting a really important package delivered with, like, a very important manuscript. And since you knew Xavier the least, it would helpful if you were here to sign for. For FedEx so that all the staff can go, like, Gail and everybody. And Lucy's pissed, like, she wanted to go to this event.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And now the Raven's like, no, you need to stay behind because Gail deserves.

[Lucy Meyer]

To go, but she's okay. I understand that Raven is editor in chief, but she's a senior editor. Editor.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm just throwing out there. Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She has to wait for this FedEx package. I need you to know that once they all leave, she literally leaves the building and goes and gets a coffee from the Russian deli down the corner.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And then so she's all alone in the building, she has her coffee, and she goes to the art department. She's like, I'm gonna sneak in there and get my little dolly. My little perky.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because she knows he's not there. And when she opens the door to the office, Stanley is sitting on his chair in the dark. Dark. And he doesn't move when she calls his name. Like, hey, hey, Stanley. And he doesn't answer. And as he comes more into frame with the lighting from behind her, she can see that he is alive. And his eyes are wide open, staring at her. And his nose has, like, some dried blood. And she's like, God, these art guys are such cokeheads. And she grabs him a tissue and she's like, let me help you get some of the blood off your shirt. Are you okay? Like, blah, blah. And as she gets closer, she sees there's a shiny metal object reflecting from his face because Norma is jammed deep into his nasal cavity.

[Lucy Meyer]

Ah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So Lucy calls 91 1, and she's crying and freaking out.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's been lobotomized with a. Yeah, with a mechanical pencil. Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Not even a sharpenable one. And as the paramedics are there getting him loaded into the ambulance, she going outside. She goes outside to get some fresh air.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Well, guess who shows up. Osha Fabian.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she tells about what's happening. She's like, this is crazy, right? Like, this feel. I feel crazy, and this is awful. I feel bad. And she fills them on. And everything that's going on, like, cow's leg, the secret meeting, all this hazing and bullying. The mystery pooper that's happening in her office.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. And she, like, Fabian's like, I'm Gay and British. I'm gay and British. He literally, I should be having fun and listening to Charlie. Axiom. Yes.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And back then it would have been Boy George, Charlie X, Y. He's like, yeah. So anyway, New York is, like, hella stressful, and maybe you're getting burned out. Have you ever gone to the doctor about maybe schizophrenia? Like, he's like, yeah, girl.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because he's what? Levy?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Dan Levy.

[Lucy Meyer]

Dan Levy. Yeah, he's Dan Levy in, like, anything. Just like, girl. What, girl?

[Fabian Nightingale]

What? She's like, I don't think I'm imagining things. And while she's talking to him, they're, like, having this conversation out in the front stoop, if you will.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She looks across the park, and she sees a man in the trench coat in a fedora. And she's like, I gotta go. And she just runs across the street into the park to chase down fedora guy.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she ends up standing at one of the fire cans to warm her hands. And he walks up behind her, and it's Peter. And he's like, do you believe me now? And we find out that Peter's name is actually really Frederick.

[Lucy Meyer]

All right?

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's an intern that used to work there.

[Lucy Meyer]

What?

[Fabian Nightingale]

He doesn't work for osha? OSHA was a cover.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, God damn it, Frederick. Let me cross that out and write. Frederick.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So he gives her some information about his experience working there in the terrible workplace. And he's like, this building is totally fucky. It's super weird and spooky.

[Lucy Meyer]

Ookie, I'm still waiting for Santa.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he says, the whole neighborhood. Okay. So basically what happened is, Frederick, while he was working there, he was like, this place is. And so instead of just being, like, going with the flow, he started looking up everything about that place.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Doing background research. And he got fired because he was snooping too much.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because he was doing too much lore.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Too much deep lore.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And what he found out was the neighborhood where the. The house is. The building is. Is where it used to be. Little Germany. And all of the immigrants had brought, obviously, their folklore and superstitions. And the man who had originally built the Blackwood Building was deeply superstitious. He wanted to protect his vast fortune from his enemies, real or supernatural. And he had. Frederick had an incredible quote in the book. He said, quote, the rich live in constant fear of being destitute, as they should. Oh, okay, Frederick.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay, Frederick.

[Lucy Meyer]

Well, now they also worry about walking down the street, well, hey. Oh, 20, 24.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So that's why he has all the iron gates? Because on the whole building as iron gates. Because he wanted to protect his fortune.

[Lucy Meyer]

Gotcha.

[Fabian Nightingale]

From the supernatural and his enemies.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Vibes. Anyway, Frederick gives her a Bible and then she leaves. I think Frederick was like, a student of theology. So he's like a religious guy.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So sure.

[Lucy Meyer]

German.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So no, I think he might be African American.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, really?

[Fabian Nightingale]

I feel like he is. I didn't write it down.

[Lucy Meyer]

I just assume everybody in this book is German until it's old.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Otherwise.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because everything about us is like. And then there's this German thing, another German thing.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Christmases, you know, it's got that.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So Lucy is like, so you're saying the spirits can't get into the building? And Frederick is like, sure. But also, it could keep bad spirits caged in. Right. This is a prison of bad spirits. The all the emergency vehicles are gone by the time she gets back to the building.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She sits at the front desk and starts reading Fabian's book again.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

A while later, hours later, Raven and the team are back. And Raven comes storming in like, what the is going on here? You smell like fire. I just saw a homeless man on the street who I had to buy my manuscript from FedEx back from for 75 cents, and it's basically destroyed because, again, she wasn't there for the package.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Somebody stole it and then sold it back to the Raven.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And Lucy explained what happened to Stanley, and the Raven was like, okay, so, like, why don't you go home? Like, go home?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

This has been a bit of a day. That's a lot. She does go home, and she calls Fabian and he's like, yo, what the. You're such a rude ass. Like, we were talking, and then you ran into the park. Park without saying anything.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, can we please meet up? I need to talk to someone in person. I feel crazy. And Fabian, again, a hero of this book, is like, listen, I already left the house once today. I don't want to do it again. He's like, I don't want to come downtown. Okay, I'll meet you somewhere closer if I have to leave my house. So they decide they're going to meet at a library that's closer to him because he's like, I'm not leaving. Thank you so much. So they set in the time and place, and she gets some work done at her office and starts trying to, like, brainstorm about who could be behind all this stuff. So she, like, makes a list if you will, of all the people that work there. And she's like, who are my enemies?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Who are these people that are out to get me?

[Lucy Meyer]

It's always good to have an enemies list.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, I'm. Is it?

[Lucy Meyer]

It's always good to have an enemies list. I've learned that from very competent people who are currently about to run our government.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Super cool. We've never said anything bad about before.

[Lucy Meyer]

They all have great penises. Is very thick and lush.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's. She's going to the library, but first she's gonna go back to the office to grab the Bible Frederick gave her so that he can. She can show it to Fabian. Like, he's never seen a Bible. I don't know.

[Lucy Meyer]

And the Bible's missing.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She gets back the office, the Bible's gone. Hey. And then while she's. Okay, so she's in her office, she opens her drawer. There's no Bible. She's like, the. And then one of the editor ladies. I think her name is Hershey. Still there, though.

[Lucy Meyer]

Though.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I feel like Perky's missing. Perky might be there. I. Hold on. We'll find out. So Rachel, one of the editors, it comes in, and she's, like, visibly in shockish. Like, kind of just, like, in shock. And she's like, I just got back from visiting Stanley, and he is not doing great.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, Got lobotomized.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The pencil was hella close to his frontal lobe. And he can. He can't speak, but he's still drawing and, like, drawing pictures. And she's like, look at the picture he drew for me. And she hands it to her, and it's this horrifying picture of a little furry demon with sharp teeth and horns. It's a picture of Perky.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay?

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, oh, my God. Was he, like, staring at this doll while he was just, like, sitting there freaking out? While they're talking, they start hearing this crazy pinging against the windows. And Rachel's like, teens are probably throwing snowballs again. And so they open the blinds because Rachel's about to yell at them. And it's not teens throwing snowballs. It's birds flying into the side of the building and then crashing and breaking their necks. And there's blood and they're sliding down as they die.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Rachel starts screaming and passes out.

[Lucy Meyer]

This is not the first time we've had birds crashing into the side of a building.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That is something that we've seen a lot of horror.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay? Birds are killing themselves.

[Fabian Nightingale]

There's always, you know, there's always folklore about birds flying into buildings.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Sign of distress.

[Lucy Meyer]

Does nobody put stickers on their windows?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay, you should really put stickers on your windows if birds flying in your windows is a problem.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It saves their lives. Anyway, Rachel passes out after screaming.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy's kind of stand there, like in shock, and then all of a sudden she's like, wait, what is that really sweet smell? And then she passes out. Okay. Lucy comes to and she staring up at a checkerboard ceiling and her head is pounding and she realizes that she's tied to a table.

[Lucy Meyer]

What?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, she's been strapped to a table. She's looking up at the ceiling on from a table. She's been tied to a table with multicolored Christmas lights and.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. I'm glad we're getting back to Christmas because this hasn't felt very Christmy since the Secret Santa celebration.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay. I mean, that's fair.

[Lucy Meyer]

I've been sitting here and it's like.

[Fabian Nightingale]

This is currently strapped to a table by multicolored Christmas lights.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, got it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She tries to scream, but there's packing tape on her mouth. And she can see dark figures moving around the room. People are wearing cloaks and masks.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And they shuffle around here quietly. And someone says, okay, who plugged in the Christmas lights?

[Lucy Meyer]

I think that's a good spot for us to take a quick break.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Sure.

[Lucy Meyer]

And then it feels like we're getting. We're starting to get towards some. Some conclusions.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, okay. We're getting there.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know. I just want to talk about it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

Calm down.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Don't you. Don't you start with me.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm not starting with.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The Christmas lights are plugged in. For God's sakes. It's getting so good.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know it's getting good. That's why we're gonna take a break right here and then we can go. Good all the way to the end.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

All right. That's what I'm trying to get with. Stick around. We'll be right back.

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[Fabian Nightingale]

Here we are here.

[Lucy Meyer]

She's plugged in.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, my God. She's plugged in.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy counts. There's six people surrounding her, all wearing cloaks. Cloaks and wearing Halloween masks. And she's like, these are the co workers that have been conspiring against me. Yeah, Here they are.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I'm also tied to a table.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

One of the people pulls out a big bowie knife.

[Lucy Meyer]

Big bowie knife.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And they're describing a ritual in which they have to spiritually cleanse her by cutting out her heart.

[Lucy Meyer]

Really?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Like this.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay. No, you're gonna get demonetized on YouTube.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay, well, I think you can hold up a knife.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No, I don't think you can.

[Lucy Meyer]

I think it's a fake knife. Yeah, it's a fake knife.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I'm holding that down. Put it down.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's bowie knife, though. It's a fake bowie knife.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay, so. So we find out that the cloak crew, they believe she is evil. They're like, we think you're terrible. And she. They're like, we know that you met with Frederick. And they're like, you know, he wasn't fired. He was escorted out of the building in a straight jacket. He'd gone out of his meds two months before that. And Lucy doesn't believe them. They're like, we know that you're evil, and you're the reason Xavier died. And I'm also gonna be like, I thought he was, like, 90, so, like, maybe he just died because he's old. Yeah. Also, like, like, you told Cal that you would break his leg if he put it up on the desk, and then, boom, he broke his leg.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's true.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You said that you would stick Stanley's pencil where the sun didn't shine, and now Stanley has a pencil where the sun doesn't shine.

[Lucy Meyer]

But that. That. Hold on. But where the sun doesn't sign is the butthole.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It is the butthole.

[Lucy Meyer]

It is the butthole. Shoving it up your nose.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's not where the sun does that.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, because he would say, I'd shove it up his nose. Yeah, I'm gonna shove it that up. I'll take that mechanical pencil. Shove it right up his nose.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And I feel like if we're writing a fiction horror book, we could have just. Just put it up his butt.

[Lucy Meyer]

But yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So Lucy's like, number one, I didn't do that stuff. And number two, if I'm so powerful, why would you even do this to me? And, like, wrap her up on the thing, right?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And they're like, the bells on the Christmas lights have cast iron, and they will protect us from your evil. You know, bad magic.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. Right. Because they believe in magic. Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Superstitious, bad vibes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

Christmas lights are going to protect everybody's German.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay. So then she's like, listen, your logic doesn't work. I've talked on all kinds of people here. She's like, I told Sloppy Joe that whoever stole my fruitcake, I hope they choke on it. And nobody choked on it. And so the room goes silent, and one of them goes, you didn't know who stole your fruitcake, and therefore your evil magic couldn't work.

[Lucy Meyer]

Fair point. It's Fair point. So couldn't target it, Which.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Which. So then the person who's clearly the leader.

[Lucy Meyer]

Also. Why do all these people have cloaks?

[Fabian Nightingale]

I don't know, but I love.

[Lucy Meyer]

There's like. We had to get cloaks. Okay, well, we're gonna do a ritual.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Really Gonna kidnap one of our team.

[Lucy Meyer]

We're gonna do a ritualistic murder day.

[Fabian Nightingale]

After the Christmas party.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Okay. We'll bring the cloaks. Do you have the brooch to close them? I forgot the brooches. Shit.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Damn it. Okay, so the main person that's been, like, doing all the talking removes their mask and looks at her like, kind of just, like, peeks the mask close to her face and is like, that cake was delicious.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And it was Raven. And she.

[Lucy Meyer]

She got high and she ate the.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Cake, and she has the bow in. If she's with a knife and she's about to stab out her heart, right? She's like, get. Stands up and is like, this. Knife. Put that knife down.

[Lucy Meyer]

All right?

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like. All of a sudden, the Raven starts choking violently and falls to the ground, dead. And now the other people panic because they're like, the Christmas lights aren't working. She's too powerful.

[Lucy Meyer]

Just falls down dead, choking out of.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Nowhere, and then drops the knife. Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

So this knife.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Put that knife down. And there's like a whole kind of like, fight, escape, battle scene, whatever. She gets loose. She grabs the knife.

[Lucy Meyer]

How did she get you? Did she sound like this when she's.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yes, very. That. Okay. Raven is on the ground, and as she gets closer to her, she can smell the scent of fruitcake coming off her. And Lucy's like, how the. Did she choke on fruitcake? She ate that last week.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, right.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's crazy.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she makes it out of the room, and they're all chasing her. And she gets out of the building, and she runs outside, and there's a cab parked right in front of the building.

[Lucy Meyer]

Building, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she gets right in the cab, and she's like, driver, go anywhere. Just drive. Right? And then we hear a voice that's right next to her in the seat. She got into someone else's cab. And he says, she's with me. And it's Fabian. He was in a cab waiting for her, apparently.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So they head back to Fabian's apartment. It's actually his mom's apartment. It's lovely. And Lucy told him all the things that had happened. Again, she's like, they tried to kill me. They strapped me to a table. There was a knife, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, you should contact the police.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yes.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The nypd. And she's like, no, thank you. They're gonna put me in the loony bin. And Fabian doesn't really believe her. He thinks she has, like, a little case, a touch of the hysteria, if you will. But at the same time, he's like, I have heard rumors about Blackwood. Like, I told you. Like, because he warned her day one. He's like. He's like. She's like, yeah, I know you warned me that the dead boss played a lot of grab ass.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he's like, no. But I had also heard that Blackwood was banned from participating in the college internship programs in New York. Because there was a number of disappearances with interns.

[Lucy Meyer]

Ah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And people just kind of assumed that, like, Xavier was so mean that these kids just, like, moved back to Iowa.

[Lucy Meyer]

And left the industry.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And left the industry completely.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So he got banned from internship, which is why likely Digby went to the film program, because he's not allowed to get interns from the regular. Like. Yeah, yeah, I get English majors or writing majors. So Fabian pulls out a little baggie of pills, and he's like, you are never going to sleep on your own. I can dissolve two of these in your tea, and you can get some sleep. My mom's gonna make up the guest bedroom. You can crash here tonight. You know, we don't want your crazy workers going to Long Island.

[Lucy Meyer]

Have a little bit of a lovely.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like. She's not listening. She's not taking this in. She's like, I'm gonna sneak back into the building because my purse is there and my id, and it's like, okay, go back there tomorrow maybe.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

When they didn't try to stab your heart out. But she's like, no, I'm gonna climb in through the fire escape so they don't see me coming in so I can get my stuff. And he's like, hey, why don't you just go to sleep? And she does not listen to that. That. Because she's like, they always leave this fire escape open so I can sneak in through there. And so he, like, turns his back to do something, and she puts the pills in his teeth.

[Lucy Meyer]

She's old switcheroo.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She drugs Fabian, and he's like, great.

[Lucy Meyer]

Falls asleep. Because he just loves pills.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I love a nap.

[Lucy Meyer]

He's just like, I love pills.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I love a nap.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's. I'm. It's Britain. It's 1986. I'm British and gay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Anything, Me getting dropped. Best thing that happened to me as a gay man in the 80s. I mean, there's so many worse things that could happen.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she leaves, but she doesn't go to the office. Right.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Of course she goes to Agnes's house. Remember the old lady secretary?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yes. Who loved sucking that old man's.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So the old lady secretary, and she wants to talk to her about this long list of missing interns.

[Lucy Meyer]

She.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's like. She's the lady that was probably in charge of this for Xavier. She wants that. She wants to know what's going on.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So Agnes invites her in. She's kind of has that vibe of like, I knew you'd show up eventually.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. No, they all.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she invites her in for tea and get this fruitcake, which is in.

[Lucy Meyer]

The oven at a certain point, because Agnes is German.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I mean, I think so.

[Lucy Meyer]

Look at me. Look at me. I know.

[Fabian Nightingale]

At a certain point, they have, like, a really weird conversation. It's really, like, snotty and, like, two cats kind of growling at each other.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, I need to use the restroom. Is that okay? And so she goes to the restroom.

[Lucy Meyer]

Lucy needs to use.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy needs restroom.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And after she's done her business, she. There's no TP on the roll.

[Lucy Meyer]

What? Oh, my God. What is she. So is Agnes. You monster.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So they're like. Okay. The. She's, like, looking around the room, trying to figure out where she keeps the backup toilet paper.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because it's very difficult inside your bathroom.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Yeah. And Agnes is probably the type of person who doesn't put it back on the roll either. In fact, probably just leaves it on the toilet behind you. Or maybe just floating around on the floor. Or maybe just, like, in the hall pantry.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I feel like if we're gonna start throwing rocks in glass houses, you shouldn't do it when there's a microphone in front of me.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because I'm sitting in a room of rocks.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, I have this big knife.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Throw the knife away. Okay. So she's looking around the bathroom, trying to figure out where the extra toilet paper is.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And right on the back of the toilet, the. The. What's it called?

[Lucy Meyer]

Lid lit.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Not the lid. There's a name for that thing. The thing behind you. Tank. On the back of the tank is a box.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's like, oh, that's probably. There's probably toilet paper in the box. But then she looks at the box closer, and it's the very same box that the pearchette was in. In Xavier's office.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. You've called this every name. I don't care.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know.

[Lucy Meyer]

I just want you to know. I know. But it was. It started off as per 10.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And then it became a perchette. And then you've changed the names of this thing. It's incredible. I just want to just mind you for the listeners out there.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Whenever you hear our weird hoagie mouth accents, hit a word and you're like, I. I'm gonna explain to them how to pronounce it. I want you to listen to how. How many different ways she's hit this one, this German word that she even told you she looked Up. And she listened to how to pronounce it. And I just looked at it. I was like, you have pronounced this 15 different ways. We even agreed to call it perky. And then she's like, I don't give a shit. Fuck you. I'm just trying to communicate with you using words. So just keep that in mind when she pronounces whatever, street, city, last name.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. And then I'm gonna argue with other people about how to pronounce Shakamaxon or Schuylkill.

[Lucy Meyer]

Watch this. How do you pronounce? Okay, if it's in a strip mall. You were taught how to fight in a strip mall by an instructor. What would that be called?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, karate.

[Lucy Meyer]

Exactly. Not karate. Karate. Talking about karate.

[Fabian Nightingale]

My cousin Tommy did karate.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, cousin. Listen, her cousin Tommy did karate, okay? So she sight. She sees the perk.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So there's a perk.

[Lucy Meyer]

Timeout. There's a perk box on the back of the Kimodo perk box.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But actually in the perk box is where the toilet paper is. She's using it for storage. Incredible.

[Lucy Meyer]

It also. Classy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Classy.

[Lucy Meyer]

I've been to places where they have, like, a little. I like it when it's like a little fake trunk.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And it's a latch on it. That's nice.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's nice. This box is from Nazi Germany, though. So that's weird. Agnes. I'm gonna put that out there.

[Lucy Meyer]

Well, if you flip it over, is it. Well, she doesn't know that, though. Lucy doesn't know.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy doesn't know that. You know, but Agnes knows it.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, Agnes don't give a fuck. Agnes is German.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So this is the.

[Lucy Meyer]

This is heritage, not hate.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, no, no. BLEEP that. Delete it.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, wrong button.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Get off the button board.

[Lucy Meyer]

That was supposed to be this. Allegedly. Allegedly.

[Fabian Nightingale]

There you go. So the toilet papers in the box. She heads back out to the table where they were sitting having tea. And Agnes is holding the bowie knife that Lucy had on her. She found it in her purse. She went, this one. Okay, Put the knife away. And she's like, we need to talk. And then Agnes, in the boldest move, slices the fruitcake with the bowie knife.

[Lucy Meyer]

This one?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Put the knife away.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Put the knife away.

[Lucy Meyer]

It was a good running game.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And explains to Lucy that the boy has chosen her.

[Lucy Meyer]

The boy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The boy.

[Lucy Meyer]

The boy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's she calls Perky. The boy. The boy. Which would have been way more easier to say the whole time. Yep, just call him the boy. But instead, we've just been messing around with some German language.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And then we get. Agnes decides she's going to explain everything. Basically this moment, we're going to learn everything. And she says to Lucy, how much do you know about the Nazis and the occult?

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. That's when I would have been like, you know what? Agnes, nice to meet you.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I gotta go.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm moving to la.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I gotta go.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm moving to la, where this is not a problem. Yeah, this feels like very much a New York thing.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Hitler was fascinated with the occult, and the Third Reich sought out ancient treasures they thought could turn the tide of the war.

[Lucy Meyer]

Actually, real, real quick. Yeah, just. That's not true. Well, actually, wasn't Hitler. It was the other guy. The guy who was in charge of the ss. Who. I can't remember. Himmler.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Himmler.

[Lucy Meyer]

Himmler was the one who's obsessed with stuff. Hitler, like, played into it a little bit when it came to the. The, like, the language stuff. Listen, yeah, okay. I became a dad and I care more about World War II, y'all, but Himmler and the SS were super into the occult. But I'll let her continue because this is an 80s movie and they're not gonna get everything right.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That box. That box is a Nazi paraphernalia discovered by our former employer in the snowy fields of Germany.

[Lucy Meyer]

And then she murdered. He murdered his friend.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So then. So she's like, yeah, like, it's the box for the Perky doll. And Agnes is like, so then you know about the legend surrounding these dolls. And Lucy's like. I mean, like, my grandmother had one and she told us stories, but, like, it wasn't anything that deep. And she's like. Agnes is like. When Xavier discovered this doll, his luck turned. He was shipped home months ahead of schedule. He arrived home to find out that he was flush with cash. But the price, however, was steep. His parents had died in a car accident, and the money was from a settlement with automobile company. Xavier realized that Perky was influencing his life, and he began to love it as a son. He needed to hide it, though, and not in a box. In a fortress. Agnes is like, there is a price to pay. And Xavier knew that. And that's what the interns came in. He had to sacrifice the interns to the doll. Okay, and the Perky has chosen you.

[Lucy Meyer]

Wait, hold on. I need to roll back on something.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Go ahead.

[Lucy Meyer]

Just using. I'm using Minions logic here.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

So you know how in the Minions, which friend of the podcast, Jeff Stormer, who runs Party One podcast, has explained to us that in the Minions storyline. You guys know the Minions? We all know the Minions from Despicable Me with Gru.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yes.

[Lucy Meyer]

The Minions. The Minions have to work for the most evil person in the world.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

And they show them throughout time and history working for evil people. With the exception of when they get caught in an ice cave from, like, 1812, I think, because they work for, like, Napoleon. And then they get caught in, like, the 1830s in an ice cave through, like, 1960. Because they specifically were like, we have written that. He's going to work. The Minions have to work for the most evil person in the world. And we cannot show animations of the Minions taking part in the Holocaust.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep. Can't do that.

[Lucy Meyer]

But which means that Perky has to be fed human lives.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yes.

[Lucy Meyer]

By the Nazi machine. Meaning that Perky was being fed lives via the Holocaust.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

But they still lost the entire war.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I'm glad you brought that up.

[Lucy Meyer]

I needed to bring it in. I needed to bring it in. Hey, listen, we said at the very beginning of this, when you read the prologue, that this was not a no Nazis guarantee episode.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He could not guarantee it.

[Lucy Meyer]

If anything, I've been waiting to bring up this Minions fact for a very long time.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Been sitting on it.

[Lucy Meyer]

I've been sitting on it. And hopefully we'll have Jeff Stormer on the podcast.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy is like, no, I don't want any of that. I don't want this doll. I don't want any of this, you know, negative energy. I don't want to hurt anybody. And Agnes is like, okay, then why did you kill Raven? You have her job now, at least. Like, I don't have her job. And they're like, who do you think they're. You're the senior editor. Who do you think's going to get her job?

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That she's dead.

[Lucy Meyer]

And she's like, they strapped me to a table with cloaks and tried to murder me.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

I don't feel like they're going to listen to my orders. So Lucy is the weirdest publishing.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy is about to storm out because of the accusations that Agnes is throwing her away.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And then blood starts pouring out of Agnes's mouth and her neck snaps. She kills Agnes or something. Kills Agnes, something. So Lucy is like, if Perky is this bad, I'm going to destroy him. I am not going to be like Xavier and sacrifice human lives on purpose to feed a demon.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Lucy then drives Agnes's Yugo back to the city.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Which again, if you're at the Scene of a crime. I'm gonna need you to not steal someone's car. Yeah, okay. That's not good.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Especially also a Yugo. That's a crazy car.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Bad crimes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yugoslavian made car.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She gets back to where the office building is.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she's walking through the park and she gets attacked by some punk rockers. All right, there's some punk rockers in the park.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know. This is great. Punk rockers in the park. And they're like, hey, lady, what's in the box? Because she's carrying that little toilet paper box.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Because she wants to trap Perky back in the box.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And anyway, she scares the out of them. I think she maybe flashes the knife at them. I forget.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Anyway, they all run away scared. Except for one girl falls down in front of her, and she. She is like, hey, are you cold? Like, you're not. You're wearing a denim jacket. Like, do you want my coat? Because she's, like, being nice to her. And then she gives her Fabian's fur coat, which she's been wearing in this whole time.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, no.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Which I'm like, you drugged him and then you stole his fur coat, and now you're giving it away to some.

[Lucy Meyer]

Girl who just tried to murder you.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Who's trying to steal from you or whatever. Mug you. And then she trades the coat with the punk rock girl and takes her studded denim jacket because she believes that the spikes are made of silver or iron or steel in to protect her.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, they're plastic.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I was like, even back then, they weren't made of steel.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, plastic.

[Fabian Nightingale]

They were probably just basic metal back then.

[Lucy Meyer]

Even I don't even think they were metal. I'm just saying they were, like, plated.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I mean, when I had one of those old jackets, it was heavy as. Because it was real metal. All right, so anyway, she climbs the fire escape because she's sneaking in.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Dressed as a punk rocker now.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, she's dressed as a Hot Topic manager. Okay. She's dressed as a Hot Topic manager.

[Fabian Nightingale]

How dare you besmirch the name of a Hot Topic.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm not bespurching the name of Hot Topic manager.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I'm just saying Hot Topic manager would never do this.

[Lucy Meyer]

What? Climbing through a window?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Someone's coat. Fur coat. No, I'm really mad at her about this.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay?

[Fabian Nightingale]

I've forgiven a lot of bad behavior.

[Lucy Meyer]

Can you tell me this?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Is Fabian.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay, we'll get there.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she climbs up the fire escape. She falls off the ladder Into a dumpster. Dagby Digby comes out of the fire escape because he's smoking. And he's like, hey, get out of the dumpster, weirdo. And she's like, it's me. I forgot my door. My door code isn't working. And he's like, come around the front. I'll let you in. And she goes to the front door. Digby lets her in, and he's like, meet me my office in 10 minutes and bring me a diet RC Cola from the vending machine.

[Lucy Meyer]

Diet.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay, he's got a name like you said. Gotta name him. And she's like, okay, just have to stop at my office. And then she. Instead of going right to her office, she goes to Gail's desk because she wants to find Gail's gun, but it's not there.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. Yep, I forgot about Gail's gun.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Never forget about Gail's gun. So she goes back to her office, and there's her purse. And the first thing she does is she opens it. And she opens the compact. That's a mirror. And she checks her makeup, which I feel like after all this, this might not be the first thing I do, but okay for her. She checks her makeup, and in the back of her reflection, she sees someone behind her. But it's not someone. It's actually a black void. It's a vast darkness in a human shape. And then she turns to look, and there's nothing there except Perky sitting on the shelf. And then she looks back in the mirror, and there it is again. The demon's true form. And this is the moment she realizes everything is real about Perky. Yeah, he is a demon personified, and he has chosen her. Her for some reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she grabs the doll, puts it in the box, and then heads to Digby's office. As she's walking towards the staircase, she hears a shout coming from the basement. And she goes towards the door, and she hears again, help. Help. And it's in a British accent. It's Fabian.

[Lucy Meyer]

What?

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she runs down the stairs, and then she gets to, like, the top landing part, and she's like, something isn't right about this. This is probably a trap from those employees with the cloaks. Why. Why would Fabian even be here? Whatever. And then she hears him yell, help. Again. And she runs in the basement anyway. And here's Fabian laying in a pile of his own puddle of his own blood.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, not Fabian.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know. So Lucy takes off her jacket and presses it. Presses it against the open hole in Fabian's chest.

[Lucy Meyer]

No.

[Fabian Nightingale]

When I tell you I was so mad, I was like, we're putting gutter punk jackets on open wounds.

[Lucy Meyer]

You could have put a goddamn fur coat on it, and he could have died in luxury.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I. You could have, like, ripped your shirt that you don't know where that teenager's been.

[Lucy Meyer]

So also, you just fell in a dumpster.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You were in a dumpster.

[Lucy Meyer]

You just fell in a dumpster.

[Fabian Nightingale]

This is not sanitary. I was so mad. And she's like, honestly, I hate Lucy Myers.

[Lucy Meyer]

I hate her so much. Because, by the way, I've rewritten this part. Fabian Nightingale is bow and Yang. I've had rewritten him as Bow and Yang.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Perfect.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. And Lucy Myers is probably Ariana Grande because she sucks. Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. She is short and little. You're right.

[Lucy Meyer]

Short and little. And she has bangs. And she would wear a scrunchie and she'd be able to play like, listen, she is fine on everything else. And I'm sure when I go see Wicked, she. I've heard she's incredible in it. That's fine. But I also just don't trust her as a person.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

I mean, yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Not around husbands.

[Lucy Meyer]

Whoa.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So she's like, what are you doing here? And he's like, when I woke up from my nap, I was. I was like, I bet this dumb went back to that office. He doesn't say that, but that's basically what he says.

[Lucy Meyer]

And she's Bowen Yang, as the character would say it, though.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And he. She's like, but I. I, you know, I drugged you. And she's like, how are you even walking? And he's like, babe, I didn't offer you horse tranquilizers. It was just a couple of loots to take the edge off. You think a couple of lewds are going to take me down? And I was like, fabian, you're the greatest character in this book.

[Lucy Meyer]

This is such. I just wish the book was him.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. I want to follow Fabian.

[Lucy Meyer]

I want. I want.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I want to do Quaaludes and wear fur coats.

[Lucy Meyer]

But also, it'd be very funny to have just, like, this guy who's like. And then I swung by my friend, and she works at this publisher. She's a fucking mess. And she shows up like I'm being haunted by a demon from a toilet box. And he's like, whatever takes a Quaaludes. Calm down.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Take a nap.

[Lucy Meyer]

Oh, no, she's gone. Where'd she go? I mean. Oh, fuck.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She.

[Lucy Meyer]

She thought she drugged me. I'm like, rasputin okay, you need to shoot me. You have to shoot me.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You did get shot.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know. That's what I'm saying, though. It's like you have to fucking. I'm Rasputin. You tried to poison me, and then you shoot me, and then I'm still gonna have to be drowned.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay? So she's like, how'd you even get in? And he's like, I was circling the building looking for you because I. You came back here, idiot. And I was gonna throw rocks at your window. Office window. But then I went to the alleyway and I heard a loud bang and I woke up down here. So somebody shot him in the alleyway.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay?

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so she is like, I'm gonna go call for help. And when she gets to the top of the stairs, the door is locked, obviously. And so when she came back down and was talking to him, she could smell the distinct odor of Digby's cologne on him. And that's when she knows that Digby shot him because she could smell the Calvin Klein Obsession on his body.

[Lucy Meyer]

Obsession.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so she comes up with this plan. It's very convoluted, but she convinces the maintenance man who appears now again, this whole. This whole book, he's a bad guy. He just is like the cleanup guy. Like, wherever there's a murder, the maintenance man shows up and just doesn't ask questions. Yeah, he's got 10 kids. He's got bill to pay.

[Lucy Meyer]

He's scruffy from Futurama.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So yeah, she's like, listen, get Fabian in the elevator and take him to the hospital. And she's like, not the morgue, the hospital. Right. And whatever. So Fabian goes to the hospital. She goes up to dig off.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm going to tell you right now, I'm very happy about that.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Fabian needs to survive. Fabian is our last girl. Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, Final girl.

[Lucy Meyer]

Thank you, final girl.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We get to Digby's office, and it's. Which is his old dad's office. And he looks evil as behind this big desk. He's like, crazy looking.

[Lucy Meyer]

He's all coked up.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And she is like, I apologize for my tardiness, but it's been a really long day because of this. And she slams down the perky box on the desk. And meanwhile, this dude is slicing rails on the desk.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He cuts a fat line of grayish powder and snorts it and is like, oh, yeah, that's good. And then Digby pushes the mirror to her and she says a quote from the book. No, thanks. I'm With Nancy Reagan on this one.

[Lucy Meyer]

What? What? What? And he said, I could hear Ariana Grande saying that too. No, thank you. I'm with Nancy Reagan on this one.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Nancy Reagan. Never mind. I'm not gonna say anything.

[Lucy Meyer]

The throat goat.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Anyway, he looks at her and goes, it's not coke. He says as he rubs the powder on his teeth. It's Daddy. Sorry?

[Lucy Meyer]

It's Daddy. He's doing lines of his dad's ashes.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. And he rubbed them on his teeth. His teeth are all black. Oh, no. He looks at. He looks at the box and he says, after my dad died, my lawyer handed me a letter and explained everything about what's in that box. He reveals that he's going to sell the building to a developer in Cash App out. He wants to make a deal with Perky. And that's why he shot the British guy and put him in the basement. Because he's like, I. I give blood to the thing and then it works.

[Lucy Meyer]

To the blood God. Skull for the skull throw. We got it.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So he pulls out his gun, Gail's gun, and he aims it at Lucy. And when he fires, it jams. And so she gets up and runs out. Goes to run out of the room, but the door is locked. And she turns around and he's like, my dad had a secret button under the desk to lock the door.

[Lucy Meyer]

What is he? Matt Lauer.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Matt Lauer.

[Lucy Meyer]

Jesus Christ.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And I was like, yeah. So now he's threatening her with the knife.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And smiling with his.

[Lucy Meyer]

Wait, this knife?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay, no knife. Black. With his black teeth. And they fight, whatever. It's the whole thing. She's trying to get to the button to unlock the door and he ends up stabbing her hand through the desk. And he's like, that's enough blood for the Perky. Whatever. And he leaves her and he goes downstairs. And as she's like kind of passing out from pain, stuck to the desk by a knife, she hears a loud commotion outside. Like crash, bang. Cops like the whole thing. She comes to and when she wakes up, her hand is not. No longer attached to the desk.

[Lucy Meyer]

Good.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And was bandaged. And Cal is sitting across from her, an incredible intern. Apparently he informs her that there was a terrible accident and that Digby was hit by a drunk driving cab outside out front. Sloppy Joe comes in and hands her a list of the staff and some of the names are highlighted. And she says, what's this? And he says, this is the list of those people that voted for you. Those six people. Right. And the cloaks. The cloaks and she's the only person at the publishing house that has a senior title, so she's the boss now. That's why.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's not how businesses work.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's how businesses work, okay? 1980, 26.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay?

[Fabian Nightingale]

And we're not gonna ask any questions about that.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay?

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so she asked Joe to bring in the six people that tried to hurt. Or five people, because. And so she asked Joe to bring in the staff that tried to hurt her. And they come into her office and she gives them kind of like, she's not the boss yet. They're co workers, but she gives them this kind of, like, speech about starting a new day and the spirit of forgiveness for the holiday and how she sorry she is to hear about Digby, especially after everything that happened, but they need to come together and be co workers and blah, blah, and so whatever. Like, so she gives them this rousing speech and they're all like, okay, yeah, well, everything is cool now.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay?

[Fabian Nightingale]

We're. We're not going to strap you to a desk.

[Lucy Meyer]

We tried to murder you, but you still got reelected.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. So next chapter, she is the boss public publisher. Now, it's been a few weeks later. A few weeks. Bing, bang, boom, she's running this whole company.

[Lucy Meyer]

No one's following.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Doesn't even have the last name.

[Lucy Meyer]

No one's even followed up the stolen Hugo. No, she stole a old lady's car, and the old lady had her next neck snapped. Somebody had to have found her by now.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Nope.

[Lucy Meyer]

Are you telling me that the NYPD could not find a stolen Hugo in 1986?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Well, there's too many.

[Lucy Meyer]

And they're hoping that someone would drive it to. To an Altoona McDonald's.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, Altoona.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I've been there so many times.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know you have.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So mad.

[Lucy Meyer]

I know.

[Fabian Nightingale]

When you said Altuna, I was like that. We used to have a family reunion there. It was the worst.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah, and you hate it. You've. You've spent my. Our entire marriage just being like, I will never go to Altoona, Pennsylvania, never again.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And then now it's all over the news.

[Lucy Meyer]

Everyone knows about it. And now everyone knows about Altoona pizza as well.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, I don't even call it just bread with cheese on it. So next chapter, she's the boss publisher. It's a few weeks later. She's overlooking the park from her new office, which is the big boss's office.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

She's thinking about the price that this cost her. Right. And she doesn't give a. Yeah, Perky is satiated now, right? He's full. He. He took enough lives. And when he gets hungry again, she's just gonna feed his need with the staffers who crossed her from Joe's list. Right?

[Lucy Meyer]

That's only gonna buy us so much time.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And that. That is how the book ends. Oh, I do want to read you the epilogue. Because I read you the prologue.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Epilogue.

[Lucy Meyer]

Epilogue.

[Fabian Nightingale]

New York City, December 1, 2019. 20.

[Lucy Meyer]

19.

[Fabian Nightingale]

2019.

[Lucy Meyer]

Berkey survived 9 11. What? I'm just trying to picture what if berkey was behind 9 11. He was like, I need 3,000 lives. That'll buy you 18 years.

[Fabian Nightingale]

All right, this is. This is the epilogue.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Tell me, Ms. Meyers, when was the last time Blackwood Patterson book hit the New York Times bestsellers list? As a woman, I respect everything you have done outside of Fabian Nightingale. Horror is dead. We both know the horror boom was a fad. Even Stephen King is writing mysteries now. People want romance. If you're gonna have vampires, there needs to be romance. Oh, I've got the internship. Awesome. I love the doll on your shelf. So weird. My grandma had one just like that. Is there something wrong with you, Mrs. Meyers? You okay? I'm gonna call 91 1.

[Lucy Meyer]

Nice.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The end.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's nice. I like that. The very end of the book, it is implied that Perky is the one who's gonna make. You know. And in fact, if we really think about it, this whole book, Perky really has been the shadow daddy rock in the world. That's Grief Cat, y'all. Just to bring him back a little bit, I feel like more y'all should follow Grief Cat on Instagram, Tick Tock, and other places.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So that's Secret Santa, the Christmas December book of 2020.

[Lucy Meyer]

I will say I'm gonna tell you this right now.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

Think it was good? Yeah, I do think it was good. I think it could have been more Christmasy. I feel like.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I think when I read the book, there was a lot more Christmas in it. I removed some of the Christmas to get through the story.

[Lucy Meyer]

No, I understand that. I understand that. I just feel like in the set, dressing in the murder in, like, somebody should have been stabbed in the nose with a candy cane.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yes.

[Lucy Meyer]

Not a mechanical pencil.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yes, exactly.

[Lucy Meyer]

Choking on a fruitcake. Good. That's a good step.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Choking on a fruitcake.

[Lucy Meyer]

Having your leg broken by a pile of fucking manuscripts. Could have been a big pile of presents.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Or, like, if you had Halloween decorations on there, why weren't there Christmas decorations that he could have?

[Lucy Meyer]

That's what I mean, you know, like finding somebody murdered and they're hanging from the Christmas tree. You know what I mean? Like, they're stuck inside the thing.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Also snorting ashes of your dead father. Not Christmas.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's very much not Christmas. That is Easter.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No.

[Lucy Meyer]

What. So. But what I will do, I'm going to put this. I'll put this upper mid.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Upper mid.

[Lucy Meyer]

Upper mid. Of the book club.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Very entertaining.

[Lucy Meyer]

It is. It is very entertaining. You were right, because we talked about it. It took a while to take off, though.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Those first two chapters, the first half hour of this, a little brutal for me.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Took a little bit.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know it's hard for you to listen.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's hard for me to really lock in. The ending was good. I do enjoy the ending.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

It also did have that good horror ending of like, it's a cycle that never ends. Yeah, it was good on that part. It would have been more interesting though, if I think in the pre log if there had been an office setting there too. Do you know what I mean?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Like, if there have been that the. The Nazi officer probably worked in an office setting.

[Lucy Meyer]

Well, yeah, I mean, he's an officer.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

But no, but I'm saying is, like, I think that if they had somehow. Like that. I don't know, it just. It's just to keep the cycle.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, keep the cycle.

[Lucy Meyer]

There's like a cycle to it. I think that they could have leaned a little bit more into. But I know. I'll give it a. You know, we've never come up with a star system.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We probably should sit down and come up with a star system.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Whether or not it's a 1 out of 10 or a 5, I think.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Out of the things we've read this year, this is like right in the middle. It was fun. It was a fast read.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm gonna go upper middle.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I. Yeah, I think like, no red rabbit. When I. No, when I. When I write these little outlines. They're not little. I do have to remove some many adjectives and descriptors to get through the story so I can explain it to you. So there was a lot of, like we were saying, like, diet RC Cola. There's funny jokes about Donald Trump in here. There's like, there's all kinds of timely 80s stuff that happens. Yeah. But like, so that was fun. There was like a little hit of nostalgia, like, like Teddy Ruxpin jokes, things like that. So I enjoyed that little. Little hit down memory lane of what the 80s were like as a child. But so, yeah, I Think I had a fun time. I gotta tell you, I was so surprised that it was. It started in Germany in 1945. I. I was like, wait, what? I thought this was a Christmas book.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm shocked too. That's crazy. But also. Again with like. But. But I wasn't too shocked because of things like Krampus, because of typically Germanic stuff having to do with the holidays anyway and with hauntings and all those other things. So I'm going to say upper mid. I don't want to put it directly in the middle because there are. There's aspects of it I enjoy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's better than the Moon Zombie one.

[Lucy Meyer]

It's definitely better than Moon Zombie. I'm going to say. But I'm looking at totality. I'm looking at all book clubs. I'm going to say though that I really dig. Did enjoy. I really loved Fabian Nightingale. That character is great. I love the guy pretending he was osha. That's so funny.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I just like, he showed up with a badge, an OSHA badge.

[Lucy Meyer]

You know what's also nice too is like it's the 80s and it's like, oh yeah, he has a Vietnam PTSD. He's got shell shock from Vietnam. It's like, okay, in the 80s that was fun to make fun of. Now you don't. You're not like, oh, he's a. But he has a lot of horrors from what he saw in Afghanistan in 2009. You're like, okay, well, we're not gonna make light of that.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah. Oh, jinx. Okay, let's do shout outs.

[Lucy Meyer]

Here you go.

[Fabian Nightingale]

We.

[Lucy Meyer]

What? No, no, we're not sponsored. Anyway, with that we will take our AT T Mobile.

[AT&T Representative]

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[Lucy Meyer]

Gonna come back our final shout outs of the year. Of the year. This is the Season two finale, and we're gonna do some shout outs and we come back. We'll let you guys know just the last little bits. Here we go. 500.net is where you want to go to be able to become a Patreon member. Or you can go down the show notes and you can click that link if you want to gift a Patreon membership to a friend or family. You're on.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I'm on.

[Lucy Meyer]

You're on. Did you hear yourself now?

[Fabian Nightingale]

I can't hear myself.

[Lucy Meyer]

You can't hear yourself that well.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Maybe a little bit more.

[Lucy Meyer]

Maybe.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, there it is. That's nice.

[Lucy Meyer]

There you go.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's nice.

[Lucy Meyer]

There you go. How's that?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Thank you.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. Because I want you to be able to hear these names.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I want to hear them.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. We're going to start off here at the very top.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

And remember, I always just read these in the list of out that has they come to us.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Okay. Number one on the list is untrustworthy far farts.

[Fabian Nightingale]

What a doozy to start with. Hey, hon.

[Lucy Meyer]

That's a big doozy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Everybody knows about an untrustworthy fart.

[Lucy Meyer]

Everybody does. After that we have Mia.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Hey, hon.

[Lucy Meyer]

After that we have sinister feelings.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Well, they read the book.

[Lucy Meyer]

They did read the book. And also it's spelled CYN in that Sinister feelings. So thank you so much. And thank you also for double checking that the name came over properly. This next one is Shadow. Underscore daddy. Underscore is underscore rockin. Underscore my underscore downline. That's so good. Hey, Shadow Daddy. Rocking my downline.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Thank you for that.

[Lucy Meyer]

After that we have Scott K. Hey, hon. After that we have Jewish snail.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Ooh, he's kosher. Hey, hon.

[Lucy Meyer]

Jewish snail is just so funny to me. It's just a snail that complains. Okay. After that, we have came four Alex. Stay four. The underscore misses. It's Kristen BT Dubs.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Hey, hon.

[Lucy Meyer]

That is the most common story of this podcast. People coming and they're like, oh, I heard he has a podcast. Let me go check it out. His wife is amazing.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah, that's awesome. I like that.

[Lucy Meyer]

And. And honestly, listen, I think that our podcast audience is probably the only one that actually has a full. A fuller understanding of my character.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Because of that. Because they get to see the interactions with you of the things that we're more interested in. Usually people just see me just ranting and raving and screaming into the Internet.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yep.

[Lucy Meyer]

About different things.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I mean, that guy yells a lot.

[Lucy Meyer]

Listen, I Am not. Not currently screaming about John Federman and what a bag of he is. Because we wanted to record this podcast. Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I was about to say. Because I just know that tonight he's gonna. After the baby goes to go yell.

[Lucy Meyer]

In the garage, John Fetterman. After that, we have Frankenstein's Momager. What a name.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Kris Jenner could never.

[Lucy Meyer]

Frankenstein's Momager is such a good name. That is incredible. I actually do. Across social media, I do follow quite a few momagers of like. Yeah, I'm not gonna name them, but I do follow some of them because I notice they follow me.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Whoa.

[Lucy Meyer]

And I'll discover that they follow me. And I'm like, yeah, but there's a couple of, like, some bigger name influencers. Because I'm like, oh, their mom likes me. And then I'm like, I'm gonna follow you back. And that way I can see. I'm like, let's see, Momager.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Who was the famous person's mom that followed you that hated you on Instagram? Was that Nicole Richie's mom?

[Lucy Meyer]

That was Nicole Richie's mom.

[Fabian Nightingale]

So funny. That was my favorite.

[Lucy Meyer]

I forgot about that. Nicole's Richie. I refuse to follow her back.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I know. She would just.

[Lucy Meyer]

She would rail. Just rant and rave, screaming in my comments about.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And I was like. I was like, this woman's really mad. And I started looking and following some breadcrumbs. I was like, this is Nicole Richie's mom.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah. Because she was like, I think. Wasn't she, like, a full RFK mom or some? Yeah, yeah. She went, like, full crunchy crazy.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

So, yeah, that's definitely Frankenstein's Momager. Not you, though. You're a good person. You're a good person.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You're cool.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

A legend. Wait, what?

[Lucy Meyer]

After that, we have the underscore adjuster. Underscore 2028.

[Fabian Nightingale]

2028.

[Lucy Meyer]

Let's go, Luigi. 2028. Who would a Luigi run with?

[Fabian Nightingale]

How much evidence? Zero evidence.

[Lucy Meyer]

This is how much evidence I've been given nothing. I've been given nothing. No evidence of his guilt. I love that they found him in a strip mall at Altuda.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Oh, my God.

[Lucy Meyer]

They said, that's incredible.

[Fabian Nightingale]

The dentist.

[Lucy Meyer]

Here's what's wild is they could have gone to, like, a Philadelphia lawyer.

[Fabian Nightingale]

No.

[Lucy Meyer]

And then had him just drive out to Altoona.

[Fabian Nightingale]

But they. No. They want an Altoona attorney.

[Lucy Meyer]

They wanted Altoona attorney, and that's who they got pointed.

[Fabian Nightingale]

You know why? Because wherever you have a lawsuit or litigation going, you usually want to find an attorney from the area because they usually have relationships with the judges.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yeah.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And so a Philly attorney going to Altoona, there would be inherent, like, biases from the judge. It's like, oh, this big city attorney thing.

[Lucy Meyer]

But. But hear me out though.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm surprised that Luigi Mangioni.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Yeah.

[Lucy Meyer]

Doesn't have a My cousin Vinnie situation going.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I bet he does.

[Lucy Meyer]

I bet if we had a Joe Pesci coming in, being like, all right.

[Fabian Nightingale]

I feel like this guy is. Got a little Joe Pesci energy.

[Lucy Meyer]

I feel like he does.

[Fabian Nightingale]

He did the. Like, he had the purple tie.

[Lucy Meyer]

He does. How much evidence?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Show me the evidence.

[Lucy Meyer]

After the adjuster. 2028, by the way, we have Jojo.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Hey, hon.

[Lucy Meyer]

And finally, our last Patreon, our last shout out of 2024. 2024, we have Rachel O'Malley.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Hey, Rach. Hey, hon.

[Lucy Meyer]

Hey, Rachel. Thank you so much for everybody for joining us on this journey that has been this year. We'd like to remind you before we go that we will have another episode of vibing out with the food [e-mail] or patreon.com Perlmania500. You can check all that in the show notes. Mrs. P. Do you have any final words before we get into our shout out comment of the week?

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay, number one, let me think. It's holiday season.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

It's stressful.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Take a break.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Drink a water.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Take a nap.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

If you're buying gifts for somebody.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Buy the. Buy books from a local bookstore, not Barnes and Noble.

[Lucy Meyer]

Yep.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That's all.

[Lucy Meyer]

I'm gonna say this. If you work in the customer service industry, go in our prayer group. First thing, we got you in your our prayers. But second thing, after the holidays and before New Year's, don't take gruff from fucking nobody. And know that your business cannot replace you and actually will forget about anything that you do that's worth like a demerit or a write up. They just will because they're in the middle of so much fucking weird shit in transition during that time. And they're just trying to make numbers for the end of the year fucking slack a little bit. Maybe show up to work late. What are they gonna do? Who gives a shit? Number two, I'm gonna say I want you all to get in the comments.

[Fabian Nightingale]

Okay.

[Lucy Meyer]

Get in the comments.

[Fabian Nightingale]

All right.

[Lucy Meyer]

To prove you made it to the end of the episode and type the following words. Justice for Fabian. He's my favorite character. He's my favorite character. That I've read in any of these books and I wish he existed in the ACOTAR universe. So with that, ladies and gentlemen, thank you guys so much to every single person who's listening. Thank you to all the Pearl Maniacs. Thank you so much for a wonderful, incredible year and we will see you in 2025. Too many frauds and too many scammers.

[Fabian Nightingale]

That we wish weren't real.

[Lucy Meyer]

Too many cons and too many spammers.

[Fabian Nightingale]

And we're starting to feel like we've.

[Lucy Meyer]

Got too many tabs. Open it too many times. Remember to smile.

[AT&T Representative]

AT T Mobile we'll give you four free 5G phones and four lines for only $25 per line per month with eligible trade ins. And no, it's not a contest, it's every day for a limited time. Everyone's a winner on a Miss America's largest 5G network.

Minimum of 4 lines for $25 per line per month with autopay discount using debit or bank account. $5 more per line without autopay. Up to $830 off each phone via 24 monthly bill credits plus taxes, fees and $10 device connection charge for well qualified customers. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue bill credits or credit stop and balance on required finance agreement due bill credits and if you pay UP devices early ct mobile.com.