Oddity Shop
This podcast examines the oddities of the world...Cryptids to Conspiracies, Cults to Curiosities, Myths to Mysteries, and so much more! Stop by the shop, where the bizarre is always on sale... Each week your curators, Kara Perakovic and Zach Palmer will be opening the shop and sharing stories with you.
Oddity Shop
Oddball Guests: Lauren The Mortician
Welcome to a Very Special Episode of The Oddity Shop! In The Shop This Week we have a special guest: Tiktok's Very Own - Lauren The Mortician!!!
Lauren pulls back the curtain on the mortician's daily routine—a constantly shifting landscape far from the stereotypical gloom many imagine. From meeting with families and visiting cemeteries to performing embalmings and navigating the emotional terrain of grief, she finds purpose in helping people through their darkest moments.
Yet it's her spiritual encounters that truly captivate: footsteps of a child echoing through an empty morgue at 2AM, mysterious banging on autopsy tables, and the compelling story of how her skeptical uncle encountered a grandmother's spirit at an accident scene—an experience that transformed even the most traditional funeral directors in her family.
Breaking from funeral service tradition that keeps preparation rooms shrouded in secrecy, Lauren believes transparency and education bring comfort to those facing loss. "When you know things, you feel better about whatever you're going into," she explains, embodying the perfect balance of reverence for the deceased and practical guidance for the living. Join us for this fascinating glimpse into a world most never see, where the boundary between life and death sometimes blurs in the most unexpected ways.
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Each Week at the Oddity Shop, Your Curators Kara and Zach will bring you Creepy, Strange, Weird Bizarre Stories from around the globe!
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I want to dance with the mothman at the IA shop, bathed in the moonlight at the IA shop. Creep through the graveyard to the IA shop. The door's always open at the IA shop. Welcome back to the Oddity Shop, our little oddballs, the podcast, where we talk about all things creepy, odd, weird, strange and bizarre. I am sitting here with one of the lovely curators, cara Cara, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I am doing extra fabulous today. Do you want to know why?
Speaker 1:Well, you're looking extra fabulous, so tell us a bit why.
Speaker 2:Because we have a guest today, so we're going to keep this intro short. So I'm just going to introduce and today's guest has spent more time with the dead than most of us ever will. You may know her from TikTok as Lauren the mortician, the embalmer and the voice for the voiceless. We are so excited to have you here.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm so excited to be here. I was really looking forward to this all weekend. I'm like yeah, yeah, and I was like tell my husband, I just love, I love your guys's vibe. I've been watching you guys. Everything that you talk about is so interesting to me. I love when people are as open to different topics as you guys are, so I'm just so excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, oh my God. Well, we're so excited you're here.
Speaker 2:You're not supposed to be complimenting us, we're supposed to be complimenting you.
Speaker 1:But be complimenting us. We're supposed to be complimenting you, but, but those topics are so fun because, like normal life and for most people, probably a little less so than your normal life, but it can be so just boring and mundane. So being able to just go down the rabbit holes and suspend some disbelief and just have fun in like high strangers, you know, just yeah exciting. So that, though, lauren, do you want to tell us like a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so my name is Lauren, as you said, I go by Lauren the Mortician online.
Speaker 3:I started making content in about 2020, when everybody was stuck bored in the house and I'm in the house bored, and my first viral video I ever made was about talking about working in the morgue and how I would have spiritual encounters in the morgue and how I would have spiritual encounters in the morgue, and I just remember the view count went crazy and people are like well, wait a minute, why are you in a morgue at 2 or 3am?
Speaker 3:And so it kind of just spiraled from there and people wanting to know what happens after you die. I am a licensed mortician. I grew up in a funeral home and so this has always just kind of been second nature for me. So when people were so interested in what I do, it was so easy for me just to respond and answer their questions that they're dying to know that maybe they're afraid to ask because there's so much stigma around death and that it's just not talked about enough, and so I really found a really unique niche and it's just so me and I'm so thankful to be where I am today and that's kind of the rest is history, that's so it's so strange, though, like how it's like.
Speaker 2:You're like this is my normal life, but yeah, let me tell everybody about it. It's awesome. I love it. So, because you grew up, your dad was a mortician as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my dad is still a mortician. He's been a mortician for over 32 years and my grandpa went to school with him and they were the first father son duo to graduate from the University of Minnesota. Oh, I love that. The mortuary program. Yeah, so that's so cool, yeah. And then my dad has a twin brother and he's also a funeral director. And then my grandma, my grandma does flowers, funeral flowers.
Speaker 1:It's a whole family event. I love it.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that's cool. Did you always want to do that?
Speaker 3:No, absolutely not. I remember growing up, uh, it just felt like a second home to me. And you know, when you're growing up and you're a kid and you're a teenager and you're like I, you rebel and you're like I don't want to. I don't want to do what you do, I want to do my own thing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And so I remember my dad asking you know, do you want to be, do you want to do what dad does one day and I should be looking into, or that I should be doing? Until I lost my cousin in high school. We were the same age. My parents got divorced, so my mom and my dad are no longer married. That's a good thing. It's a good thing, good separation. My mom moved to Minnesota, dad stayed in Wisconsin and we moved to be closer to cousins, and my cousin was the same age as me. We went to the same high school and in April, before we were set to graduate in May, he took his own life and that was earth shattering for me. I had never.
Speaker 3:You know, it's interesting when you grow up in a funeral home and I've seen people that I knew in real life around town that had died, and I was just like, oh, it's just something that happens to other people, but then when it happens to somebody that you love, oh my gosh. I will just never forget hitting the ground and being so shocked that the world still spun Because mine had ended, mine had stopped. It was like how do people keep going? So I just remember looking at him in the casket and being like he hated his hair like that. Why did they do his hair like that? His eyes look sunken in. Why does he look that way?
Speaker 3:And it was a really tough time and I went off to college. I was going to be a dental student and I was like I hate everything about this. So I dropped out of school. My dad was ready to kill me. I moved back home, I helped out at the funeral home for the summer and I said, dad, I think I do want to do this. And he's like really. And I said yeah, and so then I went to mortuary school.
Speaker 2:That's. That's a very sad story, but it shows your character, because you want to be able to take care of people after they pass.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you'll find if you ever have coffee with another mortician one day. Most of us have some sort of why as to why we got into this or how it was even on our radar to do it doesn't seem like a job, you just typically like fall into like oh, what am I going to major in? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's how I got here and that's how I ended up with the degree in mortuary science. So when did you get the degree? So how long have you been in the field practicing and doing the work you do?
Speaker 3:I graduated in. It feels like forever ago, but it was 2015. So it was 10 years ago. Oh my gosh, I feel so old. And then you have to go through a two-year apprenticeship and then you get your licensure. So I've been practicing for 10 years, but fully licensed for eight years.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. So were you able to do the apprenticeship with the family business or did you get to go check out others?
Speaker 3:So in mortuary school in your final semester you are required to do a apprenticeship at other places in order to graduate. So I had to go to two different funeral homes. That was a great experience. That was wonderful because I got to see how other funeral homes do it Just not just my dad's, yeah, and so I did that for a while, and then you graduate, and then I got to go back to dad's and, honestly, that's where I wanted to end up anyway. So right.
Speaker 2:What is your day Like? What's the daily process of being a mortician Like? What if they're like? What do you do when there's nothing to do or like?
Speaker 3:that's actually kind of my favorite part of the job is it's not your typical nine to five. It's always something different and you never know what your week is going to be like, because one weekend you might get five deaths in and then you might be running around, running around and then Monday comes and they all want to come in, so then you meet with all five families. Then Tuesday you might be running out to the cemetery because you need to get last date rubbings on all the stones and then Wednesday you might have to do a few embalmings, run the crematory, run people, their loved ones' ashes, that when they're all done with cremation, their loved ones ashes. That when they're all done with cremation. Thursday you're working a couple funerals and then Friday, you know. So it's. It's always something different, and that that is.
Speaker 3:I think I would go crazy if I sat at a desk Monday through Friday, because I'm just so used to to. One of the things I didn't really realize is how much driving you do to the job is like 50% driving, because we always have to have somebody to drive around to go get people and where the funeral home is, we are kind of out there and people hospital a few hours away and they die there, so then we have to drive to go get them and bring them back. Or all their family I didn't even think about that, yeah, or they're all buried in small town USA. Uh, all their family is buried in small town usa, so then they die out of state but they want to come back, so then we have to arrange that whole process.
Speaker 1:It's very interesting, okay, wow I can only imagine what would happen, because I you have to be highly organized to be able to do that, like if you left that planner somewhere and somebody opened that up like OK, Monday, we're running to the hospital. Tuesday Great, oh God, it'd be hilarious.
Speaker 3:No, you do and you know it's also a team effort. If you don't have a good team, it's not going to flow right. So you need somebody answering the phones in the office and you need another director because you can't do it alone. It's, it is a lot and it can be draining because it's again, it's not your normal nine to five. I don't get to. Just you don't just punch out at five if there's another death call to go on.
Speaker 1:Right, and I imagine not just like physically draining, but you're dealing with people at some of the worst days of their life, right? So the emotional and draining with that, what do you do to, like, protect and guard yourself? I?
Speaker 2:was just gonna ask that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think the big reality is that when you're running all the time, you kind of put yourself on the back burner and it's why I don't do it full time anymore, because I was running, running, running and carrying everybody else's stress and it can be a lot to manage when you have kids and then you're trying to run for them and you just start getting pulled in multiple different directions. I don't really have the best answer to answer that, because I think I just busy myself so much and I just know that people need me and I can't be stuck in that grief. And another part of it is that they're paying the funeral home. They're paying me essentially to help them, to take them by the hand. So it's not about me or my grief or how I'm going to get through it. I need to help them get through it. So it's a lot of decompartmentalizing so that you can mentally show up and be there and be present.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like that would be very tough, especially so do you still work with your dad.
Speaker 3:Yep, I do. It's not full time. Yeah time, I don't have time, especially between us girls, especially with the content creation and such.
Speaker 3:It's like I kind of have to pick my battles on what am I doing, where do I see myself, where am I going? And I think I've found such purpose in education and helping. I mean, I just get the nicest messages from people and they're like hey, I'm going to mortuary school. You taught me about what it means to be a funeral director and I really want to do that too, and I think I give people hope that if I can do it, so can you, and I truly mean that if you find this line of work interesting, you're going to love school. Oh, I loved mortuary school and the job is just.
Speaker 2:I love the job loved mortuary school and the job is just, I love the job. So I wish I would have met you when I was like a teenager, because Zach always was like why would you want to own a funeral home in a cemetery? I'm like I don't know. I always, have always wanted that. I still say to this day I want to own that. I just want to do that. But I think, like you said kind of earlier, it's like nobody wants to talk about this stuff and it's weird. And if you tell somebody said kind of earlier, it's like nobody wants to talk about this stuff and it's weird. And if you tell somebody, especially since I guess, like for you, you kind of grew up into it but if I were to just be like, yeah, mom, I want to go to mortuary school, she'd probably be like what the hell is wrong with you?
Speaker 3:I want to work at a cemetery or do a cemetery thing like oh my gosh girl, you should, you could do it now.
Speaker 1:A lot of those are volunteer run.
Speaker 3:Oh really, yeah. So they don't have a lot of them, not the big, big ones, but a lot of the little ones, like especially in I'm not sure where you guys are located, but where the funeral home's at. We have, oh my gosh, like 50 cemeteries, and they're all smaller. So somebody needs to mow the lawn and care and maybe plow the snow, and so it's a lot of volunteer work. You could totally find somewhere to help out with.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'd be driving around all the time just driving through cemeteries. Yeah, yeah, all the time.
Speaker 3:I should just like pop in and be like hey, yeah, and you know, you could. Even you could sell headstones, you're associated with the cemetery.
Speaker 2:And hey, you want to buy a plot? I also sell headstones. It could be a way. That's how you make money. Oh, there you go, carol, new career calling. Now that's gonna be another hobby. Add it to the list.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, that's so cool I think it's so cool, though, like that, that you're able to take a step back from the as much of the day-to-day as the mortician right because the that education piece and the content creation is so freaking important. Like when I told my family that we were talking with you, my mom and my sister, who are both um, they they've been on volunteer fire departments and emt and stuff right, but they're like we love her content, we digest it all the time. It's like for them who kind of live in that same you know maybe macabre isn't the right word for it of the world, but that you know places that most people don't get to see. They're like she talks like things like our normal dinner table. You know, it's like you just normalize it in a way that I think even helps people who do similar sort of work that you do feel almost recognized.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that, yeah, and I also just feel like the education piece, like you were saying, is definitely your calling. I think you do such a great job about it. But even like just watching your videos and like you can tell, like through your comments, that people are like I never would have thought of it that way, or I don't wouldn't have viewed this this way, and it's just very interesting. And I think the next time, unfortunately, they have to be at a funeral or whatever they're going to be thinking about the things that you taught them, which I think does make people feel better, because knowledge is power. When you know things, you feel better about whatever you're going into. So I think it is really important what you're doing. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's like this. It's like a veil or a curtain, right, we talked about like the veil with death, right, but there's also a veil for funeral service and the older generation of funeral service. If they listen to this, don't get mad at me, I'm just telling you, like it is, they don't like when people know what happens behind closed doors. There's still that whole generation where they think that we should not talk up. The prep room is sacred, which I agree, but that we should not talk about it, it should not be shared, we shouldn't do any of those things, and I just I don't agree with that. We shouldn't do do any of those things and I, I just I don't agree with that.
Speaker 3:I think it gives people more comfort to know, to take away the mystery and to just make it a more normal conversation, because death is normal and for some reason, as a society, we've really, like gotten away from I. I don't know if it's the technology, I don't know if it's trying to shelter everybody from harsh realities. Maybe that's why we find true crime so interesting. I don't know.
Speaker 1:You're kind of peeking behind that. What was the moment for you then? That was like, okay, screw the old guard and their way of doing things. I want to make this content, I want to put it out there how did you come to that decision?
Speaker 3:I think that people that listened to my content and left such nice comments and said that I helped them is really where their opinions took a backseat. For me, and when you do this for a job and you are working on people that are the same age as you or younger, and you see how quickly your life can change in the blink of an eye, that person woke up that morning. That person put their makeup on, they took a shower, they got ready and they thought they were going to end up in their bed at the end of the night and they didn't, because they died tragically. And when you're around that constantly, your I don't give a fuck button is broken.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm sure, oh yeah, it just like breaks because you're like you know what I'm just gonna do, what makes me happy and what makes me feel like I have purpose, and so that's not. They definitely talk shit about me in the funeral director group.
Speaker 1:Listen. If people aren't talking shit about you somewhere, you are not living life.
Speaker 3:Like some of the content creators are people that I've had the honor of getting to know through this. Like the bigger ones, they say the same thing. It's so funny they have such a nice outlook on it. One gal said I commented on how cool of a fridge she had. I was at her house. I'm like you just have the coolest refrigerator. She goes well. If you get enough haters, you too can have a really cool refrigerator. I'll just never forget that.
Speaker 2:It's so true we had I mean, this is probably like what two years ago or something, we had some. Yeah, it was about six months in. Hate comment. I don't even remember when it was what it was about. It didn't even matter. I was so excited that somebody was so bothered by something that we said I was like we made it, I think we made our first tiktok after that about waking up to hate mail like I think that was our final, when we decided okay, we'll show our faces that was so funny.
Speaker 2:We're like what the okay? Like, why are you so bothered by what we said? And what we said wasn't even anything crazy, it was just we pissed off some trap uh treasure hunters oh my, okay, I think that was the last thing.
Speaker 2:I expected you to say some yeah, no, it was we were talking about fend's treasure, which is a great rabbit hole to go down if you haven't, but there are a lot of people who are still have very strong feelings on both sides of basically we were making comments about how we thought he was a piece of shit human, because, I'm sorry, if you hide something in, uh, the wilderness, where it's impossible to find and people are dying trying to find it, you should probably just be like you know what, let me do the right thing, and I'm just gonna go grab it and be like you know what, never mind, I don't want anyone else to die. And so we were just saying stuff like that and like somebody got so mad at us.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah like he was a great man and we're like okay yeah, like, okay, that's your opinion, we're over here with ours. You go talk about it somewhere else. Yeah, you know, what's interesting is the different platforms. You'll get totally different comments. Yeah, facebook, oh my gosh, you get the the more like the boomers over on facebook and they don't give a fuck, keisha they, they're like nope.
Speaker 2:It actually is really funny. It's sort of entertaining.
Speaker 1:It's so entertaining.
Speaker 3:I love Facebook groups so much I love the Instagram groups, tiktok's. Like the Wild West, you never know what you're going to get.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I feel like TikTok, we usually get a little bit more supportive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we actually haven't had too much negative on there or any actually. No, we were laughing the other day. My, so my dad is a woodworker and he started doing more mystical and metaphysical things, so he started selling spirit boards and he got the whole uh, like two paragraphs on facebook about you know, jesus saves and you need to pay attention to him and you're going down a dark path. He's like I think I think I'm doing the right thing I want to buy a spirit board oh my gosh, we'll send you the link.
Speaker 1:But yeah, no, it's fantastic he does that, and my mom's a church secretary who is also a practicing witch. Like the way you're able to measure all those like things together.
Speaker 3:You know, it's so fun oh my gosh, christmas time at your house has to be a hoot, no it's so much fun oh my gosh, we get the coolest things from his parents no, they're amazing I love it so much.
Speaker 2:They're so cool yeah, every holiday I get a goodie bag from his mom. I'm trying like I have so much stuff around me that I could show you, but I get a goodie bag of like uh, tarot cards or like palm reading cards. I have so much stuff from her. And then his dad's just always making us these cool woodworking thing. I I'm like, oh, my God, that's, we're the ones who are like. You should probably start selling this stuff.
Speaker 1:We're definitely a weirdo family, you know it makes life more fun.
Speaker 3:You know I, you know what I love about that. I feel like with religion, if everybody you're, you're either in or you're out, and I think it just normalizes the fact that you can still believe in God and believe that there's heaven, and still be into that stuff and believe that it just holds. No, a spirit board is not going to send you to hell and a um, a tarot card is not going to send you to hell, and I think that just makes them all all the cooler because I mean, at the end of the day, whether you're rich or religious, you're doing rituals to talk to a higher power you know it's it's all the same, it's just.
Speaker 1:What front did we put on it? Yep, exactly, yeah, very cool, oh my gosh speaking, though, of, like you know, mystical and spiritual things, and that we, we know you get down with that a little bit too, and you've had some instances, so tell us about, maybe, about maybe the more spiritual side of your job, if you want to share.
Speaker 3:You know, yes, I want to share.
Speaker 1:I'm never going to force you to tell stories, but we want to hear them.
Speaker 3:I have had. You know, I grew up in a funeral home. I think I've said that all three times.
Speaker 3:But with that and you're around, death and it's kind of it goes hand in hand. I am a very big believer, because I've seen it, that when we die we can follow our bodies around after. I don't believe that they hang around for long because you'll feel that like heavy, you'll feel that they're there and then after the funeral it'll like lighten up, like as if somebody opened the curtains and the lights shining in again. It's a really unique phenomenon. I want to call it yeah. It's really cool, though.
Speaker 3:But when I first started in college I used to do what they're called is it's corner transports. So my job as a mortuary student is I worked at a funeral home. I lived above the funeral home and the deal was that I got to live there for free but I had to be on call and work visitations. So I was on call. Our funeral home had a very large contract with a medical examiner's office. So it's not like the movies where the coroner comes and they got the van and they got the cots, and you know, it might be that way in California, but it's not that way in most states. So they contract that job out. So they talk to funeral homes or removal companies and they say, hey, you have the equipment, you have the staff, you have the people and everything and we need help. Would you meet the medical examiner at the crime scene or at the scenes of where the death has occurred and transport the body back to the morgue?
Speaker 1:I guess I never realized you went on scene.
Speaker 2:So you know, sorry to like interrupt, but, zach, I felt I thought I told you this. My brother actually used to do that in high school because his friend's parents own a cemetery. But I lived I didn't live near here anymore, like I had moved out of state, otherwise I probably would have been doing it too. But he did that. He would go and like collect bodies and he's just like, yeah, it's kind of weird, but whatever, getting paid, I'm like, okay, here's just this high school kid and his friend like picking up bodies at least you know your ride is gonna be quieter than being an uber driver yeah, yeah oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:But but that's the job, that's the that's. That's what the job was and I remember talking to my dad about it. He goes. You know, I think it'd be a great job for you because you think of all the experience you get, because it's it's nightly calls, it's sudden deaths, homicides, suicides, accidental work related. I went to a prison one time. So I mean, it's, it's very sudden deaths. Car, did I say, car accidents, car accidents, yeah, I'm sure, and uh. So it gave me a lot of experience hands on. But one of one of the things that I didn't really think about was the fact that there would be minors too, that things, accidents, happen. And one night I had to go on a call for a child that had died and I transported her back to the morgue. And when I get to the morgue my job is to roll them out of the van. I bring them in. There's like a receiving area with a table and there's a weight. I'm supposed to take their weight and then log them in the book.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So I roll my cot up to the table, unzip my cot as like a little pouch that holds the person inside with the body bag, and so I go around the table, I pull them over onto the table, I take the weight, I go back over to the book and I start logging in Now.
Speaker 3:At the time that I finally made it to the morgue it was typically late because I worked nights and weekends as a student and I'm logging the name in the book it's 2am and all of a sudden I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. And you know in that moment where you just start thinking and you're like, oh, somebody's here. But then you start thinking a little deeper and you're like, wait a minute, there was no cars in the parking lot. It's 2 am, Nobody's here, so I just stop writing and I'm listening and the footsteps come and they stop when, and all the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I realized in that moment that the footsteps sounded really light, like as if it was a child and they were trying to sneak up on me.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm going to start crying.
Speaker 3:They stopped, they stopped and you could hear me breathing. I mean, I couldn't move, I was petrified. I just stood there and they spun on their heel and they ran back down the hallway and I stood there for a little bit longer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I don't blame you.
Speaker 3:And when I finally got the courage up, I turned around. Nothing was there.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I just very calmly rolled, rolled the table into the cooler and I left, and the amount of times I have tried to convince myself that that didn't happen is insane.
Speaker 1:I'm that same way with, like, I'll listen to and believe anyone else's personal stories, but I, like I almost tried to recount those memories to be like, Okay, what did I hear wrong?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you try to debunk it. You're like that's not right.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, no, but I mean, yeah, it was probably like just an acknowledgement, right? Yeah, I'm still here.
Speaker 3:My, my best friend is a psychic medium and I asked her. I said why? Why do you think that? That? I mean, I immediately told her about everything that's ever happened to me in my life.
Speaker 3:And she said Well, you know, that could have been the spirit more than likely was the spirit of the little girl, and if you would have sat down on the floor and told her it was okay to come to you, she probably would have shown you what her last moments were like, because she was trying to connect with you. Connect, yeah.
Speaker 1:What an amazing pairing, though I'm more mortician and a psychic like that to help you get through your job. Having somebody like that to talk to, oh my gosh, that would be a fantastic tv show I call her all the time.
Speaker 3:What a duo. I'm like there's somebody here, what do I do? And she goes amazing, let me feel. Let me feel I'm like, okay, okay oh my god, that's so funny.
Speaker 2:That is what that's incredible, though. So funny, that is incredible, though. That is such a great duo.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I'll tell you one more, if you want to hear.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, please keep going. I lost everything.
Speaker 3:Hold on. I cracked my. Okay, I'm out of my drink.
Speaker 1:This is how we know you're a pro, though, because you didn't crack it mid-sentence, you've done this before. We appreciate you mid-sentence.
Speaker 3:You've done this before. We appreciate you, okay. So another night that I went, I had to go on a call for a woman who had died and she had overdosed, and it was actually really, really sad because her, her dad, found her and there was a child that was alone in the in the house and it was this gosh, she was okay, every, every, every. I don't remember if it was little boy, little girl, but everybody, everybody was. It was okay.
Speaker 3:Um, so thankfully it was within a relatively quick time frame because, uh, rigor mortis was actually still set in and, if you didn't know, rigor mortis is a chemical reaction that occurs in the body. It it sets in within a few hours after death. It comes and then it goes, so it passes.
Speaker 2:Oh, I find that I always, every time I hear that, I find it so fascinating and I don't know why it never stays in my brain. But when somebody or I hear something about rigor mortis, again I'm like it's so weird.
Speaker 1:I guess I didn't realize it goes.
Speaker 3:Yep, it comes and then it goes. So random, random squirrel moment the Pope I had people arguing with me that he wasn't embalmed and that it was rigor mortis. And I'm like no girl, it's not rigor mortis, because he's been dead a long time and that's already over, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I watched.
Speaker 1:I watched those ones. See, those were good, I was fighting for my life.
Speaker 3:Fighting for my life. I love it.
Speaker 2:Okay, anyway, sorry what was okay, so, so anyways we'll set.
Speaker 3:We're coming back now.
Speaker 2:Sorry, coming back.
Speaker 3:So I, I show up to the scene, we, we load her into my van and I drive to the medical examiner's office a few hours away. And by the time I get there, guess what time it is?
Speaker 1:2 am 2 am hey.
Speaker 3:Hey me and 2 am, that's your hour and I'm nervous going in there because I had had the footsteps already and I just it almost feels like somebody's watching me. Every time I would go in there I could feel eyes just staring at the back of my head, but I ignored it. I tried to tell myself I was going crazy and I had even talked to my dad about it. He's like, oh, you're sleep deprived, it crazy. And I had even talked to my dad about it. He's like, oh, you're sleep deprived, it'll be okay. So I told myself I'm just tired, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 3:So I roll the cot in up to the table, the autopsy table and I decided that I you know, it was a long drive and I needed to go to the bathroom and they had a bathroom, little water closet, or whatever you call it right off of the receiving area, which is super convenient when you have to go really quick. So I ran in there, shut the door and I am doing my business and all of a sudden I hear three loud bang, bang, bang.
Speaker 2:Oh, I would much rather have footsteps. Oh God, I would think somebody's like a body wasn't dead and they were breaking out or something.
Speaker 3:I was so scared I stopped peeing midstream. I'm sitting there like what the fuck was that and where the sound had come from. Was it? Sounded like the autopsy table. It was right there on the other side of the door. Sounded like the autopsy table. It was right there on the other side of the door and she, her body, was not on that table. Nothing was by that table. Nothing would make that. It sounded like a punch on the table three times wow, oh, and it's.
Speaker 2:At least your pants were already off because it's almost like a metal, like a metal table right so it's like a distinct, like sound and it like it does.
Speaker 3:The shake too, like the I don't know that word where the table shakes. I know exactly what you're talking reverberate is that?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah, that sounds good to me. Yep, oh my god, I would have lost my mind so how long did you hide out in the bathroom?
Speaker 3:A solid 10 minutes. A good solid. I was having a panic attack. I'm like, okay, okay, what could that have been? Okay, okay. I remember standing there holding the doorknob and thinking did I miss a car in the parking lot? Is somebody here? Is somebody messing with me? I walked out there and nobody was there.
Speaker 3:There was nobody in the building, and so I ran, I very quickly, I pulled her over, I signed her in and I ran to put her in the cooler and I ran out of the building and I, to this day, I think I have come up with the conclusion that she was mad that she had died because I would have been pissed too, and it furthered my belief that we follow our bodies after we die. So I don't really think that morgues are haunted. I think that people are just passing through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I feel like that makes sense. Yeah, that would make the most sense, because who would want to hang out there?
Speaker 1:And you're dealing with so many of like the, like you said, the accidental is or the unexpected. Right they're, they're probably one, confused, and two, they know their family is all going to be gathering there, so it makes sense that the spirit would go kind of just like you would if your own family member died. Okay, these are the natural next steps and what we do yep, yep, wow. So you said that your dad told you hey, it's sleep deprived and that sort of thing. Right. And so now, after you've accepted that there might be some paranormal, highly strange, strange things going on, has he come out with any experiences too, or are you just like the one who's opened up to it?
Speaker 3:I have another story, but it's kind of long.
Speaker 1:Okay, we got all the time in the world.
Speaker 2:Before you. Maybe this will go into your story, but I did. Did I read or I watched that? You did say that your dad and I loved it, so I'm paraphrasing. But it was something like he told you to be more afraid of real people than the, than the ghosts, cause they're not going to hurt you. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, cause we always say that, zach and I, I am more afraid of people than any paranormal thing that him and I experienced, like I am more afraid of people any paranormal thing that him and I experience like I am more afraid of people.
Speaker 3:Yes, yep, yep, I think my my friend, my my medium friend, um which, if you don't follow her, you should her name is the Bolesky is her name.
Speaker 2:Is that the one that you you hid um ashes somewhere in her?
Speaker 3:Yes, I did. Okay, I had a man on the internet send me his mother's ashes.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is a dark sense of humor we love.
Speaker 2:She hid them in her house.
Speaker 1:That is amazing.
Speaker 3:Before somebody comes for me. She was a terrible person in life and her son was selling the ashes on a Facebook oddities page and he was trying to make back the money he had to pay to have her cremated.
Speaker 1:I think it's great. Hey, you got to do what you got to do.
Speaker 3:He's like she was not a nice lady. I'm mad. I had to pay for this. If you want a part of her, this is my revenge on my mom and I wish she was a better person, but this is therapeutic for me to sell her.
Speaker 3:So here we go. Amazing, I love it, it's his, you know what it's his thing? I love it too. And so, anyways, she lives with me rent free, and I just brought her. I brought her over to my friend's house on a little field trip, and so she's there temporarily until I go back and pick her up.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I feel like we keep going on tangents, but okay, well, yeah, we will squirrel brain, yeah, but it's fun. It's fun, it's all good story, so it doesn't matter. Okay, but what was your other story?
Speaker 3:You're just gonna tell us. So I don't talk about this one too often because it's a little long. I'll try to not not have it be so long, but and it's an experience that happened to somebody else it's not my experience, but my dad's twin brother is also a funeral director and when I say my dad and my uncle dude, they're like, oh, you're just imagining things, it's not. It's not not a big deal. We don't believe in the paranormal. We were raised Lutheran and this is just not what we believe in.
Speaker 3:And one day so my uncle. He had to go on a funeral and so he loaded his staff up and they had three vehicles. They had the hearse, they had the flower car and they had the lead car, which is usually just another minivan, and it was him, his wife, and they had a third staff member with them. I don't remember her name, we're going to call her Lucy. They're out in the sticks. It's dirt roads all the way up to this church. And they get to the church and they look and Lucy's gone and they're like, well, I wonder where she's at. She's not here. We'll just get set up and then we'll try to find out where she went, because she was right behind him.
Speaker 3:But the dirt road kicks up so much dirt they're like, oh, maybe she missed the turn. They're like where could she have gone, oh gosh. So my uncle got back in the car and he turns around. He's like, well, I'm going to go find her because she's not answering her phone. And he goes down the road, a few intersections and he finds her. She had been T-boned by a pickup truck that did not see her because they had kicked up the dirt going through the intersection oh my God, and it had hit her on the driver's side and she had kicked up the dirt going through the intersection. Oh my God, and it had hit her on the driver's side and she had ended up in the ditch.
Speaker 1:Oh God.
Speaker 3:Oh, I have such goosebumps right now. So he immediately pulled over, got out of his car, ran. He had to run to the passenger side because he couldn't get to her from the driver's side because it was so mangled. He opened the door and she's sitting in the driver's seat and she's going and he's panicking and he's trying to undo the seatbelt and he's trying to get her out and he's trying to say her name and trying to wake her up and just trying to do something.
Speaker 3:And all of a sudden, this woman shows up and she's standing at the hood of the car and she goes what are you doing's? And? And he says I'm trying to save her, can you help me? I'm trying to get her out of the car. And this woman says no, she's gonna be fine, everything's gonna be okay. Just just leave her be, it's gonna be okay. And he looked back to lucy and he looked back to her and she was gone whoa and he.
Speaker 3:You know he was in such a panic on trying to get lucy out of the car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, you're not even thinking. Where did this person come from?
Speaker 3:Nope, he's like whoop, she's gone, she left, so then he's still. He thought maybe she went over to the other car or something.
Speaker 2:Or to help or something.
Speaker 3:So Lucy didn't make it, lucy did die and my uncle ended up getting the funeral. Um, they, they had. The funeral was probably a week later and so the family came in and they're sitting and they're making arrangements and they had brought pictures in for the funeral to put up on the picture boards oh, I knew you were gonna say this and he looked at the pictures and it was her grandma.
Speaker 1:That is amazing, though, just like your family is like coming back to help you. Yeah, wow, I have tears too, that is.
Speaker 3:I know it makes me cry too, that's that's wow.
Speaker 3:He said that it was like, like how I'm talking to you or how, if you're in public and there's somebody just standing there, yeah, he couldn't see through her. She was there, like she wasn't just an apparition, or like she really looked like somebody he could have reached out and touched, and I think that it was just such. Oh, I just have goosebumps all the way from my head to my toes, no matter how many times I talk about this story yeah, I have a lot of goosebumps.
Speaker 3:When people are near death, they talk about how angels come and visit them, or how their loved ones are there, and I don't believe that they're hallucinations. I believe that that is very true, and this story shows that, because she was trying to tell my uncle that it's going to be okay. She's going to be okay, but she's coming with me and I'm here, and the family.
Speaker 3:My uncle told them, he told them that it was her, and they all cried. Everybody, everybody was crying. There was not a dry eye in there, and I think it brought them a lot of peace.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sure that's incredibly brave of him to tell the family that story, Cause you don't know in that instance how how they're going to react to that. And I'm so glad that he did, though, because he could have withheld that comfort to protect. You know just the reaction.
Speaker 2:Yep, wow, yep, that's a. Really that wasn't even long that was a good story.
Speaker 3:Ooh, my kid is in here and he keeps laughing. Can you hear him?
Speaker 1:At first I've heard little bits of it, but listen, no, hold on. No, it's not, don't worry about it. This is not the most I can get rid of a bunch of it. We would like it to be more raw and fun and have your kid around than care about anything like that.
Speaker 3:He's playing Luigi's Mansion, oh.
Speaker 1:A good game.
Speaker 3:And it's like his favorite thing in the whole world and he's probably on a part where he thinks it's hilarious and my husband is with the other kid and they're outside.
Speaker 1:Do not even worry about it.
Speaker 2:We would much rather have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't care, you know, it'd be just like really realistic and okay.
Speaker 2:So at first I at first I heard it like this, like a faint scream, but that's not the first time we've had faint screams on a podcast, and it not actually be a child, so I was just thinking that we were okay, this was whatever, a really fun one.
Speaker 1:We were about to start recording with a guest, we hear screaming. We're talking about the scream and it was like just kind of how you jumped into the um recording. He jumps in. We're like, oh my gosh, we were just hearing, you know, like this scream noise, trying to figure out if our window was open. He goes uh, so you guys know how I'm related to lizzie borden. It wouldn't be the first time we've heard her spectrally screaming before.
Speaker 2:I'm like oh okay, he goes. It happens all the time with me. You'll just yeah, uh, that episode, I think, is already out, right? Yes, yeah, sam's. Yeah, yeah, it's. It was crazy, I don't. I don't know if you could hear it in the recording, though no, because it was before it was. You and me were on it came through, and then he jumped on.
Speaker 2:So but he's like no, we gotta start recording earlier now yeah, he's like, he's like I hear her screaming all the time. I'm like, oh, okay, all righty. Then I'm like well, I guess we're not talking about lizzie borden, because I don't want her screaming at us anymore. Oh my god anyway. So zach does not like kids, he's lying I still think they're cute trying to like kids. He's gotten so much better.
Speaker 3:That's like me with cats. I love cats. This is not at my house.
Speaker 1:There you go, see. You take care of the kids, I'll take care of the cats. We'll make the world go around.
Speaker 2:But if your kids are like sarcastic, like Zach loves, like, a sarcastic kid, a sarcastic, a sassy kid I'm golden. If they a sarcastic, a sassy kid, I'm golden. If they're like, all well behaved I just don't know how to. He doesn't know what to do. I'm like I can't. Oh my god, all right, sorry. Now we see we get off on all these tangents.
Speaker 1:I know it's what we're best at. Okay, so it with, like some of the, the spiritual things that go on around there too. Do you do anything like to cleanse or or help the spirits move on between things, or do you, are you more of just the observer, like what? What kind of role do you take in that?
Speaker 3:I. I think now I've, when things happen, I'm not as jumpy or as nervous. Now I think it just took a few times to kind of realize that I might be, because I'm open to it. I think I might be a light for them on. They're just trying to find some sort of way to connect. So for me I might just, you know, take a couple of deep breaths and I talk to them and I yeah, I tell them it's okay.
Speaker 3:I talk to their body too, you know, like as if they're still alive, cause I fully believe that they're listening though yeah oh, I'm sure they're watching you like?
Speaker 2:what are you doing to me?
Speaker 3:yep, yep take care of me, so I I it's kind of comforting for me now. I know that's yeah, they know I I get it, so it's not weird it. Uh, it's just another day on the job.
Speaker 2:I, I do. I found it really fascinating. I was watching one of your videos and I just stuck with me the one where you were saying, um, like people asked you why you don't, why we don't, make people smile, like after they pass, and I was thinking like why the hell that would be so creepy to me, and you said I think you said it perfectly you're like, well, it's kind of not very comforting if, like your passed away loved one is just smiling, and I was like that's so I don't know why. That just like creeped me out. But then I just thought it fascinating that you were like you can inject them and then kind of like hold it so that they smile, and I was like it's so fascinating to me. Yes, it's actually getting grossed out, I can see.
Speaker 1:I'm doing good, okay. So I'm very squeamish about things that, like bones and blood and organs, should remain inside the body, or I get lightheaded. So we're, we're good, though I can hear about it.
Speaker 2:It's more than watching it. All right, you're doing, okay, I'm doing anyway when you, when you're doing embalming fluid right and you're saying you inject it in, do you inject it in the head and then it goes into the face. How does that work?
Speaker 3:yeah, so uh, when in an ideal embalming we use the carotid arteries here.
Speaker 3:So, you can. It's similar to how your body already pumps blood. It's a closed system. So we drain through the jugular vein the blood out. We want to replace that blood with embalming fluid, so we inject it into your carotid artery. Your carotid also runs up into your head, so we inject down and then we take it out and we put the cannula up so that it goes up into the head. And you can do it on both sides. Ideally you just want to stay on this side and it'll circulate through. But you can tell if you're getting fluid distribution, because the face will firm up. That's what the embalming fluid is meant to do, is help firm up the tissues. It makes doing cosmetic work so much easier on the face too. And when we do that, when it's firming up, you can kind of take the lips and just make them like a slight, but not not a smirk, not like a big old smile, Just like a just just where it's not such a huge frown, it's just like a Mona Lisa sort of deal.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly like that, Just a little, that they're at rest, that they're at peace and that they don't look uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:So just because you said, like the cosmetic part of it, do you do the cosmetic part of it or do other people usually do it? How does that part work? I don't even know.
Speaker 3:No. So something that will probably stick with you that I'm about to say is that funeral homes are cheap.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We like to do everything with you. That I'm about to say is that funeral homes are cheap. We like to do everything. Maybe I shouldn't say that, but they are. They're not going to go out and hire a special makeup artist, because they get a lot of people that are like I just want to do the makeup, can I do that? The answer is you could, but are you going to get hired? No, because they would rather pay the full-time director to go in. It's already kind of a part of the whole process. I actually love doing the cosmetic work, so I'm glad it's a part of my job.
Speaker 2:Most of us love doing it, so we do it, do you like look at pictures of them and kind of okay, like for a reference, and like, yeah, we didn't do my grandma's makeup, but my mom's a hairdresser and so that was like one of my grandma. Oh, I'll cry. One of my grandma's things is like she always told my mom you have to do my hair, cause you're the only one knows how to do it and you will do it right. And so my mom's like okay, so my mom did her hair.
Speaker 3:Oh, she loved that. Yeah, I know she loved that she was watching over, she just loved that.
Speaker 2:Oh, she did, yeah, so but yeah, they're not going to hire.
Speaker 3:I mean, I guess you could, but you could now, if the family walked in and they're like, hey, we want to do her makeup Absolutely, or we want this person to do the hair or the makeup Absolutely, let's, let's call them. It's not something we have to do, but it's already things we do in-house, that we went to school for to learn how to do. So we do it. That's part of the schooling. Is the makeup? Yes, restorative art, restorative cosmetics.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Wow, I guess I would have never thought about that. That would be part of the schooling job but?
Speaker 3:but they try to teach you how to, with clay, rebuild an ear or, if, if there was skin slip, how to accommodate for that. So it's it. It's things like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes sense, but still, I guess I never would have thought about that. That's, that's wild. Oh, look at, we're learning so many things.
Speaker 1:I know you said in there too, that like, if the family requests right, so I'm sure what? What are some like the wildest requests that you you've gotten to honor for families?
Speaker 3:oh, I had a, a lady. She had like 50 cats in her lifetime and she had them all cremated and they all lived at her house with her speaking of cats, okay and uh. So she said, her daughter came in and she's like what are we gonna do with all these cat cremains? And I said, well, can we bury them with her? And she's like we can do that and I said yeah, yeah she goes well, the cemetery. I said how is the cemetery gonna know that the kitties are in there?
Speaker 3:right I'm gonna turn around and you can put it in there when I'm not looking and I didn't see anything.
Speaker 1:So literally taking the secret to the grave.
Speaker 3:I love that like 50 little little little like urns with the cats. Yeah, and I, you know I that brought the family a lot of peace to do that for her yeah, you know, probably because she probably loved it.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god, that's so cute. Oh, I'm sure there's some wild requests uh, I had a.
Speaker 3:I had a son bring in in a brown paper bag. He brought me his mom's clothes and he was really nervous about it. And so what I like to do when people bring in clothing because I learned the hard way is we go through every single piece that you bring me and I take an inventory of what you brought me and how I learned the hard way. Very quickly I had a daughter bring me clothing in a plastic bag and at the viewing she goes where's my mom's ring? And I said what ring? Well, I brought you that plastic bag and I had my mom's ring in it and it was a gift from all of the kids. And I said there was no ring. And I am like scouring the funeral home. I'm looking in the garbage cans, I'm looking in the carpet, I'm looking, I am I scoured that place with a fine tooth comb. There was never any ring.
Speaker 1:I would have been in full panic.
Speaker 3:I would. I felt so bad Even today, like a part of my heart still like hurts that that she, she fully. I would see her out and around in town and she would just give me a death glare every time.
Speaker 1:She'd see, she was so mad at me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know what she thought. Well, there was like 10 kids and so the son came up to me and he goes hey, I just want you to know, I don't want you to beat yourself up over that. We all thought that ring was fucking hideous and none of us really wanted her to be buried with it.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, that's so good. Well, that would make me feel a lot better, yeah so she was the only one.
Speaker 1:If it was, maybe it disappeared for a reason you know, I was just gonna say.
Speaker 2:Maybe one of the other kids took it out they, they might.
Speaker 3:They really didn't want her to be, but this one daughter was so adamant about.
Speaker 2:You know why? She's the one that fucking bought the ring. She picked it out?
Speaker 3:she probably did. Oh, it was a very special, a very special, but none of the kids wanted it. She picked it out, oh my god, that is wild that is hilarious.
Speaker 2:Okay, I want to go maybe more morbid side. What is, how do I phrase this? What is like the most common? Like accidental death or like what is something that like, is there? Like one that you're like, wow, you would never imagine. But a lot of people like die this way.
Speaker 3:I did not know how many people die in car accidents. I did not know. I, I, uh, they're actually pretty. There's a few pretty morbid ones, uh, car accidents. I, we also had a contract with a local or not a funeral home. We had a contract with a local hospital that we would run the SIDS cases to the. I had no idea the amount of babies that I would go and pick up that in like full, full term, and they were in just these tiny little body bags and I, I, yep, and I. I didn't see them, but I can feel them like through the body bag and it was my job to bring them for the autopsy.
Speaker 3:And then the third thing, which really should have been number one, because this is the most common. I had no idea how many people take their own life.
Speaker 1:It is shocking.
Speaker 3:Because it's not talked about. No, and it's not a big news story. It's not going to make the news. It is astronomical. That was the number one call. I would get called on as people who took their lives.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have goosebumps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's a tough one. Yeah, you're right, people, it's more of a. We're going to kind of push it under the rug.
Speaker 3:Yep, it's not top news tonight. No.
Speaker 1:No, and it damn well should be.
Speaker 3:It should be because I think if people really knew that that is the number one, call that. And then car accidents oh gosh, I hate motorcycles. Motorcycles are death cycles really.
Speaker 1:Okay when it comes to car accidents, and I want to know if you can help vindicate me in the age-old fear that all of us millennials have. I know where this is going, how dangerous is it to drive behind the logging truck? I knew it. The final destination scene that fucked us all up scene that fucked us all up.
Speaker 3:I, I, that final destination and going on, death calls shaped how I drive like I do not stay behind the logger truck. Nope, I do not. If you are hauling a suspicious looking load in the back of your car, I don't even care if you think you have it strapped down right, I will not drive behind you, I will go around.
Speaker 1:Yep same I knew it was a good start me for life go around.
Speaker 3:Yep same, I knew it was a good start. Me for life. I've I've just I've been on enough fatalities with car accidents and I have I have seen what speed can do to the human body. I don't even chance it. Have I ever been on a logger death? No, but is there gonna be one? Absolutely? I mean it speed is speed, and the highway don't care and it's very quick, blink of an eye and it's over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I witnessed. When was that? Well, probably five years ago, I think now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Motorcycle. I was a young kid and I think he was only 21, 20. And I was driving, I was on my way home from work and it was in a construction area on the highway, so it was down to two lanes. And I'm on the phone with my husband and I'm like, oh my God, and he, this motorcycle, whips past me and I would tell my husband. I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, and now I'm like, damn I should. I'm like that kid's going to kill himself. I said, or something like that. I said, one lane, everyone's going around.
Speaker 2:And I see that he hit the back of the car because he couldn't stop in time, flew over the median and got hit by a truck on the other side. And so I just like, flew into, like you know, fight or flight. And then I realized that the, the people that he hit, was a young kid. So this kid is mortified because this motorcycle just hit the back of his car and he's. So I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 2:So I get out of the car and I'm like calming this kid down, and then I realized that, like I mean not even 20 feet away from me as a dead body, and I'm like, oh man, so I actually I don't even know what came over me, but I'm like, does anyone have a blanket? And somebody in a car had a blanket and gave it to me so I could cover this poor kid, because people are on the other side, are getting out and gawking at this. Yep, that, yep, that's what they do. Yeah, it was crazy, it was wild, and but after that I was like, yeah, no, no one needs a motorcycle, let's just not, no, or drive it like oh my God, it was crazy.
Speaker 3:No, I um, I I had no idea how many people die on motorcycles either until holiday weekend coming up. Without a doubt somebody's going to die on a motorcycle. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's inevitable. It's so sad. You should each have your own bike. You should not ride together on a motorcycle. Nothing has fucked me up more than going on. Husband and wife killed in a motorcycle accident. They went out, they were going for a drive and somebody pulled out and they hit the car and they're both gone In a split second. They're both gone and so I show up. They're both still warm. I load them up into my van and I bring them to the medical examiner's office, where I unload them one at a time and roll them into the cooler side by side. And what fucks me up is thinking about how they woke up that morning and they were not planning to meet me that night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like they were just going to go on a fun adventure. I think that, and it always really, really fucks me up when I see kids on bikes.
Speaker 1:I just don't think that should be it's not worth it, especially in a state like ours, where you don't have to wear a helmet anymore, so stupid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fucking stupid as hell.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. But you know what? It doesn't do much for them anyways.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 3:Interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess if you're going to be hitting something at that speed, no, you're totally fine.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not done yet. Sorry, he's like attached at my hip.
Speaker 1:That is totally good we can, and we can start getting wrapped up. I know it's probably getting late for him.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh my God, it's already nine o'clock. I didn't even realize.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't believe an hour flew by. It goes so fast, I know.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask really quick Were you the one that made a video about not wearing hair clips while driving?
Speaker 3:That was not me.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, yep. So, zach, if you don't know and I can't remember where I heard it, but it was you know and I can't remember where I heard it, but it was. You know, like the big jaw clips that you put your hair up with, like the big plastic ones.
Speaker 1:Yes, I use them all the time.
Speaker 2:And maybe, yeah, with your beautiful hair. Maybe this isn't true, but whoever it was, wherever I saw it was like you shouldn't drive with those, because they've seen so many people have it be impacted in the back of their head if they got into a car accident. And now every time I get into the car I take my clock, lip out. Is that true?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah that was a nurse, I think on TikTok that talked about that but somehow it got roped in with me because around the same time I was talking about how, when you're at a stoplight, you don't go on green. No, I never do so, it turns green. You should take a second and look both ways and make sure there's no other cars coming, because you don't know if somebody could run the light. And I picked up somebody that did that. They ran the light and uh no, but yeah, claw clips no claw clips.
Speaker 1:No, hesitate, don't ride motorcycles.
Speaker 2:Three things we learned yeah, just don't do it okay. Okay, I would say we have some rapid fire questions. Yes, do it okay. She's like do it okay, perfect.
Speaker 3:Uh, most surprising part of mortuary school oh, you know, oh, oh, how morbid can I be? Oh, we should have started.
Speaker 1:As morbid as you want. Be morbid as you want.
Speaker 3:Be morbid, okay, so at mortuary school, when you donate your body to science, you can sign a line that says that at the end of it they can keep whatever they want to. So there are just bins of different preserved, perfectly preserved body parts in mortuary school that we have the opportunity to examine, and so that was really kind of shocking for me because I wasn't expecting that. And so when we had human anatomy and we were learning about the private parts, they have boxes with private parts in them.
Speaker 1:Oh, very interesting.
Speaker 3:So we got to learn about anatomy just like right up close.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if you donate your parts, you might really be donating your parts, yeah, and you know you don't need them anymore.
Speaker 1:So that's very true.
Speaker 3:It is a very nice gift of you to give, because then we get to study that for human anatomy and not only me, but where I went to school it was a part of the medical school program, so they also have the dental students and the doctors and nurses, and so that was really interesting for me to be able to see what a gift donation is and how we got to learn so much more because we had people that donate their bodies and we would embalm on the donors you're getting cosmetic and you're getting anatomy and you're getting like it's so many different and you're running the business, like so many hats I love this.
Speaker 1:What's the one tool in your work that you can't live without?
Speaker 3:that I can't. I've nobody's ever asked me that before we tried to come up with like kind of different ones you know, there's just so many things that I need. Right, I need everything I need my embalming table and I need my embalming machine and I need my cremation, my crematory. Um ah, you know, I have a special makeup brush that we always use there you go. That could be your one tool. And it's vintage. Oh okay, that's cool, it's vintage and it's great.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to say my makeup tools, okay, perfect. This isn't actually one of mine, but I forgot. I wanted to ask you Do you want to be buried or cremated, or what do you want to do?
Speaker 3:Oh, I get that all the time. So that depends on how old I am when I die. Because if I die tomorrow, I already know that my dad will talk my husband into having me embalmed because he's going to want to see me. They're going to need that foreclosure. I think my kids would need that too. I think that they, they would need that. Okay, so it's not really about. It's not about me, but when I'm 90 and I'm old and I'm wrinkly and if you don't come and visit me, you can just everybody. You're not coming to see me when I'm 90.
Speaker 3:Like you had a lot of time you had 90 years, so you can just cremate me. It's really up to my family.
Speaker 1:It's not it's.
Speaker 3:I does not matter to me one way or the other, because I believe that funerals are for the living.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've. Yeah, I've heard you say that. I kind of agree with that.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite like fun fact in the mortician realm to share with people? Oh, yeah. Your your go-to icebreaker.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, these are great questions. Um, you know, I don't know. Um we've had, you know it would have been rigor mortis Cause. That's like my number one thing to debunk it, because so many people think that.
Speaker 2:There we go. Yeah, that's a good one think that there we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good one. Um, I can't even think of another one. I think that's a fair answer.
Speaker 3:I know we're putting on the spot with a bunch.
Speaker 3:Oh no, I got one, okay. So a lot of people want to know. With cremation, they talk about black smoke coming out of crematory, and so a good icebreaker is that sometimes it's just black smoke, but sometimes, I mean, you think about the human body and the fact that we all have fat in different places and that fat can help fuel the fire. And if you have a lot of fat, a lot of excess fat, that can boost the flame, and when the flame gets too high, you get black smoke. And so you have to be really careful and you need to monitor the crematory, or else you could have a grease fire that has gotten out of control and then the fire department comes.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, I would have never thought that. I would have never thought about that.
Speaker 1:That's a good one. Okay, that is a great one.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, so I okay. What, if any, are some myths or like urban legends about?
Speaker 3:death that you secretly wish were true, oh okay, I don't know if I secretly wish it was true, but an urban legend that I hear all the time and I call bullshit on, is when people are like my granny worked in the hospital and the dead guy sat up on the table and he just sat up. Have you ever heard that People are like, oh, the dead body sat up on the table and he just sat up? Have you ever heard that people are like, oh, the dead body sat up on the table and I'm like ma'am, that was not a dead body, they are alive. If they're sitting up, they're alive. Think of the muscle it takes in your abdomen to do a sit up Like. I don't even want to do that when I'm alive. I'm not going to do that when I'm dead.
Speaker 1:Hey Kara, you should cross off your next question.
Speaker 2:One of the questions on here is it true that dead bodies can sit up? But that's so funny.
Speaker 3:Well, if you ask that, you could just stitch it in at the beginning of that one.
Speaker 2:No, I love it. Oh no, that's perfect. I think that's funny because it bothers me so much.
Speaker 3:Oh, my grandma. She was a nurse and she saw this. I'm like no, she didn't.
Speaker 2:I never thought that that was true, but when I was like trying to think of questions, I was like, well, maybe it fucking is, I don't know, but that's even funnier that you know, so many people think it.
Speaker 3:I almost wish it was true. I almost wish it was true.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go, that's a not really urban legend, but I guess if you're into the science stuff.
Speaker 3:Technically, if you died and you were on your side when you died, and if rigor mortis set in and then bloating happened, and let's say I went to turn you over and I'm trying to get you loaded onto the cot.
Speaker 3:It might appear as though you are sitting up because your body is stuck that way until rigor mortis passes. So I've had people where they are in immediate rigor mortis and they are curled up in a ball and I can't relieve that rigor mortis. Sometimes you can stretch their arms or move their hands and do a little yoga and you might be able to work it out to alleviate that. But when it's in the first stages of it and it is solid, you can't break it until it passes or you will break a ball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy, that's so wild. My last one is I was loving the video of the um god and I think you said, like a scavenger hunt of the metal bucket that you have, of all the metal that came out, what is like the wildest thing that has come back out of the crematorium oh, I found a pair of surgical scissors that was left inside of the body. Oh, I was not gonna do you have any idea how long like? Was it a procedure that they had close to death, or were they there for?
Speaker 3:so they actually died during the procedure, okay, and it was left in and it was left inside the body and I thought that was kind of rude. I'm like that's rude. Maybe they forgot it, I don't really know, but it was shocking to me to find it, like in the when I'm picking through for the medals I was like this is just a pair of scissors just hanging out here, or?
Speaker 3:it was a clamp. I'm sorry it was a clamp, oh yeah, oh my God, still a little little negligent on the medical side. Yeah, like that was a you know why, I don't know just kind of they didn't do a very good, uh. But you know what? I don't really know any logistics about the surgery. Maybe they were really upset that they couldn't save them or something yeah and the doctor just didn't.
Speaker 3:You know, he was so upset that he left it's. It's so hard to say so I don't want to say it was medical malpractice. I think that it was a very sudden death and I think it just got forgotten.
Speaker 1:Well, either way, that's shocking, it was. I was like oh yeah, definitely, oh my God, Whoa.
Speaker 2:Well, is there, I guess. Is there anything else that you want to tell us, or?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I feel like I told you so much.
Speaker 2:I know this is like this is the quickest hour and that we've ever had with a guest. This is like wild.
Speaker 3:This that makes me feel good.
Speaker 1:That means you had fun okay that means you have to come back.
Speaker 3:So much fun yeah well, you know what, if um anybody listening has any questions that they're dying to know, maybe we'll have to do like another little q a and answer any questions that would be fun we could have, like our listeners ask or write questions to have All right listeners.
Speaker 1:So that's our ask this week, instead of asking you to write in your own personal creepy stories. Any questions that you have for Lauren, we're going to stack them up and then we'll have her back again.
Speaker 3:Oh, but if you have a creepy story, you should send that too, because I love reading creepy stories. We can read your story too.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know what Join. Oh, you know what. Join us for a bonus episode. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, do you? Okay, we do have some write-ins. We are waiting for a couple more people to give us some of their creepy stories. So maybe when we get a couple more and some questions. We'll have you back. That would be fun.
Speaker 1:That sounds so fun.
Speaker 2:Perfect Okay.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to put you on the spot one more time, lauren, because, kara, what does she need to do? What does she need to pick?
Speaker 2:okay, so we always ask our listeners when we get to it to make sure they actually got to the end of our episode. Uh, we usually have them. Uh, leave out emoji. So what emoji should they leave for this episode? Oh?
Speaker 3:they should leave the coffin emoji.
Speaker 1:Oh perfect oh, right on. No, no thought there, no, no thought, that's my favorite one.
Speaker 3:I do a little coffin and a little sparkle. Oh, perfect Do the coffin one.
Speaker 2:Well, they can do both Coffin and a sparkle. I like it.
Speaker 1:Usually I would say you know, let people know where to find you. But if our listeners are like anybody we've told you were coming on here, they already know how freaking out. But, anything else you want to point them to, or no, nope, I'm just on YouTube.
Speaker 3:Youtube's new for me. I'd love if you'd follow me there on YouTube trying to grow that. And I'm on Instagram, tiktok and Facebook as Lauren the Mortician.
Speaker 1:Perfect. All right, so go follow her, if you don't already, although I'm sure you already do.
Speaker 2:Right, well, I guess our only ask is write in the creepy story so Lauren can come back and some questions.
Speaker 1:questions for her what else do they have to do before we close the shop up?
Speaker 2:listen, I just we're just so grateful that lauren is here. I can't even believe it. I still can't believe it. I'm gonna like pass out. We're so happy, I'm just so excited uh well, before we close the shop, let me just tell you I I'm like, until you show up on camera, lauren, I'm. I think I'm getting pranked, I think somebody's pranking.
Speaker 1:I think she thought Ashton Kutcher would show up.
Speaker 3:No, I should have just had the skeleton.
Speaker 2:I'm like, I'm like what if I was telling my husband he's like, sweetheart, it's really her? Why would no one? She's not like it's her. I'm like, well, what if it's a prank account pretending to be her? Oh, it's not sweetheart she. I think she really does love your vibes and she's coming and I was like yes, no, no, oh, my God so anyway, we really appreciate this. We can't believe it, but anyway, the most important thing that you guys can do for us is to creep it. Really oddballs.
Speaker 1:Goodbye, bye. You got to throw a bye in there, lauren, bye, perfect. I'm home with the dogman At the ID shop, won't leave the shadows At the ID shop, and home with the oddballs At the ID shop. The door's always open At the II shop.
