Episode 134: Terrifying Truck Tales
Odd TrailsJune 25, 202400:38:48

Episode 134: Terrifying Truck Tales

Stories in this Episode:

- Strange Dancing Silver Face Person by the Lake, by boomer_c5
- Terrifying Truck Tales, by Chris
- Shapeshifting Classmate, by WednesdayNevermore
- Highly Effective Trickster, by Anonymous
- My Mom Swears She Could Fly, by 315retro

Submissions: stories@oddtrails.com

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[00:00:00] Odd Trails is a true paranormal podcast. If you have a story to share, send it to stories at oddtrails.com. Enjoy the show. Forget facts, forget logic, forget everything that seems real. Trust. Believe.

[00:00:58] Strange Dancing Silver-Faced Person by The Lake by Boomer C5 This story takes place about a year and a half ago, so my mind is a bit fuzzy, but it was one of the strangest and weirdest events I've experienced.

[00:01:15] At the time of this story, I was a freshman in college. I'm very introverted as a person, and I've only made a few friends throughout my time in college, maybe three or four. Also,

[00:01:27] at the time, I was in a bit of a fishing phase, where I loved to fish. I still do, but at the time, I loved it almost every day. I only really fished for common freshwater fish,

[00:01:40] bass, sunnies, a few catfish, etc. I was looking to go for something bigger though. I was looking to catch carp. My college campus had a lake and stocks for students to go and

[00:01:54] fish from. Now, my school isn't near any gas stations or a shopping center or anything like that, so I couldn't just walk to get some fishing supplies. And I didn't have a car either, so I really only depended on what I brought with me from home.

[00:02:09] Carp are also very sloppy fish, so they will eat straight up food, anything that can produce a pungent odor, really. So, I would just get some food from the dining hall, and whatever I didn't

[00:02:22] finish, and I would fish with it. Carp also prefer wet, sticky, rainy, or overcast weather, and are more active during the darker parts of the day. I was sitting in my room, bored until 6.30 or 7, when I started hearing rain drops on the window.

[00:02:41] I didn't immediately go straight to fishing, rather, I just went to the dining hall for dinner, then I came back with leftovers to retrieve my rain jacket, boots, and fishing gear. I was taking my time, so by the time I arrived at the lake, it was about 8.

[00:02:57] Now, this lake is a pretty modest size, you could see probably 90% of it regardless of where you were standing. Three-fourths of it is bare grass where a walking path strolls by, while the remaining

[00:03:11] is trees and brush. I stood on the bank and threw my line into the water, leaning against a tree, and I couldn't go on my phone because of the rain, so my mind was focused on my line,

[00:03:24] until something else caught my attention. I spotted a person, or at least what I assumed to be a person, right on the outer edge of where the trees and brush begin. Now, it was a rainy night, and street lamps didn't stretch to where they were standing,

[00:03:41] so take what I say with a grain of salt. Now, they were wearing light-colored pants, a black sweatshirt, and no shoes, just what appeared to be socks. They were also standing in a very marshy, swampy area as well. If they weren't getting completely soaked from head to

[00:04:00] toe in the rain, well, they were getting soaked from feet up with mud. There was also this black box with a small white light coming out of it, which pierced through the night incredibly bright.

[00:04:13] Though it was a very small light, I'd assume a quarter inch big from where I was standing, the amount of power that it had was incredible. This person would walk back and forth from the

[00:04:24] edge of the lake to look at the lake or skip and dance behind a tree multiple times, all while picking up this small cube and pointing the light in the direction of different areas. They would go back behind a tree, then reveal themselves at the lake's edge,

[00:04:41] skip back behind, reveal themselves again to remove the box, then go back behind the tree, and they would do it all over again. I watched them do this multiple times, making my presence known by making noise. At one point, they went back behind a tree,

[00:04:58] this time walking normally, stayed behind it for an uncomfortably long time before walking slowly to the lake's edge and like they had some kind of sixth sense. They then looked right at me. However, from the light emitting from them, I could only see a metallic, shiny,

[00:05:18] silvery sheath covering the entire face of the person. No holes were cut out for eyes or a mouth. You may think it could be a clear face protector, but I saw what I saw. They stood there almost

[00:05:33] staring into my soul for about 30 seconds. Not once did I look away. I didn't even blink. But they turned and I saw them walk into the brush, leaving that small cube on the ground.

[00:05:48] They walked down to what I assume was a walking path, which eventually would lead to the trail I was standing on. I went to my tackle box and grabbed a knife hoping that I wouldn't have to

[00:05:58] use it. As I felt that light shine on my face from the cube, I immediately looked up. It was now facing me. I had had enough. I packed everything up quickly and as I was walking

[00:06:09] back towards my dorm, I heard manic footsteps, very much barefoot slaps on the tarmac path. I ran back to the staircase leading to the main campus, but not without looking down the foot

[00:06:23] trail. What I saw was my final look at this figure. They were sprinting in the opposite direction from me with their arms up in the air. They weren't screaming or anything.

[00:06:36] I got back to my dorm safe and sound. Nothing happened the rest of the night, but I returned to the lake early the next morning before class and I found what appeared to be horse hoof prints.

[00:06:48] They were in the shape of a bloated V. I saw the wear in the grass that the thing left going back and forth behind the tree. I didn't find that black box though. Normally,

[00:07:01] I would say that this may be some drunk or high student, but it just doesn't explain their extremely weird behavior and those weird footprints in the mud or that shiny face

[00:07:13] that pierced my soul. I'm not sure what I met that night, but I don't think I want to know. Terrifying Truck Tales by Chris I'm an overnight truck driver from Los Angeles. I drive all over Southern California on any given

[00:07:55] night. I used to be quite skeptical of the paranormal. I would block out a lot and tell myself that certain things are simply not possible in order to protect my sanity, I suppose. But the

[00:08:10] amount of absolutely crazy stuff I've seen on this job has made me rethink my stance on things that go bump in the night. These are the most notable experiences I've had, in no particular order, over the last one and a half years I've been doing this job.

[00:08:28] 1. I was driving down Highway 101. I remember it was a very dark night, no moon whatsoever, and the darkness was inky and thick. Despite how dark it was, I could tell there was a dark cloud descending down from the hills. It was a fog composed of

[00:08:52] pure black. I was completely awake, AC blasting and still early in my shift. I drove past the spot on the hill enveloped in the darkness. I drove through a quick dark patch, and I was instantly three miles down the highway, and all the lights were back.

[00:09:14] The clock hadn't changed, I was in the same spot in my song, I hadn't even blinked, yet I was somehow three miles down the freeway. The road sign said the exit I was passing was

[00:09:27] three miles away. I definitely did not fall asleep, and I was completely cognizant during the whole ordeal. 2. I was driving through another area of the city towards the end of my shift.

[00:09:44] I was heading to fuel up the truck for my day driver. It was roughly 3.15 in the morning. I was driving in the rightmost lane, and I was able to see a man walking down the shoulder of

[00:09:57] the highway. Since it was so early and I was the only vehicle around, I slowed down quite a bit and gave him plenty of space. I was able to get a pretty good look at the guy.

[00:10:09] I remember him wearing a grey hoodie, blue jeans, white shoes, and a Dodger's cap. He also had a beard, and I noticed a large scar on his cheek. He smiled and waved as I passed.

[00:10:25] I kept driving and took my exit shortly later, which was only about two miles past the spot I saw the man. As I approached the stop sign at the end of the off-ramp, I noticed someone

[00:10:39] crossing the street. I did a double take and shook my head in absolute disbelief and confusion. I was looking at the same man I drove past just a couple minutes prior. The exact same man. I know it's a very common outfit in LA, but that scar was distinctive,

[00:11:01] and the way he cut his beard was also not very common. He then smiled and waved at me again. By the time I came to a full stop, he had crossed the street.

[00:11:15] Then when I looked over to see if I was seeing things, the man was gone. Completely gone. The street was empty. There were no bushes, yards, or cars to hide behind. Not even any buildings for about 300 yards. There's absolutely no way he could have made

[00:11:35] it over to the buildings in the blink of an eye. But then again, he did manage to beat me here on foot when we were both two miles away. I couldn't find specific information on any deaths or accidents

[00:11:49] since there are so many on that portion of the highway, but I am fully convinced I saw a ghost wave at me. Twice. Number 3 One of the locations I frequently transport loads for has an interesting history. It shares

[00:12:08] a parking lot with a local restaurant that's famous for being incredibly haunted. I didn't know about this until something happened to me first hand. It was around three in the morning, and I was dropping off a load next to the restaurant, as usual.

[00:12:26] When I walked around to the back to deliver my paperwork, I noticed someone wandering around the parking lot. I thought she just showed up early, working overtime or something since people get there at

[00:12:39] four. But I soon realized she wasn't in company uniform. In fact, she was wearing a rather dated dress, from what looked to be from the 1920s. Then the children's giggling started. I have never

[00:12:56] run away from something so fast in my life. Another driver had pulled in as I was running past, and he stopped me. He was worried and asked if I was okay. He actually said that I was as white as,

[00:13:10] well, a ghost. I told him what I had just seen, and he was all too familiar. He then proceeded to tell me the history of the restaurant. At one point, it was a schoolhouse. The story goes that the school burned down, with teachers and children inside. Number 4

[00:13:34] This incident is much shorter and not very spooky. I was driving past Camp Pendleton, the famous Marine Corps base. This was yet another time I noticed someone walking down the side of the highway, but this one in particular stood out. It was a man in a

[00:13:53] World War II era Marine dress uniform, carrying a suitcase. I blinked for one second and he was gone. After asking several Marine buddies, they confirmed that the base is fairly haunted. This last incident is the absolute creepiest to me.

[00:14:14] I still get goosebumps thinking about it, and it's been years since I last spoke about it. I was northwest of LA, near my hometown, in an area I still know very well.

[00:14:27] I had finished my route fairly early and was about to go on break, so I decided to reach out to my sister to see if she wanted to meet up for lunch, since she works graveyards too.

[00:14:40] It was a beautiful night, save for the soupy coastal fog, which even then I still love. I drove in the car I was transporting at the time to go meet my sister, since my truck wasn't permitted on the back roads I wanted to take.

[00:14:57] The car happened to be a Tesla, and for those unfamiliar, they have tons of cameras, sensors, and radars. The display on the dash shows when there's pedestrians, animals, and vehicles around you. This is important for what happens next. I was driving down a road I know very well,

[00:15:19] and made the turn to get onto the straightaway towards my sister's work. While I was making the left turn, I noticed something on the side of the road. The best way of describing it was someone wearing a backpack, but holding a big fleece

[00:15:35] blanket over themselves. I didn't pay much attention to them, but I looked down at the display and saw that nothing showed up. Then I looked back up, and the shape was in the middle

[00:15:49] of the road right in front of me. Unmoving and firm, I felt eyes on me, paired with a sense of anger and coldness. But I couldn't see anything. I couldn't breathe. I ended up driving right through the thing in the road, but there was no collision. No crash,

[00:16:12] no bump, no thuds. Absolutely nothing. I slammed on the brakes and looked behind me. Nothing in the road. I still felt like someone was pissed off and staring at me.

[00:16:27] I drove away so fast. I got to my sister's job, and when she came out I just broke down and started crying right into her shoulder. I was more terrified than I've ever been in my life.

[00:16:43] She's told me that she's seen all kinds of scary stuff on that road over the past 25 years working there. All of her co-workers have at least one ghost story involving that road in particular. She told me to talk to her dad about it the next day.

[00:17:01] When I spoke to him, he told me that he almost picked up a hitchhiker once. He turned around to unlock the door for them, but as soon as he turned back,

[00:17:11] there was no one at his window. He also saw what looked like to be an inmate on the road, which as a prison guard really caused him concern. He pulled over and got a good look at this

[00:17:25] supposed inmate, but he says they simply faded into nothing and vanished in front of him. I don't like driving that road at night anymore. After years of fine print contracts and getting ripped off by overpriced wireless providers,

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[00:20:30] I spent two-thirds of my life trying to debunk this one or come up with a reasonable explanation. When I was in fifth grade, I rode the bus with a girl who was a grade or two below me.

[00:20:43] We lived on opposite sides of a rather large apartment complex, but we could still walk to each other's homes. We're going to call her Mica. Mica was born in Romania and had moved here a few

[00:20:56] years before I met her. She had a medical condition which affected the color of her eyes. Mica had brown eyes, but half of one of her irises was blue. This is relevant for later.

[00:21:09] Mica's family was different. I went over to her apartment a few times to hang out with her and I remembered seeing a lot of unusual decor in her home. They had a lot of candles, but also a few

[00:21:21] altars and a lot of taxidermy. Her mother would get very upset any time that she brought friends over, so typically she would sneak me and a few of our other friends in any time that her mom was

[00:21:34] out shopping. My mom was pregnant at the time and often felt sick, so I never brought friends over unless she was out shopping or at the doctor's, so she never met Mica. A lot of the other kids

[00:21:46] were scared of her or felt uneasy around her. None of our mutuals could explain why. I did too at times for some unknown reason, but as a fellow outcast, I stuck by her side.

[00:22:00] She stuck by mine as well. After a few months of knowing each other, she started telling me that her family followed a belief system similar to paganism. I forget exactly what she called

[00:22:13] their religion, but it wasn't Wicca or pagan or any other common, for lack of a better word, spiritual belief system. Mica started claiming that she had special powers. I immediately called Bull and told her to prove it. She responded by saying that she would

[00:22:31] shapeshift into a cat and visit me later that evening. My family and I lived on the third floor of our apartment building. There were no fire escapes, balconies, or anything like that.

[00:22:41] We barely even had window ledges. As a side note, I loved cute stuff. Hello Kitty Care Bears, My Little Pony, and all that kind of good stuff. My best friend at the time was very into fashion

[00:22:55] and loved to act like a high schooler. The few times that she saw me in cartoon PJs, she made jokes. So I stopped wearing anything like that to school or sleepovers almost a full

[00:23:06] year before meeting Mica. Well, I went to bed at my normal bedtime of 930 wearing some Care Bear pajamas that my mom had bought me a week prior. Nobody had seen them aside from my parents.

[00:23:21] At around 3am that night, I woke up to hear scratching at my window. I jumped out of bed, looked out the window, and I saw a black cat staring directly at me. The cat was sitting

[00:23:35] on the very thin window ledge, and it raised its paw at me as if it were waving. Completely freaked out, I told myself that it was a dream and I went back to sleep.

[00:23:46] That morning, while my mom was cooking breakfast, she asked if I heard anything weird outside the night before. I asked what she meant. I saw the weirdest thing last night. I heard scratching

[00:23:59] at my window. I got up to see what it was, and I saw a black cat on the window ledge. It looked like it was trying to open my window. I sat there in silence, unsure of what to say to her.

[00:24:12] My mom continued. I was afraid it was going to fall, so I brought it inside, carried it downstairs, and put it outside. You should have seen its eyes. One of its

[00:24:23] eyes were half blue. I'd never seen a cat like that before. I felt so sick that I couldn't speak or finish my breakfast. Not wanting to approach Mika after all of this, I stood off to

[00:24:36] the side away from all the other kids until she walked up to me that day. Hey, gloomy bear, why didn't you let me in last night? I was stunned. I could have died. At least your mom was nice

[00:24:52] enough to take me downstairs. Well, I stopped hanging around her as much after that. Our building caught fire a few weeks after all of this happened, and we ended up moving a few

[00:25:04] towns away. I haven't seen or heard from her since. To this day, my mom still remembers that cat. She'll mention it every few years and make comments about how weird it was that a cat

[00:25:15] could have gotten up on that ledge. And for the last 20 years, I've been racking my brain looking for an explanation. If anybody has one, I'd like to hear it. Highly Effective Trickster By Anonymous At the intersection of psychology and spirituality, there exists a crossroad. I believe

[00:25:58] that something dark exists at that point. It's simply known by different names. I wish my story was about some otherworldly creature. Something so strange and foreign that the vast majority of the population wouldn't have to worry about encountering it.

[00:26:17] But it's not. It's an unfortunate truth that so many of the dangerous things that make your hair stand on edge are human. They walk among us. You don't have to be lost in

[00:26:31] the dark woods to encounter these fearful entities. They can live next door, or in your own home. I'm a licensed therapist and consider myself an excellent judge of character, with a well-established ability to read people and situations. That being said,

[00:26:51] there are times where I can be tricked. And tricked well. There's a type of therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, or EMDR. Essentially, this therapy is created to desensitize emotions associated with traumatic memories. I've been conducting EMDR for several

[00:27:16] years, and for the most part, it's been incredibly effective at calming upsetting memories. For legal and privacy reasons, I can't disclose too much about the client involved. There were two memories that I simply could not process. I couldn't figure out why.

[00:27:35] For some reason, these memories seemed to resist EMDR treatment. They refused to calm and quiet like the others. They also made my skin crawl and gave me an unspeakably uneasy feeling. For months I couldn't understand what made these memories so different.

[00:27:57] My brain and body refused to allow me to process through them and tuck them neatly away. There was just something about them. I knew I had to keep looking, and that I was missing

[00:28:09] something. I tried to process them as feelings of being betrayed and hurt, but that didn't seem to do the trick. There was another element that prevented the therapy from working. It wasn't betrayal that needed to be processed. It wasn't hurt or sadness. It took me such a long

[00:28:31] It took me such a long time to determine the missing piece, the barrier preventing me from moving on. Then a few weeks ago, it clicked. When these memories surfaced, the client's eyes went somewhere else. They went completely black. I remember asking some of my colleagues,

[00:28:53] Have you ever seen someone's eyes turn black? I would be met with either confusion or an immediate yes from people who knew exactly what I was talking about but hadn't seen it for themselves. As I worked to try to process these memories with the client,

[00:29:12] I remember looking at his face and watching him smile, eyes completely black as he smiled and nodded. With the benefit of retrospect, I know that these two memories were times that he was

[00:29:27] lying to me. He had a total awareness of the fact that he was lying. Eyes gone, soul gone, nodding along and smiling. I had always chalked these instances up to him disassociating,

[00:29:44] maybe having a flashback or an intrusive thought. I can assure you that was not what was happening. He was a trickster who smiled while his eyes disappeared. Evil exists, danger exists,

[00:30:01] and you don't always have to seek it out. There are times where it comes to you and smiles. My mom swears that she could fly by 315 retro. My mom told me this story years ago.

[00:30:38] She's getting older and a little loopy, but this was way before any of that. The story talks about how she swears she and a few other girls including my aunt learned to fly in the basement of her old

[00:30:52] house. She told me this very sheepishly, probably expecting me to ridicule her. It was the way that she approached it and told me, and her apprehension to even mention it to me that seemed to make it

[00:31:06] all more true. She said that she and her friends could fly. I'd use the word levitate for small amounts of time in the basement of her house. She said they never told or showed anyone because

[00:31:20] they were worried that that would make it stop working. She lived there for a few months before moving into a new house and it never worked anywhere else besides there. She described the

[00:31:33] basement in detail and talked about how she could clearly remember floating up to see the dust on top of the cabinets and things that were too tall to have been seen as a kid. She said that of her

[00:31:45] friend group, some were better at it than others and that they could eventually all make it work to some degree. As she was telling me this, I had extreme deja vu, like I was remembering the edges

[00:32:00] of some forgotten dream. It didn't necessarily feel like I had those memories or could do it myself but it was bizarre knowing all along that my mom could levitate when she was a kid.

[00:32:12] I never really brought it up again and of course, I didn't make fun of her for it. I believe all kinds of crazy shit is possible and I was thankful that she felt like sharing that with me. Any thoughts on this? Does anybody have a similar experience?

[00:33:06] Gotta respect the road warriors. Try to parallel park an 18-wheeler in American truck simulator? Then imagine the real thing. It's no joke. I think a cool easter egg would be if they had the occasional UFO off in the distance.

[00:33:41] If you blink, you miss it just like how a lot of these stories happen. Yeah, that'd be cool. Or even what Chris saw, some ghosts or time traveling. Or time traveling ghosts.

[00:33:51] Yeah. I wonder what the deal was with that person on the side of the road. Because he also had that experience where he instantly jumped ahead a few miles when he went through the dark fog. Both weird time continuum stuff.

[00:34:06] We should road trip across America in a big rig, but not haul anything. Just a really expensive rental for the novelty and experience. Not having the right licenses, none of that. I love it though.

[00:34:19] Yeah. I've kind of idealized the cross-country road trip ever since watching Vacation for the first time. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. They made driving across the country with your family such an adventure.

[00:34:33] Yeah. Any movie where traveling in and of itself is a major part of the movie, I love all those. Midnight Run, planes, trains, and automobiles. Classics. It's a racing movie, but I also like Cannonball Run. At least I liked it as a kid.

[00:34:50] I can't remember much about it though. It's been years. I'm currently on a movie watching kick. I spent years just watching shows, reading books, and playing video games, and I completely forgot how great movies are. I'm just trying to finish off the gigantic list

[00:35:06] of movies that I missed out on and that I've been meaning to watch. The Matrix, which I loved. I'm so happy that you watched that and enjoyed it. It's actually one of the few movies that

[00:35:17] I liked well enough to buy on 4K. I've just become so accustomed to using streaming services that I missed out on how good they really are. Yeah, those 4K discs are amazing. It's especially neat to see older movies look so crystal clear. It's bizarre.

[00:35:32] Yeah, I know. I know. It's sometimes hard to wrap your brain around seeing so much detail that we weren't used to seeing before. I think it's because it makes them look more modern even though we know they're decades old. I like them a lot either way though.

[00:35:48] Yeah, me too. Just so expensive. Speaking of movies, when reading about that silver face creeper, all I could think about was David Lynch. It definitely felt like something from a kind of abstract horror movie.

[00:36:04] Yeah, like is it a cryptid or a being from the astral realm performing some kind of ritual? Yeah, it's hard to pin this one down. It seems like something from a movie or music video even, but there wasn't anybody filming or anyone else there.

[00:36:20] Right, I mean they could have been filming themselves. Maybe it was some sort of TikTok thing. Sounds like something the Discord team would figure out in about 15 minutes tops. Oh yeah, good idea. Ellen, Katie, Nick, Colleen, Edwin, that's all I can think of at the moment. Courtney.

[00:36:39] Oh, Courtney. Get to it. We gotta figure out what this person was up to. Yeah, we've got a good Discord team. Yeah, very glad that we started that. The book club has gotten really cool on there. We all just finished Communion by Whitley Streber,

[00:36:53] the infamous abduction encounters, and we're trying to pick out a time to meet. But it's a great place to chat about the podcast and kind of dissect these stories. They'll definitely be asking where this episode is though.

[00:37:08] Oh yeah, an unfortunate delay. I was out of town and made it back pretty late at night, then I was cursed with a bunch of audio and hardware issues out of nowhere. Everything was

[00:37:16] fine the 10 hours before I left. So yeah, whoops, we're still kind of getting through that. You're probably listening to this episode just hours after we finished recording on Monday evening. Yeah, yeah, but we do have a very understanding audience. They're good people.

[00:37:32] Yes, very happy for that. We just have a thing about being consistent and keeping that flow established, you know? It stings when it doesn't work out. Yeah. So did your mom ever tell you stories about being able to fly when she was young?

[00:37:47] No, but she did tell me recently about how she and my dad made out on a haunted mansion ride at Disneyland on one of their first dates. I mean, that sets a high bar pretty early,

[00:37:57] but that's weird. She's become so open with you lately, like out of nowhere. Yeah, 100%. It's weird how comfortable parents are in conversations with their kids as they get older. I don't like it. I need to go back to when the word sex was never even

[00:38:13] uttered by a single soul in my family. Yeah, I think all that stopped as soon as my siblings and I became adults. Now it's basically anything goes. We don't really have filters. You know how we are. We're kind of weird though.

[00:38:26] Oh, I know. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Hell yeah. No, I've never been told by anyone that they were able to fly, but their story did sound very similar to what it's like for me to fly in my dreams. I have this recurring event in most

[00:38:42] of my dreams where I'm able to just kind of levitate off the ground and move around. It's not super far off the ground, just enough to see the tops of shelves and stuff, just like the author's mom described.

[00:38:55] The mom did say her friends were doing it as well. There could be more to look into. It's just so similar to my experience in my dreams. In fact, in those dreams, I've always

[00:39:06] had that same feeling or thought in my head that says, you've been able to do this before. And I can't explain it. It's just this weird knowing. Yeah, that makes me wonder the whole, you've always been able to do this with any spiritual,

[00:39:20] paranormal, metaphysical, all of that in general. I really want to know what can be learned and what sort of things are only ever gifts that we can't teach ourselves from a book or be taught by somebody else. You know what I mean?

[00:39:34] And then there's having the gift, being aware of it and working on improving it. Yeah, exactly. That's the place to be. I think it's worth working on a gift if you at least think you have it because worst case, you get to learn about something interesting.

[00:39:51] Best case, you're one step closer to full enlightenment. That's very cool, Bateman. Here we go again. I know. It's just hard to resist sometimes. I know. I know. I actually have my wife saying that exact line whenever she's mildly amused by something I show or tell her.

[00:40:08] Hats off to Brett Easton Ellis for that wonderful work of fiction. Gotta give credit where it's due. Truly incredible. Yes, that's true. Well, thanks everybody for listening. Make sure you send your stories into

[00:40:21] stories at oddtrails.com. All the stories you heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Make sure you sign up for our Patreon at

[00:40:29] patreon.com forward slash odd trails if you want to get ad free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bitrate for the best listening experience. And finally, make sure to check out the

[00:40:39] new episodes of my other podcasts like Let's Not Meet and the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcast.com. Everybody stay safe. Peace out. Don't let the ghosts and the ghouls disturb you, darling.