Ep 390: Listener Lore pt. 9
SARAH: Hey, what's up? Hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I'm Sarah, that's me.)
KAYLA: And a bi demisexual girl, (that's me, Kayla.)
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode: Listener Lore.
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pooood!
KAYLA: I'm feeling hot, hot, hot…
SARAH: Kayla very, very bravely turned off her air conditioning to record this podcast. Everyone, applaud her.
KAYLA: And then Sarah yapped for 10 more minutes, so I could have left it…
SARAH: It was not 10 minutes.
KAYLA: I should have known.
SARAH: It was not 10 minutes.
KAYLA: I should have known.
SARAH: Sorry, I have things to yap about, everything is wrong with me, all at once.
KAYLA: Yeah, that is actually true.
SARAH: It was either I yapped to you at the beginning or all of that yapping would be in the beef and juice section and that would be too much yapping.
KAYLA: Well, now you all will never know.
SARAH: Some of it will still be in the beef and juice section, just not all of it.
KAYLA: Well…
SARAH: Kayla, do we have a housekeeping? No.
KAYLA: I don't think so.
SARAH: Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week we're back telling your stories, our own personal Reddit of your lore. Some of it aspec-related, some of it not.
SARAH: I have also collected a couple of new AITAs. So, I am also ready for an AITA…
KAYLA: You're prepared.
SARAH: When the time comes.
KAYLA: When the time comes.
SARAH: Although I lost the note for a hot second and I was like, I know I have a new one. Where did it go?
KAYLA: That is tragic.
SARAH: All of these are old AITA notes that I need to delete. Where is my new note? And then I eventually found it.
KAYLA: Thank God.
SARAH: Thank God.
KAYLA: Okay. We're starting off with a short one. This one I mainly am doing because I'm also like curious about our perspectives on this. So, kind of a conversation starter, if you will.
SARAH: Oh, okay.
KAYLA: This is from 2024, this person submitted this.
SARAH: I hope it wasn't time-sensitive.
KAYLA: No, it's not. I think this is a continued issue that will forever be, unfortunately. This is from SonOfMercury7.
SARAH: Are you a demigod? Mercury is Hephaestus, I believe.
KAYLA: I just couldn't say.
SARAH: Continue.
KAYLA: Do all allo friends just have no boundaries? I have an uncomfortable knowledge of the intimate goings-on of my friends. For the most part, it's typically guy talk with their sexual prowess and endeavors, which to some credit at least one of them is remorseful discussing around me. They don't know I'm ace, but still remorseful, so, that's nice.
SARAH: I mean, know enough about their friend to be like, okay, home dog doesn't love this.
KAYLA: Yeah, sorry, brother. But then there's the rare occasion where I'll just randomly hear about the particular kinks a girl was into or how another friend arrived home to raucous screaming heard throughout the house. Though, of course, the pinnacle of ick was my best friend calling me within hours of sleeping with his girlfriend for the first time to discuss the fact that she's circumcised. She comes from a Muslim family, I believe.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: Good on you for learning something new, I guess, but why the fuck do I need to know that?
SARAH: That is a really strange thing to…
KAYLA: Like that is such a personal thing to share.
SARAH: Unless it's like relevant to a conversation like…
KAYLA: That has been had.
SARAH: Or like, it was my first time with this person, I was faced with an unexpected genital situation and I didn't know what to do.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because I had never…
KAYLA: But is seems like, if this is your best friend, like, even if you don't know that they’re ace maybe you like know enough about their vibes to know that like that's… this isn't the person to come to with that.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: So, my conversation to have, which I'm sure we've discussed in some way on the show before, was your comfortability level with hearing about the intimate details of your friends’ lives.
SARAH: Yeah. I mean, I don't hear… Okay. As I think I've mentioned before on this podcast, sex in my mind is… it's always fictional.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: If it's fictional, it's fine. If I have to think about it happening in real life with real people that I know, I don't want to know details.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like sometimes there's like a morbid curiosity, but for the most part…
KAYLA: You’re good.
SARAH: I'm just like, I'm okay. Like if there was something specific that was very funny or like a very good story, okay, I'll hear it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But if you're just like, we did this thing… I… no.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: If you wrote that in a fanfiction and made it not about yourself, maybe I would be okay with reading it, but the fact that I know it is you.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I don't like that.
KAYLA: Don't like that. I think that's very fair.
SARAH: What about you?
KAYLA: I have a weird thing where I'm fine talking about it with fellow vagina-havers, but for some reason there's something about someone with a dick, like talking about their exploits, even like in a… like respectful and fine way. And even if it's not like, it's not the fact that they're like describing their own, like it's not like because of their dick that I have a problem, you know?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I don't know if it's just because I'm so used to like the cultural conditioning of like people with dicks being like talking about sex in a certain way that even when it's people that aren't talking about it in that way, I'm still like, I don't quite want to hear about it from you.
SARAH: Or even like the cultural conditioning that like girl talk is safe.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: But outside of that, which does not take into consideration gender, it's literally just sex.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But like I think that is definitely ingrained in us from a young age.
KAYLA: Yeah, I think just the perspective of sex is so different depending on how you identify and like culturally where you are with that. That like with my fellow like girlies, whether they identify as girls or not, but they… like, I have girl-talk with them, then those are people I'm fine having explicit conversations with.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But if it's someone who I'm like, you're not one of my like girlies that I talk about that kind of thing with, then I'm like, mm, I don't know if I can do that with you.
SARAH: I mean, I have been lucky enough to not have had this experience myself, or maybe if I have, I blocked it out of my memory. But I know people who have… in this particular example, I'm thinking of someone who has a partner and their partner has a friend in a friend group. And so sometimes they will hang out in that friend group with their partner and this friend group, they know all the friends pretty well.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But they don't know them like really…
KAYLA: Yeah, it's not like it's their friends.
SARAH: Right. And there have been instances in which one of the friends in this friend group of the partner is too forthcoming about their sex life to the point that even the friends in the group are uncomfortable with it. I also believe there is at least one person in this group who is aspec.
KAYLA: Love.
SARAH: So, there's that. And then when you're one more removed, like maybe that might make it better because it's like, I don't know you as well.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But also, I don't know you that well and you're just telling me all of this shit. But some people just don't give a fuck.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And I'm like, I mean, good for you, but you have to be able to read the room.
KAYLA: Yeah, you can't…
SARAH: If you don't care if everyone knows your business, that's fine…
KAYLA: But other people do care.
SARAH: But if there are people around who clearly don't want to hear your business, you need to take that and shut the fuck up.
KAYLA: Yeah. I… per this like, do all allo friends have no boundaries? What I will say about my friends with penises is they know that I don't like talking about it with them. And so, they don't. Like, they will be like…
SARAH: Who to thank? You can just do that.
KAYLA: Start to say something and they'll be like, you know what? I'll talk to you, this other person, about this later.
SARAH: We will talk about this offline, we’re going to…
KAYLA: And sometimes we'll be like, you know what? Actually, like, I feel okay to like hear about this, whatever.
SARAH: Yeah, it’s fine.
KAYLA: But they're usually like, you know what? We’ll just… this is an us thing and you don't have to be there for that. And I'm like, thank you, I don’t want to hear about your penis.
SARAH: Right. I'm thinking of my friend, famed ex porn writer Dalton King, who lives such a different life than me.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And…
KAYLA: You know what I will hear? I will hear about gay men.
SARAH: That's fair.
KAYLA: I think it's when there's a vagina-haver involved, but it is not the vagina-haver speaking about the sex.
SARAH: It's not them telling the story, yeah.
KAYLA: I don't like that for some reason.
SARAH: There's something about it that rubs you the wrong way.
KAYLA: Even if it's someone I trust deeply, I'm still like, why are you talking about that?
SARAH: Yeah, that's fair.
KAYLA: Stop talking about that.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But if it's two penis-havers having sex, then I'm like, well, I have nothing to do with this at all.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, this is none of my business, so it's fine, actually, to hear. I don't know.
[00:10:00]
SARAH: Well, Dalton King gets up to all sorts of shenanigans. And… like, we were talking about… Dalton King is very kindly cat-sitting for me over the Fourth of July because I'm not bringing Addie with me and my normal cat-sitter is not going to be in town. And he is very kindly cat-sitting for me. And I was like, if you want to come over and have some like cat exposure therapy… like, he has met her before, but like there were a lot of people around. So, I was like, you know, you can get to know each other a little bit better while I am there, it will probably be...
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And he was like, okay, that's fine, just it can't be any weekend, because it's Pride.
KAYLA: Right, a packed schedule.
SARAH: And I was like, okay, noted. And like the other… over the weekend, one of our other friends was like, hey, do you want to do this like sort of impromptu game night?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And it really stressed me out because it was not on my plan for the day. I did it and it was good and I beat everyone's asses at… and Uno, giant BTS Uno, by the way.
KAYLA: I saw.
SARAH: But he didn't answer. And I was like, homegirl, it's Pride.
KAYLA: It’s Pride.
SARAH: It's WeHo Pride this weekend.
KAYLA: He's very busy.
SARAH: Dalton King is busy.
KAYLA: He is accounted for at this time.
SARAH: But he does not tell me about those shenanigans because he has the wherewithal to know that I don't want to hear about it.
KAYLA: He knows you don’t want to know about that, yeah.
SARAH: Or like in instances where like someone else has asked, like he's… it has been like, are you okay? I'm like, no, in this conduct, it's fine, I don't want to… And sometimes I'm nosy and I'm like, what do you mean bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep.
KAYLA: Yeah. But it’s the prerogative to ask, like… Right. Exactly.
SARAH: Yeah, I think Son… Child Of Mercury, whoever you are, I think the allos in your life, it seems that many of them in this instance are men. So, this is a tough ask, an uphill battle. They need to be able to read the room better.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm. I just… the best friend one is crazy to me, because one would hope that your best friend would be like the best at reading that.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But I guess not.
SARAH: Yeah. Speaking of something, there was a thing… Oh, allos being… okay, I had a conversation at this game night that Dalton King did not attend because he was busy with WeHo Pride.
KAYLA: He's busy being gay.
SARAH: One of my friends who, God bless her is straight, she has seen all of Heated Rivalry, liked it, was one of those people who really liked the Skip episode…
KAYLA: Sure
SARAH: Because straight women do for some reason.
KAYLA: Interesting.
SARAH: And she watched Off Campus, which is the straight hockey romance that has full dong, by the way. It's not sexual, but like…
KAYLA: I've heard it's not… I had a friend that just watched it and live-texted me and another friend about it because we were both like, we don't really feel like watching it, but like I want to know. I've heard it's not… she was not impressed.
SARAH: No, my co-worker watched it. She was like, it's not good, I will keep watching it, but like it's not good. Like, there's no conflict.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But my friend watched all of Off Campus and was obsessed with it, has watched it many times, has read all of the books in the series now. And I said, what!?
KAYLA: That's wild.
SARAH: And so, we were having this conversation. We were like, what? And then I was also texting my co-worker at the same time. And so, she was kind of participating in this conversation by proxy. And what it came down to was we were like, what do straight people have against yearning? Because straight romances often don't have any yearning. To be fair, I have not seen Off Campus, I know it's like fake dating, but like in a way that pisses me off a little bit. But like they start sleeping together…
KAYLA: I think it progresses quite quickly from what I understand.
SARAH: Yeah. And so, then my friend who really liked Off Campus was like, yeah, like I really like it. Like, when they just like get right to it, like I don't want to… like, not interested in the yearning part. And I was like, but then there's no conflict. Like this is a straight couple, there is no barrier to them being together, it's not Romeo and Juliet. And so, then later was having a further conversation with one of my friends who was there and she was like, she is in a romantic odyssey of her own where she has a major crush on this man that she works with. And we're quite certain that he likes her back, but he's also very autistic and it's possible that my friend is as well. And so, it hasn't really gone anywhere. But sometimes she tells us about… like she was like, I touched his shoulder the other day. But she was saying that a lot of her straight friends get really sick of her telling them about her romantic odyssey because they're like, just do something already.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And sometimes I'm like, girl, I think you're going to have to make a move, I don't think he's going to do it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I think you're going to have to, like… And I am like that sometimes. And she also knows like, not to give too much to me because at a certain point I will be like, ugh, what are the allos doing?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But I have a group chat with her and Dalton King and Dalton King is like, give me everything, I want to know everything.
KAYLA: Dalton King loves it.
SARAH: And she was saying that her…
KAYLA: Straights just don't like to yearn, I guess.
SARAH: Yeah, the straights are just like they get annoyed with her telling them about her romantic odyssey because they don't like to yearn.
KAYLA: I wonder if part of it is because queer people more often have to have, and not all the time, obviously, but the experience of trying to figure out if the other person is also queer. And so, it elongates things even just a little. Like unless obviously you meet them in like a queer setting and you know where everyone is at. And so, I wonder if it's… or we more often have like when you're younger having a crush on like a friend and it's unrequited, that kind of thing, that it just is more common for queer people to be dealing with that.
SARAH: Yeah. And my friend who's in this romantic odyssey was like, I have read too many extremely long Dramione fics on AO3 to not be into yearning.
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: I was like, I respect that about you, even though you are straight, it happens to the best of us.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Not me though.
KAYLA: See, I like a yearn, but I also, as I've discussed, fiction really stresses me out. And so sometimes I need that insta-love because I'm like, I just need all of us to be happy immediately because life is bad and I need the fiction to be pleasant.
SARAH: But then there has to be another conflict for there to be a story.
KAYLA: Or what if there was no conflict at all?
SARAH: That wouldn't get published.
KAYLA: Right, but…
SARAH: That's what fanfiction is for.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Well, that's why one of the, not to, I don't really think this spoils anything, in the Heated Rivalry books, the Game Changers series, Rachel Reid wanted to do another book about another character who gets introduced in The Long Game. And by proxy is also, I believe, in Role Model, which I have finally started reading.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Who, she… like, he's a very beloved fan character. And she was going to write a book about him, and she tried. The problem was that in the universe that she created, at that point in the timeline, there were five, six queer out-players. So, she couldn't find enough conflict to sustain a whole novel about this.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: She ended up taking some of that and putting it in Unrivaled, which is the upcoming Shane and Ilya book, which makes sense because they're still in a part in their process, you know?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But like, a new young kid who's like not already established, like there's just less conflict there. And like her books are really fundamentally, like, all of them kind of address a different issue with toxic masculinity in sport and in hockey specifically. And I'm trying to think of what it would even… what it would address.
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean, when you get to the point in that series in her universe where she is now you start to like… The universe she has created is becoming a better world. So, like you start to lose some of that.
SARAH: Right, exactly.
KAYLA: Okay. Getting back to the listener lore. On fiction and romance. I will take us to this one. This is from… the person said, let Sarah pick one, the name.
SARAH: Okay. This is from Donkey Kong.
KAYLA: Okay. And did not give us pronouns, so, D/K. Just kidding.
SARAH: Pronouns are Donkey/Kong.
KAYLA: It's not funny. It's not funny.
SARAH: It kind of is.
KAYLA: Donkey Kong says, I read ferociously when I was in middle and high school. This was around the time when YA books like Hunger Games and Divergent that often had these exaggerated insta-romance plots were popular. Maybe they're still popular, I don't read much YA fiction anymore.
[00:20:00]
SARAH: Wait, can I just jump in and say my friend who is in this romantic odyssey recently borrowed Divergent for me to read for her book club and she was like, I'm so glad I didn't read this in high school, it would have been so bad for me.
KAYLA: That's so funny. I never read Divergent, I must say.
SARAH: I did.
KAYLA: Okay. They got mainstream enough after the movies came out that my mom was now more aware of what I was reading. At some point, she decided she needed to talk to me about the romance in books and how it was unrealistic. Because I was a teenager, I just responded with something along the lines of, yeah, I know, Mom. However, I remember thinking that of course it was not real because I thought romance as a whole was a made-up concept. Since I didn't experience romantic or sexual attraction, I didn't think about the concepts. And if I did, I dismissed it as made up or unimportant. I think I viewed romance as something between dragons, potentially cool, but I was glad there wasn't a real dragon burning down my town to worry about. And taxes, a boring adult problem that I didn't have to worry about yet and would put off as long as possible. Needless to say, when I first heard of aro and ace identities in college, I very quickly started identifying as aro-ace.
SARAH: Donkey Kong, you icon!
KAYLA: I love romance being somewhere between dragons and taxes, I love that so much.
SARAH: Aww, that's stunning.
KAYLA: That is everything to me.
SARAH: It's like me as a child, and by child, I mean, I think like young teenagers thinking that it was like literally like physically impossible to fall in love with more than one person in your entire life, because I was like, that's just how it works.
KAYLA: It's just how it must be.
SARAH: That's how it works. I didn't even consider unrequited love, I didn't consider that at all.
KAYLA: That would have been just too much to discuss and think about.
SARAH: Too much.
KAYLA: Okay, I have a non-aspec one for you.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: This is from Sifrin, She/They. My Second Grade teacher accidentally taught us how to mustard gas. It was my second-grade teacher's first year teaching, and she really wanted to be the cool teacher. So, she had us do some science stuff where we mixed actual chemicals, nothing too dangerous... Nothing too dangerous, Asterisk.
SARAH: You know what? To be fair, I believe it was Second Grade when I dissected a sheep's eye, it may have been Fourth Grade.
KAYLA: That is so wild. I don't think I ever dissected anything in school. And if I did, I blocked it out because I don't remember that.
SARAH: Dissected a sheep's eye.
KAYLA: It was second grade after all. Then came the last experiment of the class. She warned us not to get the chemicals on our skin. Crazy thing to say to a second grader. Of course, they're going to get it on their skin.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And then we mixed them. Not long after this, we left to go to computer lab time. During this time, my mom, who was the volunteer assistant for my class, went to her car and decided to look up the chemicals we mixed.
SARAH: Oh my God.
KAYLA: As it turns out, those chemicals make mustard gas. So, my mom calls my teacher and informs her, and they quickly remove the 25-ish cups of mustard gas solution from the class before we come back from computer lab. Because gassing your students isn't usually a good thing. This teacher was amazing. Her hubris merely caused her to accidentally almost gas us. And now I know how to make mustard gas. Woo!
SARAH: It's an important lesson to learn.
KAYLA: They did not share what the chemicals were.
SARAH: It's not hard. You know those cleaning videos where people just mix everything together and then they clean with it?
KAYLA: Yeah. Is that mustard gas?
SARAH: A lot of times for toilet cleaning, a lot of times they end up making mustard gas.
KAYLA: Oh!
SARAH: And there was a user on TikTok who would duet those cleaning videos and would be like, yep, you've made mustard gas. And like that was their whole thing. And then a couple of years later, someone did it again. And this person dueted the video and was like, you've made mustard gas, and I'm trans now, that's how much time has passed.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: Like fully presenting as a woman.
KAYLA: I have changed, but you have not.
SARAH: You have not.
KAYLA: Okay. Well, note to self.
SARAH: It's not that hard. Let's do… let's be educational.
KAYLA: Shall we learn?
SARAH: How to accidentally make mustard gas.
KAYLA: How to accidentally make mustard gas.
SARAH: You cannot accidentally make mustard gas using household cleaning supplies.
KAYLA: I beg to differ.
SARAH: But it's basically mustard gas.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Don't mix bleach with ammonia-based products.
KAYLA: I should say so.
SARAH: Don't mix bleach with certain alcohols.
KAYLA: I should also say so. I think you shouldn’t be mixing bleach with anything, but maybe like dish soap.
SARAH: Yeah. I don't use bleach, I'm afraid of it. Everyone's like, oh, that's not actually mustard gas, but like it is a chemical that is dangerous that you shouldn’t be making.
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, at this sort of point, it's just like, let's not do that.
SARAH: My question is like, what was the teacher trying to do?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like what was she trying to create? What reaction was she trying to show?
KAYLA: Especially then to just have everyone leave with the chemicals she left.
SARAH: I mean, I don't know how old OP is, but like, I'm guessing this was not so recent that like...
KAYLA: Well, they were in Second Grade, so it simply can't be recent.
SARAH: Right. Well, we don't know how old OP is, though, is what I'm saying.
KAYLA: I'm hoping they're at least like 16.
SARAH: Well, right. So, if they're 16, then second grade was like eight or nine years ago.
KAYLA: I suppose.
SARAH: If they're 35…
KAYLA: Yeah, that's fair.
SARAH: Second Grade was in the 90s, so like...
KAYLA: That's fair.
SARAH: The teacher's access to information about what this creates would differ depending on how old OP is.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's fair, that's fair.
SARAH: So, I'm kind of hoping it was longer ago, because then the teacher wouldn't have had the same kind of access. This is the least important Sarah from the future info I've ever given, but I did just realize that OP said that their mom went to the car and looked it up and then called the teacher. So given the technology needed for that, it can't have been that long ago.
KAYLA: Okay, I have... this one is like quite long and not aspec-related.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: But it's just kind of a whole saga that I'm interested in learning more about.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: So...
SARAH: I'm ready.
KAYLA: This is from Layla She/her. My housemate is convinced a man is using her bathroom.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: Full apology, this is long and probably mentions peeing way too many times.
SARAH: Okay. Are we thinking like real man, ghost man? We'll find out, keep going.
KAYLA: We'll find out, won't we? I, 23, F, own my unit with a mortgage. Okay, adult!
SARAH: Okay!
KAYLA: At 23!? Okay!
SARAH: Go off, Layla!
KAYLA: But I have a housemate to help pay the bills. My current housemate, who I'll call Jay, 29, F, has been living with me for five months since my long-term roommate moved out to live with her boyfriend. Boo!
SARAH: Boo!
KAYLA: Jay told me upfront that she has autism and OCD, which I was fine with since my best friend is also autistic and has OCD.
SARAH: Fun combo.
KAYLA: Yeah. She says, mysteriously. Jay and I have had a perfectly fine relationship up until now. We're not friends, but she'll look after my cats when I'm away and we are generally amicable with each other. The unit has two bathrooms; mine is an en suite and the other is the main bathroom. Jay was living interstate before she moved in, but I did a walkthrough via FaceTime. I did mention that the bathroom would be hers to use alone, except for when guests come over, they would use that toilet.
SARAH: I'm sorry, I know what is meant; but Jay was living interstate? Jay was living on the highway?
KAYLA: Yes. I mean, maybe.
SARAH: I'm assuming it means Jay was living in a different state?
KAYLA: Probably.
SARAH: Anyway. Sorry, my brain just got caught on that. Continue.
KAYLA: At that stage, she said nothing of it. It's worth noting that I don't have people over that often, and if I do, it's usually a friend or two or my parents. Flash forward to a month or two after Jay moves in, and she tells me that she's actually a massive germaphobe and uncomfortable with guests using her bathroom. She requests that when I have guests over, they use my bathroom. It seemed to really affect her, so I was okay to compromise and do that. I tried to keep my room tidy, so it wasn't the biggest deal for people to go through my room to use the bathroom. Soon after that, I had a board games night with three friends, one of whom was a guy. I told them all about the bathroom situation, and during the night, the guy needed to use the bathroom, so I showed him where it was. No one else used the bathroom. I love this forensic-level of bathroom detail.
SARAH: It's important.
KAYLA: It's important. A few days later, my housemate asks if he had used her bathroom, so she found urine on the rim of her toilet seat. I said no, I showed him where mine was, and he was with me the whole time anyways. She appeared to accept that, later saying that maybe it was someone she had visit. She rarely has guests, but had one right before this game night.
SARAH: Wait, so this was like a couple of days later, and she's just now noticing a bit of...
KAYLA: I guess.
SARAH: Wouldn't it have evaporated by then?
KAYLA: One would hope.
SARAH: It had to have been recent, in that case.
[00:30:00]
KAYLA: I don't know.
SARAH: Continue.
KAYLA: The forensics, they're not adding up. I had just been away for two weeks on a trip to Japan. The two weeks before I went away, Jay was house-sitting for a co-worker and only returned to the house the day of my flight. I messaged her on the day to double-check she was okay to look after the cats, but I never saw her in person. I arrived home on a Thursday, and when she got home, we had a nice chat where she told me about the cats' antics while I was away, and I gave her some chopsticks I got personalized with her name on them from Japan. I thought everything was fine. Next day, I head off work to recover from all the flying, and Jay went to work. Around 11:30, I received the following message. “Hey. This is not in anger, but I really need to reiterate this issue again. I was going to bring it up when I got home from house-sitting, but you were on your holiday and I didn't want to dampen it. I arrived home to find my bathroom had very obviously been used and left a mess while I was away. This was disappointing as I had full faith you would respect my wish to keep my bathroom private and ask your visitors to use yours. I even locked it when I left. I trusted you, but just in case anyone tried to go in there. Those locks obviously aren't that hard to open, but I figured it would at the very least remind anyone who had happened to try to wander in not to. When I got home, it was unlocked and my toilet was filthy. I was incredibly disappointed that people continued using it while I was not home. Not only that, but consciously had to unlock the door to go in there. This is a hard and fast non-negotiable for me, and if it keeps happening, it will be the reason I decide to leave. It is at the point I get incredibly anxious any time you say people are coming over to the point I actually want to tell you I am in fact not okay with it because my simple request continues being disrespected, so I prefer people just didn't come if it is that much trouble, but obviously I can't do that in fairness. I am obviously incredibly particular about my space and bathroom hygiene, and I choose to live very specifically because of this, but on multiple occasions now my toilet has been left a mess and I am left to clean it, which makes me physically sick. On top of all that, my makeup and things are in there and I simply do not want anyone in there at all. The first time you had someone over and I heard them in there, they were going through my cupboards. I later came to understand they were looking for a different soap, but this is just a massive invasion of privacy for me. I do not consider it the main bathroom, I do not want anyone to consider it the main bathroom. I simply cannot deal with it. I don't want to have this discussion again. I am happy to put a sign on the door if your visitors keep forgetting and wandering in. I don't care, but please put a stop to it.” I was shocked. No one had used her bathroom, the only person I had over at the house in that time was my brother. He wanted help making brownies for his anniversary with his girlfriend. When my brother arrived, I told him about the bathroom situation and to use mine if he needed to, and he didn't use the bathroom the whole time he was there. I also had no idea the bathroom was locked and certainly would have noticed if he was going through the trouble of unlocking the door.
SARAH: I'm really curious about what kind of lock this is because like the locks in my like childhood home, you could unlock them from the outside with a coin or your fingernail if it was long and strong enough. But some locks, like the locks I have here, I think you would have to stick a pin in it.
KAYLA: Yeah, we had that when I was growing up, if you stuck a bobby pin in it, it would unlock.
SARAH: Yeah, like, I'm curious about how difficult it is to unlock.
KAYLA: Maybe they're just like kind of weak locks that if you like kind of jiggle it enough it'll just open? I don’t know.
SARAH: Yeah, I don't know.
KAYLA: I sent messages expressing that no one had used her bathroom and that I had continued to respect her boundary and had no reason to be sending people to her bathroom or unlock the door. The only thing that made sense to me with the unlocked door is that my cats had broken in. My cats are devious little devils and figured out that if they bang on my bedroom door enough, it'll eventually adjust the latch and they can burst through my door to beg for early breakfast. It doesn't matter if the door is locked from the inside or not. It can be fixed, but eventually they wear it down. My housemate has seen my cats do this with my bedroom door before. I said as much and offered to check the latch if she thinks the cats had unlocked the door, but my housemate reiterated that a man must have used it since there was urine under the toilet seat. This was another very long text message.
SARAH: Again?
KAYLA: I think this girl might just be bad at peeing, I don't know. At this point I asked her to please call me as I felt this was ridiculous to do over text as I was just repeating myself.
SARAH: I can see that Jay is trying to be reasonable here.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I can see that she really is trying to not be a total bitch about it.
KAYLA: Yes. Because even she's saying, like, I kind of want you to not have people over, but I know that's not fair.
SARAH: I know that that would be an unreasonable ask.
KAYLA: Yeah, she is being reasonable.
SARAH: Yeah, but it's just… there's a ghost pisser in their house.
KAYLA: I know, there's a ghost in the house. She said she couldn't since she was working, but she'd call me on her lunch break. I said no to that as I was about to leave for lunch with a friend that I hadn't seen in a month. She then asked if any repairman had been in the house during the time she was away. I repeated that no one other than my brother had been to the house, I had not let anyone into her bathroom and I had not used her bathroom. What I might have messed up is the following: I said that if she was truly that anxious and paranoid with me even having guests over, she needed to either seek help for her germophobia or look into living alone. Mm.
SARAH: Yeah, but like she has a point.
KAYLA: Maybe true, but also, I don't know if you need to say that right now.
SARAH: Yeah, like maybe not, I mean.
KAYLA: Perhaps a conversation like for later when things have like simmered a bit.
SARAH: Yeah, or if Jay was being like really bad about it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Just be like I don't think you're cut out for having a roommate like this.
KAYLA: Yeah. Some people just can't have roommates, like that is a fact, some people just can't do it and that's fine.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: She then said she would take my word for it and didn't mean to be accusatory, but was very concerned that someone had been in to use her bathroom because there was pee under the seat. I said it was likely splashback from her peeing and that I also had to clean the underside of my toilet even when I had not had anyone over. She said she never had to do so when she lived alone, but she was happy to take my word for it and let it go. Spoiler alert, she didn't. Half an hour later, I get a message asking if I'm free to call now. I'm at lunch with my friend by this stage, so I say no. And then I'm not sure what else there is to talk about. Jay then sends another long message talking about how hard it is for her to talk about things, how she doesn't appreciate the insinuation that she needs therapy since she has very specific routines to avoid the situation. She then apologized if she came across as accusatory. I leave this message alone for an hour and don't read it until I get home. At this stage, I'm mad and annoyed and just say, please don't lie and say you're going to let things go when you're not. At least be honest with me. Then she sends the following message, which I'll include in full. “Be honest with you? Okay. I know someone has been in there, a bloke, and pissed all over my toilet while I was gone. This is a fact. I know what it is and what it looks like. I was raised in a house with three men; this really isn't a mystery. I cleaned the toilet thoroughly before I left. No, it was not for me. For starters, I sit on the seat. How I would pee under it and nowhere else is a true mystery that has never happened. I also have never encountered splashback literally anywhere on the toilet, let alone under a closed seat and down the sides of a toilet, but not on top, on the lid or anywhere else. And to boot, I wasn't even home. Then you blamed the cats. No, the cats cannot open the door. The latch is fine, they've never pushed the door open and it was locked. When they get in there, it's because I've left the door open. When they get in there, they knock things off the counter, they don't lift the lid and the seat and piss on the rim. Now, please, you be honest with me. I trusted you to be in the first place and I totally would have accepted if you had just said someone used it. If they didn't know it was habit, anything, but now we have devolved to this.” To be clear, I never said the cats used the toilet, just that they had opened the door. And again, no one has been in her bathroom in that time. At this point, I send. “No one has been in there for the love of fucking God because nothing angers me more than being called a liar. My biological father is a pathological liar, so I've made it a point to never lie unless it's to get someone out of danger or protect someone from being outed.” I tell Jay to set up a camera if she really needs, but there's nothing I could do to make her believe me. She says that she'll take my word for it, but wants a face-to-face talk later to settle the tension down. After the first few messages, I had messaged my brother just to double check I wasn't misremembering that he did not use the bathroom when he was over. He finally messaged back saying no, he didn't use any bathroom at all. I screenshotted this and sent it to Jay. Jay responds with: “why are you sending me this?” And I reply that since she was so convinced that a man was in her bathroom, here is proof that the only man who visited the house did not use her bathroom. She then brings up the games night from months ago and says it's too much of a coincidence that this happened twice. I repeat that no one used her bathroom that time either. Jay then asks to call me, which I agree to since I'm thoroughly being distracted from my UD work at this point. This is about two and a half hours after the original text. I reiterate everything that I have been saying that no one has entered the house and Jay even admits that saying this out loud seems a bit strange. She then tried to apologize for coming across as accusatory, which I interrupt to say she had been accusatory and I had no reason to either use the bathroom or lie about someone using it. Jay apologizes and I think we finally put it to rest.
SARAH: That's the thing that baffles me, it is that, like, Layla has no reason to lie.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm.
SARAH: Like if she had been having secret crazy house parties while Jay was off house-sitting, there would be other indicators of that.
KAYLA: Yeah.
[00:40:00]
SARAH: I understand that Jay is stressed out about this, but I fear she needs to maybe reflect a bit on her own toilet-using habits.
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean, it's tough because clearly there is a lot of stress around the bathroom and cleanliness, which is not Jay's fault.
SARAH: Yes, right.
KAYLA: Like, that just comes with the territory. But at a certain point… and I've been in conversations with people like this, not about toilets, but in a situation where someone is upset about something, you give them your understanding of why it happened or a reason, you apologize, whatever, and the person just like wants to keep fighting, even though you've like fully apologized.
SARAH: Nothing can be their fault.
KAYLA: Yeah, like the person just… like, what they actually want is to fight, not to like resolve the issue. And it kind of feels like maybe she's just like spiraling and doesn't know what's happening. And so, the only outlet is to like have this fight about it. Which, again, like not necessarily her fault, but also like, you can't be doing that.
SARAH: Yeah, we need to have better coping mechanisms, which maybe if you had a therapist, which you don't seem to because you took offence, maybe that would actually help.
KAYLA: Yeah. Well, because also… like, I have friends with OCD that are in OCD-specific therapy. And one thing that…
SARAH: They have like specific therapists for OCD.
KAYLA: Yeah. And like one thing that she has shared is that when you're in a spiral like this, one thing you're not supposed to do is like seek reassurance from others. Like you're supposed to try to work through it internally rather than like outreaching to like a loved one to try to get them to like agree with you or get them to be like… like reassure that kind of like spiraling thought. And which is exactly what she's doing, it is like continuing to try to like get an outside person to like go along with this, which is just not helpful.
SARAH: Like when the police are convinced that someone did something, but they have no evidence, so they plant it, that's what she wants to happen.
KAYLA: She wants to plant the pea.
SARAH: She's trying to plant the evidence and Layla is just like, no, I'm not a liar.
KAYLA: It’s just like not logically working out, yeah. Okay, there's… it's not over yet. When she gets home, she asked me if there's anything else I would like to say so that there's no tension between us. I end up saying that it's probably going to be a bit tense for a while and that the thing I was most mad about was her calling me a liar. As for me, that's the most offensive thing you can call me. I said I need time to think about things. The next day, Saturday, Jay is just acting like everything is perfectly fine. I have a busy day, so I mostly ignore her. Sunday rolls around and she's gone most of the morning and only gets back as I'm leaving to go to a friend's. When I get home, I don't want to talk to her, so I quickly feed the cats, then go into the study to do uni work. Okay, the study!
SARAH: The study!? Oh my God!
KAYLA: Jay then said…
SARAH: You're in college…
KAYLA: Owning a home.
SARAH: You own a home.
KAYLA: With a study.
SARAH: With a study!?
KAYLA: Going to Japan!
SARAH: She's Louise.
KAYLA: I know. Jay then sends me a message asking me if I'm okay and why I'm suddenly not talking to her and ask if something is up. Ma'am!?
SARAH: She literally said she needs some time to think about it.
KAYLA: Yeah. I respond that nothing is up…
SARAH: Here's the thing that's blowing my mind; Layla is 23, Jay is 29...
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: 23 is a fully grown adult, but you're still cooking in there.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: 29!? Come on now!
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like you should be being an adult in this situation.
KAYLA: I wonder how many roommates Jay has had before.
SARAH: Mm
KAYLA: Because she mentioned, like, I didn't have this problem when I lived alone, but like… so, is this her first time living with a roommate, do you think?
SARAH: Yeah, maybe. I also assumed that it must be the UK because they said uni and bloke, but also, I don't know what interstate means. So, I was like, maybe they could be Australian. Hold on.
KAYLA: Ah, interesting.
SARAH: Inter… okay, I'm Googling this, because they don't have states. Are the Australian states?
KAYLA: I don't know what they're called.
SARAH: Living interstate meaning, that pops up; permanently residing in a different state from where you originally lived or currently work. Well, that's what the AI says.
KAYLA: If they are from Australia…
SARAH: Was it interstate or intrastate?
KAYLA: Interstate. Do you think this is because Australian toilets go the other way around?
SARAH: I don't think that's related at all, no.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Wait, I'm trying to… do they… states, Australia, yeah, it’s states in Australia. Do they say bloke in Australia with the same frequency that they say it in the UK?
KAYLA: I don't know.
SARAH: I feel like maybe no, but they might still say it. Sorry, I'm back on the game of, ‘where are you from?’
KAYLA: Where is this person from? Yeah, it's interstate, one word.
SARAH: I don't know what that fucking means.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Can you read the whole sentence to me again? Or the whole clause?
KAYLA: Ugh, let me find it.
SARAH: Sorry.
KAYLA: Jay was living interstate before she moved in, but I did a walkthrough via FaceTime.
SARAH: Living interstate, meaning Australia. Layla's Australian. In Australia, living or moving interstate simply means residing in or relocating to a different state or territory within the country.
KAYLA: Okay, well, there you go. Are you pleased with yourself?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Okay. Can I continue?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I respond that nothing is up, I'm just not going to pretend…
SARAH: Also, Japan is not that far from Australia. Sorry.
KAYLA: No, you're not wrong.
SARAH: It doesn't seem as big of a deal now that you’re in Australia.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's fair. And you know, maybe home ownership is like… maybe everyone can do that in Australia, I don't know what you all are…
SARAH: I don't know that everyone can do that, but.
KAYLA: But maybe it's not as bad as it is here.
SARAH: I closed it.
KAYLA: Okay, I respond that nothing is up, I'm just not going to pretend everything is normal, and I'm still weirded out by the events on Friday. She then sends another long message saying her response on Friday was not right, but she also felt steamrolled and bullied into apologizing, and I did not agree with the outcome. I did not want another…
SARAH: Wait, sorry. So, Jay was acting all normal, and Layla was not really wanting to engage because she was still thinking and sitting and considering?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And then Jay was like, what's wrong? And then Layla was like, well, this whole thing. And then Jay's like, well, you cornered me to apologizing. Like, why were you acting normal then?
KAYLA: Girl, I don't know.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: I did not want another long exchange of texts while we were in the same house, so I knocked on her door and asked to have a chat out in the open. I said it was clear she still didn't believe me, but there was nothing I could do to change her mind about that. I said that there is no circumstance in which the first text she sent me was a normal response to any situation, and that if she had simply asked if anyone had used the bathroom, I wouldn't be mad. Jay then requested time to say her side of the story, and at first, I was like, no, we're just going to go around in circles, but she was very insistent that I wasn't hearing her side. Jay said that she was shocked at my response to her first text and said she just expected me to come clean, that she had never heard of splashback before and was feeling like she was being gaslit. I again repeated that there was nothing for me to come clean about since, again, no one had used her bathroom. I pointed out…
SARAH: Jay just expected that this was the result…
KAYLA: Yes, and was like waiting… yeah.
SARAH: Again, she planted the evidence and was waiting for the arrest to just happen.
KAYLA: Yes, yeah. I pointed out that despite the main bathroom being used by guests with my previous housemate, I had accepted her request and immediately gotten people to use my en suite instead. I mentioned how my mom had pushed me to increase the rent due to her demanding solo access, and I had not done so because I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Jay then said that she didn't want things to be tense between us, so as an act of good will, she would start letting guests use the bathroom again.
SARAH: That’s not going to solve the problem.
KAYLA: Nothing. I said this has not changed my feelings on the situation, as I had shown I was perfectly able to have people use mine, and I was more upset at the way she had messaged me and the accusations of lying, and the fact that she remained convinced that some man had used her bathroom. It also seemed bizarre to me that she was threatening to leave over this in her original message, but now is perfectly fine having others use it. I am about to go away in two weeks' time for a week to see a concert, but once I am back, I will ask her to move out. I am a little worried about what would happen if I told her before leaving her alone in the house for a week. I will be fair and give her up to two months to find another place, but if she is acting this way about the situation, I do not want to live with her long term to find out what the next situation she becomes paranoid about is. The end.
SARAH: When was this submitted?
KAYLA: October, 2024.
SARAH: Layla, let us know.
KAYLA: So, I simply must assume and hope it has been resolved by now.
SARAH: Sure, I hope so. I hope you have a nice new roommate who doesn't accuse you of bringing men into the home to piss on their toilet.
KAYLA: Yeah. And listen, again, understanding that this person has OCD, this is still… like, we can't be doing this.
SARAH: But didn't Jay say that they had been around men or like they grew up with brothers or something so they know what it looks like?
KAYLA: Three brothers, yes.
[00:50:00]
SARAH: So like, if Jay has been experiencing this her whole life, which it may not have been that severe or that specific when she was younger, but she has lived with other people and presumably shared a bathroom with other people before. How does she not… How has she never heard of splashback?
KAYLA: I don't know. Maybe she didn't do a lot of chores growing up, maybe she didn't have to do the cleaning growing up.
SARAH: She said it makes her ill to clean the toilet.
KAYLA: And that's fair, I will say that.
SARAH: It's fair, but… yeah, also if there… listen, if there was like a droplet of piss and it wasn't like dried, it was like a liquid droplet, that was recent, girlfriend.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Do you know how the water cycle works?
KAYLA: Yeah. I just… having the paranoia, the pee, I can excuse. Just the back and forth of like: this is fine. No, it's not. I'm going to leave. Now people can use the bathroom. I'm just like, I'm going to need you... Like you have your boundaries and you can set them, but you also need to either accept when people tell you that's not what happened or if you can't accept that and believe it, then you have to leave at that point because you can't live with them.
SARAH: Yeah. Like having those kinds of spirals… I have never had something to that extent, so, I cannot necessarily speak from experience on that. But from what I understand and also from what I know just existing in the world, you cannot always get everything you want.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And you cannot control every variable.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And living with someone is a variable you can control.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so, if you find that living, well, asterisk, there's a money question in that.
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: But to some extent, living with another person is something that you can control. And if… but also, if there are people coming into your house because it's a house and people live there and people have friends and people may sometimes come over, like you can't control that variable and you have to just accept that sometimes things will happen.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And if you can't accept that, then I think you need to live alone to remove the possibility of that variable.
KAYLA: Yeah. And not saying that that's not going to be hard, but like you do have to find ways to cope with it. And like you… it doesn't give you a free excuse to treat people like shit.
SARAH: You may still have this issue living alone if people ever come over and they don't follow the rules that you have set, or they don't know the rules you have set, or they don't care enough to make sure they're doing what you need, or they don't understand why it's so important. That could still happen. And that's why having a therapist who specializes in OCD could be really helpful.
KAYLA: Yeah. Like I'm thinking about my friend that has OCD, I remember when she moved in with her boyfriend, she was really concerned about like sharing a space and like, how is this going to work? And like, I'm very particular about these things, but like, how is that going to, whatever. But again, she has an OCD therapist, so, that's something they talked about a lot. And that's a conversation her and her boyfriend have all the time, of like, I feel that I need this, I know that it is maybe not the most reasonable thing that I'm asking you to do, but like, what are we going to like, how are we going to navigate this? Like, that's just… when you're living with someone and you have needs like that, it's something you have to communicate about. And again, it doesn't give you the free excuse to be like, well, this is a mental illness, so, I'm allowed to be a dick to you about it.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: It's like, no, you don't. Like, yes, you can't control your mental illness, but like, that doesn't mean you get to be nasty.
SARAH: There are still consequences for your action.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah. And… I forgot what I was going to say, I forgot it. Oh, I don't know if that's what I was going to say, John Green has OCD and one of the advertisers that they have on their podcast is called NOCD. And it's like, it helps people who have OCD, like, deal with it. And I'm just like that's such a great name for something.
KAYLA: It is very good.
SARAH: It's really good. But when he talks about like the spirals he goes on where he convinces himself that he's like about to die of cholera.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: That sounds… it's difficult. Like, it sounds like it sucks really bad. But there are certain things that you just have to do and have to deal with and have to cope with.
KAYLA: Yeah. Like, no denying, Jay is going through a bad time and is clearly dealing with difficult stuff.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But that doesn't mean you can take that out on someone else consequence-free. I think it would maybe be different if this was a close friend and it was an understanding of like, okay, I know they get like this. And like we've talked about that this happens sometimes and like, I'm going to choose not to take it personally or like with a partner or something. But like, this is not that. Like, this is a transactional relationship of a housemate. Like, it's clearly like they don't have the trust and relationship to deal with that. And that's fine, like, you don't have to put up with that.
SARAH: Yead. I remember I was going to say before, it is like, if this is a person… like, the instance of like your friend moving in with her boyfriend, like, if this is a person that you love and they have kind of like what seem on paper to be kind of unreasonable asks, but like, you do it because you love that person. Even if it's not a person you love, even if it's just a roommate, if it's not difficult, there's no reason not to abide by that.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Which Layla has done.
KAYLA: Yes, yeah.
SARAH: And Jay is just asking her to go above and beyond.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But like knows it's not fair to ask her to go above and beyond and then is just kind of mad about all of it.
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, she's basically add asking Layla to confirm that her like delusions of what has happened is true, which is, like I said, with OCD, what you are not supposed to ask someone to do is to like reassure your thought process.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like that is not helpful to cope, just to have people on the outside be like, yes, this spiral you're going down is good and true.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: It's just not helpful.
SARAH: Is it helpful for them to be like, no, it's false and untrue, or like, is it really that like you need to be dealing with it in your own head, at least at first?
KAYLA: I think the example that my friend was giving me was that like one of her OCD things is like relationship OCD around like, do I actually love this person or am I like making it up or like, you know, are they mad at me? Do they love me? Like that kind of thing. And so, what you're not supposed to do is constantly… to make yourself feel better instantly ask like, are you mad at me? Do you love me? Like ask for that reassurance. You are supposed to like ride the wave internally of the stress and like internally be able to remind yourself of like, yes, of course they love me because like X, Y, Z, they do this.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But if you're constantly asking for the external reassurance then you get it immediately and like that doesn't teach your brain anything.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: That's what my understanding is.
SARAH: It also puts your partner in a difficult situation because, what if they are mad at you?
KAYLA: Sure, yeah.
SARAH: Like they feel like maybe they can't be honest with you because it's going to fuck up your mental health and that's not fair to them and it's not good for a healthy relationship.
KAYLA: Yeah. It's basically like you should not seek someone on the outside reassuring you that everything is going to be okay all the time immediately to get instant gratification. It's like you need to be able to work through and cope by yourself to reassure yourself that everything is okay.
SARAH: Yeah, which is difficult.
KAYLA: But I think… this is what I think I have heard.
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: Which, yes, is difficult, but is a skill to be, you know, worked upon.
SARAH: Yep.
KAYLA: Anyway, this has been Mental Illness Time with the Sexuality Podcast.
SARAH: I had therapy today and I came up with a phrase called ‘should soup.’
KAYLA: ‘Should soup.’
SARAH: It's when you're stewing in should soup.
KAYLA: That's good, that's good.
SARAH: I was pretty proud of myself for that one.
KAYLA: I like that.
SARAH: It turns out I have been shoulding, but I've been disguising it as have to.
KAYLA: Ah! The truth comes out.
SARAH: The truth comes out.
KAYLA: Wow! Shoulding in their own home.
SARAH: Ugh! Stewing in the should soup.
KAYLA: Stewing in the should soup. Now I really want like a graphic that's like alphabet soup, but it spells like should, someone do that.
SARAH: I did have to explain to my therapist the concept of ‘don't should.’
KAYLA: ‘Don't should.’
SARAH: And I said the word should so many times.
KAYLA: Yeah, I bet. The should shed, you're sitting in the should shed.
SARAH: I'm in the should shed in the should soup.
KAYLA: I'm making a should soup in the should shed.
SARAH: I don't got a should shed, I got a should shed.
KAYLA: I got a should shed. Mm-hmm.
SARAH: Anyway, I'm so glad that we hit exactly two.
KAYLA: That was three.
SARAH: It was three?
KAYLA: It was… no, maybe it was four. We had…
SARAH: Your memory is better than mine.
[01:00:00]
KAYLA: Allos not having boundaries. We had mustard… oh, we had the fiction, thinking romance was fiction.
SARAH: Ah!
KAYLA: Then we had mustard gas. And then we had the toilet.
SARAH: Okay, so, we had four.
KAYLA: We had four.
SARAH: I fully was like…
KAYLA: Well, we had a lengthy discussion about the fiction and the sex, so.
SARAH: Yeah. All right. Kayla, what's your beef and your juice for this week? Have you ever made mustard gas on accident?
KAYLA: No, it's the poll first, I thought.
SARAH: Wait, that's… I meant… No. Okay.
KAYLA: You meant poll.
SARAH: I meant poll because then what I said was the poll.
KAYLA: Have you ever accidentally made mustard gas? What ‘should soup’ are you stewing up right now?
SARAH: What do the straights have against yearning?
KAYLA: That's a good question, actually. Many questions to be discussed.
SARAH: Many, many, many questions.
KAYLA: Many discussion topics to be had.
SARAH: Yeah. Are you familiar with backsplash?
KAYLA: Backsplash. I mean, I just think as though that is like… Of course that happens.
SARAH: Even if you don't know the word for it, the concept.
KAYLA: Like I think it's just… I think the concept makes sense.
SARAH: Yeah. Okay, Kayla, what's your poll for juice and beef?
KAYLA: Ah, funny. My beef is that actually, I don't know the… Let me look at something, let me look something up first.
SARAH: Aww, she has got to research, according to my research.
KAYLA: Wow! I can't wait to ask Dean about that, actually.
SARAH: What?
KAYLA: Okay, so, my beef was that the Knicks lost game three.
SARAH: Oh, yeah, they won by one point.
KAYLA: I just looked that up, I was watching the game before we started and they were doing really bad.
SARAH: If at any point in this podcast I seemed lightly distracted...
KAYLA: It’s because you were checking the score?
SARAH: It was because I was being updated in the group chat about the score.
KAYLA: That's funny. Here's the thing, I don't care about foot… sorry, I don't care about basketball.
SARAH: Me neither.
KAYLA: If I do care about basketball, it is the Warriors, which is Dean… My fiance's team. I'll like… he has it on. And so, I'll care about that with him. I don't have any connection to the Knicks. What I'm a fan of is Knicks’ fans. I have been getting a lot of joy from like the New York joy, I find it… the best type of patriotism.
SARAH: My mayor Muslim. My bagel Jewish...
KAYLA: My bagel is Jewish.
SARAH: My Christian Dior. Knicks in four. But now it's Knicks in five.
KAYLA: Mine that I came up with, that Dean didn't like, but then I saw a girl also do it on TikTok the next day, was: My mayor Muslim. My bagel is Jewish. My cream cheese chive. Knicks in five. Which then the comments of this girl's TikTok was like, this gives Ohio to New York transplant energy. And I was like, damn it, Midwest did again.
SARAH: God damn it.
KAYLA: But I'm just sad… So, I'm actually shocked to see that they won because they were doing so stinky poo poo bad when I stopped watching. But I just… I love New York joy, I find it to be like the most American patriotic thing to me when like New Yorkers are coming together.
SARAH: And just shitting on Donald Trump, booing him so loud when he came on.
KAYLA: During the national anthem, yeah.
SARAH: He ruined the first home game for them.
KAYLA: Which is exactly what I said would happen, I told Dean when they were like, oh, he's going to come. I was like, they're going to lose, he's ruining the juju. And I was right.
SARAH: Well, and then no one could get in because they shut down 10 blocks and they canceled the official watch party. So, then…
KAYLA: The seats were like $50,000.
SARAH: And Donald Trump fell asleep and left in the third quarter.
KAYLA: Yeah. See? And I… that's exactly what I said would happen. So anyway, I'm… my juice, I guess is that they somehow fucking won by one point, I can't wait to see what happened there.
SARAH: The only game I've seen any of was the one that they lost, I was watching the end of it at the gym.
KAYLA: You know what I think is the problem? It is I watched all of game three, it's me.
SARAH: I think I'm not allowed to watch any games.
KAYLA: Because I stopped watching the first two games, I don't think I was really paying attention at all, but Dean had them on the TV and I like went to bed, but I wasn't watching them at all. So, I think I can't watch at all.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: I saw some videos on Instagram today of this guy who is into basketball and his girlfriend who is like a beauty influencer, but she's also very funny.
KAYLA: Is it The Purse?
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: They do this thing where he sits with his back to the TV and she narrates what's happening.
KAYLA: Aww! That's… oh my God, I need to do that with Dean, that would be really funny.
SARAH: And she's constantly mixing them up, at one point she didn't even know which team was which.
KAYLA: Oh, see, I could at least do that.
SARAH: Like she was like, but yesterday they were wearing black.
KAYLA: Wait, I want to do that with Dean so bad.
SARAH: It is really funny. And so, some of the things that she said…
KAYLA: Dean is not even going to be here this weekend, he's going to be with you in LA, he's going to be with you. You could see him I suppose if you wanted, but Dean will be…
SARAH: What's he in LA for?
KAYLA: To visit [Bleep]
SARAH: Mm
KAYLA: But I guess… if you want to see him.
SARAH: Bestie! Hold on, now I really want to find… there's like one specific quote that she said that was quite funny.
KAYLA: My cream cheese chive.
SARAH: There was a foul and she said, I think something foul just happened.
KAYLA: That’s wild.
SARAH: And then she said, I think someone was touched inappropriately.
KAYLA: Mm. There has been a lot of inappropriate touching in this series and the refs have not always been calling it out.
SARAH: Yeah. I was… even from what I was watching from a distance at the gym, no volume, I was like, they're calling so many fouls on the Knicks.
KAYLA: Yeah. There has been… in game three there was like one that people are really pissed about that they didn't… like, sometimes I guess they'll do post-game, like retroactive, like upgrade a foul and they didn't even do it. And everyone, even the announcers are like, yo, what the F?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Okay. Anyway, that's my…
SARAH: There was one really good other quote.
KAYLA: Well, I'll let you keep doing that. I thought that was my beef, but I guess also kind of my juice. My other juice is that my paint… my number is coming along very nicely.
SARAH: I'm happy to hear that.
KAYLA: Thank you. I almost ran out of one color and I got really scared, but I think I eked it out. They did not put enough of the one color in the pot.
SARAH: You're so brave.
KAYLA: Thank you.
SARAH: This isn't the one I wanted, but someone was making a free throw and he was praying and she goes, he's praying. And then he missed and she goes, he didn't pray hard enough.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: There was one, she was saying like, she said like three did a two... Okay, I hate it when you… if you like a comment on Instagram and then you go back to the post, it shows you new comments…
KAYLA: Oh, eww
SARAH: But it won't re-show you the one that you liked, like, I want to see which ones I liked. But she was like, three did a two. And then she was like, and through… what was the word she used? It wasn't travesty, but it was like… she was like… like it was difficult. Like, she's like… fuck, it's going to bother me so much.
KAYLA: Well…
SARAH: I can't just Google something like that. Okay, I'll figure it out. Guys, I found it. She said, number four did a number two and through hardships as well. Poetry. My beef is I got a root canal yesterday.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: My juice is, I guess that I was supposed to get two and I only got one.
KAYLA: Okay, that’s nice.
SARAH: My mouth has been… I got such a bad headache yesterday, like directly behind my eyes after the root canal.
KAYLA: Mm.
SARAH: My teeth have the structural integrity of a cottage cheese.
KAYLA: Oh, that is such a terrible image.
SARAH: And the look of a cob of corn.
KAYLA: Okay, that's quite enough.
SARAH: Thanks mom!
KAYLA: That's quite enough.
SARAH: So yeah, that's my beef, my mouth is messed up, they're going to have to completely redo my crowns because they had to do the root canal.
KAYLA: Boo!
SARAH: My juice is I… whatever. I kind of said juice.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: My other beef is that my daily morning podcast is now releasing in the afternoon.
KAYLA: What's the point?
SARAH: And so now the news I get is just extra late because I just listened to it the next morning.
KAYLA: What are you going to do?
SARAH: Anyway, you can tell us about your beef, your juice, whatever that girl said. I should tell you what the accounts are. Oh, I lost it.
KAYLA: Oh my God. Oh my God.
SARAH: The man is Jay Hutt and the girlfriend is X Selena Grande X.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Just so you know.
KAYLA: Thank you.
SARAH: You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your thoughts on the Knicks on our social media @soundfakepod. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod if you want to support us there. Our $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Sophia P, Tall_Darryl, Tom S, and Tanner Shioshita. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Quartertone who would like to promote World Central Kitchen & Doctors Without Borders. Barefoot Backpacker who would like to promote their YouTube channel, rtwbarefoot. SongOStorm who would like to promote a healthy work life balance. Sydney Price who would like to promote their Instagram @sydneyxprice. And Val who would like to promote the way that this woman describes things. Our other $10 patrons are Alastor, Ani, Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, Clare Olsen, Danielle Hutchinson, Derick & Carissa, Elle Bitter, Eric, my aunt Jeannie, Johanna, Kayla’s dad, Maff, Martin Chiesl and Purple Hayes. Our $15 patrons are Ace who would like to promote the writer, Crystal Scherer. Nathaniel White, who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com. Kayla’s Aunt Nina who would like to promote katemaggartart.com. And Schnell who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome. Our $20 patrons are Changeling & Alex who would like to promote their company, ControlAltAccess.com. Dr. Jacki, Dragonfly, my mom, and River who would like to promote having better teeth than me.
KAYLA: Mm, mm-hmm.
SARAH: Thanks for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]