0:00

So your two options are pursue

0:02

murder mystery or kiss. Yes.

0:04

I agree. I think we do both at the same

0:06

time. I'll to be clear.

0:14

Hello, and welcome to the season

0:17

three finale of

0:19

normal gossip. I'm Kelsey

0:21

McKenney, and in each episode of this

0:23

podcast, we're gonna bring an anonymous morsel

0:25

of gossip from the real world.

0:28

As it is the season finale, and

0:30

we are very excited to move

0:32

into a nice little winter break.

0:34

I just wanted to let you guys know about

0:37

breaking news. We are

0:39

gonna having a live show at

0:42

sixth and I, the historic synagogue in Washington,

0:44

D. C. on December seventh.

0:47

You can find tickets for that at sixth and

0:49

I dot org and we will put that link

0:51

in our show notes and on our Instagram and basically

0:53

everywhere that you could possibly want to find

0:55

it. We'll be selling tickets for the

0:57

live show. You can come in person and see us

0:59

and hang out, maybe we'll go to a bar afterwards,

1:02

and we'll be selling online tickets so that

1:04

you can watch it from the comfort of your own couch

1:06

wherever you are. I think it's gonna be

1:08

really fun. We're gonna be doing the same

1:10

story that we did at the New York show.

1:12

It was a huge hit. Everyone loves it,

1:14

and we're gonna be in Washington DC where

1:17

they need a little bit of fun and gossip I

1:19

think. Please remember that if you are a

1:21

subscriber at the friend or friend to friend level,

1:23

you do get discounts to shows and

1:25

those codes are in your emails

1:27

right now. And if you can't find them, email

1:29

info at defector dot com. If you

1:31

want to become a subscriber at the friend

1:33

or friend or friend level, you can do that

1:35

at support normal gossip dot com. That

1:38

is enough business. In my

1:40

opinion, let's get into

1:42

it. Today, I am ad absolutely

1:44

thrilled to have with me, Tuck Woodstock.

1:47

Tuck is a journalist and educator based in New

1:49

York. He is the host of the podcast gender reveal,

1:51

which is coming back for a new season next week.

1:54

He is the co founder of Sylvian Consulting

1:56

and a founding member of the Trans journalist

1:58

Association. Tuck, welcome

1:59

to the show. I'm thrilled that you're here. Thank

2:02

you so much

2:03

for having me. I really feel like this proves

2:05

that everyone should just shoot their shot because

2:07

I did. I don't know if we should even tell people this,

2:09

but I did make it onto show by sending a

2:11

truly unhinged email that I think was called

2:13

thirteen reasons why. Okay. And, like,

2:15

that worked. So I,

2:18

like,

2:18

I actually had forgotten that you sent

2:20

that email until just now, but Alex was

2:22

like you have to see this. And

2:26

honestly, a piece of art. Like, maybe

2:28

if it's okay with you, we'll screenshot

2:30

it and share it parts

2:31

of it. But, like, thirteen perfect reasons

2:33

for why you should be on here. Are anything you'd

2:35

like to address before we jump into our

2:37

questions. No. I

2:39

already forgot most of them. I

2:41

remember like scrolling through

2:45

the list of husk guests, which include many

2:47

of my friends and being like, I don't

2:49

think they've interviewed a transsexual yet,

2:51

but if so not enough, and I could really

2:53

just use that as a selling point.

2:56

We're doing diversity and inclusion here,

2:58

but I don't remember the other twelve,

3:00

but the other twelve were, like,

3:02

I love gossip and gossip is important

3:04

to me. So oh, yeah.

3:06

I think one of them was that. my

3:08

best friend had listened to your podcast

3:11

for the first time in forty five seconds and

3:13

walked into my room and been like,

3:15

you

3:15

been on this show yet? Why haven't you been on this

3:17

show? Would be perfect for this show? And, like, clearly,

3:19

my roommate and best friend, they would be the

3:21

one to objectively know that I me on

3:23

this objectively. Yeah. Wait. So why

3:25

do you think that was? Like, why do you think

3:27

your best friend slash fruit mate

3:29

per forty five seconds at the show and

3:31

was, like, his talk. So

3:35

I was thinking about this and

3:37

I think that I have sort of built my

3:39

career on gossip

3:42

in a couple of different ways. And

3:44

one is that, like, as a trans

3:46

journalist, it actually

3:48

becomes very important to

3:51

start comparing notes with people to talk

3:53

about what other journalists are, like, literally

3:55

safe to work with Aviato. And

3:57

if there is a trans person who's not a journalist

3:59

who's

3:59

been contacted by journalist, I

4:02

have said publicly on Twitter, like, you can feel

4:04

free to reach out to me and I will tell

4:06

you if

4:06

I can get a sense of whether that person

4:08

has a background. in, right, reporting

4:10

on trans topics and whether, like, they would tell your story

4:12

with integrity. And I think that that's actually really, like,

4:14

the useful gossip. But

4:17

also, As

4:18

someone who just moved to New York, my entire

4:20

professional career up until, like,

4:22

a month ago was

4:24

in Portland, Oregon. And there just

4:26

weren't a lot of people in

4:29

this industry that you and I are both in

4:31

-- Mhmm. -- in Portland. And

4:33

also, I wasn't working for a company. I was working

4:35

for my self. And so the way that I figured

4:37

out

4:38

to enter the industry

4:40

on sort of a national level is to actually

4:42

make myself like the subject of industry

4:45

gossip Oh my god. people

4:47

I didn't do this on purpose, but it is what happened.

4:49

And then, like, once that happened,

4:52

a bunch of people noticed

4:54

me and probably bad ways,

4:56

but also good ways. And I was like, well, now I know

4:58

how to sort this out because anyone who

5:00

agrees with me about this gossip. it's

5:02

cool and we're friends.

5:03

ah

5:05

Wait. Wait. I think, like, people are gonna

5:07

want more details

5:08

there. Oh my gosh.

5:10

That's just odd. and

5:12

go ahead and do them, please.

5:13

I mean, I feel like I'm

5:16

gonna get in trouble, but Which

5:18

do you think it was a

5:20

police? Well, there's

5:22

this there's this list serve

5:24

that everyone in radio is on. Mhmm.

5:26

And you can tell when there's drama going on

5:28

in the list serve because everyone in

5:30

sort of like, radio side podcasting world will

5:32

start doing, like, tweets about, like -- Mhmm. -- big

5:34

day on the listserv, you know. And

5:37

I was a little baby at the time, and so I

5:39

was new on the listserv but

5:41

this one white woman had

5:44

posted just this

5:46

really racist thing

5:49

about how she

5:51

had really meant to make a diverse podcast,

5:53

but then oops, she accidentally just

5:56

didn't interview any black brown or

5:58

queer against people. Okay. And she

6:00

was like, so

6:02

and then sort of

6:03

wrapped it up to be, like, in conclusion, listen

6:06

to my podcast. and then

6:08

maybe, like, I don't know, give me some free advice

6:10

as to how to do better. And

6:13

everyone had just been subtweeting it for days

6:15

and I was like, is nobody gonna say anything.

6:17

And then finally, I was like, I guess,

6:19

I'll be the one to say anything. Mhmm.

6:21

I can't lose anything because I'm already,

6:23

like, not a part of this. And

6:25

what happened was I said something, I immediately

6:28

got tone police to hell where they were like,

6:30

well, of course, you know, like, how dare

6:32

you call out this four white woman doing her best?

6:34

But there were, like, really doing her

6:36

best, literally nothing. But

6:40

there were really cool people who who stood up for

6:42

me, like, almost all of whom were, like,

6:44

queer women and women of color. Who

6:47

I then were, like, okay. We're friends now.

6:49

No. but then also just a

6:51

lot of people in the radio industry, like pretty

6:53

high up, just silently followed me

6:55

on Twitter. And I was like, I don't know if

6:57

they're doing this because they agreed with me or

6:59

because they just wanna see what other messy

7:01

stuff I'm gonna get up

7:02

to. And,

7:03

like, either way, it's, like, sort of That's very

7:05

helpful. Right. Really? So

7:07

And then that sort of just

7:08

became my role

7:10

where every once in a while I would

7:13

go on Twitter and just be like, okay, this thing

7:15

that no one else will say because they wanna keep

7:17

their jobs. Like, I'm already not employed

7:19

by the industry. Mhmm. And so I can

7:21

just say a thing and no one can do anything

7:23

to me. And I'm also not gonna run into that

7:25

because I'm in Portland, Oregon. Right? Mhmm.

7:28

So that's what I mean when I

7:30

say that I, like, built my whole career on

7:32

on gossip is that I got

7:34

inside the people. Yeah. I sadly I

7:37

said something. Somehow

7:40

that's like how I got to

7:42

know all of

7:44

my friends in in radio is by

7:46

being annoying on a listserv.

7:48

What is your gossip

7:50

life like in your personal life?

7:53

Yeah.

7:53

I was thinking about this too.

7:56

And I really wanted to, like,

7:58

divide this sort of

8:00

friend of friend of friend of stranger gossip

8:02

from the gossip and got people that

8:04

you actually, like,

8:05

know and and

8:06

have in your sort of social circles. Because

8:08

I love the gossip that

8:10

y'all do, which is like someone told us this,

8:12

but someone told them this, or like, you know,

8:14

my girlfriend all the time will be like, oh, you

8:16

know, my friend's friend's friend had an

8:18

affair with this married politician. And

8:22

then he goes to her, but then he reached out two years

8:24

later to ask if you could help promote his new,

8:26

like, line of exotic coffee. And

8:28

it's just like, how do you know this many just

8:30

unhinged people?

8:30

That email is tips at

8:33

defector

8:33

dot com. Actually, she

8:35

also listens to this podcast and I'm like, you have to

8:37

tell them everything. She

8:40

could keep you going for a whole season. So

8:42

I love that because it's no steaks. It doesn't.

8:44

Right? It'd be real. Like, I will never check

8:46

any of I just loved hear it. And I'll

8:48

never tell anyone because I simply won't remember any of

8:50

the titles. Like, even if I tried.

8:53

What what makes me more

8:56

uncomfortable, not to say I've never done it,

8:58

but what makes me more comfortable is to do

9:00

gossip about people that I'm in community with. And

9:02

it's simply because I'm trying to

9:04

golden rule things and nothing makes me feel

9:06

more uncomfortable about the thought that anyone is ever

9:08

talking about me for any reason ever. And

9:10

so I'm just like, okay, this person

9:12

seems nice. I'm gonna try business. I'm

9:14

gonna hope they're minding their business when I do

9:16

something annoying, and

9:17

we'll just like have that agreement. So

9:19

How far does that circle extend for

9:22

you? of

9:23

people whom you're willing to keep your

9:24

mouth shut for. I

9:27

mean, I think it's people who I

9:30

interact with somewhat regularly

9:32

or, like, we'll have a conversation with.

9:34

We'll have to look in the eye or the sort

9:37

of Internet version of work in

9:39

the eye. And I also think I

9:41

wanna qualify that that doesn't have to do,

9:43

like, with someone if they're doing real hard. Right? Then

9:45

it becomes, like, crystal gossip. But just

9:47

if it's silly and annoying. Yeah. I think if it's

9:49

someone who I will ever have to, like,

9:51

have an actual conversation with

9:53

-- Mhmm. -- if I know in my heart

9:55

that I just been saying something rude about

9:57

them for no reason to entertain myself,

9:59

like, it becomes

9:59

harder for me. Whereas if

10:01

they're just like a sort of a distant character, like someone

10:03

that I just on Instagram but have never

10:05

talked to. I'm like, well, this is fun because we'll

10:07

never interact and so they can just be like a little

10:09

character to me and I'm sure I'm a little character to like

10:11

a bunch of other people and It's terrible to think about,

10:13

and I can never think about it, but I know it happens. You

10:15

know? I've been

10:16

talking a lot about this because it has

10:18

been, like, preoccupying the

10:20

whole front of my brain, which is that someone

10:22

I know called off their engagement

10:24

but has not posted anything

10:26

about it. And so

10:28

I believe that they called off their

10:30

engagement because they deleted

10:32

all of these photos of them together.

10:35

And I'm like, this is it actually

10:37

scares the shit out of me because I'm like, I'm so

10:39

invested in this person that, like, I think I

10:41

met twice ten years ago.

10:43

And I'm how the fact that this is

10:45

happening to me means it's happening

10:46

to everyone about so

10:49

many people, which is like

10:51

it's scary if you think a little too hard about

10:52

it. No. That's the thing

10:54

is, like, it's fun to, yeah, detective

10:57

someone's life and think very hard or,

10:59

like, you know, I have new neighbors now, and I'm, like,

11:01

let me find out what my new neighbors do.

11:03

People, people, people, people. Yeah. so

11:05

much more googled than they are. and then I

11:07

kinda thought about, like, what happens when they Google

11:09

me and then I was like, oh, no.

11:12

So

11:12

I also moved pretty recently and have the

11:14

same thought because I'm like, you know, you get

11:16

packages delivered to your house and they have your name on them. And

11:18

I'm like, somebody is gonna type in my little name

11:20

and they're gonna be like, oh my god, this bitch. tells

11:23

everyone

11:23

everything. Like, I

11:26

can't speak to her. I

11:29

mean, yeah, you're gonna

11:29

have to get all your packages delivered under

11:32

a different name. And you're gonna have to go back

11:34

in my kindergarten. Yeah. No. No. It'll

11:36

crack it. Nobody will crack it.

11:38

My friend used to send packages

11:40

under, like, slightly different versions of my

11:42

name every time, so they would send it to, like,

11:44

truck, wood chop. Oh my

11:45

god. Yeah. That's

11:48

that's me.

11:48

That's me.

11:49

really foiling our, like,

11:52

belief that you should

11:52

always Google your neighbors by being like,

11:55

send your packages to a

11:57

different name. real

11:59

normal stuff.

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13:31

Today,

13:34

we're going into the recent past,

13:36

the early odds. The

13:38

fashion is, like, thirty

13:40

percent off from where it is now. The

13:43

music is, like, today's with a little bit more

13:45

pizzas, but the part of the culture that

13:47

was, like, truly different was

13:49

the Internet. Right? It was like a bolder,

13:51

fancier font of the Internet we have

13:53

today. Do you remember the Internet

13:55

in the early Occidental? like,

13:57

the Geocities era

13:59

or

13:59

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Can you describe what that was

14:02

like?

14:03

I mean, I was on Neo Pets

14:05

a then I was getting

14:07

any scams there, like, the rest of us. We

14:09

they're I'm sorry. This is we

14:11

think, like, a tiny naive baby. What were the

14:13

scams on me?

14:14

pet. Oh my god. You could, like, scam people out of

14:16

their Neo pet money. What?

14:19

You probably later. You probably

14:21

scammed me because I was like, everyone here

14:23

is good. No. I

14:25

feel like it was a lot of, like, graphic design is

14:27

my passion. Mhmm. A lot of, like,

14:29

going to my space and, like, the

14:31

background is black and

14:32

glittery and your hercer has turned into, like,

14:34

a wheel of cheese and, like, an Arctic

14:36

Monkey song is playing, like, really loudly so

14:38

that when you go to your friends page, like, your

14:40

parents wake up because they heard that

14:43

opening song

14:43

of God. What was

14:45

that? I bet you look at it on the dance floor.

14:48

mine. Yes.

14:48

That one. I also had

14:50

a killer song and I remember my friend

14:52

literally getting mad at me because he would go to

14:54

my website and Brandon Flowers would just

14:57

go come with me, and he's

14:59

like, you have to stop. We

15:01

can't do this.

15:02

Yeah. So he's like

15:03

that, like, maximalism on the Internet.

15:05

Exactly. Yes. So, like, a lot of people who

15:07

listen to this podcast are probably too young to

15:09

remember this, but the Internet used to be like a

15:11

magical lawless land where,

15:13

like, just fewer parts

15:15

of the Internet were centralized so that

15:17

for men could make a lot of money. And so

15:19

the only thing that people did on there

15:21

was, like, change your

15:22

background on MySpace. I was

15:24

talking to someone about middle school

15:26

and how in

15:28

middle school there was

15:30

no YouTube

15:31

yet it just didn't exist. And then when

15:33

I got to high school, I believe there

15:35

was YouTube, but there were like

15:37

six videos. And everyone had seen the

15:39

six videos and they were all made on flash.

15:41

Yes. No. How

15:44

to count. All the

15:47

way to fifty

15:49

seven. But then let's hand

15:51

Well, haven't that been fired him at that.

15:53

We're going

15:54

to candy, man. Come

15:56

with us, Charlie. Yeah,

15:58

Charlie. being

15:59

adventures. That

16:01

was the time we were in.

16:03

Yes. And so this is today's story takes place

16:05

before YouTube was invented. Right? Like, you're

16:07

absolutely right. So for another

16:09

example, most, like, hobby communities and groups

16:11

of people trying to, like, commune

16:14

online now. We'll just have, like, a

16:16

subreddit. Right? And that's where they go and they, like,

16:18

ask each other questions. It's

16:20

fine. But it used to be that hobbies, you know,

16:22

take, for example, knitting, though

16:24

that's not the hobby we're gonna be talking about

16:26

today. would have their own forums on,

16:28

like, strange websites with

16:30

purple backgrounds and, like, a teal font

16:32

and it was, like, the best advice you could

16:34

possibly get the world. Like, you

16:36

ask Metafilter and it gives you some

16:38

site called grandma's knitting circle and you're

16:40

just like

16:40

bless. Yeah.

16:42

Not to dox myself, but for where

16:44

the viewers were spent on the

16:47

Sheiros web forum, which was for

16:49

fans of Tamora Hierce

16:51

and

16:51

Meg Cabot. Oh my

16:52

god. That's where I learned about a

16:54

lot of things like masturbating. Uh-huh. That's what I

16:56

was gonna say. So, yeah, I

16:58

was there. because there weren't just the four websites. They were like

17:00

four zillion. They each had seven people on them.

17:02

Yeah.

17:02

Okay. So our friend of a friend today, her

17:04

name is Luna. she was,

17:06

like, not involved in any of these online

17:09

communities. She, like, barely went online

17:11

at all. Like, she had a mice face, but she was

17:13

an adult when myspace was

17:15

popular, so she was like, I don't really have like a

17:17

lot of time for

17:18

this. In fact, she probably

17:20

wouldn't have ever ended up on the fated form

17:22

she ended up on if

17:24

her grandfather hadn't died at exactly the wrong

17:26

time. Wait. Sorry.

17:27

That's I'm just like so there's a there's

17:29

a right time for grandparents to die. Well,

17:31

it was not this. Go. Her

17:33

grandfather was very old and, like,

17:35

it wasn't all that sudden, so, like, that part's

17:37

fine, but he died before he managed to get his

17:39

will in order. Mhmm. Okay. Do you

17:41

know why this is a problem?

17:42

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I

17:46

do. Did she end

17:48

up having to

17:50

inherit some weird items that she then had

17:52

to learn about on the Internet. So

17:53

this is basically the problem with, like, not

17:55

having a will. Right? Is there's, like, no

17:58

delegation of who gets what.

18:00

So like Luna had been raised by

18:02

her grandfather, her dad's dad,

18:04

because her dad was like basically useless

18:06

on his own. But because the will wasn't

18:08

done, when her grandfather died, everything went to,

18:11

like, his children, including

18:13

Luna's data and, like, she

18:15

got nothing. Luna's like, I feel

18:17

like I deserved something. Right? Even if

18:19

it's small, I just like, this is the guy who

18:21

raised me. I loved him. I

18:23

want something. She goes to the

18:25

funeral, and she, like, immediately

18:27

notices that whoever, like, picked

18:29

out the clothes for grandpa's did a bad

18:31

job. Like, grandpa was always dressed well

18:33

even at his sickest. And whoever dressed

18:35

him put him in clothes that, like, didn't fit

18:37

well. He wasn't wearing his favorite pants or his

18:39

favorite tie. but the thing

18:41

that Luna Lake clocked immediately is that there was no

18:43

gold chain hanging from his pocket.

18:46

Her whole life, her grandfather

18:48

had carried a very old pocket watch

18:50

in his front right pocket. It had been his

18:52

father's and was all like dinged up.

18:54

Luna's like I remembered as

18:56

child, like, you know, hugging her grandfather and feeling

18:58

like the round cold watch on her

19:00

ear and like hearing it tick through his

19:03

blazer. And she's like the only time

19:05

this man didn't wear this this pocket watch was

19:07

when he showered or went to

19:09

sleep. She's like it was always

19:11

really carefully taken care of and like when it

19:13

wasn't on him, it was in his

19:15

bedside table. She's like, I know because I watched

19:17

him put it there five million times. She's

19:19

like, so if it wasn't in the casket with

19:21

him, it's probably in

19:23

that drawer. Okay.

19:24

First of all, I'm sorry to this grandpa because I am now

19:26

picturing him as like the white rabbit

19:29

from house in Wonderland because that's like

19:31

my number one pocket watch.

19:33

reference. Mhmm. But, yeah, I'm stressed. Like,

19:35

I thought we were gonna do gossip, and now I feel

19:37

like I'm doing a murder mystery of something.

19:41

Don't worry. You die. Natural

19:43

causes. Fine. Okay.

19:45

Great. Thank you so much. Sometimes

19:47

people die.

19:47

Okay. So

19:49

after

19:49

the funeral, there's like an event at Grandpa's house. You

19:51

know, it's like a wake. There's like loads of food,

19:54

giant bowls of chips, like Grandpa's favorite

19:56

beer is everywhere. Luna's,

19:58

like, mourning with her cousins and they're, like, you

20:00

know, all telling stories about, like, grandpa

20:02

being a hooligan and all this stuff. But she, like,

20:04

in the back of her mind, is just thinking

20:06

about the pocket watch. how would

20:08

you obtain this pocket watch? Well,

20:11

she's

20:11

gotta do a sneak in rescue mission and

20:13

see if it's there because if it is there, she

20:15

can grab it. If it's not, then it's

20:18

so suspicious and she has key

20:20

information. So, yeah, she's gotta go and go

20:23

Yeah.

20:24

Yes. So as she's sitting there,

20:26

like, trying to decide what to do, her favorite

20:28

cousin is, like, Luna Luna, are you gonna

20:30

take something? I think I'm

20:31

gonna take something of grandpa. So

20:34

I have something. And Luna's

20:36

like what? No me. I

20:38

would never do that. Yeah. And her cousin's like,

20:40

yeah. No. It's now or never. I'm going to get

20:42

a few records and I'm moving right now.

20:44

So if you wanna get something now is

20:46

the time. And Luna's

20:47

like, you know, I'm an ally. Hell, yeah.

20:49

I'm gonna go get that pocket watch.

20:52

My cousin's like, great. Let's do it.

20:53

They five. I love this. This

20:55

is great. Grandma's room is

20:57

open. Right? So Luna just like waltz

20:59

is in and she's sits on the bed.

21:01

She, like, cries a little genuinely because she's,

21:03

like, I'm sad. And she opens

21:05

the drawer and the pocket watch is right

21:08

there.

21:09

And she's, like, dips, slips

21:11

it right into her pocket, no

21:14

problem. Great. So Luda's

21:15

like thrilled. She's like, I've got my

21:17

pocket watch, this rules, she's, like, holding it

21:19

in her hand, in her pocket for the rest of the

21:21

day, and she's, like, you know, this makes me feel

21:23

like stable and rooted. Right?

21:25

Like, oh, my grandpa loved me so much. And

21:27

now I have this thing that he so much.

21:30

Shouldn't realize until she got home

21:32

that it didn't work. Like, the

21:34

hands on the clock were not

21:36

moving. and she, like, held it up to her

21:38

ear and it didn't tick.

21:40

She, like, shakes it a little and it, like,

21:42

makes a little rattley sound and

21:44

she's, like, that cannot be

21:46

good. Do you have any

21:47

ideas for her here?

21:49

What what do you do? I

21:51

mean, surely there's a professional who

21:53

knows these things. It's not me.

21:56

but someone somewhere has gotta know the

21:58

art of ancient pocket watches.

22:01

Oh. Now I'm remembering that we

22:03

did to talk about online forums. So now I'm gonna say you

22:05

go to an online forum on the early

22:07

odds Internet. So I put the clues

22:09

together. Wow. Somebody is

22:11

two headed storytelling and including the park.

22:13

At the top of the pocket

22:15

watch,

22:15

there's like a little wheel. And so Luna's like,

22:17

you know, maybe As far

22:19

as I understand, the way Parker watches work is you wind this little

22:22

wheel and then the clock continues to tick. So

22:24

maybe since my grandmother has been done for a

22:26

few days, No one has wound the

22:28

wheel. I will simply give that a

22:30

try. So she does it. Obviously, she's like

22:32

work work work.

22:32

The winding does nothing.

22:35

the watch

22:36

is like just as dead as before.

22:38

I

22:38

mean, honestly, that makes me feel good because I was gonna be

22:40

really embarrassed if I was like, you take it to a professional

22:42

and then the professionals like you twisted a a

22:44

bit. I'd be like, oh, okay. Never mind. Sorry. My bad. That's

22:47

what he needs to be honest. I would be like,

22:49

hello professional watchmaker. Here's

22:52

This is our way to cam on pocket watches.

22:55

There's a chain. Right? Yes. What

22:57

is the chain attached to

23:00

Like, it's on the watch, but this question

23:02

is very stressful to me. I

23:03

think there's like a clip on the end of it

23:06

and it clips to your clothes.

23:08

Okay.

23:08

But just say that, like, anywhere

23:09

in the clothes so that, like, you can pull it

23:11

out by the chain. Sure. And then

23:13

they're like, here it is, then you can just drop it

23:15

back into your pocket. Alright.

23:17

That makes me feel better and that you were also like,

23:20

oh, no. No. No. That's

23:22

not how this works. I don't care.

23:25

Don't DM me. Yeah. About Do not

23:27

DM me. Okay. So the

23:29

winding has not worked. Now Luna

23:31

has, like, reached your solution, which

23:34

is, like, There

23:34

are professionals. She's like, I have a

23:37

job downtown. Every day I walk by

23:39

stores that are like jewelry repair,

23:41

watch repair in neon

23:43

lights. So she's like, I'll just stumble

23:45

into one and

23:46

be like, what's up? My watch doesn't work.

23:48

So she

23:49

does this and she hands her little pocket watch over to the

23:51

little guy on the other side a counter and he takes

23:53

one look at it and he's like, I can't help

23:56

you. Because

23:57

it's so old.

23:59

He's like, listen.

23:59

This pocket watch is very old.

24:02

and it's also like kind

24:04

of rare. He's

24:06

like the problem is that not a lot of people have

24:08

kept using these watches because company

24:10

that made them doesn't make the specific parts that

24:12

it needs to work anymore. So

24:14

basically, the only way to fix this watch

24:17

is to find another identical watch, which is

24:19

kind of rare, and then use those

24:21

parts to replace the ones that are broken.

24:24

He's like, there

24:26

might be somebody who can help you, but it's

24:28

not me. And this

24:30

would be harder because it's

24:31

the early odds Internet. And

24:34

so it's harder to find, like, rare

24:36

items. There was just eBay, I guess.

24:38

Alright. So

24:38

Luna's like, well, do you know anyone who

24:40

could help me? And the

24:42

watch guy's like, if I were you, I tried

24:44

this other watch guy, like, three blocks

24:47

over, he's he'll know. If anyone will know

24:49

it's him. takes her little watch three

24:51

blocks over, and this guy is, like, more

24:53

interested in the watch. Right? Like, he, like, uses some

24:55

needle nose pliers, like, pops

24:57

it open. he's in the watch. Like, when he pops it open, the watch is like

24:59

a jack in the box. Right? Like, shit's like flying

25:01

out of it. And Luna's like,

25:03

oh, no. That cannot be

25:05

good. but this guy at least has like a

25:07

decent bedside manner and he's

25:09

like listen. If I had this

25:11

watch, I would sell it for parts only. like,

25:14

it's so messed up inside that, like, I

25:16

don't think you're gonna be able to do anything

25:18

with it. He's like, the only thing

25:20

that's really the only thing I could do with it. He's

25:22

like, since I can tell that, like, you care

25:24

a lot about it and it's sentimental.

25:26

Maybe just keep

25:27

it for that and, like, don't worry about trying

25:29

to get it to tick.

25:31

Do you think

25:32

that that is enough for Luna, the

25:35

sentimental value of having this watch that

25:36

does not work? Yeah. I

25:38

don't

25:38

know. I mean for me personally,

25:41

I'm like, my phone has

25:43

the time. This is really just

25:45

to carry around and have like a

25:47

physical memory of my

25:49

grandfather in my pocket. but

25:51

also I don't have a grandfather, so

25:53

I can't relate to this

25:55

situation I would need it to take. But

25:57

also

25:57

at this point in time, you don't

25:58

have the giant

25:59

iPhone clock. in your pocket. Right. On your right

26:02

little phone with a terrible clock on

26:04

it. Alright. She's gotta

26:05

fix it then because -- Great. -- I know the

26:07

time. She's like, this is she's like,

26:09

this is also convenient for me

26:11

to like have a watch that I

26:13

can use that is like cute and

26:16

also works. So she's like, no, this is

26:18

absolutely not enough. I need it to

26:20

work. Now we

26:21

reach the final

26:23

course of action. which is

26:24

like Luna is young ish. She's smart. She's

26:27

like, I go to my search website. I type

26:29

in name of clock

26:31

Omega and the word fix.

26:33

This does not

26:34

work. Nothing turns up.

26:36

Google

26:36

was worse than. She types in

26:39

Omega PocketWatch,

26:41

HELP. and this is

26:41

how she ends up on the pocket watch

26:42

forum.

26:46

The pocket

26:46

watch forum, we will call

26:49

ticking tinkerers.

26:49

Okay.

26:53

This name is

26:54

Plastered in comic fans at

26:56

the top

26:57

of the page. The

26:59

watch form has a background that, like, looks

27:01

like one of those walls of clocks you sometimes

27:03

see at the air reporter, right where it's, like, twelve

27:05

clocks and they all are, like, showing a different

27:07

time zone and they each have like an hour minute and second hand

27:09

and they're all moving all the time. If

27:11

you want, you can

27:12

turn on like the sound of this website so that

27:14

all the clocks will chime on the hour.

27:16

So that's very exciting. Incredible.

27:21

I was just imagining because I was talking about,

27:23

you know, how you could change I was just

27:25

imagining how the cursor could be like a little,

27:27

like, exactly. And as you move around just

27:29

to make it like completely an

27:32

get to

27:32

bowl. Exactly. So that's exactly the vibes.

27:35

It's like adorable, impossible

27:37

to use everyone out there is

27:39

like very deeply steeped in

27:41

pocket watch culture. So

27:43

Luna Lake pokes around for a few days reading

27:45

about pocket watches, like kind of learning

27:47

the main players. And she's like, I did

27:49

not know that so many people, like,

27:52

collected

27:52

pocket watches. Did you

27:54

did you know this about the pocket watch

27:57

community? No. But I just got

27:59

so excited because

27:59

there's gotta be like a pocket watch corner

28:02

of TikTok. And TikTok as a

28:04

name lends itself so Oh, my gosh. watches.

28:06

There's gotta be like a pocket talk, a

28:08

pocket watch talk. and we're gonna

28:10

find out about it when this comes out and I'm really

28:13

excited. I've been thinking

28:15

about that and I cannot wait

28:17

to learn. Okay. So people collect

28:19

pocketwatches the same way

28:20

that they'd collect like coins and stamps

28:22

and baseball cards. like, they're

28:24

not only looking for the rare ones, but they're looking for items to,

28:26

like, bring them personal joy. Right? They're,

28:28

like, this one's cool. I'm gonna keep

28:31

it. Mhmm. So some

28:32

people on this forum are like posting listings about pocket

28:34

watches that they're searching for and

28:35

how much they're willing to pay. Some people are

28:38

like I have this pocket watch

28:40

like

28:41

do you want it pay me money for it?

28:43

Right? And some people are just like look at this cool

28:45

watch that I have. So she's

28:47

gonna find the organ donor for

28:50

her watch. That's her that's what

28:51

she hopes. So finally, she's like, you know what?

28:53

Fuck it. I'm posting. So she posts the picture

28:55

of her grandfather's pocket watch and is like

28:57

who can help me? This, as

28:59

you

28:59

can imagine, is a community of people who

29:01

love to help.

29:02

I was gonna

29:04

say, like, rule number one never post

29:06

and then I remember the long story I told

29:08

you about. The

29:12

problem is rule number one is never

29:14

post except us. Takes

29:16

up for us. It's always different

29:18

for us.

29:22

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29:30

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29:34

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29:35

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29:37

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29:39

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29:42

you shouldn't trust me. I

29:44

think a lot of why this happened is that I

29:46

ran out of the retinol that I had gotten from a

29:48

poster and because I'm super lazy. I forgot to get it

29:50

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29:52

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29:53

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31:17

Immediately, people are like

31:20

in the forum are asking her questions that she does

31:22

not know the answer to because she is like

31:24

not a pocket watch person. So they're

31:26

all like simply pop it open and

31:28

send us a pick sure of the inside.

31:30

And Luna's like, I do not know how to do

31:32

that. And when she says this in the comments, like, a

31:34

few people are rude to her because there are

31:37

always rude people everywhere. one

31:39

person,

31:39

someone named Gabriela slides into her

31:41

inbox, and she, like, sends Luna a message, and

31:43

she's, like, hey, I can tell from the picture that

31:45

you posted that, like, the little latch everyone's telling

31:47

you to push is broken. Here's

31:50

how I would open the watch. And

31:52

Luna's like, thank you so

31:54

much. So she like uses a

31:55

little butter knife pops her watch open.

31:57

It

31:57

looks so nice inside. It's like shiny and gold, and

31:59

there are a

31:59

bunch of little wheels and cogs and

32:02

screws. And Luna's like, I'm a little

32:04

afraid to touch these. Like, I don't wanna

32:06

touch them. So she the into

32:08

her, like, little thread and

32:10

everyone on the

32:10

site is like find the balance wheel. Do

32:12

you know what a balance

32:14

wheel is? No.

32:15

I'm imagining,

32:18

like, the sort of foam roller looking things

32:20

where you have to walk from them and,

32:22

like, not fall off. There's a board on

32:24

top. No. I'm so stressed. This is

32:26

like when people are constantly

32:28

like, oh, you don't know how to fix this thing in your

32:30

car. Just watch a YouTube video. And

32:31

I'm like, not how my brain was asking exactly

32:34

exactly what you're saying. I'm like, I need a,

32:36

like, a seventy five year old man

32:38

named Pete, who's been doing this for

32:40

forty years to help me. I will not be

32:42

trying on my own. Luna's

32:44

like fine.

32:44

I'll figure out what the balance wheel is.

32:46

The balance wheel I have learned

32:48

from my research is the most important part of any

32:51

watch. It's like a little wheel

32:53

that has knobs on it on the

32:55

outside, and it's supposed to be really

32:57

still. But when

32:58

Luna touches hers, it, like, wiggles

33:00

a lot. Does this seem good to

33:03

you? Yeah. It

33:03

seems great. It seems perfect. So I'm just

33:06

checking in to me. I think this is good. I think we should

33:08

keep going. You think it's fine.

33:10

You're fine. And there's no YouTube, so we

33:12

can't tell her that she's wrong. No.

33:14

I think it's that. I

33:16

think I would say, oh, no, at this

33:18

point personally. That's correct.

33:19

This wheel is not supposed to wiggle the way

33:22

that it's wiggle. And I have learned that

33:24

this means that something called the balance staff

33:26

is broken. The balance staff is

33:28

like the axle for the wheel. So

33:30

if the axle is broken, the wheel can't

33:33

spin and also it's now moving.

33:35

So, like, this is clearly a big

33:37

problem. And for whatever reason, this

33:39

is like beyond the capabilities of the

33:41

online helpers. They're

33:43

like, we can only help you to

33:45

fix this watch if you continue to

33:47

disassemble it. For

33:48

the record, I'm nodding.

33:50

like, I know what you just said, but, like, I if

33:52

this comes up later on the test, I will not

33:54

get it. Okay. All you need

33:57

to know is the

33:57

little wheel that's supposed to be

34:00

still is not still.

34:01

Great. Okay. So I got that word. a

34:03

lot. I I said professionally, it's

34:05

bad. Don't do it. It's bad. Yeah. You're

34:08

aware.

34:08

Do you think so that she should keep unscrewing things? I

34:10

mean, I I don't know how

34:12

good is she at that kind of stuff seems like not

34:14

she seems like

34:14

me, in which case, I'm like, I don't

34:18

wanna touch anything because I will mess it up and then they'll be like, you've

34:20

voided the warranty. And even though there's no warranty on

34:22

this one hundred year old watch, I feel like something like

34:24

that would happen or they'd be like,

34:26

Well, we could have fixed it except for you did one thing that you absolutely should

34:28

not have done. This is exactly

34:30

what Luna thinks. Luna's like,

34:33

Luis, like, I'm afraid that if I take one screw out of this thing

34:35

and then I'm gonna knock the pocket watch on the floor, all

34:37

the pieces are gonna go everywhere. I'm never gonna find

34:40

them again and, like, I will be

34:42

just absolutely

34:42

screwed forever.

34:44

So she's like, I'm not gonna deal with this

34:46

anymore. I'll just keep lurking around this

34:48

site and, like, look for a

34:49

replacement watch that will have the pieces

34:52

I need. But

34:52

in the meantime, Gabriela is, like, still messaging

34:54

with her. Gabriela is, like, I'm so

34:56

sorry it didn't work for you. Like, I'm so sorry people

34:58

were rude to you. And then, like,

35:01

most early two thousands Internet,

35:03

like instant messaging, they become, like,

35:05

very close friends that are talking about all of their

35:07

trauma almost immediately. So

35:09

this like beautiful blossoming friendship.

35:12

And because Gabriela knows way

35:14

more about pocket watches than Luna, she's like

35:16

also helping her to learn about how

35:19

they work. and like what exactly she will

35:21

need to figure out how to fix

35:23

it. And Gabriela is the one who

35:25

tells her

35:26

about Mitchell. I don't

35:28

wanna hear about

35:29

Mitchell. I actually wanna hear about Luna

35:31

and Gabriela, shooting and

35:33

falling in love. on this message board. I was trying

35:35

to come up with, like, the name of their rom com

35:38

that has, like, some sort of time pun

35:40

in it,

35:42

but I gotten there yet, and now I

35:44

have to listen to Mitchell. And anyway, go ahead. You have to write it. It's like

35:46

a low

35:47

level celebrity

35:48

low level

35:49

on the forum. he,

35:51

like, doesn't really ever post, but has tons of followers, like

35:53

more than anyone else on this

35:55

forum. And that is

35:57

because Mitchell has developed a

35:59

reputation for being able to

36:01

fix every pocket

36:03

watch. And

36:04

Gabriela is like I only know

36:06

about this guy because people are always

36:08

tagging him like saying his name, linking

36:10

his profile in other threads

36:12

of watches that are broken. Why

36:15

didn't help earlier? Too many questions?

36:18

It's because he's never on the

36:20

forum. Mhmm. So Luna goes to Mitchell's profile

36:22

and it's like all black. Right? Like,

36:24

even the font is black. So

36:26

you have to, like, highlight things to

36:28

read them. And his profile picture is

36:30

one of those, like, two thousand three gifts where it's

36:32

just like three pictures of him that cycle back and forth over over

36:34

again. All of them are black and white photos

36:36

of

36:36

a person who Luna must assume is

36:40

Mitchell. Luna

36:40

like highlights the text on this page and sees in this

36:43

like cryptic font, but Mitchell has

36:45

noted that he's going to Collector's

36:47

Festival in a city directly between Luna

36:50

and Gabriela.

36:52

Do you think that

36:53

she should go and meet Gabriela her

36:55

Internet friend at a collector's

36:57

festival able where they can then try

36:59

to be Mitchell. Wait. How old

37:01

was she roughly and how far

37:03

away is this roughly? she

37:04

Luna is, like, in her late twenties. Okay. And

37:07

the the festival is, like, maybe an

37:09

hour from each of them.

37:12

Yeah. Do it. Yellow. I

37:13

mean, worst case. They're getting

37:16

hurt.

37:16

Weird. Alright.

37:20

Well, I think that you should do it. I think

37:23

you should take some sort of precautions. Some

37:25

basic precautions like me

37:28

and public telephone where you're

37:30

going. Yeah. But I I

37:32

think that you can do it with those

37:34

precautions in mind. If they're like we can only

37:36

fix it like in this scary cabin in the woods,

37:38

then I would be like, no, maybe

37:40

not. Right.

37:40

And it's like the early odds.

37:42

It's like when people were still finding,

37:44

like, new best friends on the Internet. And so they don't have, like, the

37:47

kind of situational terror that people had

37:49

later in the odds. It's

37:51

still like the hunky dory days of being online. Luna's

37:54

like, I feel safe also. I

37:56

wanna meet my new friend Gabriela

37:58

and, like, if I get to

37:59

get my pocket

37:59

watch fixed,

38:01

That's a great bonus. So she

38:04

goes to this festival. Festival starts Friday night

38:06

and in Sunday afternoon, so it's like a

38:08

big weekend

38:10

festival. Luna gets in on Friday and she, like, waits in her room for Gabriela

38:12

to compete her and there's, like, immediate

38:14

chemistry. Right?

38:15

Like Gabriela

38:16

is normal and funny

38:18

and they get along just as well, like, talking in real life as they did messaging.

38:21

This is like a blessing. Luna is like, this is

38:23

the best day of my life. if

38:26

you could see, like, the

38:27

thought bubble above me right now, it literally just says gay question mark

38:29

and, like, no matter how many things you say, I'm

38:31

just like gay.

38:32

day Gay? I

38:34

mean, who's to say? Well, find out, I guess.

38:36

The two of them go

38:38

down to the festival floor and they like

38:41

take a lap. And it's like

38:43

a big convention center. There are like more than just watchmakers there. There's like

38:45

stamp collectors and coin collectors and like lots

38:48

of people who just

38:50

collect things. They find a

38:52

little pamphlet. You know, I have those, like, pamphlets that

38:54

show, like, where everyone's booth is. Yeah. So they,

38:56

like, find the pamphlet and they're, like, here's where

38:58

Mitchell's tinkering his, like, little

39:00

booth is. so they like follow

39:02

the little numbers on the map and they like

39:04

get there. And the booth is still

39:06

just like one of those

39:08

folding tables. with, like, a white tablecloth on it and a little

39:10

sign, but, like, he's not there. There's

39:12

nothing there. Mhmm. cryptic.

39:14

Okay. Maybe you

39:14

since you try highlighting the

39:18

booth, and like a secret font would appear.

39:21

Okay. That's a good idea.

39:22

But they're like, this is annoying, but it's

39:24

fine. They're like, we are, you

39:28

know, love. two best friends who might kiss. So they're,

39:30

like, taking their lap. Right? They, like,

39:32

find lots of things to look at. They're, like,

39:34

buying stuff. It's a little shopping spree

39:36

kind of. On Saturday, they

39:38

do the same thing, but like still there's no

39:40

Mitchell. Mitchell, why did

39:41

you pay the entrance fee to this

39:44

pocket watch convention if you weren't gonna

39:46

show. Right. And

39:46

why update it on your, like, little bio if you're not coming? Right.

39:48

So they're, like, we're feeling

39:50

very

39:52

frustrated. And

39:53

Luna's, like, this is no longer

39:55

about, like, just my grandfather's pocket watch.

39:57

I now feel included in the pocket

39:59

watch community in the way

40:02

that everyone falls into a

40:04

community of the same

40:05

community that their crush is. So

40:07

it's now Saturday

40:08

night. What would

40:11

you like to do? Yes. Yes.

40:14

Yes. Yes. I mean, part of

40:16

me does feel like this is

40:18

turning back to murder mystery direction. Like, something terrible has happened

40:20

to Mitchell, and we took it to the bottom of it.

40:22

But on the other hand, I'm like, kiss.

40:24

So either of those

40:26

two things. I'm really open

40:28

to whatever whatever. So your two options are pursue murder

40:30

mystery or kiss. Yes.

40:32

I think they do both at the same

40:34

time also

40:36

to be clear. Port Cayllos dosed. Port Cayllos

40:38

dosed. But those are the

40:40

two that I'm the two paths I'm interested

40:42

in. Okay. Luna

40:44

is,

40:44

like, listen.

40:46

Mitchell is not my problem. What is my

40:48

problem is my crush on Gabriela. So they

40:50

like, you know, they're going to the hotel bar,

40:52

they're having some drinks,

40:54

they're doing some light

40:56

kissing. Everyone's having a great time. And

40:59

Luna's like, you know what? Who

41:01

cares? Right? Like who cares if this

41:03

guy doesn't show up? because

41:05

like now I have a

41:07

new cute crush and

41:08

also I'm obsessed with pocket watches

41:10

now and I bought another one.

41:12

it it And

41:14

I

41:15

can see, like, pivoting that into,

41:17

like, your, like, special interest

41:19

type career if you really wanted it too.

41:21

Right? Like, you could

41:24

be. the, let's see, a pocket watch expert. You and

41:26

Gabriella together. I mean, I You're right.

41:28

talking, like, your eyelashes. She's

41:31

still on, take back to this day.

41:33

We can go find that. That's super

41:36

cool. Okay.

41:36

So, Saturday morning, you know,

41:38

our two girlies, they're waking up they're rolling out a

41:41

bed. They're getting a bloody Mary at the bar. They're having a great time and they're like,

41:43

you know what? Let's just like take one

41:45

more lap around this

41:46

festival before we go home. and

41:49

they started their lap and there at his booth is Mitchell. And they're like,

41:51

oh, Jesus Christ finally. He looks

41:53

like pretty much exactly how

41:55

Luna thought he would

41:57

look. He's like, call and thin, wirey beard, he's

41:59

wearing like a tweed vest on top

42:02

of a t shirt, and he's wearing like

42:04

dark jeans. on

42:06

his forearm is like a hyper realistic

42:08

tattoo of a pocket watch. And they,

42:10

like, can't tell they're like, I don't know, is he doing

42:13

steam punk. He was like,

42:14

I was like, I'm a person that calls and

42:16

tell the mixologist. Like, what's

42:19

happening here? Oh, no.

42:21

Yeah. was gonna say, I'm so glad they didn't waste any time,

42:23

like, trying to find this, like, steampunk ass

42:25

murder mystery man -- Yeah. -- that we invest

42:27

when they could make out. Anyway, Please

42:29

go. Yeah. They're like thank God that we

42:31

focused on each other and

42:32

none of this, man. He's wearing like glasses that

42:34

have something on them called a loop,

42:37

which is like that little single microscope thing

42:39

that goes on glasses that like jewelers

42:41

have. Apparently, pocket watch tankers

42:43

also need these. Letting

42:46

Gabriela, like, approach him but a little

42:48

hesitantly because they're like, who

42:50

is what's happening here? This is

42:52

like a stressful environment for us. And

42:54

they're like, Hi. Like, we're

42:56

Luna and Gabriela. We each have a pocket

42:58

watch. Both of our pocket watches are broken. We've

43:00

heard that you're like

43:02

the pocket watch tinkerer. And he's like,

43:04

sure, what are your problems? And so they, like, kind

43:06

of, describe their problems. And Mitchell is, like,

43:08

show me, like, you, Gabriela, show me

43:10

your watch first. like,

43:12

hands it to him and he's, like,

43:13

move. And so she, like, backs

43:15

up. And this guy, like, just mantles her

43:17

watch, like, extremely quickly.

43:20

all around him are, like, little tools. Right? Like pliers and

43:22

tiny screwdrivers and there are,

43:24

like, watches everywhere. And things

43:26

are just, like, flying places. And

43:29

and Luna are like, this is very overwhelming, but

43:32

also like this man seems to know what he's

43:34

doing. And

43:36

incredibly Mitchell fixes Gabriela's

43:38

watch while they stand there, like

43:40

watching him remove little wheels and replacing

43:42

them. He's like done. Like, it's

43:44

some kind of like time trial. he

43:46

doesn't so loudly that both girls, like, jump back. But

43:49

Gabriela's pocket watch

43:50

is fixed, and she's like, I'm so

43:52

happy. And Malena's like, I'm so happy

43:56

for you. and Mitchell's like, next, who else has a

43:58

watch? It's still giving, like,

43:59

Allison Wonderland to me and he is,

44:02

like, wearing the

44:04

mad hatter. hat. And so we are flying everywhere. Yeah. It's wearing,

44:06

like, the weird glasses. Yeah. This is

44:08

perfect. Luna's like, okay.

44:09

Here's my watch. Right?

44:11

She like hands it to him out of her pocket and his eyes get like

44:14

as big as saucers. And

44:16

he's like, oh, shit. This is like

44:18

a really

44:20

cool watch. he's like, did you know

44:22

that, like, they don't make pieces for these anymore? Because they were all part of a kind of unpopular

44:24

limited run right before the brand changed

44:26

the way that they made pocket watches and,

44:30

like, this is a real collector's item. Like, this is a great watch. And

44:32

Luna's like, I did actually know all of this

44:34

because it's broken. Right. Yeah. I can't

44:35

like, a

44:38

pretty

44:38

thing. I got it from my grandfather after he died and, like, I don't know what to

44:40

do with it. He's, like, explaining her watch

44:42

to her everybody. It's me. This

44:44

famous only to me story

44:46

where I was wearing gush,

44:48

a Minsky shirt, and I

44:50

went into a coffee shop It said

44:52

Bear Me at Make Out Creek, and this guy looks at my shirt and

44:55

says, oh, cool shirt. Do you know

44:57

the reference? Oh, my gosh. And

44:59

I was like, it's a Miski shirt, and he's

45:02

like, no. But do you

45:04

know, like, bury my

45:06

heart at wounded knee? And I'm like, yeah, I

45:08

do. But this is amid the

45:10

t shirt. That's key. But, yeah, it's

45:12

a reference of that. And so

45:14

now every time I wear that shirt, my roommate will

45:16

go, oh, cool Do you know the reference?

45:18

And it's just like it like that. No

45:20

worries. Yeah. Like, I know. It's

45:22

mine. I know. I

45:24

bought this. Anyway

45:26

She's like,

45:27

okay. Like, this is my grandfather's

45:29

watch. Like, can you do something with it? And Mitchell

45:31

does look like genuinely moved

45:34

by this. Like, he's like, it's so nice that you, like, are keeping your

45:36

grandfather's watch and that you want it to work. Like,

45:38

not everyone appreciates history like this.

45:40

Like, thank you for bringing it

45:42

to me. And she's like,

45:44

cool. Can you fix it? And Mitchell's like, I don't

45:46

know. I haven't even opened it

45:48

yet. Moon is like, great point. My

45:50

bad.

45:50

So he, like, opens the watch and immediately,

45:52

like, cringes. He points out things that, like,

45:53

the other watch fixers have pointed out, the

45:56

balance wheel and the staff that we already talked about, but he's

45:58

also pointing out,

46:00

like, other smaller problems that no one has pointed out. Right?

46:02

He's like, this is also a problem. This is a

46:04

problem. Like, all of these are due

46:06

to where, But,

46:08

like, probably, it was just a really long time coming. Right?

46:10

Like, your grandfather uses watch

46:13

too much, basically. So they're like

46:16

standing there watching him do this and he's like, can I

46:18

get some space? Like, can you guys back

46:20

up? And they're like, sure. And then he's like,

46:22

actually, can you, like, just take a

46:24

lap? Let me work. and they're like,

46:26

okay. So they take their little walk. They, like, get

46:28

their snack. They, like, have a little

46:30

handheld as a treat. And they,

46:32

like, come back. And Mitchell

46:34

is, like, Listen. I can fix

46:36

this watch. Like, it needs very

46:38

specific pieces to tick again,

46:40

but I can get them.

46:43

He's

46:43

like, but I'm asking you if I

46:45

can take this

46:46

watch home with me.

46:48

Do you

46:49

think that they should let

46:50

Michelle take the watch home. Sorry. That was the obvious question, but they

46:52

needed you to ask me because I was just holding my

46:54

breath. Yeah. Of course. I can see. Oh

47:00

my gosh. I

47:02

feel like she has to ask in her

47:04

heart,

47:05

is it worth the

47:07

risk. Right? because she can either for sure have the watch,

47:09

but it doesn't take and she won't know the

47:11

time. But Gabriela, her

47:14

new wife, has a pocket watch and can tell her the

47:16

time. That's a great

47:18

point. She can't get it to tick, but

47:20

she might lose the whole watch because Mitchell

47:22

is, like, some guy from the

47:24

Internet who clearly is flaky

47:26

because he's really hard to get a hold of

47:28

and, like, doesn't even show up to thinks he says

47:30

he's going to show up

47:32

too. So mean, like, personally, again, not

47:34

understanding the investment of the

47:36

tick, I would just keep

47:37

it in my

47:40

pocket. but

47:40

that's because I'm neurotic about those things and like maybe it's

47:43

you gotta live a little and risk

47:45

things. I don't know. So

47:48

trust him. Gabriela is like,

47:49

can you show us how bad it is?

47:51

Right? Like, what's because she knows

47:53

more about pocket So she's

47:55

like, can you show us, like,

47:57

what's going on here? And he's like, okay.

47:59

The real

47:59

problem is do you see this one wheel

48:02

here that is, like, rusted out?

48:04

And they're like, yeah. And he's like,

48:06

that has to be replaced for this to work.

48:08

And, like, it's not gonna work without a new one.

48:10

And, like, the only way I can find it

48:12

is, like, by finding another watch, which, like, I think I have one at

48:14

my house. Like, that's why I

48:16

really wanna take it home.

48:18

And Luna is, like, kind of on the

48:20

verge of tiers because

48:22

she's like, I don't know what to do here. And

48:24

also, like, I really thought that he was gonna

48:26

be able

48:26

to fix it immediately

48:28

because he fixed Gabriela so quickly.

48:31

and he's like, okay, listen.

48:32

I can fix it. Like,

48:34

give me time and I'll fix it. Look

48:36

at this whole stack of watches.

48:38

that

48:38

are like in little packets that I'm taking home to fix. Mhmm.

48:40

Like, I will give you

48:42

my business

48:43

card. I will fix

48:44

i will fix it it.

48:49

I

48:51

need

48:54

it's is there gonna be

48:56

another watch expo? Can

48:58

he just bring a little

49:00

part to the next one? that's

49:02

really thinking ahead. That's not what our girls are

49:04

doing. Okay.

49:06

What Luna

49:06

is doing is, you know

49:09

what the sunk cost fallacies.

49:11

Yes. Absolutely. Can you explain

49:11

it to listeners? Sure. Sure.

49:14

Sure. It's like you've invested

49:16

so much that

49:18

even though it makes sense to

49:20

bail on it, you're like, I can't possibly

49:22

bail on this because already

49:25

put so much into it, and that could apply

49:27

to anything from waiting a really long time for a train

49:29

to show up to, like, your marriage. Right? Like,

49:31

it could be any of those things. So Yeah.

49:33

I said his watch. ticking now. Here it is

49:35

watch ticking. So Luna is like,

49:37

take it. And

49:38

Gabriela is like, I think that's

49:41

the

49:41

right decision. Like, he's fixed so

49:44

many things. He fixed my watch that I couldn't fix. Like, I

49:46

think this was a good call and, like,

49:48

I think it will work. work

49:52

Luna's

49:52

like, great. And at first, she feels really good about this decision.

49:54

Then she does not

49:56

hear from Mitchell for like one

49:59

week,

49:59

two weeks. three weeks. Yeah. He's bad at

50:02

communicating. We

50:02

know this. What point do

50:05

you follow-up? Oh, I mean, I'm

50:07

following up the whole time. I

50:10

mean, I'm just, like, once a

50:12

week at least. I'm, like, hey, Mitchell,

50:14

WhatsApp, just wanted to check-in,

50:16

ETA, ETD, TBD,

50:18

TK, any other acronyms I can throw

50:20

at him. Yeah. No. We're,

50:22

you know, we're getting I would

50:24

also feel though that I would ask for a firm

50:26

timeline before I gave it to him so that I

50:28

knew when I should start being annoying. You

50:30

know? Yeah. That would be smart. What

50:31

Luna does is

50:34

she waits a month. And then she starts

50:35

calling the number on the card that he gave

50:37

her, like, every

50:40

day. Every

50:41

day she gets an answering machine, she leaves

50:43

a message. He does not call

50:45

her back. So she's following up,

50:47

you know, for two

50:49

months, for three months. At this point, it's been,

50:51

like, seven months since she got the pocket watch in the

50:53

first place and it, like, still isn't fixed and now

50:56

she doesn't even

50:58

have it. See,

50:58

I almost asked this at the beginning, but it felt too unhinged. When she

51:00

got a business card, it didn't have, like, a

51:02

physical address on it. I don't know.

51:06

Okay. because I feel like that would be good in shorts. Like, I could just roll up,

51:08

but no. No. It had only

51:10

a phone number. Okay. That no.

51:13

we can't. See, I already would have been like, no. No. No. No.

51:15

No. No. Yes.

51:16

So while this very stressful

51:19

thing is happening, something also not stressful is happening, which is

51:21

that Luna and Gabriela are obsessed with each other. Yeah.

51:24

They're having all the time. They're having a

51:26

great life. Right?

51:28

They're like, AOL messaging while they're at work. Right?

51:30

Yeah. They don't need their

51:30

dreams. They don't need to know the time because they're on

51:32

Love Island baby and it's Exactly. It doesn't

51:35

matter. The time is smooch. I

51:38

guess, we should slack. Exactly. So

51:40

one day Luna's

51:41

at work like I am in Gabriela, like

51:44

she is every

51:46

single day. and Gabriela e mails her a link to the forum,

51:48

and the forum entry is

51:50

titled, What to

51:51

do about Mitchell? Here's

51:55

a

51:55

part of the message that I have

51:57

for you. Yes, please. We all

51:59

know that Mitchell is one of the best tinkers in this

52:02

group, but his speed and reliability is really exhausting

52:04

and kind of frustrating. I'm not sure

52:06

exactly why we put up with this. Shouldn't there be

52:08

like some accountability

52:10

for him? I'm

52:12

so distracted

52:12

because I've just never heard someone

52:15

use the word tinkerer so much

52:17

since we had this conversation.

52:20

And I didn't know that it had this sort of official meaning,

52:22

and I'm just delighted by it. And I feel like I

52:24

feel like I feel like beauty of a beast or something,

52:26

but So nice. Anyway, do you

52:29

feel good about the fact that it's a known problem that

52:30

Mitchell just hogs watches for

52:33

months? I mean, it's kind of both. Like, on

52:35

one hand, you're like, okay, it's

52:35

not just

52:38

me. It's this is a no thing I have people that I can complain

52:40

to and with now. They

52:41

can tell me if they've

52:43

ever successfully gotten a watch back, maybe

52:45

someone knows a better way to

52:47

contact him, maybe we can, like, gang up and

52:49

peer pressure him. Yeah. You know, it does feel

52:51

like, like, you're sort of unionizing against

52:53

Mitchell, and I like that

52:55

energy. also feel bad to be like, oh, no.

52:57

This is like a thing that does happen

53:00

and is likely to continue

53:02

happening. Right.

53:03

So Luna is, like, reading every single

53:05

word of

53:05

this forum, like, with her heart

53:07

in her mouth. Right? Like, she's so stressed.

53:09

She's, like, reading all the comments. And

53:11

the community is, like, pretty split on this. Like,

53:13

some people are, like, yeah, fuck Mitchell. He has

53:16

my watch I want it back. Some

53:18

people are,

53:20

like, Mitchell is slow, but he's, like, really good at his job. And

53:22

he, like, fixed this watch that I, like, never

53:24

thought would be fixed. And then the first people are

53:26

like, well, I'd love to believe that, but I've seen

53:29

absolutely no proof of it. And the other group is like, well,

53:32

that's because you're being impatient. Like, you just

53:34

need to wait.

53:35

Wow, rude. this debate goes

53:38

on and on, as you can imagine, it rapidly

53:40

evolves into like personal insults.

53:41

Luna reads

53:42

every single word a

53:44

bit. Do you

53:45

think there are, like, special slurs for

53:48

that's that's a great comedy. I'm

53:50

just a certain of their

53:52

author. Yes.

53:53

Sorry. the burns that only tankers know. If you know them,

53:56

please let us

53:57

know. Luna, like,

53:59

meanwhile, is searching the forums for

54:02

Mitchell's name. Right. Like, she's

54:04

like, I'm gonna read every post about this guy that's

54:06

ever existed, of course. I'm

54:08

like, there are plenty

54:10

of examples where someone

54:12

has posted and then like Mitchell has my wash and he won't give it

54:14

back. And then people have devolved

54:16

into the same argument and then later they

54:18

post again and

54:20

they're like, he

54:20

gave it back. It's fixed. This

54:23

was for sure beat me. I have

54:25

to say it's like a real relationship

54:28

person. as a sedentary.

54:30

I would just be like, this person won't do

54:32

this thing for me and then I'd be like, dang it. I'd be like, never

54:34

mind. It's fine. Sorry. Yeah. So

54:35

I got it. So now

54:37

Luna is like okay, I'm willing to give

54:39

this guy a little more room. Another month

54:42

goes by still

54:43

no word. She's like, now I'm

54:45

calling once

54:45

a week. trying to

54:47

get a hold of him. She's still having no

54:50

luck. Do you have any ideas

54:51

at this point? How are you feeling?

54:53

Let's check-in. I mean, I'm

54:55

not feeling great. How old

54:57

are Gabriela doing? Are they doing? They're doing

54:59

great. Okay. Great. I feel they're bored together

55:01

over this habitual problem.

55:04

They're

55:04

traveling to each other's apartments. adorable.

55:06

Good. That's good. I don't I

55:09

mean, I don't know. I already had

55:10

unionized the the four. I'm

55:13

again. And then after this, I

55:15

actually don't have ideas. Like, that was

55:17

my main one. A lot of, I

55:19

think, my sort of terrible Internet stocking tendencies that are coming

55:21

out didn't weren't existing then. And even if

55:23

they did exist, he sounds like he would be sort

55:25

of like a chronically offline

55:28

person And so, yeah, I don't know. I don't

55:30

feel

55:30

good about it. After Mitchell

55:32

has had her pocket watch

55:33

for four

55:36

months, He

55:37

updates his profile and it says that he

55:39

will be at a collector's festival

55:42

in Gabriela

55:43

City. Maybe We

55:45

don't know. Right. He says. That's great, That's a great excuse to

55:47

visit your girlfriend. So you're going.

55:49

I mean, yes, course.

55:52

Yeah. So, sweet, if nothing else, we're like, wow.

55:54

Remember about how this is how we met

55:56

going to tinkering convention to look

55:58

for Mitchell and -- Yeah. --

55:59

like a fun. they're

56:01

Yeah. Literally, they're having the best weekend. Is

56:04

Mitchell there? No. Of course,

56:06

he's not there. But they're, like, going out to

56:08

dinner, they're walking around the tinker

56:10

or convention, they're buying, like, another pocket watch. They're, like, you know,

56:12

making clock puns. They're having a great

56:14

time. I'm imagining them

56:15

wearing cargo shorts and

56:18

then every talking. It was

56:20

a different fucking watch. And there's just like chains everywhere. Exactly.

56:24

All weekend,

56:24

they're there,

56:26

they walk around constantly, Mitchell never shows. Of

56:28

course. What do you do? It's

56:30

the

56:30

end. We've made it

56:31

through the whole day or the whole weekend he

56:34

never shows. What

56:36

do I do? I mean flip the table over? No. I don't know.

56:38

I don't know.

56:40

Like, I we can't

56:42

say murder mystery anymore because

56:43

we know that this

56:45

just how he is. Yeah. Like he.

56:46

I'm out of ideas. Luna's

56:48

like she's like, somebody

56:50

here has

56:51

contact info for him.

56:53

Right? Like, she's like, I'm at the festival still.

56:55

There are people walking around

56:57

with clipboards. One of them has

56:59

information, but she has information. and

57:01

it's not working, but she thinks they have more

57:03

information. Yes. Right.

57:04

So she,

57:05

like, finally, convinces one of these, like,

57:07

little festival employees to give her the

57:10

information they have from channel. And they have

57:12

the number that Luna has, but they also

57:14

have an email.

57:15

Okay. So Luna

57:16

goes home and she types her little email.

57:18

And she's like, where is my watch? Please email me back. It's just

57:21

it. It's so easy to ignore an

57:23

email.

57:23

We all got hundreds of times a day,

57:25

but I'm rooting for her.

57:27

Finally, two weeks after this Mitchell

57:30

calls her, doesn't respond to the email, calls her

57:32

from the number

57:34

she has. Lid is like, oh, so

57:36

this

57:36

number does fucking work. Interesting. Mhmm.

57:38

He's

57:38

like, hey, I'm so sorry. I've been

57:40

kinda sick. It's been hard for me to

57:43

work, but I have finally located your

57:45

part. Once it arrives, all I have to do is add it to

57:47

the watch and I'm ready to mail it back to you.

57:49

I mean, that's

57:51

sunken style. Right? Because I'm

57:53

immediately like, well, he's had it for this long. He may as well. Yeah.

57:55

Keep it for a

57:56

little bit longer and maybe get it fixed.

58:00

Yes.

58:00

And that is what Luna decides. She's like,

58:02

I it's been so long. I

58:04

haven't seen this watch in ages, and

58:07

I

58:07

want it fixed. The

58:09

next week is the holidays. She, like, goes to

58:12

celebrate with her family. It's like the first time they've

58:14

all been together since the grandpa died, and she and

58:16

her closest cousin are, like, chatting,

58:18

about work, about bad relatives, about, like, everything

58:20

when the cousin is suddenly like, oh, yeah. Did

58:22

you ever get grandpa's pocket watch what's

58:25

happening with that? It only after this conversation

58:27

that Luna realizes that she has

58:29

been completely corrupted by the world of pocket

58:31

watches because she goes on

58:33

a so long and so specific about,

58:36

like, which parts of the clock were

58:38

mixing and the links she meant to fix then that the

58:40

cousin is

58:42

like.

58:42

wait. What? And

58:44

Luna's like,

58:45

yeah. You know, I just really want it to

58:47

be fixed. I want it to work the way it did

58:49

for grandpa, and the cousins like

58:52

dude. I don't know how to tell you

58:54

this, but that pocket watch hasn't worked for decades. Like, it definitely hasn't

58:56

worked since we were kids. And

58:59

Luna's like, what? And

59:01

the cousin's like, yeah, he just, like, carried it around

59:04

out of habit, but it's definitely been

59:06

dead for

59:06

years. Something about

59:08

this causes the, like, scales to fall from her eyes, and she's suddenly,

59:10

like, oh my god. Have I lost

59:12

it? Like, did I enter into

59:15

a sleep induced stupid where,

59:18

like, I now have a girlfriend who's

59:20

obsessed with pocket watches and

59:22

also all I think about is

59:24

pocket

59:24

watches.

59:26

She's like, what does this mean? I mean, it's called special

59:28

interest baby. You gotta have one. It

59:30

may as well be pocket watches. This is

59:33

she, like, the next day she, like, gets

59:35

home and she calls Gabriela. She's, like,

59:37

have I lost it? Like, are

59:39

we in love?

59:40

What's happening?

59:42

This is face lot like, I'm sorry. We have to break up.

59:44

It turned out that my grandpa's watch never

59:46

worked. Right. I think gabriela is

59:48

like, gabriela is like, are you

59:50

fucking kidding me. Like,

59:52

I'm coming over I'm driving the

59:54

two hours to your house. Like, we're gonna spend the

59:57

weekend together, like, you're being nuts. And

59:59

so she shows

59:59

up and Luna's like, yeah, I do really

1:00:02

love Gabriela. She's perfect, but also

1:00:04

like how come my watch never worked. And

1:00:06

Gabriela's like, well babe,

1:00:08

it's like, too late

1:00:08

now. Right? Like, you're down this path, both

1:00:10

in the case of our relationship and also

1:00:12

in the case of

1:00:13

things like this

1:00:16

watch. Like, you can choose to leave, but you're

1:00:17

you're here now. Yeah. Walloon is like,

1:00:20

yeah, you're right. Gabriela goes home the

1:00:22

next week. They're like back at

1:00:24

work awful. They're

1:00:26

on aim and Gabriela

1:00:27

is like, are you

1:00:29

on

1:00:29

tinking sneakers right now? And

1:00:32

Luna's like,

1:00:32

No.

1:00:34

I'm I am in you.

1:00:36

And Gabriela's

1:00:36

like, oh, you better get on

1:00:38

now. Get on right now.

1:00:40

I

1:00:40

just got really excited because I forgot when we were talking about early ATS

1:00:43

Internet, that early ATS Internet involves getting

1:00:45

onto the Internet where

1:00:48

you have to, like, dial up and it goes, yes.

1:00:50

And I just thought we

1:00:52

couldn't go through the fall episode with

1:00:55

me doing this. That was beautiful, and I'm glad that you added

1:00:57

it for. Thanks so much. Just the fully working

1:00:59

that I'm known for. Thank you. So

1:01:01

I

1:01:01

go back. While she's waiting for

1:01:04

her dial up to connect, so great timing.

1:01:06

Gabriela calls her on the phone.

1:01:08

And he's like, are you on

1:01:09

yet? And Luna's like, no. I'm waiting

1:01:11

for me to turn it to boot up

1:01:13

so that I can get on. They get

1:01:16

on Luna Logs on on the main page of

1:01:18

the form is a post

1:01:20

from Mitchell. This is weird. Mitchell

1:01:21

never posts. The

1:01:24

subject line is an

1:01:28

announcement. I feel

1:01:30

like I've seen this coming the entire time where he's

1:01:32

gonna be like JK, no more watch fixing,

1:01:34

and then you just like up sconce into the wilderness. But

1:01:36

tell me that's not what it is.

1:01:38

I will now read the body

1:01:40

of the post. Yay. I

1:01:42

love a primary source document. Mitchell

1:01:45

loved this community and

1:01:47

talked about it frequently. He enjoyed meeting so many

1:01:49

of you at CommSuite, and loved bringing home your

1:01:51

Brooklyn pocket once we try

1:01:52

and fix them. We are heartbroken

1:01:55

to

1:01:55

announce that Mitchell will no longer

1:01:57

be posting. He died last night --

1:01:59

No. -- at

1:02:00

home. That's not even real. He is now

1:02:03

in the hands of the watchmaker in this

1:02:05

Skye. He'll be with us every hour,

1:02:07

minute, and second of the day. Thank

1:02:09

you for making his

1:02:10

life so full. Okay. One,

1:02:12

this is not real. He's trying to scam

1:02:14

everyone. Two, I feel like I have been saying murder mystery

1:02:17

this entire ride. Wow.

1:02:20

Okay. Wow.

1:02:29

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1:04:27

This is

1:04:29

nuts.

1:04:30

obviously, everyone in the comments is freaking

1:04:32

out, but they're all, like, so

1:04:34

sorry for your loss, like, RAP,

1:04:37

bitch. I

1:04:40

mean, that's

1:04:40

the thing is, like, one, if it is somehow

1:04:43

real and he

1:04:43

is with the great watchmaker

1:04:45

in the sky, Yes.

1:04:48

You gotta be, like, RIP port one out. But

1:04:50

also, like, even if this is a weird scam,

1:04:52

like, it does not get you anywhere to call it

1:04:54

out. So you still have to, like, play within the

1:04:56

rules of the fix and be like, hey,

1:04:59

whoever this is, I'm so sorry to hear about your

1:05:01

loss, but Mitchell did have my watch.

1:05:03

You obviously don't need it, and he's not gonna fix

1:05:05

it. So, like, can you just send

1:05:07

me. Great. So while

1:05:08

in the comments of this

1:05:10

post, everyone is like RIP Mitchell,

1:05:12

we'll miss you, like king of

1:05:16

fixing watches. There are five hundred instant messages

1:05:18

happening around the watch community where

1:05:20

everyone is like, what the fuck do we

1:05:22

do? Like, we respect

1:05:24

the dead theoretically, but

1:05:26

also he has my pocket watch and I want

1:05:28

it back. Okay.

1:05:30

What do you do here?

1:05:32

I I

1:05:32

mean, I have already outlined the

1:05:35

message I would send, which is So sorry for your loss. So

1:05:37

sorry for your loss. Since he you

1:05:39

have to get

1:05:40

rid of these watches or something, I don't

1:05:42

know. I would like my back. He

1:05:44

did owe it to me. Sorry to put something else on

1:05:46

your plate in this incredibly tragic time, but

1:05:48

I also lost someone recently and so

1:05:50

you can understand the grief that I

1:05:52

am feeling in I would like to have this watch. They

1:05:54

needed

1:05:54

your guidance. After five days,

1:05:57

there is another post.

1:05:59

This the

1:05:59

one is from

1:06:01

Mitchell's wife. Luna

1:06:02

is like I didn't even know he had a wife. This is

1:06:05

what the post says. Thank you all

1:06:07

for your outpouring

1:06:07

of support over the loss of Mitchell. I

1:06:09

am devastated by

1:06:12

this loss. I know that many of you are concerned about the pocket

1:06:14

watches you had entrusted to Mitchell to

1:06:16

fix. I am going to get your watches

1:06:18

back to you but Mitchell's

1:06:20

system for organizing whose watch was

1:06:22

whose seemed to only exist in

1:06:24

his brain. So if you had a

1:06:26

pocket watch with him, if

1:06:28

you could call this number and tell me what kind I can make sure it

1:06:30

gets back to you.

1:06:32

Okay. I mean,

1:06:34

this is sort great. if you talk

1:06:36

to someone on the phone, you know that it's a

1:06:38

real person and you can

1:06:40

feel out whether this is like a

1:06:42

real thing or a weird scam. And

1:06:45

if it is real, then I'm sorry doubting him

1:06:48

immediately. But

1:06:51

the I

1:06:52

don't know. I'm just still so stressed. I just can't believe

1:06:54

that the watch's ever coming back. I

1:06:56

know. The other problem is that,

1:07:00

like, Lots of people have posted on this site about

1:07:02

Mitchell having their watch and like the

1:07:04

type of pocket watch they

1:07:06

gave him. So, like,

1:07:08

theoretically, if you've spent a lot of

1:07:10

time on the site, you could call his

1:07:12

wife and be like, hi,

1:07:14

and just scribe the watch that Luna had given to him and send

1:07:16

it back to you. Well,

1:07:18

she's got a call very fast, but

1:07:20

yes.

1:07:23

So Luna calls immediately

1:07:25

no answer. She

1:07:26

leaves a message. She calls

1:07:29

again the next day. Nothing.

1:07:30

People on

1:07:31

the site are like asking for an address to send flowers to

1:07:33

asking why she's not answering the

1:07:35

phone, asking all of this shit, but after

1:07:37

this post, the

1:07:40

wife disappears from the site. She doesn't answer the phone, doesn't

1:07:42

respond to any of the requests. Oh

1:07:44

my

1:07:44

gosh. At first, everyone is

1:07:47

like she's grieving. after two

1:07:49

months, everyone is like, okay, we get it, that it's like hard

1:07:51

that he's dead, but also you have

1:07:53

our pocket watches. It's

1:07:56

really important.

1:07:57

Cell phones aren't good. We need to know the

1:07:59

time. Yes. And

1:07:59

every time someone posts about

1:08:02

this, a

1:08:04

giant fight erupts on the forum between people who were like, I gave

1:08:06

him my watch and I wanted back, and people who

1:08:08

were like, well, I gave Mitchell my very expensive

1:08:11

and rare watch You don't see me

1:08:13

pitching a fit because I

1:08:13

respect Oh my gosh. Good for

1:08:16

you. Man,

1:08:19

yeah. Exactly. Luna and Gabriela talk about this for a long time. By

1:08:21

this point, they have moved in together. Congratulations,

1:08:23

Luna and Gabriela. This

1:08:26

is what I'll have you for you. we cute.

1:08:28

The thing is they're like somebody

1:08:30

needs to go get these watches.

1:08:32

the don't get these watches They're

1:08:35

like, if

1:08:35

his widow, you know, can't send them out, she needs to just

1:08:37

let someone else do it. Like, maybe

1:08:39

we should be

1:08:42

the ones. We

1:08:42

already rented the You Hall. Exactly. Like, we

1:08:44

have this You Hall. We might as well.

1:08:46

Figure out where Mitchell lives go there,

1:08:49

get all the watches, and send them back.

1:08:51

And thrilled. They call the number again, and it has been disconnected.

1:08:54

Oh

1:08:54

my gosh.

1:08:56

Scam is gonna scam. They're

1:08:58

like it's time to post. through.

1:09:02

It's

1:09:02

easy to post. Isaad never post, but when a steampunk man makes

1:09:04

his own death to run

1:09:06

away with your grandfather's watch which

1:09:10

turned out never ticked. You got

1:09:12

a post, you simply have to post.

1:09:14

They post and they're like, you know,

1:09:16

they're trying to be, like, out of the

1:09:18

goodness of our heart, we want to help his

1:09:20

widow redistribute all the watches to this community. We, our

1:09:22

saints, strive to do a good thing. in

1:09:25

reality, they're like, we won't do it. That's the way

1:09:27

you guys do it. You gotta play the game. In their post, they're like, we're so sorry to bother everyone. Like, we are really

1:09:29

not in a rush to get this

1:09:32

watch back felt

1:09:35

like we noticed we couldn't help

1:09:37

but notice the, you know, the the phone

1:09:39

number doesn't work anymore. So if

1:09:41

anyone has any information on where Mitchell

1:09:43

lives, we would be happy to help everyone, and we know that he, like, must live

1:09:45

in this region because the area code on the phone

1:09:48

number and the shows he's

1:09:50

been to aren't

1:09:51

near us. Mhmm. They're

1:09:53

like, so if anyone

1:09:55

has any information that would be

1:09:57

very helpful. My

1:09:58

brain just went straight

1:09:59

to, like, Mitchell as, like,

1:10:02

the Unibomber just, like, in the woods. Like, I don't know why I went I went

1:10:04

straight there. I was,

1:10:06

like, it's gonna be, like,

1:10:09

creepiest cabin. No one hasn't been there in twenty years. The male doesn't

1:10:11

deliver there. Okay. He's probably in a normal house. They

1:10:13

get like a few messages from people

1:10:15

that

1:10:15

are like, he

1:10:18

fixed my watch years ago when I got it back, but like,

1:10:20

it didn't have a return address on it. It

1:10:22

only had, like, the little, like, postmark. stamp.

1:10:25

Sure. So this is helpful because they're like, okay, we're right. We know the metro area

1:10:27

that he's in. They're like,

1:10:30

an option could be that

1:10:34

we go through the white pages and we call every Mitchell. We

1:10:37

they don't

1:10:37

know his last name. No.

1:10:40

Everyone's just literally saying

1:10:42

Mitchell. Yeah. I think you were just doing that for the

1:10:44

story convention. Oh my gosh. We told

1:10:46

the booth is just like, hey, it's

1:10:49

Mitchell. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Let's go.

1:10:51

So they're like, okay. I

1:10:51

guess we'll start calling Mitchell's. Oh my

1:10:54

god. So they start

1:10:55

calling Mitchell's

1:10:56

of the white

1:10:58

pages, but like, It's really fucking awkward

1:11:00

to be like, hi. Is this

1:11:02

Mitchell? Is your Mitchell dead? Did

1:11:05

he use

1:11:05

to ice vlogging?

1:11:07

Oh my god. No. This is

1:11:09

desperate, ask for desperate people. They do

1:11:11

this for, like, you

1:11:13

know,

1:11:14

seven or eight

1:11:16

bit Sholes, and then we

1:11:18

then Gabriela are, like, dude. Yep. Fucking do this. It's much.

1:11:21

They order a pizza

1:11:23

they're like, we just wait for more information. A few days

1:11:26

after they post, they're like, please give

1:11:28

us information post. They get a private message

1:11:30

from someone on the site that they don't

1:11:32

know. And the

1:11:34

message says something like, hey, I know this is a little weird, but like I live in the city that Mitchell lives in.

1:11:36

Last weekend, I

1:11:39

was at an antique fair

1:11:42

that they hold every year in the city.

1:11:44

And I saw someone who looked

1:11:46

a

1:11:47

lot like Mitchell. Yes. Yes. They're

1:11:49

like, I've never met him, and

1:11:51

I know he just, like, looks like some regular guy,

1:11:53

but he had the same forearm tattoo. Yes. That everyone was

1:11:55

talking about. Absolutely. You

1:11:59

can't trust

1:11:59

a steam

1:11:59

vesting punk man. You just can't do

1:12:02

it. What do you do with this

1:12:04

information? Okay.

1:12:06

So

1:12:06

all I have is he's in this city

1:12:08

and he went to this one

1:12:10

Antique fair. Antique fair. Is it

1:12:12

like an every Saturday thing or once a

1:12:14

year? It's a once a year thing. Shit. in

1:12:16

case you get the phone book. Wait.

1:12:18

Is this still I mean, because, like, back in those

1:12:20

days, phone

1:12:21

books had addresses

1:12:24

too. Yes. So it

1:12:26

would be worth seeing if you could get him on the phone. I don't know what you would say.

1:12:31

they You

1:12:33

also have to remember that, like,

1:12:35

Luna and Gabriela are shocked because unlike us, they did not think that this man

1:12:37

was not dead. They thought

1:12:39

that he was extremely

1:12:42

dead. So now Luna is

1:12:44

like, I've done someone dying recently. I know

1:12:47

what this rigmarole entails, and she's like,

1:12:49

you know what, it's time for

1:12:51

to find out if there's an obituary. So she's searching, like,

1:12:53

Mitchell, the city, Mitchell, the city,

1:12:55

death, right, all

1:12:57

this stuff. There's nothing. She, like, goes through all of the

1:13:00

obituaries for the, like, few days

1:13:02

after he died, and there's

1:13:03

absolutely

1:13:07

no record. She's

1:13:07

like, that's pretty weird. It's almost like he was scamming you

1:13:09

to get off your watches. Mhmm. But he

1:13:12

would do

1:13:14

such a thing. So

1:13:14

now what? You're

1:13:15

going back to the

1:13:17

white pages? I mean, how

1:13:18

big is the

1:13:19

city? Is

1:13:22

it big? Big. Okay. I

1:13:24

mean, either you can

1:13:26

just not be fully unhinged

1:13:28

and just sort of live your life or

1:13:30

you can really go off the deep end

1:13:33

and start just thinking of other

1:13:35

places that he might hang out and do tinker related activities and start

1:13:39

staking those out. I don't

1:13:41

know what the in between is. But, like, you could call around if they're, like, pawn shops. I mean, like, is

1:13:43

this guy with this very specific tattoo?

1:13:46

Like, again, these are unhinged options.

1:13:48

Yes. but

1:13:50

I don't feel like we have any normal options left. So Pluto

1:13:53

wants

1:13:53

to do all of those options and

1:13:56

Gabriela is like, okay, maybe

1:13:58

let's chill for a second. Oh,

1:13:59

so good.

1:13:59

So, like, one tip that we've gotten

1:14:02

from someone that a guy we think

1:14:04

is dead is not dead.

1:14:06

Like, baby, let's take a breather. And Luna

1:14:08

is like, okay sweetie, I'd love to take a breather. And

1:14:10

then in the middle of the night, she's at the computer.

1:14:12

She

1:14:13

is not taking a

1:14:15

breather. She's googling.

1:14:16

and she ends

1:14:18

up on the local newspaper's website. Mhmm. Do you remember, like, what local newspaper

1:14:20

websites

1:14:21

looked like in

1:14:24

the early frankly,

1:14:25

some of them still look

1:14:27

like that today, and they've never updated

1:14:30

them. Truly do. So yes. I mean,

1:14:32

there's a

1:14:33

lot of them are vaguely unusable. Yeah. I

1:14:35

know the the paper for my hometown used to be my

1:14:40

desktop homepage

1:14:40

thing -- Uh-huh. -- like ten years ago, and I

1:14:42

would screenshot because the headline would be, like, spaghetti

1:14:45

factory comes to town

1:14:47

or -- Yeah. scandal,

1:14:50

something something something something. Exactly.

1:14:53

So Luna is, like,

1:14:55

on the local newspapers

1:14:57

for this city. And she's

1:14:59

like

1:14:59

going back to the date that this guy saw Mitchell

1:15:02

theoretically. Something local newspapers

1:15:04

loved to do in their

1:15:07

early odds is, you know, post a slideshow of a

1:15:09

hundred photos from something, and then

1:15:11

there's, like, an ad

1:15:13

every four photo. it's

1:15:15

completely unusable. Luna is like, I'm

1:15:17

going through every fucking photo from

1:15:19

this festival. I'm looking

1:15:21

at all of them. Just like click

1:15:23

click clicking. Right? Click click click there on

1:15:25

the thirty second pic in the slideshow,

1:15:27

the man in the background is

1:15:29

wearing color sweatshirt. And I thought shorts. He's wearing SKECHERS, but his

1:15:31

sleeves are rolled up and he has the same

1:15:34

hyper realistic pocket watch tattoo.

1:15:35

I'm so proud

1:15:38

of her. Do you believe that

1:15:39

this is him. Well, does it look like

1:15:41

him? Yeah.

1:15:41

His clothes are wrong. He's not

1:15:44

steampunking. Do you think

1:15:46

he had a twin? this has already gotten so in. Like, there's

1:15:48

already been to make their own death and pretend

1:15:50

to be their wife. So now when I'm like,

1:15:53

well, does he have a twin that got a matching

1:15:55

tattoo with, like, that's completely unhinged. So is everything else?

1:15:57

Like, I'm losing all aggressive reality, and

1:15:59

I'm not even, like, in the

1:16:01

story. Yeah. I think it's him. Of course.

1:16:03

Lunilek

1:16:03

scam's down. Right. Luckily for her, the newspaper has done a

1:16:05

very good job. There's a very long caption listing

1:16:07

everyone's name. I'm

1:16:09

so proud of the journalist too. Thank you

1:16:11

to the local journalism mayor president.

1:16:14

There is his first

1:16:16

name and also

1:16:19

last name. Yes. Now what

1:16:21

do you do? Well, is it useful

1:16:23

or is it Smith? It's useful. Okay. You

1:16:25

look

1:16:25

it up. You go

1:16:28

there, baby. You gotta

1:16:30

Exactly. So they're going to the phone book, and they're like flipping through. Right? And they're like, uh-huh, ding ding ding.

1:16:33

There's only two

1:16:36

of these. So they call

1:16:38

the first one. This is like clearly not

1:16:40

Mitchell. They call the second one and they're like, this is

1:16:42

fucking Mitchell. They're like, this motherfucker. He hangs up immediately.

1:16:46

Of course. The address isn't there

1:16:47

though? The address isn't there.

1:16:49

They call again. They're like,

1:16:51

do not

1:16:52

do not hangar

1:16:54

hang up. We

1:16:54

know it's you. We just want

1:16:56

our watches back, and we will not tell

1:16:58

anyone if you don't want us

1:17:00

to, but like what the

1:17:03

fuck is going on. Yeah. Most

1:17:04

people are, like, not very

1:17:05

good at keeping secrets, especially secrets in which they presumably

1:17:08

faked their own death. So

1:17:10

when they

1:17:11

encounter Mitchell, he caves immediately.

1:17:14

Really? And he's like, I'm so sorry. Like, I I remember you. I didn't wanna

1:17:17

keep

1:17:20

your grandfather's watch, but, like, it

1:17:22

would have given up my scam. He's like, I just got really overwhelmed by the number of watches that I had taken

1:17:24

in to fix, and I had, like,

1:17:26

promised too many people that I would

1:17:28

fix them

1:17:30

and I didn't know what to do, and I also didn't

1:17:32

want people

1:17:33

to hate me. Dude, Luna are,

1:17:35

like, so you faked your

1:17:37

own death. Like, it's

1:17:40

at once completely unhinged, but also, like, spiritually

1:17:42

relatable. So you never had, like, too many assignments and you're, like, maybe

1:17:44

you shouldn't make money.

1:17:46

What if I was dead?

1:17:49

Luna's like, where the

1:17:51

fuck is my watch? Yeah. And he's like, it's at my house.

1:17:52

yeah

1:17:53

you like it at my house

1:17:56

And she's like, cool. I'm coming to get it right now. And

1:17:58

he's like, well, you don't know where to go. And

1:17:59

she's like, I

1:18:01

sure do. Your address

1:18:03

is in this phone I'm

1:18:06

gonna be there in, like, thirty minutes.

1:18:08

They drive

1:18:08

to Mitchell's. It's like a very normal suburban house

1:18:10

and very normal, like, cold, a sack street.

1:18:14

they get there and

1:18:15

they're like, knock knock knock.

1:18:18

It's us where our watch

1:18:20

is. And Mitchell Lake opens it and he's like, oh,

1:18:22

I'm so sorry. Lake, I'm so sorry about all

1:18:24

this. here's your watch, but the watch

1:18:26

is like still broken. He was always gonna

1:18:27

be broken. I was so stressed when he

1:18:30

said I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It turns out don't have it.

1:18:33

I was gonna be like kick

1:18:35

the door down. Okay.

1:18:37

It's fine. It doesn't wake. It was never

1:18:39

gonna Luna is in kick the down mode. She's like, I'm not

1:18:41

fucking leaving this house

1:18:42

until my watch is fixed. Luna,

1:18:46

it never worked. Luna, She

1:18:48

walks him into his little, like, workshop room. And

1:18:50

does she and Gabriela stand there with her on top?

1:18:53

For

1:18:55

a whole hour, while he

1:18:57

fixes this watch. Not to dikes a premises baby. They can do

1:18:59

that. Oh my

1:19:00

god. I

1:19:03

love this. Works. It works. It

1:19:05

takes again. And her grandfather comes back to life and says Luna. Thank

1:19:07

you. I love it.

1:19:10

Like, everything's coming up

1:19:12

Luna. I

1:19:14

didn't have a hot girlfriend. I've solved a murder mystery for gosh. I'm thrilled.

1:19:21

But now

1:19:21

they have a really big question, which

1:19:23

is, do you wrap him out? I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's

1:19:25

nice that he helped, but it's

1:19:27

not like he wasn't

1:19:30

doing anything that he should have done

1:19:33

in the

1:19:33

first place. I just

1:19:36

really good feel

1:19:38

not like it's not Mhmm.

1:19:40

We can't even

1:19:41

start over.

1:19:44

Oh. I like to rant about.

1:19:46

I think I would feel bad about

1:19:48

it. because

1:19:50

case I know

1:19:52

having been in this experience

1:19:54

like how bad it feels when

1:19:56

Mitchell steals your watch. and

1:19:58

then fix his own dad. And so I'm not,

1:20:00

like, let's round him out because I want

1:20:02

Mitchell to suffer, but I do feel like I

1:20:04

would have to give Mitchell an ultimatum to be,

1:20:06

like, somehow you have to get ever on your watches back and you can either

1:20:08

pretend to be your own wife for

1:20:11

some reason and send them

1:20:13

all back that way or you can just, like, be

1:20:15

normal. But either way, you have to get these watches back to

1:20:17

these people. They don't have to be fixed, but they do have

1:20:19

to, like, go back to

1:20:21

them. Yes.

1:20:22

So Luna is, like, these watches

1:20:24

have to go back. Like, she agrees with you. She's like,

1:20:26

I don't know

1:20:27

that he has to be ousted, but, like, he has to

1:20:29

send these back or we

1:20:30

have to send them back or something.

1:20:34

Gabriela is, like, fuck

1:20:36

this guy. Gabriela is, like, I

1:20:38

wanna watch the fucking tinkerers website.

1:20:42

She's like, I am gonna

1:20:44

tell everyone. I'm

1:20:45

gonna tell everyone. Do it.

1:20:48

And Luna is like, Gabriela is

1:20:50

really mad at, like, probably gonna go rogue. Like, she's, like, she

1:20:51

could post at any moment. So she calls

1:20:52

Mitchell and is,

1:20:55

like, heads up, Gabriel

1:20:57

is gonna tell everyone that you're

1:20:59

not dead. Mhmm. He's also a couple because he has

1:21:01

all your

1:21:02

information, and I don't think that

1:21:04

she's gonna

1:21:06

hold back. Oh, my god.

1:21:07

Doxing hasn't been invented yet. You can't

1:21:10

really get invented. Yeah. I can't wait.

1:21:12

And Mitchell is like,

1:21:14

I will post. you better

1:21:16

fucking hurry because Gabriela is

1:21:18

like dialing up right now. To

1:21:23

Mitchell's credit, he

1:21:23

gets his post up before

1:21:25

Gabriela gets hers up. And it's like

1:21:27

an apology and an explanation

1:21:29

and he's like I'm mailing

1:21:31

everyone's watch back right now, and

1:21:34

he, like, mails it

1:21:35

back. The watches returned to

1:21:36

the watches return to their home their

1:21:40

home. This

1:21:40

is a problem for many reasons, but part

1:21:42

of the problem is that, like, he comes back to prominence

1:21:44

if in

1:21:47

for me by turning watches most of

1:21:49

them being fixed. So

1:21:52

everyone

1:21:52

now has

1:21:56

this, like, dynamic where fifty percent of people are like fuck this

1:21:58

guy. We don't want anything to do with him. Fainch his own death. He's useless to us.

1:22:00

And the other people are like, it's the

1:22:02

kind of intensity that you have right now

1:22:04

that ask

1:22:06

Mitchell

1:22:06

to fake his name in the first place.

1:22:12

the So

1:22:13

people keep giving him pocket

1:22:15

watches to fix. No.

1:22:16

I can't

1:22:19

be what happened. Do

1:22:23

you wanna hear

1:22:23

something truly fucking incredible? Yes.

1:22:26

He did it again.

1:22:28

No. It

1:22:29

doesn't work. You keep

1:22:31

it. No. Five

1:22:32

years. After he faked his death

1:22:34

the first time, another death announcement

1:22:37

went up for him. And

1:22:39

this time the people who had been there for enough were like He

1:22:42

does this.

1:22:42

Exceptical. He does this.

1:22:45

And

1:22:45

he was yet

1:22:47

again not dead. in

1:22:50

the same forum. In

1:22:51

the same forum. Buddy, fool me once.

1:22:53

You know, like, just you can't. Just stay

1:22:55

mad. This bad.

1:22:58

fucked up the trust of the people on this form so

1:23:00

badly that when a different

1:23:03

tinker, like, actually died

1:23:05

a

1:23:06

few years after

1:23:08

that, Everyone was like, where's

1:23:10

the obituary? Where

1:23:10

is it a fucking corpse? Like, I've got it before. Oh

1:23:17

my god. Mitchell.

1:23:19

I mean,

1:23:20

but here's

1:23:21

the thing.

1:23:23

it wouldn't have happened the second time if they didn't just go back

1:23:25

to sending watches to him. Like at that

1:23:27

point -- Yes. -- it just

1:23:30

feels like there was a clean

1:23:32

slate we could have just

1:23:34

all walked

1:23:35

away. Yes. You could have, but also he was the best

1:23:36

have the also he

1:23:38

one apparently.

1:23:40

We're done. How do you feel? What do you think? Oh, I

1:23:42

feel so good, honestly. I mean, I love this

1:23:44

podcast. It's a great podcast. But

1:23:46

often we get to the end

1:23:50

And

1:23:50

I'm like, oh, somewhat unsatisfied

1:23:52

to end there because, unfortunately, life doesn't

1:23:54

neatly tie up every story in a

1:23:57

perfect bow. But I feel too so

1:23:59

satisfied by this. Like, I love Luna and

1:24:01

Gabriela. I hope that they wore their

1:24:03

pocket watches to

1:24:05

their wedding. I love that Mitchell did this

1:24:08

again. Like, everything about this is

1:24:10

perfect except I guess the no.

1:24:12

The watch does work. The watch

1:24:14

works No. Everything about this is good. I

1:24:16

feel so good about it. Thank you so much for

1:24:18

taking care of yourself. I have a

1:24:21

little treat for you,

1:24:23

which is Gabriella

1:24:24

and Luna got married. Wait. We live

1:24:26

in a nine, and they have a pocket watch cake. Wait.

1:24:29

This

1:24:31

is the last news of my life. You've been in my house

1:24:33

quarantine for a week, and I'm just like

1:24:35

crying about like

1:24:38

miss three lesbians pocket watch cake. I'm

1:24:40

so thank you

1:24:42

so much. Love Israel, and

1:24:44

it only exists in the tinkering

1:24:46

tinker dumb forum, whatever it was all. Exactly.

1:24:48

Do you think that there's any moral

1:24:50

takeaway to this story? Yes. I think