Happy New Year, the year of sandwiches. Oh, my gosh, we did it, we will. We got out. Yes, we got out.

It's like that point where you think we're safe, like in a in a horror movie where you're like, oh, thank God we got out. And then, like, you turn and there's just another horror awaiting you on the other side.

That's why I don't sound very enthused, which is so sad. But it's kind of like after a year of, like, so much stress. Yeah. I'm just still trying to catch my breath. I'm just like, who? Well, I think we're OK.

I think we're all a little afraid to get our hopes up with good reason, especially because I'm still being tagged.

And all the tweets that say, like, remember when Christine said 20/20 was going to be great and she feels like she has nothing to complain about, like, OK, yeah, I know. So now I'm just going to not say I'm not even going to say I want a sandwich because Lord knows we're gonna have a bread shortage.

And that would be my worst nightmare. Come actually. Wow. I didn't even know. I'm telling you, I didn't know how we can manifest a bad sandwich production, but. Hmm.

OK, so everyone be careful with your bread. Just hang on real tight, whether it's your sour dough, your rye, whatever you like. Just sour dough for me. Thanks.

What was the bread that your mom made that I stole from stole and like put conditioner all over the mirrors because that bread was delicious.

My mother makes very good bread. She drops it off at our house. That's one of the perks of moving home, is she drops off a loaf of bread at our house like every week.

Does she say anything or does she just leave it alone? She literally will just leave it here.

And sometimes she forgets her key and it'll just be like on the porch in the rain. And I'm like, cool, but I'm going to eat it anyway.

Duly noted. So if you want to just completely be a crazy murderer triangulated, you just got to find Christine's house and then leave bread there in Chile. It it it doesn't.

It has in Kentucky where oh, I thought you were going say it's a house in Kentucky where there's a loaf of bread just sitting on the porch. That's me. No, I'm sorry. Just switch it out with poison bread. God, it's just going to gobble it up. Oh I see.

Do you have any other ways maybe people could end my life this year in twenty, twenty one that have a sandwiches apparently to. Well stick with that one for this episode and every episode we'll just do some how to murder Christine. This is great.

Well anyway I'm looking at twenty, twenty one the new year as like I know things are not different as far as like, you know, from one hour to the next, but I feel like it's symbolically it's a good like start over like fresh start, you know, just let's try again.

Let's try again. It's the redo year that they'll be talking about in history books.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the aftermath of the apocalypse, like the like the rebuilding. You know, the we will rebuild, you know. Exactly.

It's been a rough how many or six days we're getting we're getting there or six days in. And I'm already like kind of like forming nervous tics just like in case something goes down. I like I remember seeing all the videos, you know, a week ago I'm talking about like it was yesteryear. I guess it was. It was. But all these videos of people being like, we're going to walk real quietly. Yes. Everyone not going to touch anything.

We're just don't touch anything. Just look around and see what happens.

It's like when my parents told me we went like any toy store, don't touch anything, the grocery store, because I was prone to steal a lot of food from the grocery store as a child. Were you what?

You like Oliver Oliver Twist? I guess so. I would just I was really captivated by packaging like I was very easy to trick. And so, like, if it was within stroller arm reach, I realized it.

It wasn't like you were like ten and you were like, I got a pocket. All these goods. No, no, no. Like I mean, I did think that. But it wasn't like I wasn't going to get food if I went home without any clothes. But my parents would go shopping and then we would get in the car and they'd be like, I didn't buy that. Did you buy that? And I would just have like a like a like I'd be hoarding them like snacks.

Like I bought it. Don't worry, Mom, I bought it. I gave it to the cashier. She knew what it meant.

So she you gave one of those Gemini's smiles and she was like, all right. I sure do. I wish I was a schmoozer from the beginning. That does not surprise me at all. Apparently, once I was in a stroller next to a kid in another stroller and I just like, took their pacifier. I never really kind of pacifier growing up. I just took their pacifier, put it in my mouth, and then we took it out and said, that's gross in German and then put it back in their mouth.

And my mom was like, Yeah, that's how you lived your what if that was me?

And and I still have this weird memory of, like, this weird German kid just grabbed my pacifier and then insulted my product and then threw it back at me.

I was like, I'm just captivated by packaging. But it was really tricking me because it really wasn't as good as it made it out to be. But maybe that was you. That would have been. Wow.

You know, to this day, I'm still really intrigued by, like, a mouth like my. We I'm trying to avoid saying the embarrassing way of this, but I don't know any other way, so I am one of those people who really wish that it was socially acceptable as an adult to, like, have something to chew on, like a chew toy, like I think I've told you about this before, but like, there are just some things you look at and you're like, wow, my molars.

I want to buy a by itchin. Yeah. It's specifically like Dr. Sholes foot insert.

So every time I will be clean I would just go buy it at the store filled with who knows what.

I don't care about my molars. Okay, this is how we're going to make them this year. We're going to put Dr. Sholes inserts inside a sandwich and say, here you go. Look, my jaw calls the shots and when it comes to this kind of stuff. But I see it and I'm like, I just want to see the shit out of you. Oh, my God.

So. So, yeah, you could kill me that way. You could put some weird stuff me to put in your sandwich. Yeah. OK, yeah. It could be a Doctor Sholes foot sandwich. That'd be fine. OK, it's everywhere. So anyway, I'd say like if adults could have pacifiers, like I might have one purely just cheese. I bet you they do.

Maybe like for people with oral fixations that's easy to have.

I bet you they do make like something you can chew on, like a pencil you can actually chew on or something or like the pencil erasers in middle school.

OK, I would chew on those, like I remember that taste still to this very day.

Well, anyway, I have the oral fixation because a little German baby story. Yes. Oh I cause. Great. So here we are, the most Freudian thing ever. You're telling me in our adult life that I caused your childhood trauma and big girls. Got it. Got it. And now I'm planning to murder you because I guess you're my dad or something.

You're both welcome. Anyway, happy twenty twenty one man. And hopefully this is another wonderful year for and that's why we drink. We're coming up on four years now. I know another wonderful year, just like the year we bailed on our whole tour and questioned our entire sanity. I was OK.

We did question our sanity. We did bail on our tour. But I will say in terms of if our fingers cross our podcast, you know, goes goes on for a very long time, this is probably the most relaxing year we'll ever have.

That's true.

It was like we were preparing mentally for travel and then we suddenly stayed home a lot and good at staying home, take a nap for a year because things are about to get real rocky.

You want like you're going to be doing a lot of stuff. That's true.

And the year after it was the year after that, like mega tours where we had to record and do everything on top of itself. So it was kind of like, wait, it was so tough to record. Yeah, yeah. Self care. We deserved it. We deserve it. So anyway, I was thinking because we just kind of I don't know if we necessarily made predictions for ourselves. I did make my sandwich prediction last episode about twenty twenty one and that's going well.

A lot of people have asked me already if I've been having sandwiches, the answer's yes, plenty. But in terms of predictions, I think that this is a very delightful episode, a topic that I'm going to cover for you.

Oh, can I make can I say something before we like your intro before we start?

I know you just said it was going to be delightful and now I'm just going to make everybody out again. So I heard the word delightful and I went late.

You and the the the brakes screeching.

I'm turning this car around, kids, before we get to M's lovely story, OK? I'm sure I'm I meant to text you this morning and I, I text you about else, and then I figured you might be sleeping and so I forgot to text you. So I was sleeping.

OK, well so I, I, I'm going to bring down the mood I'm sorry, real quick but also bring up the mood. I don't know. We'll see. Maybe it'll even out.

But I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who reached out after I made a very dramatic vulnerable post on Instagram and made a YouTube video.

And I know I don't know, I guess I assume everyone sees our Instagram, but I'm sure, like, only a small percentage of people do follow my YouTube channel.

But for everybody who's like, what's going on? I made a video for YouTube.

I, I should I just say I guess I should just say it, huh.

I have to say I'm not going to be I mean, it's literally your life, so I'm not actually going to tell you what to do. You do whatever you want. I'm sure you're not going to tell me what to do.

Since when I'm not going to talk. I'm not going tell what to do about this. That's for damn sure. OK, fine. I ask them to tell me what to do all the time. And I was like, no, I'm not on this one. Don't put me in charge. This one's on you. This one's on me. So don't worry, everybody. Everything's fine. But I had OK, so last year I had three miscarriages consecutively.

I had to write this down because I got too nervous to wing it.

You wrote a speech. I wrote a speech. Sit down. Stop interrupting my speech. Sorry. OK, my bad. My bad. Anyway, it was a very tough year for everybody.

This is not part of my speech now. I'm nervous. Everyone thinks I'm like reading. I just read. Just read just five of you to whom it may concern watching other people's videos is very helpful for me. Last year, because I had I went through kind of a tough time where I only, you know, was able to connect with, like friends and family. And so I was watching a lot of other people's YouTube videos about their own experiences with miscarriages and infertility, etc.

and it made me feel a lot better and less alone. And so I thought, you know what, I was going to say anything anywhere on the podcast or online. But then I was like, you know, what? If this just helps, like one person, I'm going to just put it out for it.

Yeah. So I did. And I made a video about like what happened and like how I got through it and the quote unquote tips that helped me like, I don't know, deal with it like, oh, God.

Well, you have to watch the video. OK, I'm going to steal it from the grocery store and not pay for it and asked me for the direct information. That's for sure.

That's for sure. I guess the spark notes I already forget. I'm so nervous.

The Spark notes was like journaling and doing nothing that would really help me.

And it's hard for me to do like I mean, it's not hard for me to do nothing like lay in bed, but it's hard for me to do nothing like just lay there or, you know, just watch Netflix.

So that was really helpful. Anyway, I just like I posted that and I didn't know how it was going to go and I wasn't sure, like what people how people would react.

But everybody was it was like the most mind blowing. Like I went to a doctor's appointment, I got out and it was like, you have 3000 comments.

And I was like, holy crap. And it was just the most like people were deeming me and saying, like, hey, some people literally said, like, I had three miscarriages this year, too. Like I mean, it was just really crazy how many people were like, I haven't told anyone and, you know, so I connected with a lot of people.

I was very thankful. And I just it made me very humbled and very just like, holy crap, sometimes it gets lost on me, like, how awesome our little community is.

And I think it's kind of bananas how how common it is. But yeah, a lot of people are afraid to talk about it.

So and that's the other thing is, like I talked about how everyone I knew, not everyone I knew, but a lot of people were like, oh, it's so common, it's so common.

But that doesn't make it any easier or like less scary or tough. And so I think it gets lost in the like, oh, it's really normal. But also nobody talks about it. So it's like that weird grey area of like. Well, now what?

So anyway, I'm just so thankful for all of you and I love you all so much.

And I am just I don't know. I went to the New Year and feeling like, OK, at least we have all these awesome people that listen to us and support us. And I'm just so thankful.

But also, yeah, I was I was going to say because I think it's like wild how common it is, but everyone's kind of afraid to talk about. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think you probably did more of a good than I think you realize, because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there, especially last year, who I get to finally say last year.

But all the people who like were home alone and dealing with that, like I think you talking about it probably made a lot of people feel more comfortable. Well, our own struggles, I hope so.

And I appreciate that because I I mean, full disclosure, it was like really helpful for me personally, like cathartic.

And I'm from a German family. We don't really talk about things emotionally speaking. And so I was like very surprised how many people wrote to me and like how much of an impact it had on me personally. And so, yeah, sometimes. Yeah. So I'm glad it went both ways. And anyway, I love you. I'm just feeling very grateful for everybody, including you.

And I did I did not say you are very supportive and kind and I'm just thankful for everybody.

So I just made you eat food with me. That was a you know, how many people would pay for that privilege and then I get it for free.

I just I guess that's true. I don't I, I just remember you telling me at least, you know, the first time I was like, OK, let's go.

We were like, do you want pizza? I don't know. Actually, you said I watch the Dodgers. Don't worry, I can handle this. No, I got to the point of reference was the only point of reference I had, which I will say in case people are upset with that comment at all, like I did preface it with I'm so sorry, but this is the only information I can give you. But I wouldn't have accepted anything less from you because I have my Christian stories, the doggers and the dates, and they have a lot of babies.

I was like, I've heard some things about miscarriages. And I was like, this is the only information I can provide. If it's not useful, I'm an asshole. But then let's go to school and then let's go.

I mean, really, it was it was everything I needed. So yeah. Anyway, I know, I know that was an awkward thing to just force in the beginning, but I just just way more awkward to force at the end.

That's very true. Or in the middle. That would have been fun. That would have been like an intermission or like a commercial break. Hang on. I know you just talked about another mongoose in the walls, but I have something to say.

Speaking of oddities. OK, well, anyway, you're I'm glad you're feeling better.

I am feeling a lot better. Yes. And I feel very connected to everybody. And if you do want to see that video, because I just was also it's like my most watched video on my YouTube channel now, which is interesting.

But yeah, I mean, I guess we can just link it in the YouTube.

Are YouTube or something. I don't know.

Let's try again. So there was something delightful I want to talk about. Oh, it was weird. There was a it's actually not I guess the delightful is not necessarily the right word, but I, I was trying to find a parallel between the story and New Years and prediction is definitely. Oh, a word you would find in both of those topics. So this is definitely different.

Hang on. Let me close my bathroom door. I feel like I have some guesses.

I you're not going to get it. No, what is it, Nostradamus? No, but that's a that's a great one.

I would I just it occurred occurred to me that would be a fun topic someday. Even write that down notion on this and don't even look up how to spell it. I want you to guess.

This year, twenty, twenty one, it's time to focus on finally taking care of ourselves, wouldn't you say?

Finally, I'd say finally. And there's one thing that you and I both do. We're very different people. But there is one thing that we both do that I think makes both of us feel very good about ourselves. And that is daily harpists.

It's one of the few things we have exactly in common. Daily Harvest delivers delicious food, all built on organic fruits and vegetables right to your door, and it takes literally minutes to prepare. And I've never had to think twice about the food that I'm eating. I know that it's good for me and I also know that R.J. approves, so I know that I'm good on that front. I know Bleys approves on your end. So we both have healthy people letting us know.

No, no, you're doing the right.

That's right. Our better halves have endorsed this product and we both have a daily harvest.

Sharpey to Sharpey, our mint Cachao. That's true.

So we do actually have more in common than we thought. Daily Harvest is committed to minimizing their environmental impact and they're in the process of transitioning to be one hundred percent compostable, recyclable plant based and renewable fibre packaging. So you can feel good about ordering from them.

And we've talked about their smoothies before, which are amazing. We've talked about their flatbreads before, which are somehow more amazing to me. I, I think they're definitely my favorites, but they also have for lunch or dinner. They have there, like I said, they're flatbreads and for food and food, that's perfect for the colder winter, even though it's not necessarily cold out here. But I'm going to pretend it is so I can have their harvest bowls and their soups, whatever it takes, just so I can feel like I'm still in that nature.

Cozy vibe. But Daily Harvest has it for me.

With Daily Harvest, we're enjoying undeniably delicious clean food without any of the prep. And whether you're looking to have your daily dose of fruits and veggies or just want to have a little more time back on your hands, you can to get started today by going to daily harvest dotcom and entering promo code drink to get twenty five dollars off your first box.

That's promo code drink for twenty five dollars off your first box at Daily Harvest Dotcom. Daily Harvest Dotcom.

I wish Smell Division worked because I am currently wearing my cucumber mint deodorant from Native and I smell lovely.

I like how you think if television existed, I would tune into your channel at all times to smell my armpits. It would be prime time, Christine, armpit hour. And you know what? I would tune in every now and then. I would at least record you for later, OK, at least the peppermint one, because that's actually my new favorite.

OK, but you would have to tune in for my my regular coconut vanilla for I mean, we actually know this sounds like not a bad idea for those of you who don't know what chaos we're talking about. Welcome to our armpits and to native deodorant. Native deodorant is formulated without aluminum, parabens or talc. It's also vegan and never tested on animals. And NATO deodorant is made with ingredients that you've heard of, like coconut oil and shea butter, all these wonderfully nice smelling things.

And if you wear it every day, you will be able to smell like us. You will. And isn't that all you've ever wanted?

Also, it works because as we've discussed many a time, I'm a very sweaty individual and it is really incredible because I've tried a bazillion other deodorants and this one actually works and feels good and it's like healthy.

And I'm like, listen, it's I'm not going to question it too much because it's my it's it's my new my armpits new favorite.

It's nice to walk past Christine and want to do a deep inhale. And just for once, I feel like what's going on here. There are over ten cents, including their classic's and rotating seasonals, and you're guaranteed to find one. You love their classic sense, our coconut and vanilla, which is the most popular and also my favorite. There's lavender and rose cucumber and mint, citrus and herbal musk.

I mean, they've got something for everyone to make the switch to Native today by going to native dot.com drink or use promo code, drink at checkout and get 20 percent off your first order.

That's native dō dotcom slash drink or use promo code. Drink a check out for twenty percent off your first order. Well, so this is I want to apologize because going into the year, like I you would think that I'm going to, like, stick with a real r I.

I just think that our calendar we already released an episode on January 3rd. So apparently this is our second episode anyway.

So you're clear. You're good. Hey, guess what. Go for it. Whatever. So. OK, well to us this is the first episode of the year because that's like recording in January. But so I want to half apologize just because this isn't a paranormal story. This isn't supernatural. This is just weird. If I had to put it in any category. Just weird I love. And so there's no I just if you were looking for spooky, I don't know if this would really fall into that category, but I have one to cover it and a few people have requested it.

So I kind of just took that as OK, well said. This is it's not even a story.

This is just a list of a list. Come on.

The all the times that The Simpsons got the future right. Cool.

And this is cool and spooky, I it's if you don't know about it, it's just that the TV show The Simpsons have oddly guest many.

Oh this is so fun. So I hope that I'm sorry it's not ghosty or anything but it is, is creepy.

I feel like it's still sort of like Mandela affected, like, you know, it's still definitely weird.

It's definitely like odd to experience. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, this is me talking about The Simpsons even knows this, right, because. Yeah. Yeah.

OK, no I actually think I told you about this one a while ago and I there's just there's a lot it's really weird that how many things. It's just it took a while because I was also doing additional research right before we recorded last night. So it's just a lot.

Can I make a note about The Simpsons real quick? When I was little, my school had an actual, like, assembly telling us not to watch The Simpsons.

Why? Because they said it was, like, immoral.

Listen, Catholic school was my parents are like we we paid for what? And I'm like, oh, yeah, we had a whole assembly about.

And I remember my friend Elissa, who will never admit to this, but she was like head of the committee where they had to, like, make a PowerPoint presentation of how terrible The Simpsons was because like Christian brain at that moment, I literally was like, I remember that moment being like, that's my new favorite show.

And that changed my life. Speaking of lists, can we I think it'd be a shorter list of Catholic schools. Told you what you can watch.

It's true. Probably not even the Dugan's. Probably I was going to say so many so few things.

Well, certainly not The Simpsons. So if you're like, oh, vegetables, OK, I got to be honest, I love the vegetables, but it was a great VHS.

Yeah, I got to say, I did tell you I'm easy to trick.

So in terms of like luring me in as a child, I had no idea it was even religious until I was just like these songs kind of slap. And now they do. They still did. I was like, why do I want to pray? All of a sudden what's happening is what's going on anyway?

So we'll do the details and all of their craziness next week. I'm sure I could do like I'm going to be fun. I was going to say if I did a story that was kind of like the Grinch and how we sell Christmas. Oh, my God. But I just covered the vegetables. I feel like it could get weird.

I feel like there's like a parting of the Red Sea with, like a green bean. I don't know. You could probably come up with all sorts of stuff. There's definitely something about that. All I know is that the little asparagus was my best friend. Oh, I love him. Yeah, I thought he was so cool. Here we are, The Simpsons and different different anthropomorphic things.

This was my advice as a five year old, apparently.

Well, I don't really know how to start this one because it's not really a story. So I'm just going to just dive right into, you know, for The Simpsons were created by macaroni. And it was first a I'm just tried to throw in some fun facts while I was on it. It was first debuted on The Tracey Ullman Show in nineteen eighty seven as a short before it got its own series. And then two years later, December 17th, eighty nine, the first episode came out on Fox and ever since then it has been the longest running scripted primetime series to ever air in the country.

So they're coming up right now on their seven 100th episode. Oh my God. Which like we're almost halfway there ever. Come on with us, Simpsons.

So I really just go straight into this. I tried to break these predictions down into different categories just so they were easier to kind of swallow because there is a lot of them and very easy to get overwhelmed, as you'll see, because it certainly happened. So, oh, sorry, I didn't. Money is in my girl. Look at the little curly sue tail. Yeah, OK, that is so sweet.

Wait, can we get a close up face case yet?

Let me see the sweet little Funchal. Oh, see how he's mad at happy hours, ok. Oh, he'll be back on his own terms.

He's so slinky. Yeah.

He's already gotten so big. I'm sad. I want him to be a kitten forever. He's fine. He's fine. It's fun.

Callum's well yeah. We'll blame it on me. He doesn't know who I am yet. Nothing ever fun golems fault gloms the fun uncle talked to Gio.

Listen, I think he'll show you what's the what. And rule number one is I'm always right and I'm always fun.

Christine, this year my resolution or at least one of my many resolutions is to get my get my skin goals on the up and up. If you sharkskin goals. Schug Yes. Skin goals. I was going to try to make it funnier, but I would have absolutely done the opposite. Thanks. So if you are like me, if you're trying to either take care of acne or if you're trying to take care of fine lines or dark spots, luckily there is cure allergy.

Oh thank goodness. I have dealt with I thought of acne was kind of in my past after high school, but for whatever reason, I guess my parents decided that they had other plans.

And so thankfully, Cure Allergy has been able to help. So basically what they do is they match you with a licensed dermatology provider who gets to know your skin specifically.

And I was like, help. And then if it's a good fit, they customize a prescription cream to address whether it's your acne, your fine lines, dark spots, all of the above just saying. And then they set up personalized treatment plan. They send it right to your door and you never have to worry about it again. You've got your plan and you're good to go.

I know that when I got my allergy, my little kit, if you will, they there was three different bottles that I got. And what was super nice about them is as someone who doesn't often use a lot of product and I don't know, like what I'm supposed to do it or how I'm supposed to do it, all the instructions are even on the bottle.

So if you are so easy, if you're someone who gets as easily confuses me, you can't with your allergy.

That's the fun of it. And it works. That's the most amazing works.

Take control of acne, dark spots, breakouts, or whatever your unique concerns may be with a powerful skin skin care treatment made just for you today.

Go to Khalaji dotcom slash drink for a free 30 day trial. Just pay for shipping and handling that.

See, you are low guy dotcom slash drink to unlock your free 30 day trial. Seek urology dotcom for all the details.

Christine, so New Year New me, and by that I mean New Year, new awareness of my mental health.

Oh, how fun. I was already a little aware and I'm really going to, like, go full force. It's called self care, OK? Or ever heard of it? It's called self care. And we're going to do it three hundred sixty five days this year. And thankfully, I have better help to help me along the way.

If there's something interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals, we've all been there. Maybe some of us are there.

No comment. Better help. We'll assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist who you can start communicating with in under 48 hours. And it's not a crisis line. It's not self-help. It's actual professional counseling done securely online.

There is a broad range of expertise available which may not be locally available in many areas. So no matter where you are, especially during this pandemic and still staying home, you can still have access to this. You don't have to be in a certain area and the service is available for clients worldwide. You can log into your account any time and send a message to your counselor and you'll get a timely and thoughtful response. Plus, you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions so you won't ever have to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room with traditional therapy.

So, oh, gosh, that's the best part, I think.

And it's affordable. So, I mean, it really is a win win, win, win, win and visit.

Better help dotcom slash drink and that's better l.p and join the over one million and one million and two I guess, people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional.

In fact, so many people have been using better help that they're actually recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states.

That's a special offer and that's why we drink listeners where you can get ten percent off your first month at better help dotcom drink.

I yeah, I tried to break down this prediction just because it does get really I mean, it's kind of bananas. And for those of you who didn't know, like, I kind of very quickly touched on it a couple of minutes ago. But in case you were unaware, The Simpsons, because it's been around for so long, they've done a lot of episodes where it's either about the future or even in in their own present day episodes. So just kind of briefly touch on something.

And then, oddly enough, it's almost like they manifest these things and they actually become true. And it's weird how many events have happened after an episode aired. So that is the real theme here today. So it started pretty quickly. The show the show first aired December eighty nine and in nineteen ninety these predictions started oh show up. So the first one I tried to do it in chronological order by the episode air date just to give it some.

Understanding or some ease, but so the first episode to come out that had a prediction was in nineteen ninety, it was Season two, episode four. And so Bart catches a three eyed fish named Blinky near the power plant and ends up making local headlines. And basically his mom ends up accidentally serving it to Mr. Burns and in 2011. So this was what? Why can I do math all of a sudden? Twenty one years later, yes. A three eyed fish was actually found in Argentina next to a power plant.

And a lot of people started writing in their reports that nobody accidentally ate them, luckily, because that's what would have happened on The Simpsons.

So it's just little stupid things like that where it's like, OK, so that's weird.

That's like, yeah, where are you going to watch the show and be like, oh no, that actually happened where it's like really also because it was the first time, it's like, OK, so 20 years later something like that happened.

What a coincidence. But then as this starts happening, if I were I mean, I'm not like the world's biggest Simpsons fan. That's just like not my jam. But like, if I were every episode, I would be on edge of this.

Yeah. If I were a writer, I'd be like, OK, we're only writing really calm. No Toto touch anything.

Exactly. Just going to walk into the writing room. We're going to not touch anything lookaround. So. So that was the first thing. The next time happened in 1993 in season five. And I guess The Simpsons have their own version of Sigfried Android called inturn Ernst and Yujin or the Siegfried rheumatism. OK, so Sagarin word for those of you who don't know they were a magician duo and they often performed in Vegas, they had tigers. That was like their big thing.

They would perform with tigers on stage that they had trained. Apparently they were like their real Real-Life domestic pets that they had taught the show performance to. But so on The Simpsons, the the parody version of Siegfried and Roy in this episode, the tiger actually attacks them during a live performance 10 years later. This actually really happened where one of their tigers attacked them during a live performance. So I don't know if you remember that. But for me, it was I remember that being like on all the tabloids and grocery stores and stuff.

And I remember there being this huge argument about whether or not it was we should be worried about the tiger. Did he did the tiger just snap, right, become a tiger and just attack a human being? Or a lot of people said that the tiger actually sensed a stroke and Roy. And so he was trying to protect his owner, but he ended up protecting him by severely injuring him. I don't really understand.

But there was a huge controversy, I remember, of people being like, no, no, no, the tiger was right, OK, to be fair, like, don't fucking keep a tiger has tiger exactly. Nothing, right? Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, it's a tiger like, hello, it's going to bite you no matter what.

The tiger wasn't wrong. It's right. Right. It was a tiger.

The tiger doesn't have a moral compass. It's like a literal tiger.

It was like I smell fresh meat here. I know. But so anyway, they ended up predicting that the tiger would attack and then it did attack exactly the same way during a live performance in Vegas, both in the show and in real time. The next one was in nineteen ninety four. So only a year later and in the actual the same season, it was still season five. On The Simpsons lunch, Lady Doris used assorted horse parts to make a lunch for students at Oh God.

And then in twenty thirteen foods, being advertised in Europe as containing beef had actually been declared as having horse meat. So they had a I remember that being a big thing where even that rumor started to trickle over here, like especially in Taco Bell, they were like oh Taco Bell is horse meat. Talk about horse meat, which by the way, Taco Bell was one of the companies where they identified horsemeat in their beef product. Oh, no.

Either they it was undeclared horse meat or was improperly declared horse meat and kind of like improperly declared.

You have to declare it properly if you're going to put horse meat in your food.

It was like a like a beef byproduct, basically, but so all of us. So they predicted that there'd be a horse meat scandal. And then it's now literally called the horsemeat scandal in real life. Also in that same year, they showed NASA sending a random person into space on The Simpsons, the. Was a 1994 four, they did an episode where they just shot a random non astronaut into space, and in 2013 the UK sent a non astronaut named Oliver Knight into space.

Why? I don't know.

I have one that sounds like its own story where it's like, right. Can we interview bad guy? Like, what was it like not understanding the controls of the rocket and just being.

So are you actually like, can we interview you? Because are you like on earth or are you like in the sky.

Are you can you ever make it back. Are you OK. Are you OK.

Can you imagine reaching you like two hundred years later up in the stratosphere. Somewhere in twenty thirteen. Oliver and I went to space, came back twenty, twenty one and was like what happened. Like wait no no. I'm turning the ship around, get back on the rocks.

I want to go back, I want to go back. I'll take me back also in nineteen ninety five and season six. This one was actually a big episode in terms of predictions, but we'll, we'll get to some of them later. So, but the main one is that Lisa goes to London and you can see in the skyline behind Big Ben there's a skyscraper that looks a lot like what is now called the Shard, which is another big building in London or I think in London.

But that building didn't exist at the time, was just a random building that they drew in. But now it's eerily identical to the actual shard that ended up getting built 14 years later.

OK, that's creepy, especially because that's not even the writer lets the animators, like, just throw in their hat in the ring here and they start.

I mean, it just becomes such a normal thing. We're like, oh, what's that thing?

And then 15 years later, it exists, which is super creepy. Also in this episode, they predicted Skype and they predicted they had like if they had a whole episode about video conferencing, even though this was in nineteen ninety five and Skype wouldn't become a thing until twenty three. Wow. In nineteen ninety seven in season ten, there was a sign in one of the clips and all these things are kind of background things. So you'll pay attention to like the smallest detail.

It's almost like they're slipping them in and manifesting them. So in season ten there was a clip where there's a sign that says 20th Century Fox as the logo. And then underneath it it says a division of Walt Disney Company. And then twenty years later, Disney actually did stop.

What? But like, why would you even write that? I don't know. I don't know. It it's just such a weird thing like, oh hahaha. Why would these companies have anything to do with each other? Oh sure.

I guess. Yeah, it's like just a satirical thing. Yeah. How weird. It's yeah. Twenty years later Disney actually did buy Fox. Also in nineteen eighty seven Marge is reading a book to Bart about the Ebola virus. And in twenty fourteen Ebola broke out again. Oh God. Do you remember when Ebola. I told I was bananas also eerily kind of like the pandemic. Now we're like people were in hazmat suits, terrified, terrified of touching each other.

I wish people were more terrified of touching each other now, but I wish Bootloader needs to come back for that to happen.

I wish people treated this like the fucking Ebola virus can really.

I mean, also in twenty seven, The Simpsons predict the NSA spying scandal. Oh. With Snowden and the NSA finding like knowing every single thing you ever post or anything you upload or any picture you take, they can see it at twenty seven. They predicted it in twenty thirteen. It happened. Another one is in twenty thirteen. There was a clip in a Simpsons episode where Homer is on the news and underneath him there's like a news, like a breaking news headline that says Europe puts Greece on eBay and it is implying that there's like a huge financial crisis.

And then two years later there was a massive Greek financial crash. Fun fact that Easter egg, I guess, is what we're calling this, I don't know if that prediction sense was found by a Reddit user names my penis Batman, so.

Oh, shit.

Sorry, I thought I changed my username because I was going to be a professional, but OK, so here are just some sports ones that I think are kind of cool.

I tried to say, oh, and sports are cool. I'm listening finally. All it took was The Simpsons. So just some sports predictions. In nineteen ninety two, there's an episode called Lisa The Greek and the Buffalo Bills lose the Super Bowl. Three days later, three days later, the Bills lost the Super Bowl and then a year later, because they thought it was funny that they were able to predict the Super Bowl. So a year later, for the next Super Bowl, The Simpsons were like, oh, let's play that episode Super Bowl Sunday, but let's rerecord the lines.

And like, oh, my God, let's like refresh the episode. And so they re predicted who would win the Super Bowl and they were right. And then nineteen ninety four, they did the exact same thing right. Again, so three years in a row, they played that on Super Bowl Sunday and they were like four and then they were like we got to quit while we're ahead because the second we stop like it's over.

That's smart, it's very smart. They're like OK, this is too much. Next time we're not going to be right at all. Yeah. Twenty twelve. They The Simpsons had in a Super Bowl episode, they had Lady Gaga performing in a silver outfit and hanging by wires and flying over the crowd and shut up, being very weirdly identical to twenty seventeen where Lady Gaga actually did perform and overheard with wires.

I'd like to think Lady Gaga was like, I have no fucking idea.

I mean, totally roll the tape. Let's just freak people out and let's just do it pretty much exactly as The Simpsons said, I love that idea.

If that's the case in 2010, Homer and Marge, they actually go to the Olympics and they win the USA's first gold medal in curling and they they win against Sweden. And then only eight years later, the US gold medal in curling against Sweden. That's wild. That's pretty weird.

In twenty fourteen, they predicted the FIFA corruption scandal and a year later it happened where FIFA officials, executives, associates, pretty much a little bit everyone they were all charged with either corruption, money laundering, racketeering and or wire fraud. Some of them I think were suspected in getting like bribes up to one hundred fifty million dollars, like it is really fucking wild. But so they predicted that a year before it happened. And so, I mean, they're just little things like that.

And so over time, a lot of Simpsons fans have their own conspiracy theory that Matt Groening is a time traveler. Oh, and so this is getting more Marcus Cam than a lot of episodes.

Don't know why you're talking about this not being creepy. Well, with just like with so many things happening, one after the other. And I wish I will put some pictures into we have pictures save for if I mention it, we have them. And they in our YouTube version of this, if you're listening to the audio, it's on YouTube. But if you look at the pictures, some of them are really creepy. Like, it's just. Like the Lady Gaga Super Bowl one, it's like it's too on the nose are like finding the shard behind Big Ben and then seeing the Shard.

I mean, it's just it's I think what's freaky is how subtle that is, like, so subtle that you wouldn't notice on first pass. But then, like years later, you notice that's what freaks me out. Or like it could be an accident, like you're saying about like, oh, well, he was like, oh, no, there's I don't know. They just know there's a building there. But it's time travel. There's not yet.

Also, I wonder how many people are seeing what goes on in the world and then intentionally go back and watch The Simpsons trying to find clues that, yeah, that's what we tried to warn you, because I think that's what happened with the Greek financial crisis. And then he was this guy happened to be watching the new, ah, the The Simpsons episode where he was on the news and writing a blip about it. But it's also like so tiny you wouldn't pay attention until there's an event to compare it.

Yeah, that's true. So. Anyway, because a lot of people think that he's a time traveler, a lot of people also think that the biggest clue, arguably, that he's a time traveler is that after The Simpsons, he went on to create the show Futurama. Right.

And so I never even put that together until you just said it. It's just like rubbing it in your fucking face of like, yeah, I'm from the future. Or like, yeah, I know how to go to the future and get information and put it on The Simpsons freekeh. So there are a lot of other predictions. This one category I'm about to do is that predictions that almost debunk this whole thing. Some people really are convinced this man is a time traveler, by the way, like count me in on that at this point.

Well, these are other things that people have given The Simpsons credit for, but they've been able to be debunked. So that's what this whole little section is. In nineteen eighty four, there are two bullies that take a memo to beat up Martin on their on their new tech device. But the memo, instead of saying beat up Martin when they write it in it says Martha. And so it's foreshadowing auto correcting.

Oh and so it was a lot of people said like they predicted in nineteen ninety four auto. Correct. But a lot of people forget the device that they were using in the show was a legitimate device at the time, and it was known to have bad health recognition.

So it already had auto. Correct. Already existed in a way. Basically it was before the iPhone, it was called the Newton, it was an Apple product. It was called the new it was a pilot. I was going to say it was basically a Palm Pilot or like the most the fanciest version of a Palm Pilot before the iPhone started getting pitched. So it I mean, it came with, like a stylus and you were right. And then it would almost like take your handwriting and then generated an actual text, you say, but here you remember that.

OK, so they even say it in the show when they say, oh, take a memo to beat up Martin, they say like take a memo when you're Knewton. But I think a lot of people don't know what a Knewton is. And so I think they just assumed that it was like a fake product or something. Right. OK, but yeah. So actually, Apple's former director, I think in like engineering or something, said that that episode was inspiration to make sure that they got the iPhone keyboard right.

Because they were like they were like even in the 90s are already roasting us for, like, auto. Correct.

And so maybe that went back in time and was like, we need to warn Apple to fucking shit.

Yeah, I like how he couldn't just walk into, like a conference room and be like, oh, this doesn't fucking fly. He had to write it into his own show and hope someone noticed.

And also auto. Correct, not like the fall of civilization, but right.

Like twenty, twenty whatever. And that's fine auto. Correct. No, no, no, no, no. And in twenty, twenty one, by the way, there's still a lot of correct problems.

That's true. It hasn't really gotten that much better.

His his message to the world didn't totally translate I guess almost like it was auto corrected, but it was like but yeah.

So a lot of people like to credit The Simpsons for predicting auto. Correct. But it already existed, at least on that without one product. Right. Also in nineteen ninety five, I mentioned a little bit earlier that Lisa and that one episode about Lisa, they predicted video conferencing. They also predicted smartwatches in that episode and they predicted robot librarians, which is basically like a digital computer library source, all of which currently exists.

They store J store.

But the one could argue that those things have been talked about forever. I mean, even if you like James Bond, like I mean, his watch, his smartwatch, we could talk into it.

I mean, like sci fi with like video call, like a hologram, like Star Wars, the hologram.

I mean, you can argue that that has always been a concept and they didn't really predict it. Makes sense. Here's a creepy one, though. In nineteen ninety seven, there was an episode where there was a framed brochure that it was about New York and it was basically like a pamphlet on like how to be a tourist in New York on the cheap. And so I think the brochure itself said like New York at nine dollars a day and behind it because they wanted a picture of New York that everyone would recognize, they had the Twin Towers on the back of the brochure or on behind the text on the brochure.

So you see New York and then you see nine. And then behind it are two towers that look like 11 and it looks like 9/11. Right. The the brochure itself looks like it's saying 9/11 with the Twin Towers as part of the image.

Is that one of the photos you're putting in? Yeah. Can I. Get up real quick. Yeah, I was nine 11. I'm trying to picture it, nine 9/11 Simpsons. Oh, I see what you're saying with the not the nine dollars. Oh, my God. That is very creepy. It's it's just one of those things where, like, you really wouldn't notice until nine fuckin happened. And they are like, oh, that's odd.

But there's like nothing else on it except for a nine and then the two towers, like it's not like the whole skyline. It's like just it just says New York, 9/11, basically. Yeah. It's the Twin Towers. It's very odd. And that was in nineteen eighty seven. OK, and the writers have commented on that like yeah that one's weird like yeah yeah yeah.

Like we plane this one.

I just see like The Simpsons staff are very aware that people think they're time travelers at this point. And so when it came to the 9/11 one they were like, OK, we hear and all that is weird.

Like we're we're on it also. And the year two thousand and an episode from season eleven, they predicted trumping president where this is the one I heard about don't like the only one I've heard about.

Lisa was president in the future is the the whole concept of this episode. And she's struggling with a budget crisis because of President Trump.

Shut up. Can you what? A motorcycle.

I was scared out of my fucking bedroom. I literally thought there was a ghost. You're not even telling a ghost story. And I just assumed you saw a ghost.

It's the ghost of President Trump. I mean. I know. So she's struggling with a budget crisis due to President Trump. I mean, that's pretty weird. It's very weird. And also, like, if you've seen that clip, we're like Trump is on the elevator waving and The Simpsons. Have you seen this? Probably, but I can't remember it. It's literally frame for frame this.

I sense you're Googling things. Yeah. Yeah. Google Simpsons.

Trump on elevator. Oh.

Oh, it's like it's weird. It it's the exact same image cam again. Oh my God.

It's very weird. It's, I mean granted it's just a guy on an elevator. At some point you were going to get a picture of him on an elevator I guess, or on an escalator.

Sorry, but it's just weird that he's like waving the same motions are happening. I mean, it's it's it's really creepy.

And someone on Trump's team is like a Simpsons writer. And they were like, hey, this would be funny. Just like wave when you're going down the escalator.

I somehow I doubt that they're that connected to pop culture.

But maybe one likes to imagine and also. Oh, apparently also. Oh, sorry. You're about to. Go ahead. Go ahead. About the sign. Apparently somebody in the background dropped a sign like a supporter dropped a sign in the shrilly and it like happened in real life to get out of here.

I mean, it's just weird. It's just creepy. Also in that same episode, a lot of people have said that The Simpsons manifested Gretta Thornburg, OK, at least they can do like some good things.

Jesus, I'm good because Greta and Lisa are both passionate about the environment and. Oh, interesting. So anyway, so a lot of people have also said that there's that commonality. So extra creepy. In nineteen ninety there was an episode about the censorship of Michelangelo's David, the statue of David, a naked man.

OK, OK. This guy, the guy who I love is the one with the penis that when you stand next to it is gargantuan penis Batman. Yeah, yeah. I recall that's actually Michelangelo's Reddit user handles a lot more. So in nineteen ninety there was an episode about censoring David and this actually was a real censorship campaign in twenty sixteen. Apparently someone in Russia ended up creating this huge campaign about trying to put a fig leaf over his situation, his wang.

And but a lot of people also say, OK, The Simpsons didn't predict that because that wasn't like the first campaign to cover him up. I guess ever since he was created, there have been like really like either either royalty or rich executives or whoever they are.

People have complained ever since he was created that they needed to love a good rich executive who's like, I know what I need to spend my money on.

I love a good rich executive, especially the rich. Like I don't like the naked statue next to me. I know I came in here to look at art, but this one shocked me. I actually feel threatened personally.

Right. And it has nothing to do with my own wedding, but I'm very threatened. I'm not self-conscious, OK? I'm not insecure. I just don't like seeing other naked people. No, no, not at all. And then another prediction that they got credit for, but probably. We shouldn't have is that in 2010, Milhouse predicts that Benkert are Holmstrom wins the Nobel Prize in economics, which he did six years later, so that a lot of people think that that's odd.

But my understanding or my argument would be I have a hunch that this Holstrom guy was doing something pretty spectacular four years before he got a Nobel Prize. So part Holstrom guy was doing a little something spectacular.

I have a feeling that this guy is up to something. He can just show up in 2016 and blow us all away.

So unless maybe he did, no one knows.

But I'm with you on this one. If this man did not exist and then in twenty sixteen he tried weirder, I'd be like, OK, Matt Groening, you're right. But until then, I think the arguing could be said that he was probably you don't just win a Nobel Prize like slated for it probably on his way. So anyway, those are just some of the ones where people like to give The Simpsons credit. Oh, and with the the Trump one, I never gave an explanation to that.

So people like to say that The Simpsons predicted that Trump would be president. But Trump has been flirting with the idea of becoming president since the 80s and even on Larry King and the nineties said that he already had a committee looking into it. So so it's and, you know, Trump flirting is not cute.

So not cute. Is it even flirting or is it just being direct and aggressive? It's correct. It's that it's saying I have an idea as a rich executive, I'm threatened by this big. Oh, wait a minute.

I've never seen Trump and a naked David statue in the same room.

I'm just going to say that's because it's never been on The Simpsons. The second that episode airs, we know it's going to it's coming. And he was probably he was probably the rich executive who just wanted a fig leaf or something. Yes. So here are two of the bigger theories that people really defend, saying, no, no, Matt Groening is a time traveler. Like without question, this man is a time traveler. There's two major. Pieces of evidence, I suppose the first one is in two thousand eight.

There was an episode where Homer is trying to vote for Obama and the US general election, but it is a faulty machine and it keeps changing his vote. Oh, yeah. So every time Homer tries to vote for Obama, the machine switches it to John McCain. And four years later, in 2012, there was the huge scandal of voting machines registering you incorrectly. Right. I guess in Pennsylvania stardate, it was the first machine to do this.

And every time people voted for Obama, it would change it to Mitt Romney.

For Pennsylvania. They can't get a fuckin break over there.

Apparently, there's a video of this, too, if you'd like to see it as a YouTube video called In All Caps Vote Incorrectly Registered 2012 presidential election or vote incorrectly registered. Yeah, OK.

Did I say it weird. I know. I just I was trying to picture the words in my head. I got it.

Vote incorrectly registered 2012 presidential election in all caps. Got it in all caps. So a lot of people say they like. I guess some people think that before twenty eight, this wasn't like a real issue or like it wasn't even a discussion, it wasn't up for debate that this could possibly happen. Sure. And so the fact that on the show it happened and then four years later became like one of the biggest scandals during an election, people think, OK, well, The Simpsons after something, the next one, which I think is I would if I had to pick an argument, I would pick this one is that in nineteen ninety eight there's an episode where Homer is and is an inventor and a mathematician, and he's standing in front of a blackboard with an equation on it.

And that equation, like 15 years later, ended up being the correct mass of the Higgs boson particle, the God particle lot.

So just made that up and it was like, oh, this is oh my God. And for those of you who don't know, the the God particle is basically like the formula for like the existence of the universe or something like that or something.

I mean, I'm sure I'm not saying that right. But it's it's pretty bananas. But I remember growing up in science class hearing like all about the Higgs boson particle and were so close to figuring it out. It was like a big deal. And then a year later, the Simpson particle or the Holmer, the other part of Domergue, they did it first.

So a lot of people blindly go in and say, oh, they just guessed a fucking equation. Apparently, there are people who say that equation was for a long time. It was like the guess.

It was the best prediction they had.

And then later down the road, they ended up finding out that they could confirm that that was the right. OK, OK.

So it's like a Manieri or something. It was a theory. And so a lot of people try to use that argument for like Matt Groening is a time traveler. But apparently a lot of the writing staff on The Simpsons is are like went to Harvard for math, like they literally. Oh, dear. OK, so I think one of the. Big excuses for where all of these random Easter eggs come from, especially when it comes to Mathas, a surprisingly large amount of math Easter eggs in The Simpsons, and they all come from the fact that a lot of the writing staff have math degrees.

Weird, OK, and so they think they one of them probably just asked for the animators to put that into the on the blackboard that the Higgs boson particle equation would be up on the board and it ended up being correct later. So like I said, a lot of people think that because the right the writing staff are academics, that would explain why a lot of things end up happening later because they're able to critically think about the possibilities in the future.

There are two writers, especially named Mike Reese and Al Jean Valjean, I think is one of the original original original writers from the first episode. And he has confirmed that if you look hard enough, there are a lot of mathematical Easter eggs and some believe that the predictions within The Simpsons is a testament to just the fact that they all have educational backgrounds. They're not just comedy writers, but other people, other people who also think that. That they're not using their education to write things and that statistically could happen, they think it's actually the reverse now where instead of predicting things, they're manifesting things.

OK, which is interesting because I do think to some degree. That's right. Where? They're basically putting things in and because now they have this fandom of people looking for it, people are trying to get purely because they're looking for it. So one example they made I didn't write this one down, but they made some sort of like tomato based tobacco or something and called it like tobacco and and one of the episodes. And then because that episode came out, someone ended up making it.

So I see somebody they literally manifested it because someone just wanted to prove it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Another one, which is my personal favorite example, because you know how I got into like minor league baseball during the Patu yet. So in two thousand one, the the episode has Homer protesting his baseball team, the Springfield Isotopes, moving to Albuquerque. Oh, how funny. And pretty quickly after that episode came out, a new team was moving to Albuquerque and they voted to change their name to the Albuquerque Isotopes because of the episode.

So because so it's little things like that where they've created their own domino effect.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, what could still happen? These are predictions. Oh God. Don't tell me, please. These are some things that make bread shortage of 2021. Can you imagine if one of the episodes was about to talk about was like a complete bread shortage, like, oh, don't even start the wonder bread factory comes crashing.

We're all eating. Dr. Sholes now to see if you mean I hope this podcast manifests nothing, because at this point we're in danger, Melissa.

It's either there's no bread to eat or there's only foot insert seat. There's nothing between nothing. So these are things that some people that some people think could still happen and that the the present day slash near future are showing signs of happening. So in season eleven, The Simpsons go to twenty thirty where they're eating virtual fudge with VR glasses and feeding tubes, which is very likely to happen in the future, that there's a VR eating experiences. And specifically right now, I think Royal Caribbean, their cruise line company, is trying to create VR dining on their ships.

What where basically I'm guessing it's some sort of like while you're eating Italian food, you're looking at like you're on the prettiest skyline of Italy or something. But scientists at Cornell, I think you don't need to be a scientist at Cornell for this. Apparently, scientist Christine Schrieffer at Cornell found that eating cheese in a pleasant area makes the dining experience better.

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Well, it's been scientifically proven.

Now, what got so we I'm sorry we could put money toward that, but like, we're not putting money toward like, hey, male birth control.

No, no. Right. Right, right. We need to figure out how to eat cheese outside of your bed in that do which, by the way, the hardest step to that is getting out of bed. If you let me think about leave me alone in my bed, eat my cheese. So eating cheese and a pleasant I think they were testing it specifically with VR that if you were eating this cheese heads while also in a VR experience, the cheese was more delightful than if you weren't in the VR experience.

And so wild is that they're using that as one of the early signs to conceptualize VR dining. So I would love to be on if anyone is doing a test, like if you need a test subject, I am fucking in it to win it. That's assuming that cheese is still involved. Like what if it's something else?

Like Dr. Sholes is probably the most pleasant way to eat your doctor. So if you if you eat your doctor.

Sholes Well, in a VR outer space setting, it's more fun than just eating for inserts inside of your butt.

Yeah. So OK, actually I would love as anyone out there have some grant money because I think I need some money to make this happen.

I'm feeling hungry and I'm feeling antsy to get out of my room. So let's put those together anyway. So that episode of VR eating is very possible. Yeah. How long.

Also another one is in twenty sixteen. There was an episode about the colonization of Mars and currently right now Elon Musk's Space X is developing Mars cargo flights. What should happen I think this year or maybe next year?

Oh God, I'm getting goose cam again. All of this is so freaky to think about. And they also have for twenty, twenty three, they're planning a citizen based trip around the moon and in twenty, twenty four there is a human mission to Mars planned.

I feel like I remember them like finding the people for that to remember that.

Why wasn't I called.

I wanted to ichi's up there when you and I were slated to be first pick. My doctor shows already why didn't they call me? Wait a minute, can you imagine you and I show up in our shoe inserts and we're like, we're ready for our trip.

So Christine would bring a camera, so vlog it on her YouTube.

I would like my wine bra and I don't think anyone would follow me. OK, the best part is if you're in, like, zero gravity, what's the wine bra up to? Oh, like in my man. Look, I'm going to have some floating home.

Not bad problems. You won't have that problem, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah, but so a lot of people a lot of people are saying that that's possible. Although if the episode itself came out in twenty sixteen, I'm sure there was already discussion that kind of prompted them to write the episode around that. So I also wonder if the if the writers themselves are doing a self-fulfilling prophecy based on current events. Sure.

I mean especially if they're going to places like Harvard they probably know about. Right. These science see things.

Also, I know one person, I think one of the executive producers said that they have to write out 10 months in advance because it takes about 10 months for a whole episode to go from. Oh, wow, it's very start point to being on the air. So they're writing scripts and probably having to predict, like, where will we be in just ten months, which isn't really that far away, but still in the future. So I imagine if they heard in twenty sixteen, like the talk of colonization on Mars, they were like, oh, maybe 10 months from now we've got like one more piece of.

Yeah, yeah. I mean so I wonder if that's how a lot of this did they predict coronavirus because we could have used it.

We could have used a little clue.

I have, I have a bullet about coronavirus. Oh OK. Real quick though, I'll say another thing that could still happen is hologram mail, which happens in an episode about the future where Bart gets like a Star Wars hologram message. Cool, which I am shocked doesn't happen, I think. Yeah, I think we kind of actually skyrocketed past that technology because now we've got like their face time and shit. Like you don't really need a hologram. I guess you don't need a prerecorded image of me when I can just literally call you and tell you, which is interesting because you think like what did they think would be the peak of technology at one point?

And you just totally flew past it. Totally. And season twenty three, Maggie, is also in the future. Maggie gets an ultrasound from a robot nurse. And right now, I mean, there are already medical robots. And we've all seen that video of the one like peeling grape skin and reselling it back on. I've never seen that. Oh, it's creepy.

It's that sounds very creepy.

I think it's to show, like, the Palek persuasion or something like how microscopic precision, because they literally take they do surgery on a grape or they peel off the skin and then they're able to sew the skin back on. Well, but so like there's already nurses who do that are the robot surgeons who do that. There's diagnostic robots. I mean, everything really is a robot these days.

If it's truly Futter, we don't even think about it necessarily as a robot, if it's like a computer, like you said.

But blazoned, we're talking about that, too, with with the pandemic now, I think they're trying to fast, not necessarily fast track, but like use these tools more like robotic. Yeah.

You could be away from other people and it's, well, more common.

Interestingly, a month before coronavirus was some was even mentioned in February, twenty twenty Japan started making plans to develop a medical robot for ultrasounds, just like how they mentioned in The Simpsons episode, specifically ultrasound robots that could work from people remotely so that people don't have to go into the they don't have to go into the hospital.

And so smart. It also reminds me of the first time I really got to know Blaze's personality because I'm a robot.

Where are you going with this?

Because remember, he bought himself like that like three hundred dollars stethoscope and he was like, it has Bluetooth. So you can you can send someone's like like numbers. Like I remember him being like, what if you were a doctor in Alaska and you can't get to a hospital right away? If you if the hospital's somewhere else and you can go check someone's heartbeat and then it can Bluetooth sync to the nearest hospital. Oh, this guy is fucking crazy about his stethoscope is his stethoscope, which he, by the way, lost.

And it was a big disaster. Yeah, it was bad. But also he has these tools for ultrasounds to wear like you can. It's all very high tech.

And I'm just like, baffled. He's like, oh, the doctors at your hospital don't use this when I go in for Remicade and stuff.

And I'm like, no, they literally have like a thermometer they put on my face, like there's nothing like and he goes to the emergency room with all this like weird tools and stuff.

But yeah, there's like I will say, I was I didn't even know that there could be a stethoscope that did that. So he did blow my mind and make me realize that there's medical instruments that are like far beyond my understanding. Yeah, totally. But but so anyway, the episode was about. Ultrasound robots, and now they're trying to actually make plans for ultrasound robots. Also, there was another episode where Homer invested all their money and having an underwater home and currently underwater lodging is kind of Bouman way, becoming a big travel destination.

There's a lot of like hotels that are now underwater.

I think it's something you would do. Yeah, yeah. There's I don't know if the whole hotel itself yet is, but they have like a special suite where it happens to go under the water. And you are basically your room is an aquarium or like how it give you so much anxiety. I would have dreams about the walls, like breaking in.

Oh, without question, I couldn't do it. But so apparently, like, they came up with that idea before this became a tourist attraction. Funny. And right now, Japan is trying to create the ocean spiral, which is sustainable housing underwater for hundreds of people at a time. Listen, that's wild. It's literally like an apartment complex underwater and it would be completely powered, I think, by like the ocean's energy. Sure.

I just love that we're like on one end we're going to Mars on the other and we're like, no, let's go further into the Earth. We're going high and we're going low and we're not staying here. That's for no, we're in between. And then the last one I want to say real quick is that there was an episode in twenty sixteen where it predicted that Ivanka Trump is going to run for president in twenty twenty eight. Great. And Homer was wearing in a Vanke twenty twenty eight campaign button store.

They have the specific gear on it. Oh yeah. So great, great, great. Then again, like that happened in twenty sixteen when Trump became president.

So I'm sure there was like a lot of talk about like oh I bet the rest of his family is going to show, you know, like anyway like I'm sure like when talk of Trump was here, that was also a great conversation. So they potentially prophesies that Ivanka will be running for president. And as for covered, a lot of people ended up falling for a meme that got created that implied that The Simpsons productive covid. It was like a bunch of different clips, all kind of mashed together to show you different parts of the episode that that into that covid.

But it was actually apparently a compilation of different episodes about just general cold. Somebody has too much time on their hands. Yeah.

So it wasn't they did not predict covid, but someone is putting information out there making it look like they did. But one executive producer named Bill Oakley, this is his quote when asked about the stuff, he says it's mainly just coincidence because episodes are so old that history repeats itself, which makes sense if it's been around for that long. At some point you can start picking up patterns, I think. Yeah. And then a writer alguien said if you make enough predictions, then 10 percent will turn out to be right, which I think is kind of cool.

And I went to Harvard, so you can't challenge my statistics. I am a Harvard mathematician 10 percent of the time I'm always right. And then the last thing I want to say is if you wanted to see these episodes for yourself. Disney Plus has a playlist collection called The Simpsons Predicts For Real. And I don't know if all of the episodes are on there, but at least a chunk of them are all episodes with little clips where things have been predicted over time.

So I didn't know. Anyway, those are the predictions from The Simpsons.

Wow, that was so cool. I thank you. Oh, that gave you the shivers. I'm good. That's fascinating. I'm telling you. I mean, it's it makes sense, though, like if you went to Harvard. So you're clearly smart. You're clearly now educated and you're writing like satirical comedy. So you're like supposed to be a judge of character. You probably have a very smart outlook on how the world is going to go.

I would also think, because a lot of people say when it comes to The Simpsons, if people are like, oh, I don't get their humor, people say, well, you have to be like really smart to keep up with it or like next level. Yeah, yeah. So like, I would imagine that they're so I watched it when I was five because you were a fucking genius. I didn't get it.

Oh hello. But but no. So I mean it. Yeah, it definitely makes sense that it's like all of the writers really prioritize academia and critical thinking. Then why wouldn't something that they come up with probably come true. Yeah, no, it makes total sense.

So now I mean, then again, maybe he is a time traveler and he was like, I know how to make the longest running show in history.

I mean, I'm not in academia. So, like, I think for sure he's a time it makes without passion. That makes more sense to me.

And that's the only logical explanation. I'm saying that groaning and Marty McFly are the same person, and that's that's the end. That's a dissertation from Harvard.

And that's the final line of this episode. That's the thesis statement. Oh, OK. Wow. Well, that was fun. I have actually speaking of kind of like a wild ride, I have like a wild ride of a tail here for you. This is the story of Mirriam Rodriguez. And it's a it's a pretty newly broken story. So it's like kind of guess who guess who said this to me and said you should cover this. Take one.

Guess your mother Apple. Oh, really?

Yeah. She doesn't even text me. What are they talking about. Oh bullshit. Yeah.

No, she texted me an article from the New York Times and said, like, you should cover this.

And I was I read it and I was like holy cannoli.

I would have never guessed it was Alice. I was about to say, like the name back to you that you just told me, like Mary Rodriguez or whatever you want to say.

Yeah. She told you called me herself. Yeah. She was like New York Times. I got Christine Cheever on speed dial. We got to tell my story.

Oh, God. What if it was The Simpsons, they predicted all of it. Matt Groening actually called you and said, like, you're hot off the press, read all about it, I'll throw you a bone.

So this is a pretty new. So Alison suggested this and sent me the New York Times article. So most of the info is from that article.

It was like a really big piece. It's super well done and well written. And some of the pictures that will be in the video are from there as well.

And then the rest is just taken from other news sources pretty much.

But New York Times basically like made this big headlines.

So nine years ago, on January twenty third, 2012, the world of the Rodriguez family of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, was turned upside down.

Dun, dun, dun. So, Karen Alejandro, there's a lot of names that I might mispronounce and I apologize, just a heads up cool.

Karen Alejandro, Selena Rodriguez, who is 20 years old, was in her pickup truck about to merge into traffic when two trucks pulled up on either side, stopping her armed men forced their way into her truck and took off with her in the backseat.

Oh, it was the. Zetas drug cartel lost that. Oh, I know them well, I know. They also called me, you know, they were like, don't mention us. I have a lot of friends. And I'm like, let me see how to pronounce it. Yeah. Los Zetas.

OK, so they are they were once an armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, but they're a Mexican criminal syndicate regarded as one of Mexico's most dangerous drug cartels, and they are known for their brutally violent torture tactics. Sometimes they even the sounds to me like a criminal minds episode. They even organized death matches between the innocent people they had kidnapped. Are entertainment like made them like fight to the death of people and kidnapped.

Oh, yeah, and that actually is a criminal minds episode, so maybe Criminal Minds also predicts the future.

Wait a minute, maybe Matt Groening also has a true crime podcast and then just turned it into a TV show and called The Criminal Minds and then went back to Futurama. Was that too much? No, it was, though. It was the right amount.

Just I just close my eyes and kept walking with you. I don't know where we are. You close your eyes and you're like your head, kind of like bobbing around, like trying to figure it out.

Am I wine slashing left and right? And you're just dragging me along. You know what?

Everything I said makes the most sense to me. And you can't take that from me. So thank you.

And I won't even try. Instead, I'll read the next bullet. Thank you. Death Match.

So according to a 20/20 article in the Irish Times, more than two hundred and fifty thousand people have been killed and sixty thousand have disappeared, quote unquote, since former President Felipe Calderon launched the so-called drug war in 2006.

Wait, and all of them are thought to be involved with that, not that specific cartel, but just within the sphere of like drug cartels and the war on drugs. Those are like the casualties. I was like, Jesus Christ.

I mean, they are real bad, like real bad. But yeah, that was the total number.

So Low said to us, we're so feared that Karen, who was just kidnapped by them, her older brother Lewis, had actually moved away to escape the danger. But Karen had stayed to finish school and help her mother run her shop, which was a cowboy apparel shop called Rodeo Boots.

Oh, yeah.

So she stayed to help her mom run the shop and finish her school. And unfortunately. That she was it so 2012 specifically was a very, very dark time in San Fernando, many bars and restaurants had closed out of a fear of shootouts and get this, mass graves were so common that finding fewer than 20 remains at a time was barely worth the headline.

Hmm. Yeah. Oh, my God. It was just a war zone. Like it was just terrorises.

OK, Lozito would snatch innocent people for ransom to finance their war or they would kidnap them to conscript them basically for their side. So they would like kidnap them and then force them to join them while in their gang.

Wow.

Karen, unfortunately, had become their latest target, but oddly enough, she ended up unexpectedly not being the only person to disappear that day.

So they took her from her truck, drove her to her family's home, where Karen lived during the week while her mom was away.

She her mom worked as a nanny in Texas during the week. So her mom would be gone during the week. And Karen would like watch the house basically.

So they took her to her house.

And while she was on the living room floor, laying there, bound and gagged, somebody knocked at the door. And it was a mechanic who had unfortunately picked the wrong time to come work on the family truck, right?

Yes. I mean, out of a fucking movie. So he comes knocks on the door.

The kidnappers panic and grab him, too. And then they flee with the both of them.

That poor fucking guy I know. So the Rodriguez's were soon contacted by Karen's kidnappers, asking them for two thousand dollars.

And so the cartel ended up, like I said, they didn't expect to kidnap this mechanics', so they just ended up letting him go. He wasn't their target, so they kept care.

Sukie, I know who sent a message to Karen's family. So this was all very planned out. So they sent a message to Karen's family asking for two thousand dollars.

So Mr. Rodriguez, Karen's mother, Miriam, questioned this mechanic in detail about everything he had heard or seen during the brief time that he was with them and alongside Karen.

And then Miriam took out a loan from a bank that offered lines of credits for such payments. So I guess this is just the ransom loan bank. Yeah. Yes.

And she and her husband followed all the instructions. He dropped off the bag of cash near the health clinic that they had asked him to drop the cash off at. And then he waited at the local cemetery for the kidnappers to free Karen.

But shockingly, not shockingly, Karen never came.

So that was basically the start of this horribly torturous, like endless back and forth negotiation between the family and the cartel.

The weeks that followed were like I mean, it was like very, very heartbreaking. And I read there was I think it was a New York Times article, but they talked about like how when somebody disappears from your family or like a loved one disappears, you don't even get that closure or that grief process that like people do if someone dies because you get strung along by hope and it ends up just crushing you because you're like up and down and up and down, like any second they could come home.

Right? Right. And you can't let go.

You can't get closure in that way.

So anyway, it was horrible back and forth negotiation. There were calls, threats, false promises. They made more money. They kept sending more money. But the Rodriguez family, like, couldn't give up on their daughter. They just thought, like, maybe this time they'll actually take the money and give her back. So one day, sick and tired of getting nowhere in the plea to have her daughter returned, Miriam Rodriguez decided she was going to just reach out to the cartel and ask them to meet up.

And they were like, sure, get together, have a cup of coffee or something legitimately.

So to her shock and to my shock, they were like, yeah, sure, let's get together.

So my shock. Yeah. So she waited at a restaurant downtown called El.

Oh God, El Honiara.

It's like junior aloha until she was joined by a slender man wearing not slender man.

OK, I was like this took quite a turn. Can you imagine a slender man ran the cartel. Oh my God.

And also a moth man. Oh my God. He runs the competing cartel, you know, so this this kind of lanky man shows up.

He's wearing a walkie talkie. And he sits down across from her, so she spends the time, like begging him to release her daughter and he has his little radio, his walkie talkie, that's kind of burbling, I don't know the right word, like it's kind of talking on and off, gurgling, gurgling, babbling.

I don't know whether it's muttering, muttering something, talking itself away, kind of like we do.

I was going to say so the man insisted that the cartel did not have her daughter, but he offered to help find her for a fee of two thousand dollars.

So Miss Rodriguez agreed to pay, even though she didn't have much hope that this was true.

And as he left through the static of his burbling radio, she heard someone call him by his name and his name was Samah. OK, so this is just like an origin story for you. It feels like it's all right. It's like dramatic. We've got a clue and obviously I'm not right.

Exactly. I'm not doing the doing the New York Times article Justice, obviously, but it's really well done.

So although Miriam does send him the two thousand dollars after a week, he just completely stops answering her calls. So again, just more money lost and no hope left. She instead starts being bombarded with other people claiming to be the kidnappers. I mean, this is where you just see, like, the worst of humanity, like people just taking advantage of this. People just want your money. Yeah.

And calling and saying like, no, no, we know where she is. Give us the money. And they'd say things like just five hundred dollars and the Rodriguez family couldn't.

Stop, they just kept sending it because they thought, like maybe this is the real one. Yeah, yeah. Think of how fast like you could get cleaned out. Yes. Like maybe one of these people is telling the truth.

Exactly. And so they kept sending it to everybody that asked, but they said the money anyway is a new burst of hope would fill Mirriam every time she sent a payment and then it would be crushed again when there was no call back and no sign of Karen.

Hmm.

So by this point, Miriam, who was actually already separated from her husband, actually moved in with her older daughter, Azalea Azalea recalls one morning, a few weeks after the last payment, that her mother came down the stairs and told her very like matter of factly, very calmly said, Karen is never coming back and there's little chance she's alive.

And then she said that she wouldn't stop until she found the people who had taken her daughter and she would hunt them down until the day she died.

OK, just very matter of fact. Yeah.

So Miriam didn't have much to go off, but she did have her first clue. SERTOMA Yes.

So she took that and then she took all the information that the mechanic had told her about anything he could remember from being in that scenario.

And she then did a very Christine move and got on Facebook and started to stalk their social media.

I mean, what else do you do at that point? Right. What other resource do you have?

Like, she already met up with the guy in person, like, yeah. At this point, social media is probably the only the best.

But so basically, she just needed to find whoever the Somma character was. She needs to find him.

So she started sleuthing social media hours upon hours.

She scroll through Karen's Facebook profile looking for any clues of how she might have been stalked or connected to those people. And then one morning, her sleuthing leads her to a Facebook photograph tagged with the name Samah.

And it was the same fucking guy.

She recognized his his like lanky build his clean shaven face. She was like, that's the guy I met with.

So finally she had that like Slenderman blood narad. Yeah. My coffee date. Yes.

So she she picked she picked up on this immediately and was like, OK, so first step in her hunt.

So standing beside him in the photo that she found was a young woman and she was wearing the uniform of an ice cream shop that was two hours away in a different city.

This is Christine.

It's like if Christine I was like, yes, girl. It's like if Christine and Liam Neeson got together to do like they would have taken. That's just I got goose cam for real that this is not taken. But Christine files for Christine Romans.

The Christine said the problem is it would be the worst movie because I would literally just be on Instagram and do it.

Just do you want to it would be you on a couch scrolling through Facebook.

And I'd be like three fourths of the whole episode and downloading, like because so when I was in oh, God, like a preteen, I got really good at, like scouring like county files, like county tax files.

It's like really a problem.

Like I developed quite I mean, to be fair, I finally got my kind of comeuppance when I got that P.I. job and I was like I was going to say, this is again your Liam Neeson, because you're like, I have a very specific set of skills that nobody taught me and nobody should know.

And here I am and nobody cares about because they're not going to help you in life at all.

And yet, if you need to know all about a county clerk from fired five years ago, I will teach you everything I know.

I got you, man. I got you.

I so I was just like, yes, Mirriam, get it. Because I was like, that's exactly how you do this shit. So she sees the woman he's with and she has this uniform on and it's an ice cream shop.

So she finds the ice cream shop. It's two hours away so. Oh my God, I just love this one. So. What she does. What am I already lost my spot. Oh, my God. Ice cream. So worked up ice cream. You remember Liam Neeson? Yeah. Oh, OK.

So instead of calling the police, Meryem decides she's just going to keep taking listener into her own hands. Mean she's going to get some like Liam Neeson. Exactly.

You're not letting me have this moment here. But yet every other sentence you say confirms my point here.

Yes. Miriam Neeson, OK. Yes, there it is. It's all I wanted.

And you can have it. So she drives to this shop two hours away and stocks the ice cream store for four weeks until she fully has memorized this woman's working schedule.

And then she waits outside during her shifts until one day Somma shows up to meet his girlfriend at the ice cream shop.

Oh, my gosh.

So she follows a couple of home, writes down their address. I just love this because she doesn't, like, confront them. She just like does sleuthing from the back.

She lets she lets life do what it's going to do. She's an observer.

So that was bold for her with one picture to assume that they were dating or would ever see each other again, though, because I know I would have felt like, OK, well, they were in a picture together, like I'm in a picture with a lot of people like, well, I mean, really, she probably had from that picture she had their profile, so maybe she could tell me what he meant because he was passionate.

Uh huh, yeah. I'm not positive. But I was shocked because I was like dating. I was like, that's a that's a leap to be.

He'll definitely be the ice cream shop at some. Totally.

I was thinking the same thing. Yeah. I'm wondering if, like, maybe who knows what the caption was or maybe. Yeah I don't know.

But she says, I love my slender man, especially when I work from two to six every Thursday at this ice cream shop. His favorite is mint chocolate chip. And also our address is that we have your child also.

Here's your daughter and all your money back. Right.

So she follows them to their house, writes down their address, and she then contacted the police to let them know if her findings just be like, I'll let you in on my intel.

But they said in order for them to do anything, she needs more than an address.

She needs a name. So, yeah, so she knows Samah, but that's it, she doesn't, I guess, know any more detail about this and they need, like, his identity in order to go get him.

So she's like, all right, fine.

So she cuts her hair and it bright red.

Good night. So that Samah won't recognize her. And then she finds a government uniform that she happened to have kept from an old low level job at the health ministry, which again sounds very, Christine, because I'm a nut who keeps everything.

If there was just a case, if there was a uniform you got, you own it.

To this day, if there's like a uniform from an ice cream shop, I got I probably still. Oh, my God. I literally still have my my hat from Chipotle.

That's pretty cool, though, to be fair. I was like, no one else gets one of these.

No, that's actually pretty cool unless you've earned your place above the corn salsa.

Oh yeah, once. So when we left L.A., Blaze was leaving his job at the hospital there, obviously. And I was like, oh, he's like, I'm going to throw these scrubs away. And I was like, no, I want to keep them. He's like, why? I was like, I don't know. And I still have them. And I'm like, What am I supposed to do with these? I don't know.

But I have them just in case, like, it's really silly.

But my my mom, she's about to change out the flooring in the basement and it's the same carpet since we moved in and 96.

And so I told her I was like, can you cut a square out for me? And she was like, what will you do with this? And I was like, you don't need to know. And I don't even need it now. So I just want it. I don't need to just cut me a square. I don't know why you can't just say yes and move on. That's all I want.

M and I are highly sentimental people. I don't think you've noticed everybody.

It's it's one of those things where it's like we would neither of us know what we're going to do with our carpet or our scrubs, certainly. But in the middle of the night, one night we're going to figure it out and it's going to be so fucking genius.

It will be. I mean, listen, if Miriam needed it to literally capture these murderers, like who knows what a carpet might do?

Well, even like my so my my grandpa who passed away, his wife always saved all of his ties after he died. And so I guess this year for Christmas, it hasn't gotten to me yet. But apparently she made each of the grandkids a pillow out of all of his tie. That is so cute. So like, imagine you can do a scrubs because those are much fatter than ties. Thank you.

I mean, I hope he doesn't die because I don't want to I don't want to reason to make a sentimental item with it.

But I'm just saying you could make it for the cats and be like, that is a great idea.

Halloween costumes. Listen, the options are endless. If you have any, tweet them at me.

Unless you could be Liam Neeson and a hospital, you could just I could show up to a hospital and say, I am Liam Neeson and you could just wear the scrubs and go on Facebook and you have your whole costume right there. There we go.

Listen, I could impersonate plays and I've done it. It's fun. You have done it.

That's true. Well, you want to do it again because I have like six pages. I was going to say with his name on it, only if I can have the three hundred dollars stethoscope with my costume this time. Oh, man. Well, it's in the streets of L.A. somewhere because it got lost, so you could probably find it. I'll do some some dumpster diving.

OK, anyway, so she has this uniform from an old like low level job that she's kept miraculously.

So she dies, her hair red puts on this uniform, somehow gets her hands on like a fake official looking ID, and she starts conducting a fake poll of sama's neighborhood to get his basic information.

And with this information now, she goes to the authorities, local, state and federal with his identity. But no one will fucking help her. She has like a whole, like laptop, laptop bag full of files. They describe her as a she looked like a door to door sales person. She went from person to person and was like, please help me. And she was not taking no for an answer, but everybody was telling her no.

Eventually, she finds a federal police officer willing to assist, and this man has remained anonymous because he said he's not allowed to speak publicly. But he was quoted in the article as saying when she pulled her files onto the table, I had never seen anything like it. The details and information gathered by this woman working all alone were incredible. She had gone to every single level of government and they had slammed the door in her face to help her hunt down the people who took her daughter.

It was the greatest privilege of my career was.

So first of all, that sounds like how anyone would tell me and even talk about you after you do the most basic Instagram people. You're like, find this person based on this side profile.

And I'm like, here's their Social Security.

Literally seen you go off of someone's eye color and first name and find everything one could know about them. So, yeah, I would be really impressed. It's a really big compliment. I appreciate it if I feel like I wasted so many hours of my life developing those skills and when I was not hanging out at parties in high school.

So I appreciate the the kindness toward them.

Oh, my gosh. So then. She finally got this guy to help her, but at this point, it was too late because this MFR sama had left town so he didn't live there anymore.

So she was like, well, should I went through all the trouble to get his address? And now he's gone. So she was frustrated, heartbroken, like annoyed. But she was like, well, I'm going to keep going. So Miriam continued with her social media Stockey skills, and she tried to identify the rest of the crew. And soon enough, she had a stack of photos of Osama posing with other people, so she kind of gathered like his friend group.

And found the identities of these other people, he was spending time with his homies, Studley, and then on September 15, 2014, which is the eve of Mexican Independence Day, the wild shit happens like this is where the universe was like, OK, Miriam, I'll throw you a bone.

So Miriam Rodriguez's son, Luis, was closing down his own shop in Ciudad Victoria to attend the Independence Day festivities with his family, which is like street parties, parades, fireworks. So he's closing down his shop and he notices one last customer who's browsing the section. And it was a young, slender man.

And he looks at him and he's like, holy shit, that's that Somma guy my mom is trying to track down. And he just happens to be in his shop like he's just wandering the hat. I'll watch.

OK, so they're celebrities. They're just like, you know, browsing the fedoras just like me. Oh, my God. So, yeah.

So he goes, holy shit, that's the guy my mom is like trying to find so really stealthily. Lewis follows him home, careful not to lose him and then obviously has called police as well to say, like, I've spotted this guy, come get him. So he follows him home and the police arrest Somma in the central plaza. So they fucking nailed him. Wow. When they were arrested, it was kicking and screaming. And he claimed he had a heart condition, which I don't think is even true, and was basically like freaking out.

And they were able to bring him to the police station unscathed and in custody.

He actually filled in details missing from Miss Rodriguez's investigation. He revealed some of the names and locations of accomplices that she had gotten photos of.

And so finally, she's filling in the gaps of like what she could get from social media and now what he's telling her or telling the police.

So one of the names was this kid basically named Chris Kristian Jose Zapata Gonzalez, an 18 year old. He had just turned 18. So he had been a teenager, which is just very sad. And he was terrified during this police questioning. And Mr. Rodriguez sat outside the interrogation room with a friend and she was watching this go on. And the teenager asked if he could see his mother and then he told the officer he was hungry. So Miriam touched, entered the room and gave the teenager her own fried chicken lunch and then left to buy him a Coke and came back to bring him a Coke.

And the officer was like, What are you doing, Miriam? Like, we're trying to interrogate this guy. You're feeding him chicken.

And I'm also sorry. No, no, no, no, no.

It was not important when I said, well, when you first said that she gave him her fried chicken, I was like, that's not even just like a normal lunch. That's not a baloney sandwich. Yeah. Yeah, that's not that's not your average Joe, you know, Caesar salad. That's that's the creme de la creme. And that's not an extra. That's her lunch, too.

Yeah. Like you should have you should have given it to him after he solely found your child. Yeah.

What's it like. Dangled in front of him and said like this is for. Yeah exactly. But it worked because he's like this officer is like what the hell are you doing Miriam.

And she replied that this boy was still a child no matter what he did and I am still a mother, which makes me tear up. So we're going to keep going.

That's such a that's such a kind of wonderful maternal way to look at it. Right. It's so powerful in a space where I don't have the instincts for that yet. So, yeah, totally would have never thought that way. Wow.

Well, you and I, giving up our fried chicken is not going to happen. We don't give each other fried chicken unless you have a million dollars in that sweet little pocket of yours. You are not touched by your fried chicken, right. To replace the fried chicken about to lose. I don't even eat fried chicken. But the thought is just like so disheartening. I literally while you were talking, I without even thinking because I'm at home and able to use my laptop right now without even thinking I have shown up at Postmus because it just appeared.

It's like eating well. Think we're we're doing this like lunchtime my time and I without even thinking about Freudian, I am about to apparently order some fried chicken after this.

I tell you guys we can kill em. Priddis I know em wants to be so simple.

I would like to work. The death of hours is food related. That's pretty telling.

I think it really I mean, it's I do think about like in terms of like, oh, how easy would it be for someone to get me.

So I like it's embarrassing how it would be difficult to keep me alive, right.

Yeah. Yeah. I hear these stories and I'm like, I can't relate to any of this because my instincts are so bad. I would probably just like sit on base survival. I'd be too scared to call somebody as Miriam. So I would just sit at home and find their Facebook can be like, welp, then I can't make a phone call because I have anxiety. Time be more Choucoune. Time to eat my. Fried chicken. So she basically says, I'm still a mother and he's still a child, which is just like putting yourself above the whole situation and it's just so heartbreaking.

And her generosity worked in her favor because after eating and accepting her lunch, Christiane told them everything. He said that Mexican Marines had killed six of the other accomplices of Karens, kidnapping and murder. But he said, I'm willing to take you to the ranch where they killed them and where their bodies should still be buried.

Well, so he led them to an abandoned ranch.

And I'm going to put the photo up in the YouTube video at the end of a dirt road where a tractor barked a grave site. And so Miriam was obviously there with the search party and they found bones of varying sizes. They found bullet holes on the outer walls of the house.

There was a noose hanging from a tree branch nearby. Yeah, I mean, really disturbing imagery.

They also found a stack of personal belongings. And amongst the debris, Miriam found Karen's scarf and she was like, she oh, no.

It's just that, like, sinking feeling. Yeah. So she finds her scarf. She also finds a seat cushion from Karen's truck. So she's like she was here. But forensic agents claim Karen was not among the dozens of bodies they had identified at the ranch. But seeing the scarf and knowing what she knows Merriam's like, no, no, I don't believe you.

My daughter has to be here. Right. She was definitely here at some point. Exactly. There's no chance that she made it and nobody else does or the her scarf made there and she didn't or. Yeah, it's just like her her fucking seat got here, but every part of her. Yeah, exactly. So she's like, no, no, I'm going to dispute you on this.

And so I put a little less than three symbol next to this bullet, like a little heart, like a large part, because it says a lot of officials had grown tired with Miriam Rodriquez's pushy attitude.

They said she swore a lot and had a foul manner about her. And I'm like, yeah, I would, yeah, I have one. And I don't even have a daughter to look for, like bingo.

Yeah, it would be weird if she didn't have a she attitude or whatever she was like. That's fine. Never mind. Totally. She has a pushy attitude, but she's like giving fried chicken to like a little boy.

I mean, she's not a fucking terrible person like this just makes me mad. Yeah.

So apparently they said they, they, I think I'm going to read this book in a minute, but they said they didn't like her but they respected her, which I was like, OK, that's pretty badass I guess. Yeah. You know, like I'll take it. Yeah. So as we already suspected, Miriam was right. The following year, a group of scientists found a piece of femur bone belonging to her daughter at there.

Oh, so she was right. And the officials, like I said, begin to respect her because now she's like right about all of this. And she's basically moving this investigation forward herself.

And they didn't particularly like her, but they did respect her. And Miss Gloria Garza, an official in the state government, said, quote, Not everyone got along with her, but you respected her mission. I mean, how could you not?

So now this is where it gets even just wilder. So on the drive back from the ranch, Miss Rodriguez passed. Miriam passed a barbecue restaurant near the entrance of the dirt road that led to the ranch. And she recognized this place.

It's like sort of a flashback. She remembered having eaten there with her daughter Azalea, only two days after Karen disappeared. And at the time, there was a neighborhood resident there. Her name is Elvia Ulis.

Uli's up. Batan caught Betancourt and she had been seated at a table by herself drinking a soda. And so Miriam is remembering like two days after Karen disappeared, she was there with her older, her other daughter and she saw this neighbor of theirs that she had known since she was a kid, like she had known this woman since she was a child. And this woman, Elvia, had been abandoned by her mother, who was a sex worker at the local brothel.

And Miriam actually used to give Elvia Karens old clothes to help her support her as she was growing up. So it was like she was the wow, the young woman that what a nice woman turns.

So every time I'm, like, waiting for her to like. SNAP, and it's like I would be totally justifiable, but every little piece, I mean, I know that one was a part of her past, but I'm like, when does she become when does she have one bad flaw? I have seen such a good movie.

It's like she's a vigilante, but like with a heart of gold, you just want her to win.

You just want her to win. Totally.

So she recognizes.

So this is she's having this flashback moment when she sees this restaurant near the ranch and she's like, I remember I was there with Azealia and I saw this woman, LBA. And so that day Miss Miriam had gone and said hello to Elvia and had said, have you heard about the news about Karen disappearing? And everyone had heard this news. It's not a big town at all. And Elvia goes, no, I don't know anything about it.

And she is thinking back now.

I literally have goose canvasing whether she's singing back now in this flashback. Like, it always struck me as weird that she acted like she had never heard this news, even though everybody knew about it. Right. Yeah.

And now she's putting these pieces together of like this is right next to the ranch where my daughter's body was found. This woman was acting so weird and like knew the family, knew our family and acted like she hadn't heard anything about her disappearance.

So, I mean, a lot of dots to connect that are very far apart where I'm like, holy crap. So after driving by this restaurant, she starts to think maybe LBA knew something.

Maybe she was even sitting in that restaurant to alert the cartel if the police were coming to the ranch, like maybe she was a lookout type person.

Uh huh. OK, so Miriam Raices home. She dives back into her research, aka social media, and she discovers that Sylvia was indeed romantically involved with one of Karen's kidnappers.

Why? I know. Oh, I don't if I can see the goose. Yeah, right, it's no, it's like a shivery and this guy, this kidnapper was already in prison for an unrelated crime, but so she confirmed that Elvia was indeed most likely had some intel. So what she did is just like the ice cream shop. She waited outside of the prison during visiting hours every single day, waiting for Elvia to come visit her boyfriend in jail.

Wow. And one day, such a bad day.

I'm sorry. You know, I'm like she's like, well, I guess we're doing the waiting game again. I guess I got to sit in my car and she's fucking rocking it. I mean, this woman. OK, I'm sorry.

Such a bad no. Truly like.

Oh my. Yeah. So she sits outside until Elvia finally shows up and calls police and is like founder. And so police show up and literally take her in.

And then they also discover that some of the ransom calls had actually been had actually come from Sylvia's house. So like this woman, the hell she had like, clothed her as a child and is now what I was going to say the B word.

But what what about what a what a big butthead. What a what a what a booty head. You know, a big booty hit. Yes. Wow. Like I mean, yeah.

The someone who was like actually tended to you and been there and taken care of you when your mother abandoned you like oh my God that is horrible.

OK, so they take her and find out that the ransom calls had come from her house and Miriam keeps going on our mission.

She's just like left and right, just like put them away, put them away.

She's like, I'll fucking handle it. Don't worry. You sit still. No one else is doing it, so I'll do it. I'll text you when I find them to use. Some of the culprits were already dead.

Like I said, this was a very hostile and violent time in the area. Others were in jail, so she was looking for anyone who was still alive or still out on the street. And a lot of them had actually already started doing trying to forge a new life, either taxi driving, delivering gas, just being in sales or nannying. And so this made it extra difficult because they had basically started leading new lives and had gotten their way out of the gang.

So.

Basically, her entire mission wasn't her entire mission basically turned this town like upside down, so her friends at some points, which understandably they were worried about her and they were like, maybe she's taking this too far.

This is like the most dangerous gang in Mexico. And she's just, like, asking them for coffee and following them home, like.

Right. I mean, understandably, they were nervous, but one of her friends recalls her saying, I don't care if they kill me, I die the day they killed my daughter. I want to end this. I'm going to take out the people who hurt my daughter and they can do whatever they want to me.

I mean, truly, like I mean, that's a mom right there. Right. That's just like I mean, I'd do anything for my kid. Yep.

Yep. It's who it's chivalry. So she's like, thanks for your concern, but I'm going to keep going. So this peace and blessings. But I'm on my way.

Thoughts and prayers to you and yours. I'm going to keep on my merry way. Yeah.

So she keeps fucking going and the whole town is like on edge now because she's like I guess it was like unheard of that you go publicly and go after a gang in Mexico like there was a silent agreement.

You don't mess with them, they don't mess with you. But no, she's just like flying in the face of that and saying she's just poking the bear.

Exactly. Exactly.

So her next target was a guy named Enrique Youghal. Oh, got I'm saying that wrong. Rubio Flores, who was a born again Christian living in Aldama, a small town of about 13000 people.

Miriam tracked down his grandmother and paid her visit, and Miriam told her about the situation and according to Atlanta News, now the grandmother with a heavy sigh, told her that the boy had always been trouble, but at least now he was going to church, because when when I first heard that, I was thinking like, oh, if you tell grandma what he's up to, he's going to get in fuckin trouble.

But then it was like Grandma was like, yeah, that checks out. Yeah, he was a shame. Yeah, it is a shame.

So guess where Miriam went. She went to church. She went to his mom.

She just went to every single church and waited every single day. Right. For all the mass times to figure out when exactly he'd be there. Yeah.

So the grandma was like, at least he's going to church and she's like, okay, cool. Where does he go to church? And she's like, yeah, this place down the road. So she goes to his church and she starts attending service at the chapel. And sure enough, she sees him there and calls the police and she's found another one.

So the police come and arrest him inside the chapel and nobody could believe like what was going on because again, he was a reformed man.

And one of the parishioners actually asked Miriam for mercy, like, where's your mercy?

But according to her family, who had actually come with her to the church, she firmly replied, where was his compassion when they killed my daughter?

Oh, yeah. Bingo. Right. Where where's your mercy? It's like mercy. Yeah. No, I don't. I don't know her. What are you talking about. Right.

It's just so wild to me. So the investigation continued. And according to The New York Times, this is like just I think the best way to sum this up, quote, Miriam cut her hair, dyed it, disguised herself as a pollster, a health worker, an election official to get names and addresses. She invented excuses to meet their families, unsuspecting grandmothers and cousins who gave her details, however small, she knew their habits, friends, hometowns, childhood's, end quote.

It's just so cool.

Her next target was a man she had been hunting for a year. And this is kind of where things turn.

So she is where things turn. They turn like back to, I don't know, in a big circle. It's just all so chaotic.

They turn 360 degrees 180, they turn into a big tornado and everything just goes everywhere.

OK, so her next target was this man. She'd been hunting him for a year and she had interrogated the criminals he had worked with to find his whereabouts and had even befriended some of his relatives for clues. So she discovered that he was actually working in Texas as a florist. Which he had actually done before joining the Zeta cartel and getting involved in her daughter's kidnapping, so he was on the run and now he's back to selling flowers, which is what he had done before.

So apparently, as soon as she discovered his whereabouts, she woke up without even getting showered, addressed through a trench coat over her pajamas, a baseball cap over her like still bright red hair, put a gun in her purse and headed for the border to find this shooter.

There's no time to waste, just like she's here. My go get my galoshes. Get a great hat. We're on our way out of my rain hat over. I'm picturing like Paddington Bear now. I have to I was a bit like with like a machine gun. All of us like Mama Bear, but Paddington Bear like my shotgun.

I'm like Paddington Bear. But after puberty where he's, like, buffed out, it's like maternity ed.. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. However you need it. Yes.

Oh, beautiful. So so she takes a gun. She gets the border on the bridge. She's scouring the vendors for flower carts. But apparently he's selling sunglasses this day.

But she she sees him and she gets too excited and too close. And apparently he recognises her and runs. So he sprints along the narrow pedestrian path trying to get away.

And Miriam, who at this time, by the way, is 56, grabs him by the shirt, wrestles him to the rails, jams handgun into his back and says, if you move, I'll shoot you. Wow. And by the way, her family members are with her again.

They're just like going with her. Here's Juniper, by the way.

Her family members are just going with her to all of these places and being like, mom, be careful.

And she's like running out with a handgun. I mean, it sounds almost like a National Lampoon situation of like, oh, we're all on a family holiday spring break. Yeah, but the only reason we're even at the spring break is because we have to go find this murderer. And also off there goes mom again with the gun. You gave mom a gun to come down. Wow. And also, what a full circle because, I mean, truly and look at it in a movie sense of storytelling.

It's like this was such a lovely, nice woman who donates close ups, children. And now all of a sudden she's like on the outskirts of town with a vigilante throwing a gun into someone's back looking for her kid.

Oh, yeah, it's so badass. And like, you're right. You're like so root for her.

Both character development.

Character development. You ever heard of it? Simpsons writers. Yeah.

OK, check it out next time you're in the future tonight, bring it back here because we need it.

OK, so she wrestles him to the ground or to the rails, jams a handgun to his back, says if you move, I'll shoot you.

And apparently she held him there for nearly an hour waiting for the police to arrive, which I can only imagine the hour of like holding a gun to him and being like, nope, we're still sitting here.

That's like that. Like Mom lifting a bus. Yeah, kids. Totally. The adrenaline must have just been insane.

Yeah, totally. Mama bear. No joke. Don't mess mess. So Myriam's campaign unfortunately took a turn for the worse because in March of twenty seventeen, nearly two dozen prisoners escaped the penitentiary in Ciudad Victoria, where Mr. Rodriguez had put away her daughter's killer. So several of the people she'd already put away escape from jail. Sorry.

So she has to go back out and do this. You let them you let them go. It's like mouse trap. You know, you had one job. I got him for you usually through like I put them here just like close the door.

And so naturally, she became worried because she is becoming, you know, expectedly Los Zetas is number one enemy. So she asked the government for protection. And so the police are like, oh, yeah, we'll send periodic patrols to your home and work. And she's like, OK, thank you.

Thank you for the bare minimum. Thank you. So that's not what I want. It's not going to work. But thanks, guys.

Yeah, so she's frustrated by their inaction, but she still kept going like she didn't stop her rogue mission.

So she my God, this is just she decides to find her next target. And it's a young woman who had left town and begun working as a live in nanny for a family in Ciudad Victoria.

And classic Mirriam literally sits outside this house in her car for several days, waiting for the young woman to leave.

At this point, at this point, it really is classic. Mariam, like she said, she's she's got one one real tell all.

And it's when she's sitting and waiting for days to figure out a schedule she's in that she's in that Acura out front.

And you're like, oh, mom, my gosh.

So she set literally in her car to the point that she was urinating in cups like she didn't leave the car.

She apparently ran her car battery down, listening to the radio in the dark. So much so that Luis had to come sneak onto the street to jump her car.

Was it OK, Mom? That's just like. Like the quirky little sidekick that shows up every day, he's seen I going to put my galoshes on. She spots the woman leaving the house.

Finally, after several days, police get her. But while Miriam is excitedly running to the scene, she breaks her foot and fractures her foot.

So a couple a month later, she's still wearing her cast and using crutches. And on Mother's Day, May 10th, which is Mother's Day in Mexico, as Miriam exited her car at ten twenty one p.m. on her crutches, a white Nissan truck carrying men who had escaped the prison in March quietly pulled up behind her. According to the police report, they fired 13 rounds and she died instantly.

Wow, that is not the ending, I expect. I know that was where my heart just sank into my stomach.

Well, OK, so is that a vendor situation almost horribly, her husband, who was inside watching TV, found her face down outside their house on the street hand tucked inside her purse next to her pistol.

So. Miriam's death, I mean, it was like one of those moments that sparked, like everybody to kind of finally acknowledge how bad things were and the Mexican government scrambled to react. They got two of the culprits back in prison. A couple others were killed in a gunfight. And as for the people who ordered the hit on Mirriam, apparently their identities are still a mystery for whatever reason.

Whoa. And so in June, about a month after Myriam's death, officials in the state of Veracruz acted with information Miriam had provided and arrested yet another suspect in Kerans case. And this is pretty graphic. This gets to like what the cartel was doing. So it turns out this woman that they arrested later had beaten and tortured Karen during the kidnapping, hanging her up like a boxing bag and punching her. And after that, the woman fled to Veracruz, where she drove a taxi for a living while raising her son.

So they had found another another perpetrator.

And Louis', her son, was obviously devastated, but he and he for a little while was obsessing over who these mysterious killers were that had killed his mother, that he basically said he learned his lesson and said, I won't make the same mistakes as my mom. Like, I don't want this to take over my life and my life because I'm obsessing over her murder.

So she had done so much for not only herself and her daughter, but for local families as well. She had started a collective of parents of abducted children, and her son, Luis, actually took it over when she died. And the after Miriam's death, the governor of Tamaulipas tweeted that the state government will not allow the death of Miriam Rodriguez to be one more statistic.

So her campaign. All wrapped up, ended up being made up of case files, witness testimony, confessions from the criminals who tracked down dozens of interviews with relatives, police officers, friends, officials and local residents. And it basically like turned this town, San Fernando, on its head. So she had taken out 10 people. No one had ever challenged organized crime in this way and definitely had never put members of the cartel in prison on their own before.

Wow. And so people were very inspired by her fight, were angry at her death. And so they placed a bronze plaque honoring her in the central plaza of the town. The BBC even reported that the Thursday after death, mothers protested in Mexico City holding portraits of their missing children during an anti-government march.

And as I was texting Alice and like I'm covering the story this week, she was like, man, I can't believe it's not a feature film yet. And then I discovered that Blumhouse, excitingly has acquired the rights to the story and oh, well, planning to make, I believe, a feature film or maybe a show.

I'm not sure about her story. So I think this is not the end of us hearing about Miriam because the article came out in December. So it's a very recent wire story and know hot off the press.

Wow. Yeah. Who? Oh, sorry, that was long, but that is that's the story.

Wow, Miss Miriam, I'm glad I'm glad there's going to be a TV show here and reason I'm glad there's going to be some sort of show about that, that, first of all, it really does feel like it should be a movie or. Yes, it does. It does. I agree. But also, I think it'll be nice to have an honoring of her of legacy. We recognize how fucking hard you went with this and how like the effort you went in for it.

Wow. I have never heard of that story. I guess it's me either. Brand new, but OK. But also, I was about to get married, Alison, because I was like, I live with her and she didn't tell me.

No, but she wants me to cover it for you. Yeah, not.

And that's why I decided to not be mad like a ten page article. So don't worry. I wrote it for you. Yeah. That I appreciate that.

Oh, anyway, well, that was a great story. I mean, I, I really did not end the way that I wanted it to that I know that part just kind of sank my heart.

But you would think after enough like spy action movie moves like that. Yeah. Like you only when the universe has your side.

Yeah. Yeah. Well anyway, good storytelling, Christine. Okay. Thank you. You as well.

This was a crazy episode. I think it was way crazy. I was going to think of a different word, but then I couldn't think of one. Why Anna Banana's noodles, my food.

Could I have to go order fried chicken now. I know. So hungry. Well, thank you to everyone listening. Happy New Year. Hopefully things definitely go better this year, hopefully. Although who's to say no to it. Hopefully have a lot of sandwiches and your and your future and that's it. I guess if you want to, if you want to follow us around.

That's why I drink dotcom and our socials are the Schultz, Schieffer and the podcast and you gross with three W's and Engross.

Yeah. All right. Well thank you guys.

And that's why we drink, eat sandwich, eat sandwiches, chicken fried chicken sandwiches. OK, bye bye. What do millions of Americans and three former U.S. presidents have in common, they all agree that Bowland branch sheets are the softest, most comfortable sheets in the world. Bulan branch cotton is rain fed pesticide free and carries the highest organic certification. That's why it's so soft. Bulan branch sheets start at just 160 dollars. They're thousand dollar quality for a fraction of the price.

Plus you can sleep on them for a month risk free. That's Vollen Branch. Dotcom restrictions may apply Cebull and Match.com for details.