Our Abuelas Knew Things They Never Explained

[00:00:00] Over the years, I've listened to and researched a lot of ghost stories, and many of these end up involving our grandparents. Now, one thing I ended up discovering after digging around with these storytellers talking about their experiences is that sometimes our grandparents are into some pretty dark things. And when I started digging on my own experiences with my grandma, I started realizing, hey, you know what? I think it might be true because some things our families don't even want to talk about.

[00:00:27] By the way, if you grew up not calling your grandmother Abuela, stay with me still because this isn't anything that's exclusive to Latino families. We ended up discovering that these things cross culture. So please, if as you're listening to this episode, you think of something that your grandma, your grandpa used to do, used to say, used to warn you about, please send it into the comments. Reply to your own comment. Comment on your comment. Comment a new comment. Whatever. Just so that you don't forget it and we don't miss out on it.

[00:00:56] And we might cover that in a new episode. You ready? My name is Edwin and this is Paranormal Club. When I was little, my family and I took a trip to Mexico and we went to specifically to the state of Nayarit. Now, if you're not aware of that, that's on the West Coast in the central area of Mexico.

[00:01:24] And I made a very interesting discovery for myself. I remember I'm young, right? At this time. And I found out for the very first time that my mom pretty much had her own life before I was born. It didn't make any sense to me back then. Now, of course, obviously, I think of like, yeah, you know, she had her own dreams, aspirations, everything before I came around. And ruined it. Just kidding.

[00:01:48] Actually, I don't know if this has happened to you, but did you ever have you found out that you might have been a surprise baby? Like not planned because of the mismatch of like when you were conceived and when your parents got married. Anyway, I don't want to start any fights here, but I looked it up and I'm like, oh, I'm cutting it close. It's very close. Anyway, so I remember we were at this graveyard at the cemetery.

[00:02:15] I'm looking down at the tombstone and I'm seeing my grandma's name. I never met my grandma from my mom's side. And I was like, at one point, everybody in my family was around here like they were mourning. Everybody from the town was around there because it was a very small town and everyone knew each other. But in that town, there was a few people that didn't even get close to that gravesite. They didn't even get close to paying their respects to my grandma.

[00:02:44] The reason my family believes is that they were responsible for her death. Now, I know these are very strong accusations, right? Especially when you consider that the only proof that we have are stories. These are very, very strong stories that are very emotional with my family. And it's that she might have been a victim to brujería, to witchcraft, to somebody just casting a spell on my grandma. And I always ask, you know, my mom about these stories. Who, what was my grandma like?

[00:03:13] Like, who was she? What was, what did she like to eat? What did she, how did she laugh? Who did she look like? Because we only have a very few, you know, very few pictures of her. And whenever I think of all that, I also think of like, wow, there's so much that I missed out on for not being around her, not being able to ask her all these things. So I get little snippets of stuff and I form my own image of who she was and what she was like. But I do have my grandma from my dad's side.

[00:03:39] And she's the one that used to scare me with the marionette story that I mentioned, which is like, she used to have marionettes up on the wall. And one time I asked to play with one of them. She warned me that they get up in the middle of the night and they climb up to the bed and try to strangle you. Pretty traumatic. And I used to like marionettes. I still see them like when people are using them on the street. I find them interesting, but I know I probably wouldn't get one. I ended up with one at one point and it got pretty scary.

[00:04:05] But anyway, I also learned about the house where they used to live. And we got to walk around there. I've only been there once. And I got to see the fields, the small little house, the area of the kitchen, the rooms like where they used to stay. So my family came from very humble, humble beginnings, right? Like they pretty much had just the fields. You know, they were rich with all that stuff. They had a lot of beans, a lot of rice, a lot of corn, a lot of everything.

[00:04:33] Like they never went hungry, but material-wise they had very little. And walking around that house, I remember wondering like why didn't anybody keep the house? Especially if, you know, they could have used the place, you know, made a thing. But instead they found out that they needed the money a little bit more. But as I started asking around about the house and everything and how they felt being there, I was a very curious kid. They told me that they couldn't stay there. My grandma, turns out, did not want my family to sell the house.

[00:05:03] And they don't think that it's a coincidence that ever since she passed away, no one else has been able to live in it long term. So I asked why. Ended up telling me that in the middle of the night, cups move. You hear like somebody's pouring water. You hear steps. You hear the pans move. And sometimes you have people from like other towns that need to work in that town. That's usually how, you know, the whole thing works where like you have people that know a certain thing about the fields or maybe during harvest season they come in and they stay. They need a place to stay.

[00:05:33] They work and then they go back to their homes. Well, people would come by to try to stay there and they would get so scared that they would just leave or try to find another place. Sometimes they would end up staying there for super cheap, but they preferred staying somewhere else that was more expensive. Or like, you know, actual like hotel kind of things instead of staying there. Now, abuelas always seem to have these rules, right? These things that you're supposed to follow blindly. Don't ask any questions.

[00:06:00] Just do this or don't do this, but like follow it, right? It's not even necessarily my abuela or, you know, it might just be an abuela from someone else that you learn this, right? And they're like, don't do that. Don't do this. By the way, as I'm going through this, if you have the explanations for this that are different than mine, I don't know a lot of these explanations, but I do know the rules. Please let me know. If I forget a few, please leave them in the comments. Number one, don't sweep someone's feet. Like, no barras, like with the broom.

[00:06:29] Don't sweep someone's feet. Why is that? From my understanding is you're never going to get married or something like that. Is that right? I don't know. Here's the next one. Don't put your purse on the floor. For me and from what I've been warned, when I put my wife's purse on the floor or on the car floor is I won't have any money or I'm going to go broke. So don't do that. So I'm like, okay, I have to put it on my lap.

[00:06:57] Because usually she drives, like in her country, like she drives. Because I don't have a license there. Or I don't want to get in trouble. Plus, you know, driving around is crazy sometimes. Don't sleep with your feet toward the door. I don't know this one, actually. But I have heard it. Like, don't do it. Like, face the bed in a different direction. Does that mean like, I mean, se te va subir el muerto? Which actually I don't even know what that means. Hmm. Se te va subir el muerto. Literally translates to the dead person is going to climb on top of you.

[00:07:27] Ugh. It sounds weird in English. Anyway, don't answer something calling your name at night. Which is, I think so. Or some entities. Number five, rules about things around babies. Now, there's a lot of little rules with babies. Like, don't carry a baby if you're menstruating. Don't have a bunch of rules. I don't even remember. But if you know of any, please let me know. Because I'm trying to make a list. Like, a full-on, like, exhaustive list.

[00:07:56] And I really try to, like, dig in and, like, get them all. But there's just so many that... These are the most that I could think of. Or at least the ones that you would find that made sense. Because my family also had some weird ones about food. Like, things that you can't... Shouldn't eat together. Like, milk and watermelon. Or milk and cucumber. Or cucumber before sleeping. Or corn when you have... When you're coughing. Other things, too.

[00:08:26] Like, I mean, I'm just thinking of ones that aren't even paranormal. But, like, before going to the shower, you're supposed to, like, cool off your feet. Like, take off your socks and, like, wait a little bit. So the cold water doesn't hit your hot feet or... Things like that. This is what I'm talking about. Like, these are rules that you're just supposed to follow. And you don't really know why. But let's see some other ones, right? Some more creepy ones. There's also some dreams that they happen to know that mean someone is going to get pregnant. Or that someone's going to die.

[00:08:57] Another one. That they used to have all these religious objects while they're being into the whole church thing. Right? Religion and stuff. But also using all these, like, special soaps and candles and things like that. Like, they had rules on what to do, what not to do. Now, I understand that these rules, they didn't explain them. They just... You just follow them. You kind of knew not to do or to do them as they were telling you. Like, don't sweep someone's feet. Don't do this. And they didn't even consider them supernatural.

[00:09:26] They're just like, this is the way things are. This is real. Don't do this. And you have to follow it blindly. There's a story here, actually, that it's a little bit dark. Actually, it's very dark. And it was submitted to... Actually, True Scary Story. It's in English. So I have the transcript here. And so some of the things might not make sense because I'm reading from the transcript. Like, directly with how Karen shared it with me. So it's going to tell you a little bit more of what I'm talking about. Here's her story.

[00:09:55] She says, So my grandparents live in Tijuana, where they lived before they both passed. Their house is located about 10 minutes from the border here in San Diego to Tijuana. And the house was built back in the 70s. My grandparents and my uncles built the house themselves. They didn't hire anyone to build the house. They did everything since my grandpa was in construction. Now, back in the 70s, there wasn't a lot of houses in that area of Tijuana. And a lot of people say that that area used to throw bodies away. People used to just go and throw the bodies there. And it was like a huge lot.

[00:10:24] But like I said, there wasn't many houses. Nothing. There was no streets. So when people started building in that area, they actually live in a closed-off, gated community. It's a lot of houses. Over 100 of them. They're all different. All very old. And when they started building, they actually discovered many bones. My mom says that they were dog bones. But my uncles say that there was no way dog bones would be that big. It's like they would have to be a huge dog for that to be dog bones. Now, things started happening since they built the house. People would come over. Friends would come over.

[00:10:54] And they would see this little man walking around the house. Now, in Mexican culture, they're known as duendes. There was no little men living there. Especially happened when outsiders would come in. My grandma used to have a lot of people come from Zacatecas. That's where they're from. People that weren't able to stay there overnight because things would start happening to them. One common thing was this little man. Everyone would talk about this old man that they would see walking around the house. My mom had seen it. My cousins had seen it. And my grandparents had seen it.

[00:11:25] Right now, we still have family members that live there. I have two uncles, one aunt, and my cousin that live in that house. And up to this day, they still see things. Now, back in 2007, my grandma died. And as she passed, they had a mass for her. And they called a thing. I'm not quite sure what it's called in English, but in Spanish, it's called a novenario. Where the priest would come out to the house and do nine days of praying to help the soul get to heaven. And during those nine days, while he was praying inside the house, lots of weird things happened.

[00:11:55] They would hear doors shutting, closing, opening upstairs, furniture being dragged. Literally everyone was downstairs and everything happened upstairs. My mom is one of eight. So there's a total of eight siblings. And my mom is the oldest. Now, one of the days after the priest approached my mom and was like, you know, has anything happened here? Because I feel some type of energy. And my mom was like, yeah, you know, we've been experiencing things since we were really young, since we built the house.

[00:12:23] And people, when outsiders or strangers or new people come to the house, they always experience something paranormal. Now, the priest asked, has a house been blessed before? And my mom was like, it's been blessed multiple times. It's been multiple times I've done it. Things just continue happening. Now, there was a Catholic, he was a Catholic priest. And he was like, you know what? Like, once the nine days are up, I'm going to come back and I will do and bring all the siblings here. We can bless the house together. The way the house is set up, it has an upstairs. It has seven rooms.

[00:12:53] Downstairs, it has two. And then it has a big living room, a big kitchen, a backyard and a front yard. So, from the front to the back of the house, there's very long hallways. Now, once you enter the house, you go through the living room and then you go through a long hallway. Then you see the bottom of the stairs and you go up the stairs. And then upstairs is another long hallway with a bunch of rooms. The priest said, okay, all the siblings get in the line and we're going to start walking. I'm going to go walk behind you with the holy water, praying and blessing the house.

[00:13:22] Eight of them and the priest were just walking around. Now, my dad was downstairs like he was just sitting down and then everybody else was just hanging out. My cousin was also walking but not in the straight line with him. They went through the bottom and then they worked their way up to the top and my cousin stayed downstairs. When you're coming down the stairs, you come straight down and there's a little rest area. Then you turn right and another right and you continue walking down the steps. And once you're down the steps, you turn right, there's a big step and then you make a left to continue down the hallway. So, it's like a little confusing.

[00:13:52] It's a lot of turns but just remember that from coming down the steps, you step down and you have to make a right and then take one more step down and then you can continue. My cousin was standing right there at the last step. She was in front of one of the rooms and that door was closed. The door to that room was closed but she was hanging out there. You know, she was just waiting for them to come down. She was standing in front of that door and everyone came down the steps like all at once. My mom and her siblings came down and they made it down safely. No issues. But then the priest came.

[00:14:21] He continued blessing and he was like, you know, throwing around the holy water and all that and tea was coming down. He made it down the steps safely and then he turned to the right and he faced my cousin. My cousin was right there and he was about to take the last step and he fell forward. My cousin thought, oh, he just fell. This isn't funny, dude. It's a priest. Come on. So my cousin thought, oh, you know, he just fell.

[00:14:51] People fall. But the priest got up and was like, they pushed me. Somebody pushed me. Everyone came back and ran back and was like, what happened? And then he was like, somebody pushed me. Like, they don't want me here. And then after that, the priest shortly, like maybe two years later, he died. Our family kept in touch with him. He was an older man but nothing happened after that. Like, it was the only thing that happened with that priest. But my cousin said, like, you should have seen the face, the look on his face. He looked scared.

[00:15:21] He knew he was pushed. The worst thing that had happened in that house, for the most part, had happened to strangers, not to family. Another priest was supposed to come bless the house after my grandpa passed, which was in 2015. But for some reason, he didn't make it out. So we didn't get the house blessed again. Grandpa was 105 years old when he died. So he was old, old. In the middle of the night, he would wake up screaming because he would say that somebody was hitting his head in his sleep. He would wake up with bruises sometimes. Now, mind you, he was 105 years old.

[00:15:51] And he started saying that since maybe 100. And yeah, you know, maybe he was old. But the bruising? That's strange. So my aunt had to sleep in the next bedroom next to him because every night he would wake up and scream. And I'm speaking from a Catholic background. And the Catholic Church, people believe that when you move into a new place or when you have a new house, it's always important to get it blessed by a priest just to cleanse the house. Just to make sure that there's no bad energies or bad spirits kind of thing, which is why they had the priest come.

[00:16:20] Because many things have been happening. The main reason to get the house blessed is to cleanse it from bad energies and bad spirits. My cousins and I constantly talk about this when we would stay the night there with my grandma. Rest in peace. When we were little, we used to be scared to stay there with her because of the way that she prayed. Now, she prayed very differently. Side note here, right?

[00:16:39] In case you have ever experienced watching an older person pray in a very strange way or different than how you do it, please let me know what prayer it was or how they used to do it. Here is how Karen's grandma used to do it. She would bless all the corners of the house like around her in a way. And she would murmur for a long time. And I remember my cousin and I, the one that I'm telling you about that still lives there, we would cover our ears when she started praying because we were so scared of it. I've never seen anybody pray like that.

[00:17:09] She did the normal rosary and stuff, but like she would bless every single side of her. She would bless the ceiling. She would bless the floors, the windows. She would do the cross motion with her hand and bless it. No, I'm thinking she was blessing it because she was praying. But her praying lasted maybe an hour. And it's how she blessed them. She prayed over the bed. She prayed over every single corner of her room. So my cousin and I and my sister wouldn't like it. So we would either try to go to sleep before she started praying or we would just cover our ears because it was really scary.

[00:17:39] Now, she wasn't too social. She didn't really like making new friends. But she was very loving to us and played with us. And, you know, just your typical grandma. Now, it's a really strange thing because they've done some changes to the house. And now there's two rooms in the bottom. But back then, when I was little, it used to be a huge living room. They took half of the living room to make it into a room. Before, it used to be just one huge rectangular living room. They were sitting in one of the ends of the house. You would look straight ahead. You would see a little window.

[00:18:05] And that window led to the laundry room, which is weird because why would they place a window inside the house, right? That's weird. So my grandma says that when she was younger, when we were younger, she would look up and she would see somebody walking through that window. She said that the way she described them was a little man. Mind you, it's a little window. So no more than four feet, maybe even less than that. And she would just see hair, like the tips of hair standing up like that, just walking by the window.

[00:18:34] Now, this one time there was this other man that came from their hometown in Zacatecas. And he came and he was supposed to stay there for a whole week before finding his new place to live. A lot of people came over there because they were looking for work in Tijuana. Now, he was upstairs and he stayed in one of the other rooms. And like I said, there were six rooms, seven rooms upstairs. So he was laying there. And this is what he says. In the morning, when my grandma woke up, she found him laying outside of the house, like outside, outside. So my grandma was like, what are you doing out here? Like, why are you here? You know, you have a room upstairs.

[00:19:03] I have a bunch of rooms. And he's like, yeah, I just can't sleep here anymore. That guy left and never came back to the house. Now, at night, he was laying in bed. And this is what he said. He kept feeling like they were pulling his blanket down little by little. And he was sleeping in a queen-sized bed or full-size queen-size. And he says that he could feel, like literally feel somebody sitting. You know how you can feel when somebody sits on the bed? Or you could feel that. So he would stand up and look around and there was nothing. He would go back to sleep and say that slowly they would pull the blankets down.

[00:19:31] He would get up and look around and nothing. He would go back down, cover himself again, started falling asleep. And slowly the blanket started coming off again. Finally, it was like two or three in the morning. He wakes up and he sees a little man standing in front of him. The way he described it was similar in the way that my grandma described the same thing. A really short man, older face. But he says that his hair was very spiky. Like spiked up like that. And like, you know, like up.

[00:19:58] The guy said that the little man was really short and he was wearing like a coat and light pants. Almost like khaki pants. And he ran out of the room and he never looked back. He didn't go back to sleep at that house. He rented a hotel and went to stay at the hotel. Like instead of saving money, he decided to go stay at a hotel because of experiences there. Now Christmas, we have a big party there. And it gets to the point that I have a younger sister. My younger sister and a couple of my cousins will not go to the bathroom by themselves. And I'm talking my cousin pulls my other cousin into the bathroom because she will not go alone.

[00:20:28] Ever since my grandma died, nobody has seen the little man anymore. Ooh, that's creepy, dude. Like what did the grandma have to do with this? My cousin says that she thinks that it has to do with the family because it expands to other houses outside of that house. But within the family, which has made us wonder, you know, maybe something did happen that we don't know about with my grandma or my grandpa. There's a lot of my cousins see things there. Things that even here in the U.S. happen. So it extends. It crosses borders. Now I don't know if it goes with people.

[00:20:58] I don't know what it does. But thankfully here at my house, nothing has happened to me. And I hope nothing happens to me. A lot of my family, yeah, they say that they experience things like they've grown into it. So they're used to it. Man, that story really got me, dude. Because when I first heard it, Karen was explaining it. And actually, Karen is a friend of my sister. And this is actually when I was first launching True Scary Story that I really needed to get stories.

[00:21:26] And we got to talking and, you know, getting all these things. She has another part of her story that I'm going to tell you about in a little bit. But we got into a little bit of a drama thing with the story. Because we're obviously talking about somebody's grandma. Somebody that's respected. A respected member of the family. And we're combining it with ghosts and paranormal. Things like that. So some people might not like that. You know, you don't want your parents, I mean your grandparents associated with that kind of thing.

[00:21:52] Or you don't want their memories to end up, you know, mixing with the paranormal and things like that. Especially if you say, hey, that little man stopped coming around when she left. Were they connected? Creepy. But in general, abuelas, you know, they keep really old things at their houses, obviously, right? Things that they've had since they were kids. Things that were passed down. There's a different kind of willingness to keep things. Unlike us, for example, that we might go with the whole minimalist movement.

[00:22:21] Or like, the whole, was that lady that wants to organize everything and clean everything and throw everything away. I forgot her name. Something Marie Kondo. So they actually used to keep things. Like, oh, you know, this dress was passed down from so and so. Or this ring was passed down from so and so. And it's creepy to see all that stuff, right? They also have like old candles. I made a list here. Things like statues of saints. Herbs. Oils. Rosaries. Things that they've collected like that. Some of them passed down.

[00:22:49] Some of them kept from people who have passed away. And some of the creepy ones were the whole prayer thing. I've heard a couple of stories of people being afraid of how the grandma used to pray. Now, I think it's the style, too, of that whispery. And knowing exactly what to say. And they just repeat it over and over. It's almost hypnotizing. Now, imagine hearing that in the middle of the night. You're trying to go to sleep.

[00:23:16] And for like an hour, you hear somebody just praying over the house like that. Oh, man. That's creepy. That's some creepy stuff right there. Plus, when you consider also the mix of religion. Like, usually it's Catholic, at least in Latin American countries. Which is a Catholic kind of background. Catholic prayers. And then they mix it with some folk beliefs. Things that also came from other places that were not the Catholic Church.

[00:23:45] Things that were hidden from other people. Now, I know about this stuff. And I got to learn about it in a very random way. It was my birthday. And it might have been 2015. I think that was what it was. And I made a bunch of friends when I was volunteering down in Peru. And I was backpacking and everything. And for my birthday, one of the people from the hostel, she was like, Hey, for your birthday, I want to show you one of the secrets from the city.

[00:24:15] And I was like, heck yeah. Let's do this. So we're going around Cusco. This is Cusco in Peru. And we find a door that was... It looked like just a regular door from like a house. She knocks. Somebody looks at her. We go in. And there's a group of people with a lot of candles. And they're just kind of bent down. And they're praying. And they're looking at this thing. And it took me a little bit to see what it was.

[00:24:43] But it was a figure of a dressed up little human. Like a dead human. Like a desiccated... Like a little mummy. I looked more into it. It might have been a niño compadrito. I don't know much about it. I mean, I remember at the time I looked it up. And I learned about it. But it's been so long. I'm remembering about it. Like remembering it now. But seeing all those things. Asking why it was so secretive.

[00:25:13] Turns out that the Catholic Church did not approve of it. They didn't want it. But the thing was supposed to... Like this being, this thing, was supposed to do miracles. Like perform miracles for people. So people were very grateful for it. And they would go and ask for favors and things like that. And it ended up working out. To me, seeing that, okay, you're doing something that's not allowed by the Catholic Church. Reminds me of this stuff, right? Some things that... Some habits. Some rituals.

[00:25:41] That were passed down from like great, great, great, great grandmas. Or great grandpas. All the way down. That's where even before the Catholic Church was even around in those areas. Or they might have reached the cities and they're over in some very small town that never got touched by this thing. This like Catholic Church religion and practices. So when they do, they end up mixing. And they mix up in a really interesting way because they do creep us out. First off, because they're considered like off limits. You're not supposed to do this.

[00:26:11] And yet they're doing that. Doesn't mean that it's wrong. It's just a scene that's perceived as something like dark and secretive. And oh, you can't talk about it. So it's supposed to be kept in secret and hushed. Like don't talk about it. So all these traditions go far beyond like the grandma and her mother and her mother's mother and all that. Another creepy thing I feel that I've encountered with these stories about grandmas and stuff, about abuelas,

[00:26:37] are that there's always, always a person. And what I mean is there's always like that person you're supposed to avoid or like the person that you're supposed to go talk to, the person that knows about something. Like there's, for example, a neighbor, right? Like let's say you make a friend. They're like, oh, no. Yes, hija de, like that's the daughter of so-and-so. You're not allowed to talk to them. Like don't do it. And you're supposed to listen. You don't have, you don't ask questions.

[00:27:06] If you ask questions, they're just going to tell you, just don't do it. And that's it. Like you'll get a freaking chanclazo. Like if you do it, like don't do it, right? And they warn you, stay away. There's a person who can heal. There's a person who can, there's always that person, right? Like the person that's a witch, a person that's told, you know, that can do certain things. The person who did something that nobody else found out about. All these things like somebody who can cure, somebody could do witchcraft. Like there's always that one person. And the grandma always seems to know who they are.

[00:27:35] But we don't even ask for explanations. We just listen. And everybody in the family just listens. Now, there was more right after this with the story from Karen. Now, this one is really eerie. We go a little bit away from the whole grandma thing necessarily. But it was at the grandparents' house. Now, remember all this, this stuff that we hear with the, this is just the family's experience, right?

[00:28:02] And like, don't like try to assume anything necessarily from what you're about to hear. In short, remember that this is a house in Tijuana. It was built in the 70s. Everybody contributed to building it. And it continues, right? So it says, my mom used to be a manager at a very well-known store in Tijuana. She was young when she started working. She started working there like at age 16 and worked her way up. Now, for her 18th birthday, her co-workers had this little party for her at the cafeteria, like at the other job.

[00:28:31] And, you know, my mom had her close friends there. Some of her best friends now were from there. And everybody gave her little gifts like perfumes, a necklace, just regular gifts that you could give an 18-year-old. Now, one of her co-workers gave her this doll. It was a rag doll. And later, not recently, I asked my mom about it because I thought it was really weird if you think about it. Why would somebody give somebody a rag doll for their 18th birthday? Now, it's just strange. So I asked my mom, like, who was this co-worker?

[00:29:00] Like, what friend was this? And my mom was like, oh, you know, I don't even know her name. Like, she just really wasn't my friend. She was just everywhere that she went. And she was always wearing all black. And I was like, and you took this doll from her? And I was like, yeah, well, you know, I thought it was a nice thing. So I took it anyway. So at my grandparents' house, that's where my mom lives. She got married at 25. She came home with the doll hanging. You know, like, everybody's like, oh, that's kind of creepy. Like, she looked kind of weird, but whatever. And my grandma was like, just sit her up on the couch. So my mom did.

[00:29:30] And she just sat her on the couch, like on the corner of the couch. And I'm pretty sure they had multiple couches. So it was just stuffed away in a corner. Mom said that it was a pretty big doll. It would take up, like, the whole corner. And then my uncles, who were younger and my youngest aunts, would always complain about the doll. They said that every time that they came through the door, they felt the doll looking at them. Now, my grandma used to say, oh, you guys are just being kids. It's okay. Don't worry about it. You know, it's not going to do anything to you. It's fine. And then my grandma started feeling it.

[00:29:58] And then my grandma was like, oh, you know, that doll's kind of like always following me. Like, her eyes are always looking at me. My mom says that if you were sitting in the kitchen, it looked like she was looking at you from there. In that direction. You were sitting next to her. It looked like she was looking at you next to her. If you were walking through the door, it was following you with her eyes. Reminders of just the doll. Like, the eyes don't move. Like, they're set. But my mom said that everybody kind of got, like, started getting scared about it. And my grandma says that she, one day she was, you know what? I'm tired of this.

[00:30:27] I don't want to look at it anymore because she's really creepy. So she took out the cotton because, you know, she was resourceful. Didn't want to throw it away. Made a pillow out of it. Like a regular pillow. A sleeping one that goes on the bed. She made the pillow. Just kept it forever, right? And it was one of the guest bedrooms. So not a lot of people used it. She threw away the rest of the doll, like the outside of the doll and the hair and everything. She threw it away. Just kept the insides. Now, mind you, this was years ago. One of my cousins is born 20 years later. A long time, I remember.

[00:30:56] That pillow was still kept in that guest room. So it was just like a throw pillow now. Decoration. My aunt gives birth to the cousin. She's really little. Less than a month old. And they go stay with my grandma because her husband was always working. And she needed more help with the baby because this was her second one. Now, this is one of my cousins. They're just laying in bed. She and my cousin were just going to take a nap. Less than a month old again, remember. And my family tends to wrap babies. So they do this wrapping. Like they wrap the baby so that the babies don't move their hands or their feet. So my aunt goes up.

[00:31:26] And, you know, she's like, we're going to take a nap. I'm going to feed her. I'm going to put her down for a nap. Now, my grandma's like, okay. You know, she's downstairs cooking and everything. Now, my aunt is upstairs with my niece. And all of a sudden, they're laying on the bed. And my niece starts kind of choking, like crying and choking. And my aunt says that she was turning red and then purple. Like it looked like she was really struggling. So my aunt freaked out. And she yelled for my grandma. And my grandma came running. They're trying to figure out what was wrong with her. And, you know, they're all like, is she hungry?

[00:31:55] Like, you know, what's wrong? So they try everything. And my grandma's like, let's take off her clothes. Maybe something's like itching. Maybe something's bothering her. So they did. They unwrapped her. They took off her clothes. And they couldn't really find anything. But then my aunt lifted up her head and took a look at her neck. There was a thread wrapped around her neck multiple times. And there was a needle poking right there in the front. You know, needles are very thin and very skinny, obviously. And it was little, but it wasn't all the way in. But it was poking her like in between her collarbone. Now, they were freaking out.

[00:32:24] Because first of all, this baby doesn't roll. There's no way she could cut or roll into the thread, you know. And like roll around it and have it wrap around her neck. And my aunt had just given her a bath. So the thread would have, like, why was it there? Like, why didn't she see it when she gave her a bath? Now, she had only been set down for a nap when it happened. It started going crazy. Because obviously the needle was poking her. And the thread was choking her. Now, later we find out that the pillow that she was laying on was the pillow that my grandma had made. The one out of the doll. With the cotton.

[00:32:54] That's the pillow that they were laying on when that happened. Which is crazy. Because they were calling the doll creepy. And they had forgotten all about it. And my cousin is now 23, 24. So she's grown up and she's good. But yeah, they were really scared. Imagine that. It's really creepy, dude. You know, in thinking of all these things, there's something wrong with my theory. Right? With the whole abuelas thing. And because maybe, you know, because I say it,

[00:33:24] maybe they weren't up to no good. Like, they did things in secret and things like that. And how do they know so much? But after listening to and researching all these things, I've heard versions of this from people who didn't grow up like me. Right? Like, grandmas just seem to know something. Like, there's a story. I've mentioned it several times already. And it's about a warning from a grandma who tells this girl, Mallory.

[00:33:52] Says, don't cross this line. Like, don't cross this property. Like, the story that I got to hear, it was a little, it was strange because, it was strange for a storyteller because when she heard the warning, she had never heard her grandma tell her that sternly, like that, like strictly, do not cross over to that side of the property. Now, it turns out this was a profitable cattle farm. Actually, the biggest dairy farm in the state.

[00:34:20] When the grandma, the grandpa actually, he passed away. And the grandma was just there. It came from a very small rural farm town. So that the closest neighbor from the farmhouse, like four miles down the road. And Cece was the name of the grandma, the great grandma. She had only one rule. And that was do not leave the yard. There was one time, she says, this is directly from her. There was one time I can remember disobeying that rule. We had gone over there after church on a Sunday. And my parents and her were talking at the table.

[00:34:49] And I was outside playing in the backyard. And about 50 yards behind the farmhouse, is this really old fence surrounding the pasture. I chased what I want to say was a butterfly into this pasture. I remember my parents yelling at me. I was going to stay for a little while with her. And, you know, I waved bye to them. The next thing I hear is my great grandma is screaming at me. And I immediately start running toward her. And even back then, she was old, but she was running right at me. And it's the only time I've ever seen panic and fear on her.

[00:35:19] I had never seen her like that before. And at the time, I kind of took it like she was just this overly cautious grandmother. I loved and respected her so much that I had never seen her that way. And I just always obeyed her. I never again wandered outside of that yard as a kid. My favorite thing about visiting her were her stories. The very first one I can remember telling me, that I would always beg her to tell me, was the boy who cried wolf. And she had always ended by saying, if you tell lies, no one will believe you when it truly matters.

[00:35:48] And when danger is lurking in the darkness. She was a real big on to remember that whatever you say has meaning. And still to this day, I have that cemented into me. As I got older, her stories got darker. All of them had a moral lesson to teach. Looking back on it, I really want to say the biggest lesson was trying to teach me. It was to be honest, brave, kind, most prevalent to listen to the wisdom and warnings of your elders. That day, I wandered into the pasture, a place that had explicitly been told not to.

[00:36:17] I was more concerned with how frantic her behavior was. I didn't really think about what she was saying to me in that moment. She was saying, do you know what could have happened to you? I told you, never go past that fence. You have no idea what's out there. If he finds you, you'll wish you wouldn't have been so foolish. Years later, those words came back to me. And I realized that she knew exactly what was out there. And was trying her hardest to protect me from that evil.

[00:36:47] That's just a teaser here for this story. The smiling man from the woods. If you want to get creeped out, I'm going to leave a link for it so you get to listen to it directly from her. Heads up, this is one of our longer stories. And it is, I've listened to it maybe 30 times by now. And every time I listen to it, I learn something new from it. Like I pick something else up. Have you listened to it before? Listen to it again. It's genuinely creepy. But the point here is, grandmas know what's up.

[00:37:16] Like they know things that we don't know. And sometimes we just take their word. And we just, we're supposed to do that. Listen to them blindly and follow the rules without asking for explanations. Every culture has one of these, right? A grandma that becomes a keeper of the warnings, the remedies, the stories, the deaths. Like the, everything that people shared, right? The folk beliefs, the knowledge that nobody ever questions. They seem to just know. I remember as a kid wondering like, how can we get somewhere?

[00:37:44] And for example, my mom can just pick up a list of ingredients and make something. And you like it. Like, and it's good. How? How? How does she know how to do that? They just know. How did she learn the dishes that she learned from my grandma? The strange habits that she picked up from my grandmother. And I feel like we're all into this, you know, where it's this long thread that goes from way beyond us. And that includes both the good things and the dark things.

[00:38:11] So whenever there's things that feel like they're evil, things that are dark happening around you, if you start digging around, which is kind of what I do sometimes when we're having these calls about scary stories, we end up discovering that it goes much deeper than just them. Like, it's usually like their mother dabbled into something, dabbled in something. The grandma did too, or used to play around with things that she wasn't supposed to. And I feel like that happens in every culture. So if in yours, can you think of examples like this?

[00:38:40] Because I'm telling you, I'm pretty sure if you start asking around, you're going to find something. Sometimes you don't want to know because they really do get to you. Like I said, there's some recordings that I have of my family sharing stories of my grandma that I still can't manage. Like, I can't sit down and then go through the footage. Like, it's just not because it's difficult or it's too scary, but it's just like it solidifies that these stories, like these things actually happened. And my family went through something that they can't explain. And I think that's the scary part.

[00:39:08] So only ask if you want to know, if you feel ready to know about these things. Maybe there's nothing there. Maybe they don't want to share anything with you. Maybe you just kind of picked it up subconsciously by their actions and things that they taught you. I mentioned the things that they know about death. You know, things like when they have a hunch about people. They've lost friends. You know, they've lost their parents. They've gone through a lot more than we have.

[00:39:33] So, you know, there's another story that I share often about a grandmother who was walking along with a group of her, I guess, her grandchildren. And they had gone out to eat and they're going down the road and they see a thing flying up in the sky. So she performs this really quick ritual with a shoelace and makes a, you know, starts praying and ties up the shoelace.

[00:39:56] And as soon as she tightens it really tight, the thing that was flying up in the sky just plops down to the ground so hard that it makes a big old cloud of dust with this large thud, you know. They can also protect you. They know how to do things. You know, they just kind of get it. All these things that, you know, their grandparents taught them and everything like the stories, the prayers, remedies, warnings, the beliefs. All these things that are stored with them, all these stories, all this knowledge.

[00:40:25] And then when they leave, they take everything with them. And we can have all these questions for a very long time. You can ask everybody, but we're never going to get them. Like the story's gone. So maybe it wasn't that our abuelas were up to no good. Maybe they just knew things that we never bothered to ask them about. Or maybe they really wanted to share things with us and they never got the chance to.

[00:40:52] Or like for me, my grandma passed away before I was born and I never even got the opportunity. Like not even the chance to regret it and not asking. So if yours is around, ask. Ask for the stories, for the explanations, for the things you want to know. So maybe they'll tell you. And then you'll be able to have a better understanding of it and you'll be able to pass it down as well.

[00:41:17] So what's one thing that your abuela did or does that when you think about it is a little weird? I'm interested in knowing. We just kind of let them do it, you know, is what we're supposed to do. Let me know. I'm very interested in finding out. But anyway, thank you very much for listening or watching. Keep it scary, everyone. See you soon.