Grudge Book is Back!

Greetings, loved ones. We’re back with one of our time honored Terrible traditions: The Grudge Book. Sit back, get cozy, bring your petties, and enjoy this selection of listener grudges featuring the wisdom of Nora and Marcel.

THEE Bath and Body Works Peach Bellini Rant Video

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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INTRO MUSIC

 

 I am, and I don’t love this about myself, but I am capable of very deep pettiness. If there is a wrongdoing against me, but more likely a loved one or even a complete stranger, I am unlikely to forget it. I’m unlikely to forgive it. I will hold on to it forever. If I see a cross to bear, I will bear it. 

 

Many of you will recall the first time I told you about my grudge book.  Back in, I don’t know, 2015, 16, I had a therapist recommend that I write down all of the grudges.  Big, small, that I get them out, that I put them somewhere besides my head and my heart. I did that. I wrote down in great detail the who, what, when, where, and why.

 

The exercise was meant to, I believe, help me get some objectivity to these very, very subjective experiences. And in the process of writing them out, I discovered that sometimes the problem was me. Hi, hello. And sometimes, you know, I really had been.  Through an experience that was not my fault. I was able to see the humanity in, in, in people.

 

I was able to forgive some people. I was not done with the exercise when I forgot this notebook in the seatback pocket of an airplane. Never to be seen again. This would not normally be a big deal for the average person, but I don’t know that the average person does what I do when I start a new notebook.

 

I open it up and on the inside front cover, I write my name. I write my phone number. I write my email address. I put a lot of identifying information into this notebook that also had a lot of deeply personal stories within it.  Now, A lot of people would take this to their grave and hope that this notebook was never found and, you know, probably published on some forum somewhere.

 

Honestly, this day and age, someone finds that notebook, they’re making a TikTok series about it that then gets optioned into a limited series on, on HBO. But I thought You know what? I can’t be the only person in the world with a treasure trove of grudges big and small that they’re carrying around at any moment.

 

There have to be other people like me. So, back in 2021, I asked all of you to submit your grudges, and you delivered. We had So many submissions from all of you, enough to fill three whole premium episodes with grudges that didn’t fit in our first grudge book episode. But now, the calendar tells me it’s 2024.

 

2024. And we all think it’s been a little too long since we last aired our collective grudges. So, in the spirit of one of our favorite terrible traditions, this episode is myself and Marcel Malikibu. Sitting together in the city of Minneapolis  opening the grudge book.

 

[FADE IN CONVERSATION] 

 

Nora: I pride myself on having the right charger and cord for the job. For the right situation. For so many varying situations. Like, it’s not just a computer charger. It’s a computer charger that’s also a power bank, in case you can’t find electricity where you are. every USB to lightning USB to USB-C to USB-C to lightning.

 

the kind of charger where you set something on it, it charges? Magsafe? I feel like it’s not magsafe. Yeah, it’s like, yeah. There’s something very unsafe about them. Mag, charge all kinds of chargers, organized in a zipper container. I’ve sold many of these on an airplane. People look at me and they’re like, where’d you get that? I talk to them. I literally give them the Amazon link. It’s bag smart. I leave it on the plane.

 

Nora: I don’t even realize. I do realize at some point that my bag is really light, but I just think I’ve been so judicious about packing. I didn’t bring three books in my carry-on. I know I’m not gonna read three books in a plane ride. So I didn’t do that. No, I left all the chargers. But this is a pattern of mine, not the losing of the chargers, because I kept that bag for probably like six years at this point. No, that’s a fact. Like it was stained. It’s been through tours. It’s been through,

 

loose. I several years ago, the advice of a therapist, I was kind of, I was dealing with a lot of the anger phase of grief, which is not appealing to a lot of people, like externally, right? Like people are kind of fine with you being sad. Right. They don’t love like when you’re just ready to turn up on somebody. Yeah.

 

Nora: Oh, so never meeting 30 minutes later. Okay. I was just really like an angry person and I spent a lot of time calculating all of the ways that people had wronged me and my therapist was like, look, what I need you to do is to right it all down.

 

I need you to write it all down, get it out, and be detailed. You know, like describe the situation, describe how you felt, like what happened, what they said, what you said, what happened, how you feel about it now, and like write it out by hand. And so I did. I get a fresh new notebook, I always wanna get a new notebook, I write my name, my address, my phone number, so that if I lose the notebook, it comes back to me. And most of my notebooks are really boring. You know, it’s like to-do lists,

 

notes, calendar pages, notes that don’t even make sense to me. From meetings, yeah. Yeah, they don’t even make sense after the meeting. Check the button. Yeah, check the button. Like, interesting question mark? What were you talking about? I am practicing this journaling thing on an airplane, a Delta flight, and I’m like, you know, writing. You know what I mean?

 

get into my seat on a long flight. Like I situate myself, you know? I take out that bag of chargers. Do you have a neck pillow? No. You’re not a neck pillow person? No, cause I’m a, cause I think they’re badly designed. They actually push your neck forward. Yeah. There’s not enough space to like recline enough. Something nasty about a neck pillow. You know, but yeah. It just, yeah. And so it’s like, it just pushes my neck forward more. It’s like, maybe you should wear it like this. Have you seen the new one? That’s like a shelf and you just stick your arms in it.

 

Marcel: No, it is. She inflated it.

 

Nora: Oh, it’s good for text neck. You just. Yeah, just. You only get to use it on one flight. And I was like, you.

 

That’s crazy. I know, I sat next to her and I get to. Oh, I would have lit her up. That’s why she always doesn’t sit by me. I figured it out. She’s out there like three rows back or like way in the front away from me. So I know she didn’t, she didn’t want me to see that shit. I would have lit her up. Because she wants to do, she wants to do her embarrassing as we all do. And my thing is I get the chargers out.

 

you know, and I put things in the seat back pocket. Like there’s a place for your phone. There’s a place for like books, a computer, whatever. Cause I don’t want to be, I mean, I very rarely put anything up, you know, but I don’t want to be like up and down. I don’t want to be rifling, trying to bend down when there’s no space anyways, to like go through a bag. You know, it’s like, I just want my things. So I do all that. I’m writing, I’m crying, you know, all the normal stuff you do on the plane. And then,

 

You know, get off the plane, you know, get to my destination. I don’t have the notebook. The notebook’s still on the plane. Nice. The notebook is in that seatback pocket. What color is this notebook? That notebook is, I’m guessing, it was, I know what brand of notebook I was using at the time. So, it would have been, I mean, I would assume it was yellow? Like, honestly, at this point, I don’t even know if I could, it would be a moleskin, would it be a yellow one, or would it have been…

 

It was, I was doing dot grid. I was doing dot grid at the time. And it was soft cover. What does that mean? It’s not like, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it’s like bendable and, so anyways, it’s gone. And I’m like, oh.

 

Marcel: because it’s like I was leaving like first name, last name, date, like my identifying details are in there but so are like the identifying details of like, it’s like my mom, you know? That’s crazy. I code anytime I’ve journaled about some shit I’m mad about. I don’t care if it’s only me. In fact, I code it. So I code it, I write in the worst chicken scratch I can. It’s like a mental exercise. And then I burn it within a week. Oh, that’s smart. That’s probably also like.

 

Cathartic yeah, yeah and like symbolic only with negative stuff if it’s positive I’ll leave it there, but if it’s like oh, I was just mad about something I’ll write it and then I literally I don’t know if that’s like a ritual or not Right a good call But yeah, so I did that and then I shared that with people and we

 

made an episode called the grudge book, where I basically said, I know I’m not the only person carrying around all these little trivial grudges. You know, there’s no way it’s just me. So if you have a grudge, share it with us, and we will make our own grudge book, and we will leave it in the metaphorical seatback pocket of a podcast. And we’ve done that a few times. We actually filled three…

 

bonus episodes filled with grudges that didn’t fit in that first grudge book episode. But now when we release this, it will be 2024, our brand new year. Right now it’s at the tail end of 2023, we’re at an Airbnb. And I think to celebrate this new year, we have to bring in the past. We have to live in the past for a little bit. So

 

This is one of our favorite traditions. Marcel and I are going to open the grudge book.

 

Nora: The first one we have is an email I’m gonna read to you. Hello, here’s a grudge against a company. Best grudges to hold. Right. Keep them nameless, faceless. You know, like you wanna just be punching up, you know? Like at a goal line. Peach Balinese. Like, oh! Okay.

 

Marcel: What was that bath and body work? Bath and body works the peach Bellini candle. Wait Grace Are you old enough to if I say peach Bellini candles does that mean anything to you?

 

Nora: I mean, people came to our VIP meet and greet on the tour, sat down and watched. People were just like, what the fuck? What the fuck is wrong with this lady? Okay, um…

 

If you don’t know what we’re talking about, it will be linked in the show description. If you’re watching on Patreon, we’ll link to it, and you can watch it, and that is an example of a great grudge against a company. But this is not about Bath & Body Works. Okay, our writer says, apparently Abercrombie & Fitch makes great plus-size clothing now, but I, an elder millennial, cannot forgive them for the trauma of not being able to purchase a damn thing in their store as a teen who wore…

 

large or extra large. I hate them. I am with you. I’m with you. Abercrombie and Fitch was, you know, they didn’t invent body dysmorphia, but dang, they stoked the place. They were like, they were like, Oh, are you like skinny little girls? They were complicit. Yeah, they were. They were like, your jeans should slide off your body without unbuttoning them.

 

Like you should be so bony that your fitted t-shirt hangs off your body. And they did it to boys too. They’re like, if you don’t have abs, die. It’s like the branding is so strong. It really is.

 

[PHONE RINGS]

 

Nora: Oh, I actually, I think I just watched a documentary about this. There’s a documentary about your organization, I’m pretty sure, where it’s a non-tax deductible donation because you’re a company and you make like billions of dollars and then a very small amount of it goes to fallen officers’ families, like less than 10%.

 

and the founder of the organization. Have a great rest of your day. Right, okay, yeah, same guy. That’s wild! I just watched that documentary. That’s why they called you. It’s about, the algorithm is crazy. Did you watch that documentary too? No, I have my laptop. It’s so good, it’s called Telemarketers. Okay. And honestly, maybe we should just make bonus episodes about terrible people on TV shows, but.

 

It was, it’s this kid who like dropped out of high school and his parents are like, fine, you want to drop out of high school, you have to have a job. And so he got the only job a kid could get in the late nineties, which was working at this telemarketing company. And it is, uh, their, their job is to call and raise money for like,

 

uh, fallen officers or fallen firefighters and, but they’re a for-profit company and 10% maybe of the donation goes to like a police benevolence association or all these like union organizations who don’t actually distribute the money.

 

to the people that they’re allegedly fundraising for. I just watched this documentary. That’s crazy. It’s crazy. In the middle of this? Oh my God. And also. Thank you for your time. Yeah, thank you for your time, which also like they were saying that now they had the people who were their best fundraisers go into a sound booth.

 

Record so they could make AI recordings of them So they don’t even have to pay the people that they used to pay to do this And anyways, the guys who were running it were like I think charged with something were banned from fundraising And then they just sprout up again in another thing. Anyways, that it’s called Telemarketers it’s on HBO Max and maybe you’ll get a telemarketing call. We’re talking shit about ever coming bitch

 

Nora: And you can hold that grudge and so do I. I hold that grudge too because I looked at Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs and thought, why does my stomach have any subcutaneous fat at all? Yeah. At all.

 

I didn’t know people used to edit the images. I didn’t know either. Like when I was at Southdale or something. And I wasn’t into Abercrombie because that’s just not what was popular. I was like, all my white friends, I was like, free Chloe from the shackles of Abercrombie. They got her in a chokehold. This girl could not stay out of Abercrombie in the era possible, which was like slightly worse than Abercrombie. Well, the hierarchy was Abercrombie, American Eagle.

 

Oh god and they all smelled like Abercrombie had the most distinctive smell which then when Ian was in high school he started wearing that cologne and it like I was like oh god no it’s like bringing me back to it’s like a sense memory and then they all kind of tried to have their own scent but it was all kind of like a rip off of that so I agree we do not need to forgive them and also Abercrombie as a person who was.

 

Lured back in to Abercrombie recently because everyone’s like oh they’re jeans and they’ve got a curvy fit where it’s like You know bigger and like your hips and thighs and no and the size that I wear At like J crew I ordered at Abercrombie and I still could not get that size over Like my upper thigh I was like no so they’re still

 

They’re still on their list. It’s like if Norris is having trouble with no jeans. Yeah, I’m having trouble getting out of your jeans. What does a lot of the public do that? God. Oh, God. Okay, our next one is a voicemail. You wanna play it? Yeah, let’s do it. All right.

 

Voicemail: My grudge, I am currently 26, four years out of college. And I am still angry at a girl, let’s call her Jessica, for in first grade after school care, we’re lining up to go to the carpool thing.

 

and I have Skittles that I earned. And I have always eaten my everything that has color, color-coordinatedly. I either eat in pairs or a certain combination or I’ll eat all of one color and leave the favorite for the end. And I have saved all of my red and purple Skittles towards the end. And Jessica walks up to me.

 

knocks them out of my hand onto the ground and then eats them off the ground in front of me and i’ve never been more confused or angry and i’m still confused and angry yo that’s a violation she smacked the shit out of her and then just ate them off the floor

 

Five second rule. Five second. Yeah, five second. The reds and purples too. Like at least you have the yellows and greens. That’s the new scam is just slap shit out of people’s hands and then eat it off the ground.

 

Marcel: Jessica hopefully Jessica’s repented for that. Okay we have another email. Okay. Here’s how I handled my grudge against a horrendous toxic boss.

 

This one’s from Marcel. I worked in emergency management for a large public jurisdiction in Texas during the February 2021 blackout. Oof. I slept in my office for seven days assisting with coordination and planning of the city’s response. The director was the absolute worst, most toxic person I’ve ever met. And I had already decided to resign as soon as our response to the latest disaster ended.

 

in city planning, city management. Yeah. Like that’s such an intense job. I’ve done.

 

two speaking events for city managers and the stress of that job of like managing the people who do all the invisible things that make a city work is so intense and like to do it during a disaster and be like this I’m in Harlem sleeping at work I’ll wait till after the disaster is over I’ll put the entire city first is like hats off. Is that who I call to get someone put a shopping manager or parks and rec maybe? 

 

The city manager manages in most instances, yeah, parks and rec manages like the, you know, the… Shout out to me who worked for a city’s parks and rec and met with the city manager and I still don’t know. Yeah, they’re like, you know, yeah, they’re managing the budget for like, oh, waste management and… Right, new housing developments and… Yeah, and who’s catching the potholes and all that kind of stuff. Can we have a Cinnabon? Yes, yes. Can we have a Cinnabon? I don’t know.

 

entailed sending out meeting invites during the week and participants would accept and send a response. Side note, another grudge, don’t send a response when the invite list is literally hundreds of people. I have to agree. Just press accept. I counted them which gave me an idea. The director was religious, didn’t wear pants, wouldn’t get vaccinated, so I left exactly 666 deleted unread emails because I knew the first thing she would do once I was gone was read my email.

 

That’s crazy. I also emailed LinkedIn about her profile because she was eventually fired, told to resign, but left her position as director on her profile long after the next director had been hired. I got an email that LinkedIn flagged her profile until she changed her job title. I am petty AF. I…

 

Is it petty? It’s factual. Okay. You just you’re just representing the facts. You’re representing the facts. Can’t tell someone how to react. Man, that’s what I’ve learned in life. Yeah, I am. Yeah, I’m I actually think the email thing is genius and really funny. Yeah, that’s funny. Little little gut shot real quick. Yeah. And you also have to like hope like no one else should email me. Make sure you’re not subscribed to anything. Nothing’s going to come in overnight.

 

So you got to perfect that. Keep it on the mobile app or something. You know there’s that weird like place in between where they haven’t fully denied you access. You still got the keys to like the basement or whatever. Just make sure that you’re deleting it to 666. Yeah I support that. I like that. So they shut it down. Alright we have another voicemail. Alright let’s see.

 

Voicemail: Hey, Nora, I saw your story on Instagram asking for grudge stories. Um, I have lost both of my parents and my childhood home in the last three years. And since that time, I have uptick my grudge holding so much so that I build new ones every day. Um,

 

But the two that I want to talk about are two of my friends, close friends, loving friends. One of them, actually both of them, got the date of my father’s memorial wrong when he died in 2020. And then when my mom died in April of this year, neither one of them showed up. Boo! And one of them told me, oh.

 

uh… keeping and sorry that i can come to your mother’s memorial even though it’s online conflict pretty uh… because we have guest over and the other one didn’t even acknowledged so i collecting to that crutch those credit like my life depends on that and i’m proud of that but i thought i would share and

 

Marcel: for you too, I’m holding that one for you too. It takes a lot to realize that people can only do what they’re emotionally capable of. Right. And also. But there’s baseline shit. There is baseline. You can’t acknowledge that someone died. I know, there is a baseline. And I grew up Catholic and that’s a very, I don’t know, you just show up.

 

for someone’s funeral. You know, maybe I went to funerals where it was like, my mom was like, oh, my high school teacher’s mailman died. We got a little wake tonight, you know? And so I was just like, always at funerals and wakes as a kid too. And it’s just like, yeah, it’s like the decent thing is that you go, you know, even if it’s gonna be uncomfortable for you. And I remember a girl from our high school died when we were adults and her boyfriend from high school wasn’t there.

 

And I texted him, I was like, hey, we’re waiting for you. And he was like, I don’t want to go, this isn’t how I want to remember her. I was like, well, it’s not how her parents want to remember her either. Don’t nobody want to remember her. Well, we’re not remembering her this. We’re not remembering her as dead. We’re remembering her as alive. And that is really painful. And I also just like, those aren’t like the best of friends.

 

I just remember being very like very affected by the people who showed up who I was not expecting to show up You know, yeah, like really that’s the majority of the people. Yeah, just these kind of solid Yeah, not it’s not always like a standout person, but then they stand out to you. Yeah It’s kind of like a person that was like in the background like just the green grass. Yeah, you were here the whole time Solid rocks. Yeah, and I don’t you know, I don’t I’m not wishing any death in your

 

family but at some point I would really like to go to a Liberian funeral. It’s fun, it’s celebratory, and we’re more like that too like where the whole community comes out and like it was nice at my grandmother’s because there was all these random people were like

 

Nora: Back in the early 90s, she let me stay with her and she watched my children for free. She literally raised like 100 kids or something. So it was cool to see people that none of us knew, the closest people. And they’re like, yeah, she used to watch, cause I’d go to her house and there’d be this random baby there. And she would just watch people’s kids. So yeah, man, that’s tough. They could have acknowledged it. Baseline, jump on the Zoom. Jump on the Zoom?

 

I was in a car going on a tour and I jumped on like the zoom for a fourth. You were on a zoom. Yeah, exactly. My eyes were open. In the middle of absolutely nowhere. Okay, now this I think was our delivery. Oh shit. No? Okay, so we’re going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead

 

that’s uh, it was somebody. It’s the fallen officers again. Um, yeah, I think it was actually somebody calling from uh. The parkway? No, I get phone calls all the time, they’re like, this is from the, you know, uh, student loan services organization. I’m like, I don’t have any. Oh, oh, yeah. So I don’t know what.

 

as if you have a bad list. Okay. And that’s not a brag, except it is. It is a brag. My great aunt died. Shout out to Betty for the college tuition. Thank you. A humble brag is not at mixed levels. Yes. It really is. It really is. But, okay. I think we have more… You want me to what? Emails? Are you a plant? Emails. Hold.

 

Marcel: Okay, no, it is an email. Okay. Sorry. Okay. I’ve released many grudges over the years as I’ve matured Proud of you, but there is one I am pretty sure I will take to the grave. Love it in 2009 My older sister died. Well Okay, take that to the grave fuck. No, okay in 2009 My older sister died after a long and rare illness adrenal cancer. She was 27 22 and diagnosed one

 

21, 22 probably, right? She was… No, she was 27 when she died and 22 when she was diagnosed. I’m so dumb. Oh my God, she was 27, 22 when diagnosed. As you are probably very aware, Minneapolis is a very small town. Yup. And if you are a young person, it is easy to feel like you know everyone. Yes. My sister and I had overlapping social circles and she met this girl at work and they became roommates shortly thereafter.

 

Turns out we had lots of friends in common, so this girl was everywhere. My sister really felt a bond with her and felt like they were best friends and spent the next year or so connected at the hip to her. Then my sister got sick. She had a five pound tumor removed from her abdomen and had to quit her waitressing job.

 

Then she had to move back home to start treatment to St. Paul. Minneapolis to St. Paul. Yeah. For some people is a, is a literal bridge too far. No, it’s like a trek. It is a trek. It’s a little trek. That’s a half hour depending on where you are and then traffic. Yeah. I never went to St. Paul growing up. Really? Ever.

 

I feel like there’s no real… All right, no one no one come at me. I lived in St. Paul for a while, but everyone knows like if you’re in minneapolis There’s no reason to go to St. Paul, but the opposite is not true. Like there’s so much stuff that you can do in Minneapolis Um My sister, okay Uh, none of her friends reached out They never called or sent a letter

 

My sister spent so much of her energy after that, grieving the loss of her friendships with that girl and her people. Simultaneously, this girl and her friends were slowly making their way into my social groups, and I saw them everywhere. Sometimes they even showed up at my house when my roommates and I had parties. The main girl started an extremely popular jewelry company, dying to know, dying to know. Tell me who. Contact me privately. Oh, I thought that was the name of the jewelry company when you said dying to know.

 

I was like… Dying to know. Well, another started a nationally popular band that everyone went crazy for and they’re getting back together this month to everyone’s delight. I’m dying to know who that is. They’re getting back together this month. And here I sit with hate in my heart forever for them and scorn for anyone that rolls with them and as much with most grief, it is mine and it’s what’s left of her. So if I maintain this grudge, I can foolishly feel like I’m protecting her.

 

even if she’s been gone a long time. Damn. And you are. I don’t know, I feel that. That’s like a tiger sister, you know? Yeah. Do you think too though that sometimes, sometimes like, you know, that 22, 27, like before you even like turn 30 and stuff like that, I feel like sometimes you’re just a little too young to understand the impact of certain things, like the value of.

 

out to someone’s family after something happens because sometimes like when it’s someone adjacent to me or like in my especially in my 20s I’d be like oh well do their parents really care about some random guy that was your kid’s friend that you don’t really know because we were all just going to bars and stuff like that and I now know that is something that’s valuable but at the time sometimes you just

 

Nora: I it’s like the people who show up are the right people and the people who don’t are not and it is so like the part of this email that I look really just like gets me is like she’s so mad for her sister would go through something horrible and also just feel alone and abandoned by her friends and I had a lot of that same rage that was a lot of the grudge book was Aaron being so popular was like the great Gatsby only he wasn’t full of shit but like you know he was like so there was always something to do and then this is like he was sick during like the rise of foursquare which I don’t know if you remember

 

But it’s like you could check in. It was like the silliest thing. Now you can check in on Facebook or like locations. Or it was a location based social media app where you could. We could make this a location and we could be like checking into terrible town. Marcel’s the mayor of terrible town. And like Aaron was so into this app and his house was named Death’s Doorstep before he was sick. Oh, I love Tortuga.

 

It’s just like, you know, just the silliest stuff. And then he was the he kept checking into his neighbors. She probably holds a grudge about this in his name. We never met his neighbor across the alley, but she was like an older woman who had like renovated her back patio and had made a location called Danny’s. Danny’s Rockin Patio.

 

So Aaron kept checking into it and he was the mayor of it and she commented, he’s never even been here Losing your mind because you couldn’t like block people from checking in People used to get into it all forcefully. I’ve been at this all these years Yeah I’ve never even seen you here and like he was like the mayor of um his radiation oncology office

 

And we could see like his friends like hanging out without him. You know? Yeah. And it was like that was really hard because I wanted to just like call him, be like, just fucking invite him. Like even if you can’t go, like he just wants to be, you know, invited. Like he might not be eating a lot, but just invite him to brunch. Just fucking invite him, you know? Anyways, it’s and also now I kind of recognize that as like the limits of somebody’s capacity for suffering.

 

And when you’re young, yes, it is really hard. And you also have a hard time thinking about the girl who died after high school. She was sick during high school. Like, she needed a liver transplant. And we were like, good luck, babe. You know, like you’re back. Like we did not, it did not come. It’s like, oh, well she’s gonna die and that’s just her sort. I don’t know. We were like, yeah, just get a new liver. Yeah. Like, I don’t know. Like it just didn’t. You just move on. Yeah, I don’t know. It just feels, everything feels so.

 

like out of context, like it just like the horror could not sink in for us. We did not have that much emotional depth. Right. But that said, all these things, I feel this so deeply that once she tells me whose jewelry brand that is and what band that is, I’m holding this grudge. You know, and I will keep your sister alive that way. OK, we have another caller. Yeah. I think.

 

Voicemail: I have a grudge against basically anyone somewhat close to my husband who died of suicide and close to myself that I think should have shown up. There’s people that I give passes to that may or may not have done the best things.

 

after his death, but there’s people that I do not give passes to who may have just not shown up because they didn’t know what to say or felt bad. Nonetheless, they basically ghosted me or pretended I don’t exist. But a lot of people just didn’t show up, didn’t even acknowledge that he died. My high school best friend.

 

never came to the funeral, and neither did his best friend. I will never forgive. I shouldn’t say never forgive, but I find it difficult to forgive the people who go to your wedding or claim to be so close to you or claim to have such a hard time, yet they can’t be there for someone.

 

who is the closest or someone whose children are the closest. I don’t know how you can see someone else’s pain and know someone else’s pain that deeply and lack the empathy to go outside of yourself.

 

Nora: Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I felt that deeply. Yeah, that was beautifully put. That was beautifully put. Yeah, those are two great ones to play back to back because it’s that same feeling. And we approve that grudge. Yeah, my dad used to say, don’t worry about when you’re doing like birthday parties and weddings and stuff. He’s like, don’t try that hard to invite people because you know.

 

Marcel: A lot of people will just like eat well and leave and they’re there for a good time. And if they do make it to your funeral, they’re gonna eat well, you know, and leave. It was like at the end of the day, it’s all about those people that come and, you know, hold you and come around you, you know. That’s tough. We have another call, I think. Let’s go.

 

Voicemail: Okay, so the grunge of I want to talk about, oh, go back to elementary and kind of transfer over to high school weirdly enough. So I attended a like full from junior kindergarten to grade eight elementary school. And near the end of the year for a graduating class, traditionally how it went is that the valedictorians would be told in secrecy have to prepare their and whatnot and everybody would be like guessing like who could be and so a lot of my classmates thought it was me and on the day of it wasn’t it was this other student which was you know at the time anyway second round in high school the end of the year for my grade 12th graduation there was three runners that myself and two other people and I remember finding it so weird that like when they passed the ballot out to all the um grade 12 students they gave one to me and I sat there for the longest time in Mr. Halsman’s class literally trying to decide who I should vote for because it just didn’t seem right to vote for myself but at the same time like it couldn’t really make it to other people anyways my friend next to me is like being like you gotta vote for yourself you gotta vote for yourself and I’m like

 

I’m like, what? This is so weird. Like, this is so uncomfortable. Anyway, I ended up circling this guy’s name, and my friend actually goes, wouldn’t it be so funny if he literally wins by a point? Surely enough, this is exactly what happened. I had like a close teacher tell me this in private, and I was like, honestly so devastated. I really do think having like a career and working with children and youth

 

Um, in hindsight, like I do think a lot of the teachers could have seen that this really, really would have benefited me in a lot of ways, just having pretty good understanding that came from a pretty unstable home, et cetera, et cetera. This is kind of where the grudge lies is like, guys, like he didn’t really need it. But anyways, um, usually enough, not even weirdly.

 

He ended up plagiarizing his whole speech. His whole speech, he ended up plagiarizing. I called him out on it months later via Facebook at the time and he denied the whole thing. I sent him the video that I found on YouTube that was the exact same speech. Damn. Yeah, I’m just still not over that. I just…

 

Nora: I love that. I sent him the YouTube video of me saying speech. And you know what? That’s his punishment. He has to live with that forever. I know what you did last summer. I know what you did. Great speech. I loved it when I saw it on YouTube. Yeah. Oh, it kind of reminds me of this thing I saw on YouTube last week. Let me send it over to you. Oh, amazing. Amazing. High school beefs, high school grudges are so funny to me. He comes and says, I don’t care. Oh my God. I guess I have to tell you one.

 

which is, I wrote about it in a book, so it might be old news to other people, but there was a girl in my high school, she was the better version of me, you know? She was my height. She was just good at sports. I really had to work to be okay at sports. She had a better GPA than me. I think she was the valedictorian or whatever comes next. And we played the same position, because we were both tall. Every sport that I played, she played. She was the better version. And then,

 

We were on the same volleyball team in high school, and I was in a very on and off again relationship with the only tall boy, or like the tall boy that I had, that had kissed me and therefore I could never kiss another boy. Went to a really small school, so it was kinda like, if you were someone’s girlfriend, you could never be someone else’s girlfriend, like truly. 

 

Marcel: Right, right, right. 

 

Nora: And… It was so rough, but boys could have that it only applied to girls. Yeah, it’s like, no, go back to Tyler. Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. So I was off again with that boyfriend and he asked her to homecoming.

 

like knowing it would hurt my feelings and boy did it ever. But she said we were on the same volleyball team like and she said yes. I was like what do you think this is gonna do to our team dynamic? It wasn’t good. Um anyways mostly for you. Mostly for me. Mostly for me. Mostly for me. Mostly for me. And like yes I should have been mad mostly at him but of course I wasn’t. I was like I knew it. I knew you always liked him and this is my proof.

 

comes around and we’re golfing together, this girl and two of my best friends and I and she’s like I’m really sorry for like when that happened and my best friend Erin goes oh my god who cares it was like and I was like excuse me. Yeah I do. No I do. Thank you for saying that. Now we’re gonna hash this thing out. I really was. I was like excuse me I am about to let go of something you know like I wasn’t like really mad at her anymore.

 

But like, you know the 17 year old in me was you know, and I was like Erin give me a minute I’m about to like have a moment with this girl It’s like a formative.

 

Okay, we’re gonna be done with grudges.

 

This concludes our 2024 edition of  the grudge book. I know it’s early in the year to say it’s, it’s, it’s our only edition. I can’t promise it will be our only edition. I personally love hearing other people’s grudges. Occasionally, I will get a DM or an email or a voice message that says, are you still taking submissions?

 

I’m always taking submissions. If you are holding onto something  delicious and deservedly petty, I will always. Hold a grudge for you. You can always wad it up like tissue paper and place it in my hand. You know, the image there is that you’re a little kid who blew your nose and then you just handed it to your mom.

 

Moms are always holding out their hand to hold somebody else’s grudges  or to hold somebody else’s garbage. I don’t think your grudges are garbage. I actually really love them and treasure them. So, thank you. Thank you for  Sharing all of your grudges with us, always and forever. Earlier this month,  um, we actually shared what I think is a related episode.

 

On our Patreon and our Apple Plus subscriptions about confessions, confessions, potentially  possibly socially incriminating tidbits of information about things you  and our team  have done. You can listen to that episode and all of our premium episodes over on our Patreon, patreon. com slash ttfa or by subscribing to Apple Plus in the Apple Podcast app.

 

As a premium subscriber, you get two bonus episodes a month. You get ad free episodes. You get access to the whole back catalog over on Patreon.  We’ve organized them by topic, which people love, Terrible Things for Asking is an independent podcast. We are made possible by our subscribers. Our team is, uh, myself, Marcel Malikibu, Megan Palmer, who produced this episode, good job Megan.

 

Clara McInerny, Michelle Planton, and Grace Berry. Our supporting producers are Kim Morris, Bethany Nickerson, Rachel Humphrey, Jamie Zimmerman, and David Farr. Supporting producers are Patreon subscribers who support us at the highest  financial level. I’m almost embarrassed to say how they support. It’s 1,000 a year.

 

It’s fucking crazy. Thank you for being  you. We love you. We couldn’t do this without you. I do mean that literally our theme music is by Geoffrey Lamar Wilson, and we are a production of feelings and how literally the only  place  on Earth would’ve been, you will find any feelings, even petty loss.