This audio contains language that has been redacted in the transcript but not in the audio file. He used to, like, pop off all the time about how, like, seagulls were, like, the best bird ever, how, like, they don't get enough credit, but, like, they're great. Their immune systems are great, they can just eat whatever they want and, like, they're still healthy. And we just don't give them enough credit. And as he's, like, going on about how great they are, we're on the beach and this seagull s****, like, right on his head. And I have never seen someone change their opinion, you know, one-eighty, so fast. He was like, “You know what? No, f*** you!” And so ever since then he's been like, “No, f*** seagulls, they’re the worst.”

Have I ever had a supernatural experience? You know, my parents died, when I was forty-two, and they died literally three weeks apart to the day. And I was staying at their house after they had both passed, sleeping in my dad bedroom -- 'cuz with her health issues, they were sleeping in separate bedrooms. And I was sound asleep and the headboard of the, of the bed I sleeping in -- it was my dad’s bed -- was against a side window. Not, not, nothing facing the street, but a side window - it was the weirdest thing. Anyway, I, I, I was sound asleep, like I say, and I woke up and there was like a white flash in the window -- and this is out in the woods now, mind you. Because they had a retirement place on the lake. There was a white, a very white, bright light and I woke up and it was just receding up and away from the window very quickly. And as it woke me up, I heard a noise in my mother's bedroom down the hall, like a rustling noise, like a "shhhhh" rustling. And because I had the alarm system on, I knew it couldn't be anybody else in that building, in the house. And so, I went into my mother's room, and there was, of course, nothing in this, and no – I turned the light on, there was nothing, nobody there and nothing amiss. Nothing had fallen, nothing was moving, had moved or anything. And anyway, did a quick, real quick search of the house and there's nothing was amiss. And again, the alarm system was on, so nobody had been in -- had broken in or anything. And the windows had been shut. So it wasn't an outside noise, because this was in the winter. And, and I had a sense of calm, I wasn't bestuttled. It was just a sense of calm. And I spoke with a couple of my friends who are a little bit more into the supernatural or whatever, and they suggested that it was my parents stopping by to let me know that everything was okay and they were all right, and make sure, you know that I knew everything was fine. And so, that was kind of -- I mean, this is twenty-six years ago. It stuck with me and…

But I do have an unusual number of stories -- I think it's an unusual number of stories -- of times when I accidentally screamed in public. I think the first was when I was going to boarding school and the school had taken a field trip to the mall for one of the weekend activities. And I was, I was in a bookstore, of all places, with my best friend and she was having some drama with a guy from the school. And we rounded a corner, and I was not looking ahead of me. I was looking off some direction, but she was looking ahead of her and she saw the guy that she was having drama with. She did not want to encounter him. So she tried to stop me by gently putting her hands on my shoulders, not taking into account my excessive startle response. So she put her hands on my shoulders. I immediately scream. She very quickly, fast like a bunny, runs the opposite direction. The guy looks up. I am standing there alone, having screamed for no apparent reason. He, he just kinda looked at me in shock and said, "Are you okay?" And I said, "Yes. I'm going to run away now." And then I did exactly that.

One time one of my co-workers asked us -- we have these morning meetings, like three times a week and they're more sometimes fun. And he asks us, “If you could only choose one, what would you say is more likely to exist, aliens or ghosts? You have to choose one, and you can only choose one.” And most people said aliens because of, you know, well, the universe is so big and statistically, it's unlikely that we'd be alone or whatever, and, but I was like, ghosts, you know? Yeah, that could be, there could be aliens, sure. But like, there's a little like, literally, no evidence. The more just basing, that on like, statistical probability, is not evidence, right? Ghosts, like, people have stories, you know, throughout time of seeing things, or a feeling things or hearing things. You know, I just think that that, yeah, like why the heck not, even if you believe in a person's spirit, you know. Or the Holy Spirit, even. I don't know how you could say that that's an impossibility, right? And I think we all know the feeling of being haunted, if not literally then figuratively, by a person or an experience, something you did or didn't do or regrets. That you just can't shake, and I feel like that's kind of a universal feeling maybe, and that's why ghost stories and horror can be effective because I feel like we're all kind of familiar with those. The creeping dread.