Can we talk about something?
Between the two of us: Ryan currently overthinking everything from his apartment in Okinawa while Jacqueline’s nestled in her log house in Utah—we’ve accumulated roughly 80+ combined years of memories. And here’s the thing: a disturbing number of them involve either genuinely creepy experiences or absolutely unhinged things we did to our younger siblings in the name of “entertainment.”
This week’s episode was pure chaos in the best way possible. We dove deep into the spooky stories, ghost encounters, and downright traumatizing moments that shaped us into the emotionally complex adults we are today.
But First: The AI That Knows Us Too Well
Before we scared ourselves half to death reminiscing about childhood terrors, Ryan did something that honestly made me question whether we should be more afraid of ghosts or artificial intelligence. He fed all our podcast transcripts into ChatGPT and asked it to create the ultimate Dryer Drive Podcast playlist.
Girl. (this will make sense when you listen to this episode)
The results were... uncomfortably accurate. When AI started the playlist with “Thong Song” by Sisqó (which, yes, Jacqueline held up to the microphone during an episode), we knew we were in trouble. But it got worse—or better, depending on how you feel about being psychoanalyzed by a computer.
Here’s what really got us: Around track 10, the playlist took a DARK turn. We went from “Steal My Sunshine” by Len (that Alberta youth conference summer, you know the one) to songs with notes like “upbeat tune, darker undertones—just like your family anecdotes.”
EXCUSE ME?
Then came “Flagpole Sitta” with the specific lyric callout: “I’m not sick, but I’m not well—the Dreyer Drive mental health check-in.”
Sorry, but when did we sign up for therapy with a robot? We were absolutely losing it because every single song hit different. The playlist included everything from “Semi-Charmed Life” (which, fun fact, is about crystal meth) to “My Heart Will Go On” because apparently we’re Canadian and emotional.
The Family Tree Restaurant: Where NPCs Come to Life (Jacqueline’s POV)
Here’s where things get genuinely creepy.
Picture this: You’re looking for a cute family dinner spot. Everyone on Yelp is raving about the scones. You drive 20 minutes to this quaint-looking Western-style restaurant. You open the door and—
The music stops.
Everyone turns to look at you.
AT THE SAME TIME.
Ryan, when I tell you that walking into the Family Tree restaurant felt like entering a video game where all the non-player characters only activated when we crossed the threshold, I mean it. My husband Justin, our boys, and I sat down in a booth, and that’s when I noticed him.
An older man. Sitting on a stool. With a ventriloquist dummy on his lap.
But not just any ventriloquist dummy, this thing was dressed EXACTLY like him. Same clothes. Same aged features. It had wrinkles. It was an old man dummy of himself, and he started playing “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” on a single-note harmonica while everyone else in the restaurant ate in complete silence.
I grabbed my phone and started recording because I genuinely thought I might be hallucinating. In the recording, you can hear Justin say, “I’m leaving.” Then me saying, “It looks like everybody wants to hurt me.”
We literally ran out of that restaurant before our drinks even arrived. And because my brain works in the most chaotic way possible, even while fleeing what I was convinced were either ghosts or cultists, I fake-answered my phone and made up an emergency so I wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
EVEN THE POTENTIAL GHOSTS’ FEELINGS.
Later, I Googled “Family Tree haunted” and discovered this place has been featured in FOUR episodes of Ghost Adventures and The Dead Files. It’s an old saloon haunted by “grizzled Western men” and a woman in a red dress who floats two inches off the ground in the basement.
We could have died. We could have literally been trapped in a haunted restaurant with a harmonica-playing ghost and his creepy doll twin, and my main concern was not being rude.
The Great Church Ghost That Wasn’t, But Kind of Was? (Ryan’s POV)
Big bro Daniel was born to be a hero.
Our older brother has always had what I like to call “main character energy,” but this story takes it to another level. Dan and I used to play basketball every Tuesday at our old church with a group of guys. One night, after everyone left, Dan and a couple of friends heard voices coming from somewhere in the building.
Instead of doing what normal people would do (leave, call someone, literally anything else), Dan shifted into full protective older-brother mode. He started yelling vile threats into the empty chapel. Like, genuinely unhinged threats about what he was going to do when he found whoever was hiding in there.
At one point, he called Jacqueline in Utah—because obviously when you think there’s an intruder in a church building in Pickering, Ontario, CANADA, you call your sister 2,000 miles away for backup. She could hear the voices through the phone too. It sounded like people having a conversation, but Dan couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from because it seemed to be everywhere at once.
He circled the entire building (it’s circular, which added to the creepiness), went to his car to get a tire iron, came back in, and continued his extremely creative threats while Jacqueline listened on the phone from her house in Utah, equally terrified and confused about what she was supposed to do about this situation.
The conclusion? Someone had left a recording of a church conference talk playing next to a microphone that was piped throughout the entire building. Daniel had spent 30 minutes threatening to murder a recording of a sweet elderly Mormon woman giving a talk about raising righteous children.
The disappointment on his face when he realized it wasn’t an actual intruder and his chance to exercise the non-existent stand your ground rights was palpable. He WANTED it to be more dramatic, and honestly, he really wanted violence.
The Gnome That Definitely Wants to Kill Me (Jacqueline’s POV)
This one still gives me chills.
When I’d visit home after getting married, I’d always stay in our youngest brother Dallin’s old room. And every. Single. Time. I’d wake up with scratches down my arms. Not like little scratches—these looked like they’d bled in the night. And sometimes did.
One visit, I mentioned it to our youngest brother Dallin, and he just casually said, “Oh, it’s probably the gnome.”
I’m sorry. HHHHUUWHAT.
Turns out, Dallin and his friends had gone to a cemetery one night (as one does), and he STOLE A GNOME OFF SOMEONE’S GRAVE and brought it home. Put it right in his closet. The same room where I was sleeping. The same room where both of us kept waking up with mysterious scratches.
To this day, I believe that gnome was 1000% haunted and actively trying to hurt us. We never did anything about it either. No sage burning. No returning it to its rightful grave. Just... left it there.
So to the current owners of 26 Dryer Drive: There might be a cursed cemetery gnome hidden somewhere in that house. You’re welcome for the warning. Also, you’re welcome for the haunting you definitely didn’t sign up for when you gutted our beloved childhood home.
The Time We Traumatized Jonathan Forever (Ryan’s POV)
Alright, Dan and I messed up. We made a couple of bad decisions that might have done damage to our sweet baby brother Jonathan, who was approximately four years old at the time and literally never did anything wrong to anyone ever.
Mom was out with Auntie Gayle. Jonathan wanted to call her but didn’t know the number, so he randomly dialled some numbers. Wrong number. Some rando picked up on the other end. He panicked and slammed the phone down.
This is where we began sensing an opportunity for chaos, and immediately told him that calling random numbers was illegal and the police were coming to arrest him. I snuck into another room and used that old phone trick (you know the one—dial some numbers and your own phone rings) to make it seem like the police were calling.
Dan answered, pretending to be “Constable Richardson,” saying he was coming to take Jonathan away. Then Dan ran outside and started POUNDING on the front door, yelling police threats while Jonathan hid under a bed, hyperventilating and sobbing.
Mom came home to find her youngest child having a full breakdown because his older brothers convinced him he was going to jail, FOR LIFE, for an innocent mistake.
Jonathan, if you’re reading this (and we know you usually tap out around the halfway point of our episodes), we’re sorry. But you have to admit, it’s a fun story to tell, right?
This incident may or may not be the reason Jonathan is terrified of making mistakes to this day.
The Croissant Incident: When Air Fresheners Attack (Jacqueline and her unhinged text)
Last week, I had a near-death experience.
Or so I thought.
I kept randomly smelling fresh-baked bread around my house. Just catching whiffs of it here and there. Pleasant but weird. Welcomed, but also not? So naturally, I did what any reasonable person would do: I Googled it.
And discovered that smelling fresh bread can be a sign you’re about to have a SEIZURE AND DIE.
Between that and the burnt toast Canadian Heritage Minute that’s been burned into my brain since childhood, I was convinced I was having a stroke. I started planning my doctor’s appointment, mentally preparing for an MRI, wondering how I’d break the news to my family that I was dying from croissant hallucinations.
Until I remembered.
I’d plugged in a croissant-scented air freshener the week before.
Ryan’s response? “I wonder how many people spiral hard forgetting that they bought a candle that smells like a stroke.”
Which is honestly the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. “I’ve decided my new hobby is hiding croissant air fresheners in people’s houses, preferably near air return ducts, so they can experience their own burnt-toast panic attacks.”
When I shared this saga in our sibling group chat, no one responded. The next message—over a week later—was just “Happy birthday, Dan.”
This is what family is, folks.
What We Learned About Fear (And Ourselves)
Here’s the thing about spooky stories from your childhood: they’re never really about the ghosts. They’re about who you were when you experienced them, who you were with, and how those moments shaped the way you see the world now.
Ryan still gets weirdly excited about the possibility of supernatural experiences. Jacquline’s still convinced that most ghosts are friendly and just want to do laundry and bake bread in peace. Dan still wants to go toe-to-toe with a supernatural squatter. And Jonathan probably still has nightmares about Constable Richardson coming to take him away.
We learned that sometimes the scariest stories are the ones we create ourselves, whether it’s terrorizing our younger siblings, running from potential ghost cultists at a restaurant, or convincing ourselves we’re dying because we forgot about an air freshener.
(Ryan’s come-together moment) But we also learned that these shared experiences, and the stories that result, even the weird and spooky ones, are the payoff. Every time we retell these stories, we’re not just remembering what happened, we’re remembering who we were, where we were, who we were with, reliving those moments and how we learned to laugh at the things that once terrified us.
Also, we learned that AI is uncomfortably good at reading us, and that Dan probably shouldn’t be trusted with keys to any building ever again.
What’s your spookiest childhood memory? Drop it in the comments! We want to hear your stories of childhood terror, whether they involved actual ghosts, mean older siblings, or just really unfortunate misunderstandings.
And if you’re loving these trips down memory lane, do us a solid and rate us five stars wherever you listen to podcasts. Our analytics show we’re bottom five on the internet (we say this with pride), but with your help, maybe we can crack bottom four.
Also, seriously, watch Little Monsters with us for the next episode. It’s important.
Until then, we’ll be over here, checking our closets for cursed gnomes and trying not to think too hard about what that AI playlist says about our collective psyche.
Stay spooky (but not too spooky), Krispies.
P.S. - If you smell fresh bread in your house and you don’t have an air freshener, maybe get that checked out. Just saying.
