Host: Jen Lue

Jen: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host for this week, Jen Lue, and I'm the assistant controller at The Moth. 

I'm recording this episode during tax season in the US, which can be a time of confusion and anxiety for millions of Americans. Part of my job as an accountant at The Moth is to help my team feel more comfortable with money. Want to know how many tickets we sold at a StorySLAM? I have a report for that. Want a donation count from the annual Mothball? I have a report for that. Having a report for that makes the whole thing sound easy, but translating millions of tiny details into one digestible story is a lot harder than it looks. 

On the podcast today, we have two stories about everyday people struggling to make sense of the impact that money has on their relationships and their inner growth. First up, Sara Rosa Espi Jacobson. Sara told this story at a Sydney StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was, you guessed it, Money. Here's Sara, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause]

Sara: [00:01:07] So, when people used to tell me that cultural or language differences can put strain on a new relationship, I thought it was ridiculous. I'd just fallen in love with a Dutch girl and I thought, "You say 'eyed apple', I say 'potato,' who cares?" [audience laughter] And then, one day, quite soon in the relationship, we're in that stage of finding out everything about each other, we were sitting on a bench, covered in pigeon poo, looking at some traffic, [audience laughter] which I remember vividly. And she said to me, "Could you please give me that €10 for the concert ticket I bought for you?" 

Now, that concert was a concert she had invited me to, a concert that she was playing the harp at, actually [audience laughter] And a concert I would have never otherwise chosen to see. And I said, "Excuse me?" I suddenly thought, this isn't going to work. This is really not going to work. The language thing is okay, but the fact is we don't speak the same money language. And let me tell you a bit about my money language, coming from a large South African Jewish family. In my family, paying the bill is a kind of tactical sport. [audience laughter] Even more important than what you eat. And anything is permissible. Subterfuge, a favorite trick. My father says, "Ah, I'm just going to go to the toilet.” Like he pays the bill. Or, emotional blackmail, that's all fine. [audience laughter] 

My great aunt used to say, "You think I can't pay for a couple of cups of coffee?" And even physical wrestling has been known to happen. [audience laughter] You've got to pay that bill. And here I was with this new girl who wouldn't stump up €10 for a concert ticket.

So, in my family, the bill paying got to a really-- the highest extreme. I think the worst incident was when we went to a restaurant called Vintage India in Cape Town. And we'd always driven past it and it was always empty with these bright pink curtains. And my mother said one day that we should go there. 

So, we went with my aunt and my mother and all the families. My aunt and my mother are the fiercest bill paying competitors. [audience laughter] No one has known to beat them. We're just going to have a few little curries. But it turned out that the food was very bad, very, very expensive, think of deep-fried deviled eggs. It turns out Vintage India isn't a good cuisine. [audience laughter] The waitress who served us was an absolute magician at upselling, something I've never been able to do.

So, a few curries turned into this lavish, inedible banquet as plate after plate after plate came out. And at the end, my mother was adamant she'd pay the bill. She'd taken us there. She was wracked with guilt. So, they went through all the strategies, the wrestling, the emotional blackmail, everything. And then, eventually, my aunt said, "Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off. I'm paying." [audience laughter] Because my aunt has a trump card and that is unbeatable histrionics. [audience laughter] No one can go near her. 

So, this is the language I know about money. This is what I had had for 28 years by that stage. Money means generosity, it means love, it means showing people you care about them. You might not actually have a lot of money, but going out for dinner is living life well. Imagine my shock when I got to the Netherlands where I was doing my master's and a friend of mine-- I gave a friend money for a glass of wine, and she came back and she said, "It was a bit more expensive. Could you give me another euro?" I was really, really taken aback. 

And then, it got to that very crucial part with my girlfriend, because I thought, does she not care about me? Is she a miserly person? We sat there on that bench covered with pigeon poo with the traffic going past. She was completely miserable and perplexed. She really didn't see what the problem was. She'd paid for the ticket and I was asking for the money. And eventually, after lots and lots of back and forth, I realized that we weren't so different.

In fact, I was partly so pissed off, because I'd been keeping my own tally. I decided it was her turn. She should have paid for the ticket, because I'd paid for all the other tickets. I thought about it some more, and I thought, actually, that largesse of my family, lovely as it can be, is not, has its own tally as well. There are always strings attached. There's a lot of stress and there's a lot of guilt and there's a lot of, "Oh God, who paid the last time and how will I do this?" If you think even of British drinking culture, where there's like drink buying and rounds. It goes very sour very quickly when someone doesn't stand their round. So, I thought, actually, money always matters, but some people are more straightforward about it than other people.

And now, as you might have guessed, we weathered this whole money language thing. And five years later, I've realized that, in fact, my girlfriend is one of the most generous people that I've met. She's unflinchingly supporting me through years of unending dissertation writing and earning very little money. I can accept that generosity completely, because I know that if she didn't like it, she would tell me. [audience laughter] 

[cheers and applause] 

Jen: [00:07:00] That was Sara Rosa Espi Jacobson. Sara is a writer living with her family in Rotterdam. She fell in love with live storytelling when she encountered The Moth while living in Sydney and has won four StorySLAMs and a GrandSLAM. To see some photos of Sara, her partner, who just happens to be the same Dutch girlfriend from her story and their daughter, head to our website, themoth.org/extras. 

Up next, Michelle Murphy. Michelle told this story at a Denver StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Bamboozled. Here's Michelle, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause]

Michelle: [00:07:41] I am so excited and embarrassed to be here. I'm just going to level with you guys and start that I was the one who was scammed, bamboozled, hoodwinked, led astray, as Ja Rule would say. [audience laughter] I want to start honestly, because I'm still in denial about this. I didn't really consider myself to be a gullible person growing up. In fact, I loved pulling pranks. My friend and I would always pull pranks on people. We also knew how to hustle. 

When we were five or six, we would go around the block, I'm not sure why we weren't supervised, [audience laughter] but we would go to our neighbor's houses and we would pick up rocks from their driveway and pinecones from their yard, leaves, really just any natural debris. And then, we would ring the doorbell and we would sell their garbage property back to them [audience laughter] for two bucks a pop. We considered ourselves pretty slick. That's not to say I ever thought I was savvy or capable or independent. 

As the youngest of four, I'm definitely, like, the baby of the family. I don't know how to do anything, like X, Y, Z. So, I straddled these two identities. But I never thought that I would fall for a granny scam, until a month ago-- I was working from home, and I work for, like, a crisis line. So, when people are in crisis, they text me. Can you imagine? After this story, nobody will. [audience laughter] I answer the phone, and a woman says, "Your Social Security number was stolen, and it’s been associated with a really violent crime." I was like, "Oh, my gosh."

And so, she gives me the case ID number of this very serious situation, and she forwards me to a federal agent. It is hard to tell this with a straight face [chuckles] in retrospect. The federal agent tells me that with my identity, a car has been stolen in Texas. A woman is missing. The car crashed. And the missing woman’s blood remains and eight pounds of cocaine. And I was like, "Holy fuck." [audience laughter] I haven’t been to Texas in 10 years. My sister lives there, but I would never murder her and then get blown out on a baby’s weight of cocaine. [audience laughter] So, that’s not my style. 

So, I was very upset by this news. I just started crying, because I was like-- It’s really intense and like, “It wasn’t me, man." And that didn’t do anything. [audience laughter]

So, they say, "Are you going to cooperate with us to both exonerate yourself for the crime" I literally, "What? No. Didn't commit it"--"and help us catch the killer?" And I was like, "Yes. I want both of those things. I want to prove my innocence, and I want to catch this murdering motherfucker. [audience laughter] So, let's do it." 

And they're like, "Okay. First thing. You have to do everything we say to a T and you can't tell anyone because we're handling this at the federal level. We don't want to involve the state." So, first of all, what? Second of all, I had already slacked eight of my coworkers being like, "I'm under federal investigation." [audience laughter] So, they tell me this, and I'm like, "Okay, okay, from this moment forward, I will not break the law. I will keep this secret." Like, my dad even comes downstairs, he's like, "Who are you talking to?" I'm like, "Get out of here, Dad, this is a federal investigation." [audience laughter] So, I'm taking this very seriously.

So, they're like, "Okay. The first step is you need to go to your car" That's very classist. They assume I have a car. And they're like, "You need to go to--" The address that they gave me is the Safeway on Cremeria, also known as the Unsafe Way growing up. [audience laughter] Also known as the conglomerate of liquor stores where we would buy illegal watermelon vodka because we were garbage 16-year-olds. I don't know. So, that should have been the 11th flag, but it was not even the first flag. So, I go to the car. They're on speakerphone the whole time. I can't get off speakerphone. That's been made very clear to me. And I'm crying.

I'm driving there. I remember thinking, like, sometimes I do acting or whatever but I could never work for the CIA. Like, when the stakes are high-- I don't know what they're going to ask me to do. But I don't know if I'm ready for it. And friends, if you're ever saying to yourself, "I don't know if the CIA would hire me," the answer is, the CIA wouldn't hire you. [audience laughter] Whatever you're being asked to do, it's not legitimate. [audience laughter] So, this is just something I learned on the road. [audience laughter] 

So, I get to the parking lot and I'm like, "Okay, I'm ready." And they're like, "Okay, go into the King Soopers or the Unsafe Way." I don't know which one. And they're like, "Here's the situation. We want the killer to try to get into your bank account, so that we can expose them. But first, you need to secure your assets." And I'm like, "Okay. Again, youngest child. Money. How does it move? I don't know. I don't get anything." [audience laughter] So, I'm like, "Sure. Fine. Whatever." 

And they're like, "But you have to be very sneaky. You have to say you know the person you're getting it for. They're trained. So, if they see that you're lying, they're going to push a button and they're going to come arrest you, again for a crime you did not commit." [audience laughter] So, I was like, "Oh, my God." Also, the investigation will be compromised and I wanted to catch the killer. So, I was very smooth, I go in and put on an act and ask the highest limit I can take out.

And this woman's like, "Do you know who you're buying this for? Because earlier today, a woman was scammed." Didn't even register. [audience laughter] I was like, "Oh, fucking sucks for her. I am on a secret mission." [audience laughter] Oh. Also, they were like, "This is a federal confirmation card to confirm your assets" in the name of a Google Play card. [chuckles] So, I knew that before going into the store. I still went into the store, thought the other lady was a sucker, like, bought it. So, I get back in the car. They were like, "Okay, now we're ready. So, you're going to turn the card over." I'm like, "Okay." They're like, "Get a quarter." "Okay." They're like, "Find the gray line," and they're like, "You're just going to scratch it out and read it to us." And I was like, "Well no."

This is the one moment, my one redeeming moment, where I realized, I'm not going to do that. So, then they forwarded me to the Attorney General. So, I'm talking to the big dogs now. [audience laughter] What followed were just two and a half hours of belabored conversation where they kept saying, "We're going to arrest you," and I kept saying, "I didn't kill anyone and that's not how habeas corpus works." So, I'm like, “This is terrible.” I finally have the gall to text my good friend and I'm like-- Her brother's a lawyer. I'm like, "I need your brother's number. I'm under federal investigation. I cannot say why. This is very serious." [audience laughter] And she's like, "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but here is his number." 

So, I'm getting yelled at. I'm sobbing. I'm just feeling terrible. I've driven home by now and I just open my computer and I type in the exact thing that's happening to me. And it's like, "Scam, bitch. Scam, scam, scam." [audience laughter] There are a lot of altruistic lawyers in Pennsylvania, who are like, "We are very serious about stopping this. Don't fall for it." And I'm like, "Oh, my God." I wish I could tell you that I had a really badass line, but I was more just like, "What's your case ID number again? Like, I don't know." And they were like, "We're going to arrest you. We're sending federal agents right now." And I said, "That's wonderful. I'd love to talk to somebody in person." 

So, they hang up the phone. I still haven't read them the number. I call my friend's brother, the lawyer. He's uncharacteristically kind to me. Not because he's not usually kind, but he loves an opportunity to make fun of someone and this is low-hanging fruit. [audience laughter] He leaves me with the wisest words I'll ever remember that I will leave you with now, which is, "Michelle, it happens to the best of us. But if federal agents think that you stole a car and murdered a woman and you were trafficking cocaine into the United States, they'll come to your house and they'll tell you they think that." [audience laughter] Thank you.

[cheers and applause] 

Jen: [00:15:12] That was Michelle Murphy. Michelle wants listeners to know that she has not been contacted for recruitment by the CIA. She continues on as a storyteller and comedian living in Denver, Colorado. Like many of us, she often thinks about starting a podcast. We'll hold you to it, Michelle. To see some photos of Michelle during the years of her pinecone business, head to our website, themoth.org/extras. 

We followed up with Michelle, and she says that while she hasn't been scammed again since telling this story. The same number still calls her every few weeks. She says she tries to keep them on the phone for as long as possible and hopes that they'll have less time to take advantage of other people. Here's Michelle to give us a little more insight into her story.

Michelle: [00:16:01] I did get the $500 back. I spent about three weeks on the phone with my bank, with Kroger. It was very embarrassing, but I got the money back. Yeah, when I look at that version of myself, I have a little more forgiveness for being so gullible, because I realized-- I was working in crisis work at the time, and part of my job was to teach people how to take crisis conversations. 

And so, one of the things we teach, is that when somebody reaches out to you in an emotional crisis, you don't second-guess them or interrogate them. You validate what they're going through and you listen. And so, I think it was a perfect storm where I was wearing that mental health cap and really ready to believe anything that anyone came to me with. While I definitely want to get a clue, I also don't know if I want to change that part about myself fully. I'd like to still mostly believe in people. I just will never answer the phone again from an unknown caller.

Jen: [00:17:04] That was Michelle Murphy. 

What I love about this week's stories is the way that they reveal how conversations about money are never just about money. They're about the ideas we grew up with and our beliefs about what we're allowed to have. In the culture my parents grew up in, paying for someone else's meal or sharing your salary number with a friend wasn't nosy. It was a form of care. Changing our ideas about money is as easy or as difficult as changing our perception of things. So, the next time you're filing your taxes, just imagine that you're a squirrel selling pinecones back to the forest that created those pinecones in the first place. 

Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.

Julia: [00:17:51] Jen Lue is the Assistant Controller at The Moth. She has an MFA in Writing from Hunter College and a Roth IRA. When it comes to money, she loves to pick up the tab. 

This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by me, Julia Purcell, with Sara Austin Jenness, Sara Jane Johnson and Jen Lue. 

The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Catherine Burns, Sara Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza. 

Special thanks to Jen Lue for hosting her first ever podcast episode. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.